Bitcoin has tracked tech stocks since 2020, but in August its gold correlation overtook its Nasdaq link. Here's why crypto and stocks move together, and what breaks it.
Key Facts
Bitcoin's 90-day correlation with the Nasdaq-100 and with gold swapped places over six months, moving from 0.57 and 0.21 in March to 0.22 and 0.57 by September, according to Glassnode.
Ethereum and XRP track Bitcoin at about 0.9 on a 30-day view, while Zcash sits below 0.4 after more than tripling in 90 days on its own privacy story.
Correlations break on crypto-specific news: when the CLARITY Act failed its Senate vote on Sept. 15, Bitcoin fell more than 3% while the S&P 500 barely moved.
Have you ever noticed that Bitcoin and certain stocks or other cryptocurrencies tend to move together? That’s called correlation. It can be positive, meaning the assets climb or crash together, or negative, where one falls as the other rises.
Understanding this link is crucial to building a truly diversified portfolio, preventing you from inadvertently making one giant bet that crashes all at once.
Correlation is a number between -1 and +1 indicating how closely two assets' returns move together. At +1, they move in exact lockstep; at -1, they move in complete opposite directions; and at 0, there is no relationship.
Since 2020, Bitcoin's 90-day correlation with the Nasdaq-100 has mostly sat between 0.2 and 0.6. On Sept. 16, its short-window reading fell from 0.6 to 0.3 in a single day, according to CoinMarketCap Head of Research Alice Liu.
Since 2020, Bitcoin's 90-day correlation with the Nasdaq-100 has mostly sat between 0.2 and 0.6. On Sept. 16, its short-window reading fell from 0.6 to 0.3 in a single day, according to CoinMarketCap Head of Research Alice Liu.
Why Do Some Assets Correlate?
Assets become correlated when the same forces move both. For crypto and stocks, the first force is money. When it is cheap, investors reach for anything that might go up, so loss-making software companies, AI stocks, and Bitcoin (BTC) rise together in the same "risk-on" bucket.
When rates rise, the money leaves the same way and the assets dump together. The IMF found Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 was 0.01 from 2017 to 2019 and 0.36 from 2020 to 2021, once pandemic stimulus hit. In 2022, it fell with unprofitable software as the Fed hiked rates.
When rates rise, the money leaves the same way and the assets dump together. The IMF found Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 was 0.01 from 2017 to 2019 and 0.36 from 2020 to 2021, once pandemic stimulus hit. In 2022, it fell with unprofitable software as the Fed hiked rates.
Ownership is another correlating factor. Since spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in 2024, hedge funds and advisers hold Bitcoin in the same accounts as their Nasdaq stocks. A fund facing a margin call sells what it can. Since Bitcoin trades 24/7, it’s often the first thing sold. Crypto companies are now included in standard stock funds, and automated trading programs buy and sell Bitcoin exactly like a risky tech stock.
The third is category. Gold, silver, and Bitcoin are all bought as hedges against a weakening currency, so a spreading debasement fear lifts the whole category. The chart below shows Bitcoin's link to gold overtaking its link to the Nasdaq in August.
Source: TradingView
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Correlation Is Not Causation
The Nasdaq rarely moves Bitcoin directly. Instead, it's the same money that moves both. The link can vanish whenever crypto has news of its own.
Correlation also shows up where no link is possible. Bitcoin tracked Hass avocado prices in 2019, and Tyler Vigen's Spurious Correlations site pairs Bloomberg's Bitcoin coverage with the length of MrBeast videos at 0.76.
Source: Tyler Vigen (Spurious Correlations)
The popular chart of Bitcoin following global M2 money supply has had its 10-week lag changed several times to keep fitting. With thousands of price series out there, some will always line up by chance.
Why Crypto Moves as One
Inside crypto, correlation typically gets much tighter. Bitcoin accounts for over half of all crypto wealth. Plus, traders usually use a single shared wallet to fund all their trades, meaning a loss on one coin often forces them to sell the others.
When BTC rises, the tide lifts every ship, and altcoins, being smaller and more leveraged, swing harder both ways. On a 30-day view, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP track Bitcoin at about 0.9. Zcash (ZEC), which more than tripled in 90 days on its own privacy story, sits below 0.4.
It runs in reverse too. On Oct. 10, 2025, a tariff headline knocked Bitcoin down 14.5%, and $19 billion of leveraged positions were liquidated across every coin at once, with Solana (SOL) briefly losing 40%.
CMC's Bitcoin Dominance chart and Altcoin Season Index show which way the tide is running. The index read 26 on Sept. 1 and rose to 49 on Sept. 22, meaning about half the top 100 tokens had beaten Bitcoin over 90 days.
Source: CMC Altcoin Season Index
How Traders Profit From Correlation
Pair trading is the classic play. If two assets normally move together, bet on the gap between them, whichever way the market moves. Go long ETH and short BTC when the ETH/BTC ratio is unusually low, or long Strategy stock and short Bitcoin when MSTR trades below the value of its coins (NFA).
The position is market neutral: if everything falls, the short offsets the long, and you profit only if the gap closes. The risk is in the word “normally”; many assets are positively or negatively correlated… until they are not.
Ten coins that all track Bitcoin at 0.9 will mostly fall together, so check the correlation of your assets before calling your portfolio diversified.
What Is a Correlation Breaker?
A correlation breaker is a catalyst that hits one asset and not the other. Crypto has plenty, thanks to its own news cycle. When FTX collapsed in November 2022, Bitcoin fell about 20% in a week while the S&P 500 rose almost 6%.
On Sept. 15, the CLARITY Act failed a Senate vote: Bitcoin fell more than 3%, Coinbase was the S&P 500's worst stock, and the index barely moved.
Whole regimes can shift too. In March, Glassnode put Bitcoin's 90-day correlation with the Nasdaq-100 at 0.57 and with gold at 0.21. By September, they had swapped: 0.22 with the Nasdaq and 0.57 with gold. Bitwise's André Dragosch calls this the debasement trade: when macro forces are strong, investors "are discriminating less and less between Bitcoin and gold."
Glassnode notes that past decouplings during bond sell-offs were short-lived.
How To Check Correlation Yourself
Pick a window. Thirty days shows the current mood, and 90 days shows a more resilient regime. One-day readings are usually just noise.
Measure daily returns. Two rising price lines look correlated even when their daily moves are not. The same Bitcoin and S&P 500 data this month reads -0.62 on price levels and +0.40 on returns.
Source: CMC AIPick a tool. PerpFinder and DefiLlama publish free crypto correlation matrices built on returns, or ask CMC AI for today's reading.
Read the number. Above 0.5, they move together; 0.2 to 0.5 is a loose link; below 0.2 they mostly don't correlate; and negative means they move apart.
Source: PerpFinder
Is Bitcoin Becoming More or Less Correlated With Stocks?
Bitcoin is currently less correlated with stocks than it was in January. In Q2, Bitcoin fell 13.4% while the Nasdaq-100 rose 27.7%, and in one week in late August BTC gained 22% while stocks fell.
Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas argues nothing changed on Bitcoin's side.
But ETFs, treasury companies, and tokenized stocks still tie Bitcoin to Wall Street, and since the Fed's hike, Bitcoin and the Nasdaq have rallied together. In the next real panic, expect the correlation to jump, as it did in March 2020.
Check the date and window on any figure before you trade on it.
Further reading: Is Bitcoin Price Finally Decoupling From Tech Stocks?
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