Gold and Bitcoin - Too Late to Invest?

Financial Experts Hann and Sani Discuss Gold's Unstoppable Momentum and Why Bitcoin is important for your Retirement.

Author

The Futurizts
October 01, 2025

This newsletter is a summary of the live discussion between Hann Liew and Sani Hamid.

We talked about:

  • The historic performances of both gold and Bitcoin

  • Why they’ve increased so much in price

  • And the ultimate question everyone wants to know: whether it’s too late to invest.

Listen to the full replay on:

Scroll down for the QNA summary.

Since 2024, the performance of gold has been astounding.

The asset is up over 82%. 1 gram of it (which is about the size of a simcard) is now worth RM510, and a kilo of that (about the size of a chocolate bar) could afford you a condo.

In the past month, gold has been unstoppable. It jumped 12.20% and analysts believe that this uptrend may just continue.

Bitcoin, often dubbed as gold 2.0, has also been on an uptrend.

Though it has retraced in the past couple of weeks, its performance since 2024 is actually more impressive than gold – up 164%.

As of 29 September, 1 BTC is currently $112,000, which coincidentally, could also afford you a condo, albeit a slightly cheaper one.

Q1: Why are we seeing such a sudden jump for gold this month? And what happened to gold in the past 1-2 years?

Hann: In the short term, I think it’s driven by concerns around the US dollar.

If you look at the charts, gold is up 45% this year—and a lot of that is due to gold rallying, but some of it is due to the US dollar weakening.

In other words, gold has gone up in US dollar terms (+10%).

The DXY chart, a measure of the dollar’s strength, has declined by 10% since the start of the year

A key reason why this is happening: clear policy pivot from the Federal Reserve — they are talking about cutting interest rates when growth in the US is still healthy.

Inflation is still quite high (2.9% as of August). If the central bank is doing their job well, they wouldn’t be cutting rates, because there’s currently no reason to. Rate cuts depreciate the dollar in the short term.

For the longer term impact (since 2022), gold prices rose because governments are starting to diversify into gold. The reason for this is simple:

Imagine you hold majority of your money in US dollars, kept in US banks.

And today, you decided to support Palestine (or anything that is against the interest of the US government).

The government freezes your assets to punish you.

This was exactly what happened to Russia in 2022, when Putin decided to invade Ukraine.

The US and its allies froze nearly $300 billion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves in an effort to deter the war.

Since then, some officials have proposed seizing the money and using it to defend and rebuild Ukraine.

Who would want to hold such an asset if the next day, the US can confiscate all of it because they’re unhappy?

China in the past 10 months has bought gold — they own so much gold now that they’ve tipped global gold reserves above treasury reserves.

While other countries are aggressively accumulating gold, Malaysia’s reserves has been stagnant.

Q2: Bitcoin has also been on a strong uptrend, but its movement is diverging away from gold recently. Why is this happening?

For gold, things are clear in the short term — it’s the markets reacting to the Federal Reserve’s moves. They’re cutting rates even when they should be holding or even increasing them. This depreciates the dollar.

For bitcoin however, there are many other forces in play:

  • Long term adoption (think about the internet adoption in the 1990s)

  • Speculative activity (there are far more traders in the market compared to gold)

What we’ve seen in the last 3-4 weeks is a breakdown of leveraged positions. Bullish traders believe that the asset will continue going up and they use leverage to maximize their profits — lots of greed and speculation.

Any slight retracement downwards could easily liquidate their active positions, forcing them to sell their BTC and push prices down further.

Q3: How much gold do you own in your portfolio? And what is the recommended percentage?

Hann: I have a little of both in my retirement portfolio for all the reasons discussed earlier.

If the US dollar loses dominance, or if government currencies can’t be trusted (because of endless printing), gold and Bitcoin helps hedge against inflation.

I keep a few percent in gold, with 2–3 times more exposure in Bitcoin. But combined, they don’t exceed 10–15% of my portfolio.

Remember: gold and Bitcoin don’t generate cash flows. They are simply expressions of a view in your portfolio. Stocks, banks, and bonds are usually tied to a single currency, which is subject to that country’s risks.

For example, in Turkey or Argentina, stock markets rose 500–600%. But because the local currencies collapsed, investors still lost money.

This is why gold and Bitcoin are good hedges.

Recommendation: Somewhere around 5% gold and 5% Bitcoin is a solid allocation.

Sani: My portfolio is the opposite of Hann’s — I hold 2–3 times more gold than Bitcoin. But both together are still under 10–15%.

I believe gold still has much more upside. The US may eventually revalue its gold reserves. The government holds around 287 million ounces of gold, currently valued at $42/oz. If revalued to today’s price ($3,750/oz), it would instantly add hundreds of billions to their balance sheet.

The only question is when. And when they do, I believe they’ll also use some of that to buy Bitcoin, giving up the dollar’s sole status as a reserve.

Q4: Why not go all-in BTC and or gold?

Hann: While I strongly believe in non-sovereign assets, I still hold traditional ones like stocks and bonds. Gold and Bitcoin are there in case governments around the world behave badly.

If you go all in, ask yourself: what if you’re wrong?

If governments suddenly make their currencies great stores of wealth, gold and Bitcoin could lose their appeal. My portfolio would still be okay, because it’s diversified.

Sani: Always sort out your retirement first. Build a balanced portfolio. Only after that should you use the extra money for high-risk, high-reward bets.

Q5: What’s the best approach to invest right now?

Hann: Fix a specific percentage for each asset within your portfolio, for example:

  • 10% gold

  • 10% Bitcoin

  • 30% US stocks

  • 30% MY stocks

  • 20% EPF

Once you’ve done this, plan your future allocations according to what your portfolio needs. If you aim to have 10% in gold but currently have 0%, then you should get some exposure, no matter what the current price is.

And you don’t have to readjust your portfolio to your target overnight — that’s daunting to do. You can give yourself 3-6 months to do so and gradually rebalance whichever asset that’s stronger to whichever that’s weaker.

When the market rallies and BTC or Gold becomes overweight within your portfolio, then rebalance it back down to your target percentage.

Sani: I’m actually in gold miners for maximum leverage and diversification. You can buy it through ETFs.

And the reason why I have this view is because it gives you very good upside — if gold goes up by 10%, miners ETFs will typically go up by 2-3x, which is 20-30%.

How this works: whenever gold prices go up, whatever the miners have (ie. the stock of gold above ground), gets revalued.

For every ounce that they sell, the cost of production is $1,500-1,800/ounce. Using the current price of gold $3,750, they can easily make $1,500-2,200/ounce. And that’s only in ounces.

The margins increase because the costs don’t go up as fast. Mining has become extremely profitable recently.

Where to buy gold or Bitcoin?

Shinji: There are many options these days.

For gold:

  • Versa Gold - Convenient but charges yearly fees

  • Public Gold - Very high spread (10% difference)

  • Maybank Gold - High spread (3.9% difference)

  • TNG e-Mas - Decent spread but not Shariah

  • Bursa Gold Dinar - Good spread but many fees

For Bitcoin (regulated exchanges):

  • Luno

  • Hata

I’m currently using Versa Gold (referral code: THEFUTURIZTS) and Luno (referral code: SSZXGK).

But if you want to hold it yourself (ie. physical or cold wallet), then you have to understand the risks.

1 KG of gold is currently RM510,000. Having even 1 of these could easily make you a target. I remember there’s a famous policitian who had 7-8 chocolate bar sized gold bars in his house, and it still wasn’t very safe.

Thanks for reading till the end!

If you like staying updated on markets, policy shifts, and global news, I highly recommend TheCoffeeBreak.

It’s a short, free newsletter that cuts through misinformation and gives you verified, relevant updates every morning.

Reply

or to participate.