Investors are recalibrating allocations as copper’s 2025 rally outpaced Bitcoin, highlighting a renewed preference for assets tied to tangible industrial demand. The divergence between copper’s steady gains and Bitcoin’s late-year retracement is reshaping risk-return narratives for portfolio managers, custodians, and compliance teams.
Copper futures (HGZ25) reached about $5.4985 per pound by December 26, 2025, translating into a year-to-date gain of roughly 39.26%. Copper’s advance was driven by sustained industrial demand, including electric vehicles, renewable-energy grid expansion, and broader manufacturing activity, alongside persistent supply constraints that tightened physical markets. Forecasts mirrored that strength, with one major bank revising its 2025 average to $9,890 per tonne and citing a peak target of $10,050 per tonne in August 2025. London Metal Exchange prices repeatedly tested new nominal highs through the year, reinforcing a fundamentals-led appreciation profile.
What we are seeing in precious metals right now is truly once-in-a-lifetime:
Gold is now up +72% YTD, adding +$13.2 TRILLION in market cap this year.
Silver has become the 3rd largest asset in the world, up +155% YTD, worth $4.2 trillion.
The only other year that comes close…
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) December 26, 2025
Bitcoin, by contrast, printed an all-time intraday high of $126,198 on October 6, 2025, supported by substantial early-year institutional demand and reported ETF inflows exceeding $132 billion by May 2025. Despite those milestones, BTC retraced in the second half and traded below $80,000 by late December, leaving 2025 return estimates in negative territory across multiple sources. Reported year-to-date figures vary, including approximately -7.87% (Curvo), -5.26% (MarketWatch), and -6% (Ainvest). The pattern of episodic surges followed by a pronounced pullback underscores Bitcoin’s volatility and the gap that can form between adoption headlines and calendar-year outcomes.
Copper strength versus Bitcoin volatility is changing allocation logic
This performance gap carries direct operational implications for investors and portfolio managers, particularly in how scenario design and liquidity planning are calibrated. Copper’s 2025 return profile reinforces exposure to commodity cycles tied to identifiable demand drivers, which can materially influence asset-liability matching and stress assumptions. At the same time, service providers supporting both metals and digital assets face materially different risk surfaces. Physical market tightness can elevate delivery and logistics risk for metals, while crypto custody must manage liquidity swings and concentrated inflows or outflows that can stress governance and operational controls.
Compliance and risk functions also need to adjust monitoring priorities as allocations rotate between asset classes with different control requirements. Rapid inflows into tokenized or ETF products followed by price reversals can increase transaction volumes, complicating surveillance, record-keeping, and exception management. Conversely, increased allocations to physical commodities can raise due diligence expectations around counterparties, provenance, and supply-chain resiliency. In both cases, process audits and stress-test documentation become more material for demonstrating control effectiveness under market-moving events.
The 2025 divergence between copper and Bitcoin is prompting a reassessment of portfolio construction and operating models across buy-side and infrastructure providers. The immediate takeaway is that allocation shifts should be matched with updated operational controls, reporting discipline, and liquidity contingency planning as the risk mix changes.