There’s a split in markets right now that’s worth paying attention to. The S&P 500 is sitting within touching distance of its record high, while Bitcoin is stuck roughly 39% below the peak it set last October. Both assets just got handed the same piece of good news this week, and only one of them did much with it.
On Wednesday, Trump said the US-Iran talks had reached their “final stages”, and that was enough to knock oil sharply lower. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude shed more than 5% to settle around $98 a barrel. Lower energy prices take some of the heat out of the inflation picture, and equity traders run with it. The S&P 500 closed up 1.1% near 7,433, the Dow added 1.3% to reclaim 50,000, and the Nasdaq gained 1.5%.
Bitcoin barely moved. At the time of writing, it’s changing hands around $77K, more or less where it sat before the headline crossed. Same tailwind, two very different reactions. So what’s actually going on?
The two markets aren’t responding to the same thing
Part of the answer is that equities are trading on the immediate catalyst, oil down, inflation fears easing, and a fresh wave of enthusiasm around AI after SpaceX filed its IPO prospectus and reports surfaced that OpenAI is preparing to follow. There’s also a deep, structural bid under stocks, the buybacks and passive inflows that keep buying more or less regardless of the headline. That kind of demand doesn’t switch off overnight.
Bitcoin doesn’t have any of that working for it. It runs on liquidity and risk appetite at the margin, and right now, the margin is exactly where the pressure is showing. The 30-year Treasury yield touched 5.2% earlier this week, its highest since 2007. The dollar is holding firm near 99. And after months of pricing in rate cuts, traders have flipped. CME FedWatch now puts the odds of a December hike at around 51%, with barely a 10% chance of any cut this year. The liquidity backdrop hasn’t loosened at all. Equities can look past that for now, but Bitcoin can’t.
The S&P chart looks healthy
S&P 500 daily. Price bounced from the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement around 7,360 and is working back toward the 7,500 swing high, holding above its rising moving averages with the broader uptrend intact.
On the daily timeframe, the S&P 500 printed a strong bullish candle on Wednesday that closed near its highs, which points to buyers stepping back in after the pullback from the recent record. The bounce came off the 0.382 Fib around 7,360, a shallow retracement that keeps the broader uptrend intact, and it sets up what could become a higher swing low if it holds. Price is now grinding back toward 7,500, the recent high and the resistance just overhead.
S&P 500 4-hour. Price has reclaimed both the 20 and 50 EMA and broken structure to the upside, with the Accumulation/Distribution line pushing to new highs beneath price.
Drop down to the 4-hour and the shorter-term picture has turned back in the bulls’ favour. Price has reclaimed both the 20 and 50 Exponential Moving Average (EMA), and a low-timeframe break of structure suggests momentum is building again. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is back above 50, and the Accumulation/Distribution line is making new highs, which tends to show buying pressure quietly building under the surface. If that continues, 7,500 comes back into play.
For reference, the levels to be watched on the S&P are 7,500 as the overhead resistance, with support layered beneath at 7,360 (the 0.382 Fib and Wednesday’s bounce), 7,320 (the 0.5), 7,280 (the 0.618, reinforced by the rising 4-hour 50 EMA), and the larger demand zone around 7,105 to 7,160 below that. It’s the look of a trend in good shape, a shallow dip that got bought quickly, with no real overhead supply to fight through.
The flows tell the opposite story for Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s marginal buyer right now is the spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) complex, and that buyer has turned seller. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw their largest single-day outflow since January, with roughly $649 million leaving in one session, and across the week, digital-asset products shed around $1.07 billion, the first negative week in seven.
When the main source of fresh demand starts redeeming, price tends to lag, no matter how good the macro headline looks. So the divergence isn’t really a mystery; you can see it directly in where the money is going.
On-chain says recovery, but not yet confirmed
The on-chain data tells much the same story. Glassnode’s latest weekly note shows spot demand cooling, with the 30-day average of its Realized Profit/Loss Ratio sitting around 1.8. That’s a long way off the February lows, but it’s still under the 2.0 mark that has tended to signal genuine buy-side conviction in the past. Buyers are back, in other words, just not with much force.
Funding rates add a wrinkle. They’ve now been negative for 82 days straight, the longest such streak in Bitcoin’s history, which means traders are paying to hold shorts rather than longs. That isn’t the kind of froth you’d expect at a top, and persistent negative funding has actually marked local bottoms before. But it does show how defensive positioning has become, and it’s hard to build a sustained rally when so few people want to be the ones bidding.
The valuation picture fits the same theme. The Market Value to Realised Value (MVRV) Z-Score, which compares the market value to the average price coins last moved at, sits near 0.87, firmly in fair-value territory and nowhere near the readings that usually mark a cycle top. Around 63% of the supply is currently in profit, up from the low 50s in March, but still short of the 70%-plus you’d want to see to call the recovery healthy. None of this is outright bearish. It just describes a market clawing its way back rather than charging ahead, which is precisely why Bitcoin can’t shrug off a hostile macro backdrop the way equities have.
Bitcoin’s chart is the mirror image
BTC/USD weekly. Price printed a bearish engulfing candle at the 80,000 to 85,000 resistance, confluent with the local short reload zone and the 0.618 Fib, within an ongoing downtrend of lower highs and lower lows.
Step out to the weekly timeframe, and Bitcoin is still printing lower highs and lower lows. That’s a downtrend, plainly, and until that structure changes, the benefit of the doubt sits with the sellers. The most recent bounce ran straight into trouble. Last week’s candle was a bearish engulfing, a fairly clean rejection, right at the high-timeframe resistance between 80,000 and 85,000. That zone isn’t arbitrary either; it lines up with the local short reload area and tops out at the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement, so sellers had every reason to defend it, and they did.
From here, the levels are straightforward enough. The 80,000 to 85,000 band is the one that matters on the upside, and a weekly close above it would be the first real sign the trend is starting to turn. On the downside, 70,000 is the first support worth watching, with 60,000 the larger structural floor beneath it. As long as we’re trading under that resistance, the path of least resistance points lower, the polar opposite of what the S&P is showing.
What could change the picture?
The gap can close either way. If oil keeps drifting lower and the inflation data cools, the rate-cut conversation could reopen, liquidity could ease, and Bitcoin’s lag could turn into a quick catch-up. The asset that lives on liquidity tends to move fastest once liquidity comes back. But there’s a less comfortable version too. If equities are pricing a soft landing, the bond market simply isn’t buying, the risk runs the other way, with stocks eventually drifting down toward what Bitcoin and the yield curve already seem to be signalling.
For now, the takeaway is fairly simple. Equities are trading on the headline, and on Wednesday, the headline was good. Bitcoin is trading the plumbing underneath it, and the plumbing hasn’t improved yet. Until it does, or until Bitcoin can force its way back above that 80,000 to 85,000 ceiling, this gap between the two looks likely to potentially stay open.
Trading with PrimeXBT across diverging markets
Periods like the current one often remind traders that opportunities and risks rarely develop in a single market at the same time. While equity indices may respond positively to easing inflation expectations, assets such as Bitcoin can remain constrained by liquidity conditions, capital flows, and broader macroeconomic pressures.
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As the current divergence between Bitcoin and equities demonstrates, market leadership can shift quickly. Having access to a broader range of opportunities and the ability to deploy capital across them efficiently can be just as important as correctly identifying the next market move.
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About PrimeXBT
PrimeXBT is a global multi-asset broker and crypto asset service provider trusted by traders in more than 150 countries. The platform bridges traditional and digital markets within one integrated environment, redefining versatility and innovation in online trading. Clients can access Forex, CFDs on indices, commodities, shares, crypto, and Crypto Futures, as well as buy, store and exchange cryptocurrencies. This unified experience extends across both the native PXTrader 2.0 platform and MetaTrader 5, supported by advanced risk-management tools and a wide range of funding options in crypto, fiat and local payment methods. Since 2018, PrimeXBT has focused on empowering traders through broad multi-asset access, fair and transparent conditions, professional-grade technology and dedicated human support. By combining expertise, trust and a client-first approach, PrimeXBT sets a benchmark of excellence in the financial industry and provides traders with the tools they need to trade, grow and succeed with confidence.
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