On January 19, 2026, the statements from the four major tech tycoons, Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu and former Binance head CZ, suddenly cast doubt on the long-term positioning of gold and Bitcoin as reserve assets. This wave of opinion shock is not just a single point of noise; it collides head-on with the trend of institutions viewing Bitcoin as a "gold-like reserve asset" and aligns with the structural shift in crypto narratives from being politically driven to utility-driven. Around the two core uncertainties of "Is 2026 the starting point of a super cycle?" and "Who can become the next generation of reserve assets?", gold, Bitcoin, and unnamed new crypto assets are being re-ranked in a preliminary battle that has yet to reach a conclusion.

Tech Tycoons Declare War on Gold and Bitcoin

When the four major tech tycoons rarely throw out the judgment that "new crypto assets will replace gold and BTC" within the same time window, the outside world sees a shocking headline, but behind it lies a clear extension of the tech and capital landscape. These tycoons hold infrastructures such as cloud computing, AI, internet platforms, and global payment networks, benefiting long-term from digital dividends. They are betting on a more programmable asset form that is deeply tied to data and computing power, rather than passive physical metals lying in vaults or single-narrative crypto assets. From their perspective, if a new generation of assets can simultaneously embed settlement, collateral, governance, and data flow, the dimensions of its value-bearing capacity far exceed the simple inflation-hedging "safe-haven tool," and align more closely with the digital world order they are building.

In stark contrast, traditional institutions have been pushing Bitcoin towards a "gold-like" reserve narrative over the past few years, whether through balance sheet allocations or indirect holdings via various financial products, all attempting to label Bitcoin as "digital gold." Within this framework, Bitcoin's value proposition has been compressed to a few keywords: "scarcity, inflation resistance, and cross-border flow," with price fluctuations often interpreted as amplified feedback on macro liquidity and risk appetite. Because of this, when tech tycoons declare that new crypto assets will replace gold and BTC, what is truly being challenged is the entire traditional allocation framework— the "gold + BTC" safe asset combination that has dominated the past decade is encountering systemic opposition for the first time at the top narrative level.

This public statement quickly amplified the expectation divergence in the market, making "the next reserve asset" a new narrative chip. Some funds began to seek clues in the characteristics of unnamed new crypto assets, making forward-looking layouts around programmability, on-chain cash flow, and real asset mapping, while others chose to continue betting on Bitcoin's penetration in the institutional world, believing that the new narrative would be difficult to shake the established liquidity advantage in the short term. The very tearing of the narrative is driving the re-pricing of chips: existing consensus is being re-evaluated, potential new consensus is being pre-emptively drawn, and the throne of reserve assets has thus entered a public bidding phase.

From Trump Market to Utility-Driven Era

Yat Siu's assertion that "the politically driven Trump phase of the crypto market has ended" provides a relatively sharp annotation for the price movements of the past few years. Looking back at the last cycle, from the U.S. elections to macro regulatory statements, key nodes of crypto assets have been deeply tied to political events: the market bets on the direction of policy loosening, judicial lawsuits, and regulatory red lines, with asset prices sometimes soaring with the heating of election sentiment and sometimes crashing in response to hearings and bill winds. In this environment, politics has become the strongest catalyst, with project parties and funds often more concerned about "the next regulatory tweet" than "whether the product is being used in reality," with short-term events frequently squeezing attention away from long-term construction.

However, entering the current phase, Yat Siu's notion of "the end of the Trump phase" does not merely refer to the exit of a political figure, but signifies a relative reduction in the market-driving force centered on election and regulatory bets. Instead, the narrative of infrastructure and application utility is rapidly rising. From blockchain games and digital property rights to various protocols and derivative structures around on-chain finance, the valuation of more and more assets is beginning to be anchored by actual usage data, protocol revenue, and network effects, rather than simply relying on "whether it can hedge against the potential policy risks of a certain candidate" to tell its story. The crypto world is gradually shifting from a "policy voting machine" to a "utility weighing machine," with the value capture ability of the new generation of assets beginning to be directly linked to their functions within the digital ecosystem.

This political retreat is not a traditional bearish signal; rather, it opens up new space for new crypto assets to vie for reserve status. When valuation anchors shift from sentiment and events to verifiable utility value, the market becomes more willing to pay for assets that "can generate long-term, sustainable on-chain cash flow or possess key infrastructure attributes." Within this framework, the traditional narratives of gold and Bitcoin remain valid, but they are no longer the only correct answers. Any asset that can occupy a central position in high-frequency scenarios such as cross-border settlement, on-chain collateral, and digital property rights confirmation has the opportunity to be included in the new generation of "reserve pools," while political noise is gradually downgraded to influence discount rates rather than being the sole variable defining the asset itself.

The Metal Gap and Digital Asset Relay in the Electrification Era

With the advancement of the electrification wave, the asset weight in the physical world is also quietly shifting. Predictive data shows that by 2040, the global copper supply may face a gap of about 70%, while the same set of predictions suggests that traditional fossil energy prices may come under significant pressure, with oil prices potentially dropping to $45 per barrel. This seemingly contradictory set of data actually outlines a clear picture of asset reallocation: in the process of switching to electrification, renewable energy, and efficient energy systems, metals that carry current and upgrade infrastructure are becoming increasingly scarce, while some assets tied to the old energy system may continue to be devalued. Capital will naturally migrate from low-efficiency fossil energy assets, which are more heavily restricted by policy, to high-efficiency asset carriers that are highly related to electrification and dataization.

The metal revolution and energy transition are not merely a rotation of commodity prices; behind them lies a structural migration of capital chasing efficiency and growth: key metals like copper face long-term supply constraints due to the difficulty of rapid expansion, making them the underlying bottleneck for grid upgrades, electric vehicles, and energy storage; while oil prices, under the pressure of a gradually dulling demand curve, find it hard to regain the past status of being the "only energy anchor," even if they experience short-term rebounds. As capital becomes accustomed to paying higher premiums for "efficient transmission and sustainable use" of physical assets, it also unconsciously lays the psychological and logical groundwork for the absorption of value by digital assets—any digital carrier that can enhance transaction, settlement, and asset allocation efficiency will be re-priced within the same logic.

Compared to physical metals, the characteristics of crypto assets constitute another dimension of reserve tools. Copper and other key metals are constrained by geopolitical factors, resource concentration, and mining cycles, with supply expansion often requiring years or even over a decade of capital expenditure and approval processes, leading to prices that frequently swing violently amid political games and sudden events. Crypto assets, on the other hand, possess attributes of programmability, divisibility, and instant cross-border settlement, allowing them to be embedded in contract logic, interoperate with multi-chain ecosystems, and manage liquidity through transparent rules. In terms of asset allocation, this does not mean that digital assets can simply "replace" copper or oil, but rather that they have the opportunity to fulfill the functions of gold and some traditional commodities at the abstract level of "reserve"—using a form that is not constrained by physical transportation and mining to carry expectations for future production and transaction efficiency.

The Super Cycle Contest: CZ's Long Wave Foreshadowing

Against this backdrop, CZ's remark that "2026 may become a new starting point" once again brings the discussion of the crypto cycle to the forefront. The focus of the controversy surrounding his emphasized concept of "super cycle" is whether the crypto market will embark on a long wave path that transcends the traditional four-year halving rhythm, entering an expansion period driven by deeper structural forces. Since there is no universally accepted definition of the specific time span of the "super cycle," market discussions are more concentrated on changes in the driving force structure—whether it is an amplification of the old cycle or the starting point of a new logic.

Looking back at the traditional four-year cycle, each Bitcoin block reward halving event has been a core anchor point of the narrative. Deflationary expectations and actual new supply deceleration, combined with global liquidity easing and rising risk appetite, typically drive an upward trend around the halving. In the last bull-bear cycle, this mechanism was further reinforced in market memory: the halving became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with futures and spot leverage revolving around it, and social media and institutional reports continuously amplifying the "inevitability of the cycle." On a macro level, low interest rates and a loose monetary environment provided a powerful amplifier for this mechanism, allowing the halving narrative to occupy a weight in asset pricing that exceeded its on-chain technical significance.

In contrast, CZ's so-called "super cycle" places greater emphasis on global compliance progress, institutional adoption, and the amplification of on-chain utility as slow variables, rather than a single halving date. Following this line of thought, the main line of the new cycle is no longer "when will the next output halving trigger," but rather the rhythm of regulatory implementation across countries, the expansion of compliant products, and the explosion of real usage scenarios. For example, when more jurisdictions clarify compliance frameworks, institutional asset managers can expand their scale of allocation under controllable risk; when on-chain applications can provide substantial efficiency advantages in payment, clearing, and asset custody, asset prices will reflect ecological penetration rates more than just speculation around halving. In this path, the length of the cycle may be extended, with peaks and troughs more deeply embedded in macro structures and technology curves, rather than corresponding one-to-one with a specific block height.

Whale Battles and Risk Appetite Under New Narratives

Beneath the grand narrative, individual chip movements often play the role of amplifiers. According to data from a single source, when Bitcoin briefly fell below $92,000, a whale address, after incurring a loss of $16.14 million, chose to rebuild a position of about $60 million. This extreme action became a typical example of "betting real money on a long-term narrative." For such large holders, short-term price pullbacks feel more like downward time discounting rather than signals of story bankruptcy; they reflect their firm belief in the narrative of "new starting point" and "new reserve asset" through high-intensity replenishment, while also objectively pushing chips further into the hands of a few strong players.

This high-intensity replenishment action reflects not only the courage of a few funds but also the market's layered belief structure in the new narrative. On one end are long-term funds willing to increase their positions against the trend during significant volatility, viewing each deep drop as an opportunity to enhance the slope of future return curves; on the other end are short-term chips frequently washed out of the market, oscillating back and forth on the edge of narrative transition and "super cycle" expectations. As the leading chips become increasingly concentrated, price elasticity is further amplified, and any new event or viewpoint shock may be magnified into significant volatility in a short time. The more the new reserve asset story is reinforced, the more the fragility of the chip structure needs to be taken seriously.

In this process, retail investors find themselves in a particularly awkward position. Faced with grand topics like "Who is the next generation of reserve assets?" and "Has the super cycle already started?", information asymmetry and delayed reactions easily push them into the dilemma of chasing highs and missing out: once swept up in the emotional narrative at high levels, they may overlook valuation and risk; while in repeated fluctuations, they may panic and cut losses, missing out on long-term compounding. Institutions and large holders have clear advantages in information acquisition, risk management, and time dimensions; if retail investors attempt to hedge using the same gaming strategies, they will only amplify their weaknesses. What truly needs to be heeded is the tendency to see oneself as a "whale" rather than a "passenger" at the crest of the macro narrative.

The 2026 Fork: Who Can Sit on the Throne of New Reserve Assets

Returning to the starting point, the opening battle of 2026 exposes the traditional reserve status of gold and Bitcoin to multiple assaults. On one side is the public endorsement of new crypto assets by tech tycoons, and on the other is the political retreat and rise of utility described by Yat Siu, compounded by the reallocation of physical assets triggered by the electrification era. From narratives and use cases to macro backgrounds, the old "gold + BTC" combination is losing its mythic aura of being the "only answer." The physical scarcity of gold and the digital scarcity of Bitcoin are both facing challenges regarding capital efficiency and functional diversity, inevitably pushing the competition for reserve status to the forefront.

However, for any new crypto asset to truly replace gold and BTC, it requires far more than the prophecies of a few tech tycoons or emotional mobilization on social media. It must achieve substantial breakthroughs in compliance and liquidity, allowing large institutions, sovereigns, and multinational corporations to confidently include it on their balance sheets. At the same time, in real use cases, it must prove itself not only as a target for price speculation but also as an infrastructure for payments, clearing, collateral, or digital property rights. Only when both "widely usable" and "long-term holdable" conditions are met can a new asset be discussed as a "reserve," rather than just another story-driven temporary bubble.

From a longer perspective, the crypto market after 2026 is likely to enter a phase characterized by longer cycles and more structural volatility. The intertwining of macro liquidity, technological iteration, electrification, and regulatory compliance forms deep variables for asset repricing, and the single indicators previously used to explain bull and bear markets will gradually become ineffective or marginalized. For investors, the real adjustment needed is not a short-term bullish or bearish view on a specific asset, but rather a rethinking of the entire asset allocation framework: how to construct a portfolio that can withstand long-cycle uncertainties among gold, Bitcoin, potential new crypto assets, and physical assets closely tied to electrification may be the true question posed by this "battle for reserve status."

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