The cryptocurrency surged past $94K on Wednesday morning before retreating to $93K and has shown signs of decoupling from traditional stock indices.
BTC Breaks $94K, Shows Signs of Market Decoupling
Bitcoin has maintained an upward trajectory all week despite an uncertain economic environment dogged by President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy shifts. One interesting development has been a steady drop in the digital asset’s correlation with the Nasdaq and S&P 500.
Overview of Market Metrics
BTC traded between $94,535.73 and $90,455.69 before settling at $93,406.06 at the time of reporting. The cryptocurrency is up 2.97% since yesterday and has had a week of solid gains at 10.09% over the last seven days.
(BTC price/ Trading View)
Trading volume jumped significantly, rising 19.93% to $52.74 billion, pointing to increased investor participation. Bitcoin’s market capitalization also rose to $1.83 trillion, up 2.16% from the previous day. However, despite the price appreciation, bitcoin’s dominance edged down slightly to 64.30%, suggesting slightly more traction from altcoins in relative terms.
(BTC dominance / Trading View)
Futures activity offered a mixed picture. Total BTC futures open interest dropped by 6.03% to $63.94 billion, a sign that some leveraged positions were reduced. According to Coinglass, $10.33 million in positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with long traders taking the brunt of the damage, accounting for $8.74 million in losses. Shorts only saw $1.59 million in liquidations.
The Great Decoupling?
Bitcoin, once considered a symbol of financial counterculture, has been strongly correlated with the stock market lately, registering a 30-day Pearson correlation coefficient above 0.80 with both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 at the beginning of April.
(BTC correlation with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 / The Block)
That number has dropped significantly over the past week, indicating a decoupling of the cryptocurrency from stocks. Data from The Block at the time of reporting shows a correlation coefficient of 0.34 and 0.35 with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, respectively, suggesting BTC’s increasing divergence from equities.
Although it’s too early to tell, the trend could be signaling the arrival of an era where the digital asset becomes the de facto safe haven in times of economic uncertainty.
