Bitcoin’s Risk-Asset Role Faces a Test as Stocks Pull Ahead
Bloomberg questions Bitcoin’s role as a gauge of speculative appetite as equities outperform and US spot Bitcoin ETFs face sustained withdrawals.
Key Notes
- Bloomberg highlights Bitcoin’s weak returns relative to US equities in its November 10 analysis.
- Bitwise recorded about $1.285 billion leaving US spot Bitcoin ETFs during November 2–6.
- High equity correlation during the selloff complicates claims that Bitcoin has permanently detached from stocks.
Bitcoin’s inability to keep pace with a stock-market rebound is raising questions about its role as a gauge of speculative appetite, as AI-linked equities compete for investors’ attention and crypto fund withdrawals continue.
A November 10 Bloomberg analysis highlighted the divergence: Bitcoin was down about 16% for the year, while the S&P 500 had gained roughly 10%. Those figures describe the comparison at the time of the report.
The contrast extended to Monday, November 9, when the Nasdaq 100 rallied 3.4% and Bitcoin barely responded. That performance gap challenges the assumption that a strong session for technology stocks will automatically produce a comparable crypto rally.
ETF Withdrawals Add Pressure to the Comparison
The fund-flow evidence covers a specific period. Bitwise’s November 9 weekly report recorded approximately $1.285 billion leaving US spot Bitcoin ETFs during the preceding week, November 2–6. These were five trading sessions, rather than the latest five sessions as of Wednesday.
BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for about $1.21 billion of those withdrawals. Bitwise’s own BITB attracted $16.6 million, illustrating that individual funds could gain money even as the category suffered substantial net redemptions.
The weekly total includes November 4’s brief inflow, which was outweighed by larger net withdrawals elsewhere in the period.
Withdrawals continued into the following week. CoinScreamer’s Monday flow report recorded another $201.08 million leaving Bitcoin products on November 9. That session falls outside the November 2–6 weekly total.
Weak Returns Do Not Establish a Permanent Split
Bitwise’s research also complicates the idea that Bitcoin has detached from equities. It reported that Bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose to around 0.8 during the November 5 selloff.
Correlation measures how returns move together over a selected window. Relative performance measures how much each asset gains or loses. Bitcoin can therefore remain exposed to falling stocks while failing to match their subsequent rebound.
The recent crypto selloff provides another dated observation. Bitcoin touched $72,643.48 on Coinbase during November 10 trading, while leveraged long positions accounted for most of the four-hour liquidations tracked in that report.
Fund Flows and Market Resilience Measure Different Things
ETF redemptions show reduced exposure through those products. They do not identify where departing investors subsequently put their money, so the withdrawals alone cannot demonstrate an equivalent transfer into AI stocks.
The SEC’s in-kind approval also allows authorized participants to exchange crypto ETF shares for underlying assets. Consequently, a dollar outflow figure does not establish an identical immediate sale on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Meanwhile, Fitch’s recent liquidity assessment examined Bitcoin’s ability to keep trading through the Binance disruption. Preserving market access during a shock is a separate test from attracting fresh speculative demand. Bloomberg’s comparison puts the latter question back in focus.
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