Bitcoin Outpaces S&P 500 as BTC Gains 2.6% While Stocks Slide

Bitcoin delivered a rare outperformance of U.S. equities on Monday, breaking a recent trend of trailing the stock market.

BTC climbed 2.6% to above $64,000, marking its strongest one-day gain in more than a month, according to CoinDesk data. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 declined 0.52%.

That means Bitcoin not only outperformed stocks but also moved in the opposite direction. Such a divergence was once common, as Bitcoin has historically behaved like a higher-beta asset, typically experiencing larger moves than equities in both rising and falling markets.

“BTC outperformed the stock market today,” blockchain analytics firm Glassnode said in a Telegram discussion, noting that the move has become less frequent. The firm found that Bitcoin beat the S&P 500 on only about one-third of trading days during the past three months.

Bitcoin has generally lagged behind the S&P 500 over the past three months. Spending roughly two-thirds of trading sessions underperforming equities suggests BTC has recently behaved less like a high-beta asset and more like a weaker-performing risk asset.

One factor behind the shift has been the strong rally in AI-related stocks, which has attracted substantial investment toward Wall Street and away from other parts of the financial markets, including crypto.

Bitcoin’s cyclical bear-market phase has also weighed on demand. BTC reached a record above $126,000 in October last year before entering a prolonged downturn, with the current cycle expected by some analysts to reach a bottom around October this year.