Gold Beats Ethereum to $5K Milestone, Hitting Record Above $5,100

In brief

Gold surged past $5,100 per ounce for the first time ever, validating Myriad prediction market users who bet it would hit $5,000 before Ethereum since November.
Ethereum is down more than 10% in the last week, with 69% of Myriad users predicting it will drop to $2,500 before recovering to $4,000.
The gold rally accelerated after President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canada over potential China trade deals, reinforcing gold's safe-haven appeal amid geopolitical uncertainty.

Gold surged to a new all-time high price above $5,100 per ounce on Monday, confirming predictions from users on Myriad that it would top $5,000 before Ethereum.

Users on the prediction market platform—which is owned by owned by Decrypt's parent company, Dastan—have been bullish on gold since November 22, 2025. At the time gold predictors pulled ahead, the precious metal was hovering around $4,000 per troy ounce and Ethereum had sunk to about $2,680, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko.

In fact, 69% of users on Myriad now think it's likely that Ethereum drops to $2,500 sooner than it can climb back to $4,000, reflecting a growing bearishness around the second-largest crypto asset. ETH was recently trading for $2,883.

It's not as though Myriad users were alone in thinking that gold was headed higher. Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs recently put out a new price forecast calling for gold to reach $5,400 before the end of the year.

Gold tends to surge when investors are positioning for uncertainty as trade tensions flare. While the metal has benefited from its long-standing role as a safe haven, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin have struggled to attract the same defensive flows, trading more like risk assets than hedges against geopolitical stress.

The closest ETH has gotten to surpassing the milestone was when it set a new all-time high of $4,946.05 in August. At its current price, Ethereum has fallen more than 10% in the past week, according to CoinGecko.

Gold has now surged higher past $5,100 per ounce for the first time in its history. The price of gold jumped by 65% in 2025 and has now gained about 12% in the first three weeks of 2026.

The gold spike comes after President Donald Trump threatened over the weekend to hike tariffs on Canada by 100% if it made a trade deal with China.

"Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post over the weekend.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Sunday that Ottawa has no plans to pursue a free trade deal with China, noting the recent agreement only reduces tariffs on select sectors. But Canada still appears to be trying to diversify its trading partners to reduce reliance on the U.S.

Now a trade envoy is telling Reuters that Carney will likely visit India in March to "sign deals on uranium, energy, minerals and artificial intelligence."