Gold and silver continued their January gains on Thursday, approaching key price milestones while bitcoin remained stagnant near $90,000. Bitcoin traded flat at $89,930.
Spot gold was trading near $4,950 an ounce, up about 2.5% on the day, while silver jumped more than 6% to just under $99. The gains are the culmination of a month of outstanding results for precious metals, with gold up more than 7% and silver up nearly 30%, far outperforming most major asset classes.
Prediction markets suggest that traders are increasingly viewing those levels as stepping stones rather than ceilings. On Polymarket, contracts asking whether gold or ether will reach $5000 first assign gold an implied probability of 97% as ETH trades below $3000.
Separate end-of-month markets are largely clustered around outcomes that place gold at or above $5,000 by the end of January, with relatively little weight on materially lower prices. Silver markets are showing similar conviction, with a strong outlook assigned to prices ending above $85 and significant positioning for a move to $100.
Several prominent analysts expect higher gains for precious metals. Recently, Goldman Sachs raised its gold price at the end of 2026 to $5,400 per ounce, up from $4,900, SEEbiz reports.
For bitcoin, traders on Polymarket expect it to remain in the range of around $85,000 within January.
Background volatility helps explain how growth is expressed. Silver’s 30-day realized volatility has edged into the upper 60s, while gold’s realized volatility has edged up but remains relatively contained in the low 20s, signaling a more stable and orderly repricing rather than a disorderly contraction.
In comparison, Bitcoin has seen realized volatility drop to the mid-30s even as prices hover near recent highs, highlighting a shift in how markets express macro uncertainty.
