Has Bitcoin Actually Decoupled From Stocks?

While Bitcoin was born as a response to the financial crisis of 2008, the asset's high volatility has left many investors considering it a risky proposition. However, BTC’s relative resilience compared to equities in 2025 has many wondering if Bitcoin is finally transitioning from a risk asset to a store of value.

BTC is up 2.55% so far this year, while the leading American stock market index, the S&P 500, is down 6% in the same period.

Both assets have been outperformed by gold, up 26% since the beginning of the year, as the precious metal is often deemed a flight-to-safety asset in times of financial uncertainty. Markets have been heavily influenced since the election by the United States’ tariff policy and trade war with China, which has kept the world economy on its toes.

The theory of BTC decoupling is accelerated by BTC’s dominance over the rest of the altcoin market, considered much further out on the risk curve. BTC dominance (BTC.D) sits at 64.5%, its highest level since January 2021. The metric bottomed at 39% in September 2022 ahead of Ethereum’s Merge.

Bitcoin’s consistent outperformance versus the rest of the crypto market and the stock market suggests that the price action isn’t just crypto-specific, but asset-specific as investors seek protection from a plunging U.S. dollar, which is down 8% since the start of the year.

Dollar weakness has also boosted industrial commodities such as copper, which is closely following gold’s footsteps and is up 20% on the year. The dollar is also doing poorly compared to other fiat currencies, such as the Euro. The EUR/USD price is at its highest level since February 2022, up more than 10% in 2025.

“The S&P 500 is down 10%+ since the last week of February. Even if you were sidelined and avoided the market crash, the DXY still lost 4% during the same period. If you shorted the crash and made 3% last month, you still lost purchasing power. This is why Gold is going parabolic,” said crypto trader Small Cap Scientist in March.

The premise of Bitcoin potentially decoupling from risk assets and becoming a store of value has been hotly debated by market participants since the asset's outperformance accelerated in April, but analysts are beginning to come around to the idea of Bitcoin separating itself from the pack.

“Bitcoin's rally from $87K to $94K, outpacing traditional equities, underscores a growing shift in global capital toward hard assets like gold and BTC,” Hank Huang, the CEO of Kronos Research, told The Defiant.

“As trade war tensions from China weigh on the stock market, Bitcoin's resilience highlights its role as a strategic hedge against fiat devaluation. During this period, the U.S. dollar has shown signs of weakness, pressured by dovish sentiment and rising liquidity expectations,” Huang continued, citing the upcoming May 6 Fed meeting as a “key test” for BTC that is coming up.