Headline: Negative short-term BTC–equities correlation isn’t decoupling — Bitcoin still underperforms the S&P 500
Bitcoin’s recent wobble away from a tight short-term correlation with US stocks may look like a step toward independence — but according to Axel Adler Jr.’s latest morning brief, it isn’t yet. Adler argues that the real story is Bitcoin’s continued relative weakness versus the S&P 500, which suggests the crypto remains inside the broader risk-off regime.
Two charts drive his case. The first shows the 13-week correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500, which has turned negative and stayed below zero. That measure simply tracks how weekly returns for BTC and the S&P have moved together over a short window. A negative reading can be misleading: recent market action has been choppy, with isolated Bitcoin bounces punctuating persistent weakness in equities, producing a low or negative correlation without signaling genuine strength for BTC.
The second chart is more telling: the BTC/S&P price ratio, which captures Bitcoin’s performance relative to US stocks. That ratio has fallen since the start of the year and remains under pressure — meaning Bitcoin has been underperforming the S&P even when the short-term correlation loosens. In Adler’s words, the decisive factor isn’t a negative correlation per se, but whether it’s accompanied by sustained Bitcoin outperformance versus the index. That confirmation isn’t present.
This distinction matters because it reframes the debate away from a single statistic and back toward market behavior. If Bitcoin were truly decoupling, the relative-strength picture would be improving. Instead, Adler finds the market treating BTC as a higher-beta risk asset — one that remains vulnerable to downside pressures and delivers larger drawdowns than equities when risk appetite fades.
What to watch next: don’t fixate on whether the 13-week correlation stays negative. Look for a reversal and sustained rise in the BTC/S&P ratio. Only a new, stable regime of relative outperformance would credibly support a decoupling thesis. Until that happens, the message is straightforward: Bitcoin may be moving less linearly with stocks in the short term, but it is not yet less sensitive to macro risk.
At press time, BTC traded at $66,652.
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