Will Bitcoin ETFs copy the gold playbook? Bloomberg analyst: preparing for a “painful pullback” and a long recovery

Are investors in spot Bitcoin ETFs ready to brace for a long period of washout? In his latest analysis, senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas at Bloomberg said that Bitcoin ETFs’ future price action is highly likely to replicate the historical path of gold ETFs’ past 22 years of “triumph and pain” woven together. He warned that both Bitcoin and gold are non-yielding, sentiment-driven assets, and investors should be psychologically prepared for severe price swings and prolonged pullbacks. However, in the long run, the market cycle’s peak will keep getting pushed higher and higher.
(Background: Bitcoin miners can’t hold on any longer! Analyst: financial health ratios have plunged into a dangerous zone—dire conditions are approaching “the bottom of a bear market”)
(Background supplement: Glassnode: the Bitcoin options Put/Call ratio has fallen to 0.59, a half-year low, with traders shifting heavily to bullish bets)

Table of contents

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• Value stores without cash flow: a market dominated by sentiment
• The long cooldown after going red: the surprising coincidences between GLD and IBIT
• Investors need to stay patient: two steps forward, one step back

With spot Bitcoin ETFs rapidly expanding on Wall Street, the market is full of expectations and speculation about their future price trajectory. On July 17, 2026 (Taipei time), senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on the social platform X, saying that the historical trajectory of gold ETFs over the past 22 years may provide today’s spot Bitcoin ETF investors with the most accurate “roadmap” yet.

Bitcoin ETFs Likely to Mirror Gold's History of Triumph and Pain.. New from me on how gold ETFs' 22-year history may offer the closest roadmap yet for Bitcoin ETF investors. Both are wrappers around non-yielding stores of value that generate no cash flow, leaving investor… pic.twitter.com/3C4tZYPLCp

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) July 17, 2026

Value stores without cash flow: a market dominated by sentiment

Why compare Bitcoin and gold? Balchunas explained that these two ETFs are fundamentally very similar—both are wrapped as “non-yielding store-of-value” assets. This means they themselves generate no real cash flow, and they can’t rely on the way stocks or bonds do, with support from corporate earnings, interest income, or government backing.

For that reason, the price performance of assets like this depends almost entirely on investors’ “market sentiment.” Without any fundamental cash-flow protection from yield, when market sentiment flips, their volatility tends to be more intense than that of traditional financial assets.

The long cooldown after going red: the surprising coincidences between GLD and IBIT

To back up his view, Balchunas specifically pointed to the “spiritual coincidence” between the world’s largest SPDR gold ETF (GLD) and the Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) issued by BlackRock. Looking back to 2011, because GLD was so popular, its asset size even surpassed SPY, which tracks the S&P 500 index, within just a single day, briefly becoming the largest ETF in the world at the time. However, after this brief burst of glory, GLD quickly fell out of favor and entered a long stretch of underperformance, lasting eight years, taking a long time to gradually return to the peak.

A similar history of frenzy seems to be repeating in IBIT. Balchunas noted that IBIT also briefly reached an asset size of $100 billion within a few hours, but in retrospect, that short-lived moment became a relative market high in October.

Investors need to stay patient: two steps forward, one step back

The analyst further explained that because the amount of new supply for gold and Bitcoin is nearly fixed, when market demand surges in large quantities, it easily triggers explosive price rallies. But he cautioned that this kind of market demand is usually “changeable,” coming in waves rather than as steady, continuous inflows of capital.

Based on the observations above, Balchunas concluded that Bitcoin ETFs will likely follow the same script as gold ETFs: experiencing astonishing surges, painful pullbacks, and an extended recovery period that tests investors’ patience to the extreme. Still, he also offered reassurance at the end: the good news is that, just like every cycle of gold ETFs keeps pushing historical highs higher, Bitcoin’s long-term trend remains an optimistic “two steps forward, one step back.”