Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative isn’t showing up in the price right now. Instead of acting like an uncorrelated store of value, bitcoin $BTC ( ▼ 1.1% ) has been moving in lockstep with some of the riskiest parts of the stock market.
Lately, its price action looks a lot less like a hedge and a lot more like a bet on whether investors feel bold or nervous.
It’s Following Speculation, Not Crypto-Specific News
The three-month correlation between daily moves in the iShares Bitcoin Trust $IBIT ( ▼ 2.01% ) and a Goldman Sachs basket of nonprofitable tech stocks just hit a record 0.62. That means bitcoin has been rising and falling alongside money-losing tech companies more often than at any point since this ETF launched.
Zoom out to weekly moves to account for weekend trading, and the relationship gets even tighter. Bitcoin’s correlation with that same tech basket sits around 0.78, ranking in the 97th percentile versus data going back to 2014.
Sentiment Is Doing the Heavy Lifting
What’s driving bitcoin right now isn’t halving cycles or on-chain metrics — it’s investor mood. When markets are chasing risk, bitcoin rallies. When speculative appetite fades, it slides alongside unprofitable tech.
For the moment, bitcoin isn’t behaving like digital gold. It’s behaving like a risk-on asset that rises and falls with confidence.