Is Bitcoin The New ‘Big Tech’ Stock?

Bitcoin was once an outsider within the monetary markets — unpredictable, uncorrelated and resistant to Wall Avenue’s temper swings.

However recently? Bitcoin is transferring like a tech inventory — rising with the Nasdaq, falling when threat is off.

From April 1 to April 8, as President Donald Trump introduced new tariffs, Bitcoin plunged from $85,487 to $76,198. That drop, almost 11 % in every week, got here alongside sharp declines in mega-cap tech shares. Apple (AAPL) fell about 23 %. Nvidia (NVDA) dropped nearly 11 %. Tesla (TSLA) slid greater than 14 %.

Quick-forward to Might 23. After shares rallied to a dizzying V-shaped restoration, Bitcoin notched a brand new all-time excessive of $111,970 on Might 22.

It’s the newest instance of an rising sample.

Because the 2020 pandemic crash, Bitcoin’s value conduct has undergone a serious shift. As soon as pitched as “digital gold,” Bitcoin now tends to swing in sync with shares, particularly the tech-heavy indexes.

“In 2025, Bitcoin is not a purely speculative asset — it’s a part of the institutional monetary system,” says Christopher Gannatti, world head of analysis at WisdomTree. “Bitcoin is more and more being judged not simply by its ideology, however by its integration: How effectively it matches into a contemporary world portfolio.”

Bitcoin and Massive Tech are more and more in lock-step since COVID

Earlier than the pandemic, Bitcoin’s every day value strikes had little in frequent with conventional monetary markets. Between 2017 and 2019, its correlation with the S&P 500 hovered close to zero, based on an evaluation by the Worldwide Financial Fund. Bitcoin didn’t transfer with equities, didn’t monitor commodities and didn’t behave like bonds.

That supported the idea that Bitcoin was a diversification device or a hedge. After all, again then, few buyers had heard of Bitcoin, a lot much less held it of their portfolios.

Then got here March 2020.

As markets crashed and central banks hit the panic button with large stimulus packages, Bitcoin’s hyperlink with equities emerged.

Analysts in a single latest examine by FTSE Russell discovered its correlation with U.S. tech shares grew to 0.52 post-COVID, a sixfold enhance. That’s a robust relationship. Even riskier debt markets, like high-yield bonds, began transferring in tandem with Bitcoin.

In the meantime, its correlation with gold — supposedly its analog cousin — moved from a adverse to a optimistic however stayed low, at 0.15. Gold has continued to be much less dangerous than Bitcoin, as analysts at J.P. Morgan famous within the firm’s mid-year outlook report.

As an alternative of behaving like a secure haven or hedge, Bitcoin within the post-COVID period is performing like a high-beta tech inventory: Unstable, reactive and deeply tied to investor sentiment.

5 the explanation why Bitcoin began behaving like a Massive Tech inventory

1. Stimulus fueled the Bitcoin growth

The COVID-era financial response flooded markets with low cost cash. Fee cuts and trillions in fiscal stimulus lit a hearth beneath all the pieces from shares to crypto.

Traders, flush with money and caught at dwelling, piled into meme shares, progress shares and crypto. Bitcoin surged. So did Tesla. So did Ethereum. So did GameStop (GME).

However when inflation spiked in 2022 and the Federal Reserve tightened the belt by elevating rates of interest, each shares and Bitcoin fell collectively.

Traders had the funds to go massive throughout lockdown, and tens of millions selected to wager on Massive Tech and Bitcoin.

2. Bitcoin is using the identical hype cycle as tech

Crypto and tech shares share a typical fan base: younger, on-line and filled with FOMO.

J.P. Morgan analysts have famous that Bitcoin trades equally to small-cap tech shares — each are fueled by retail buyers betting on innovation.

“Each Bitcoin and Massive Tech attraction to buyers with related threat tolerance and secular conviction in transformative techniques — AI for Massive Tech and decentralized finance for Bitcoin,” says Gannatti.

Crypto and large tech are each fueled by narrative. That helps clarify why Bitcoin and the Nasdaq usually peak — and plunge — collectively. They’re using the identical wave of investor expectations.

3. Institutional cash is altering how Bitcoin strikes

Bitcoin’s rise from area of interest experiment to institutional asset additionally helped change the sport. Hedge funds, asset managers and even pension funds started allocating capital to Bitcoin in 2022, and that development continues to the current.

That created overlap between fiat-based monetary techniques and crypto.

“Passive methods, algorithmic buying and selling and cross-asset portfolio fashions usually bundle them collectively as ‘innovation beta’ or macro-levered progress proxies,” says Gannatti.

The launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in early 2024 solely blurred the traces between conventional finance and cryptocurrency additional. Traders not have to fuss with crypto wallets or exchanges — they’ll purchase Bitcoin like a inventory, even of their IRA, which opens the door to a broader viewers.

It didn’t take lengthy for buyers to pile into Bitcoin ETFs. Greater than a dozen new funds drew $36 billion in capital in 2024 alone, pushing complete property north of $110 billion.

“This makes Bitcoin extra delicate to macro situations — liquidity, charges and geopolitical stress — but additionally extra influenced by conventional investor conduct, together with rotations and rebalancing,” says Gannatti.

4. Regulation isn’t a roadblock anymore

Coverage momentum can be pushing Bitcoin additional into the mainstream. One of many clearest examples is Trump’s return to the White Home. He’s the primary pro-Bitcoin president, and a second Trump time period is predicted to create a friendlier regulatory atmosphere.

It’s a shocking turnaround. Bitcoin was launched in 2009 as a decentralized various to the normal monetary system within the wake of the Nice Recession. Its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, probably by no means envisioned it gaining legitimacy beneath the management of a U.S. president.

The brand new administration is already dialing again anti-crypto insurance policies, beginning with the SEC’s repeal of SAB 121. That change lets banks maintain Bitcoin and different digital property, doubtlessly unlocking a flood of institutional cash and pulling Bitcoin deeper into regulated markets.

On the worldwide stage, Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Property Regulation (MiCA) is opening the doorways to institutional gamers.

5. When concern hits, Bitcoin runs too

The “digital gold” narrative hasn’t held up beneath stress. Throughout the March 2020 crash, Bitcoin misplaced half its worth in only a few days. Traders wished {dollars}, not digital cash.

“Bitcoin’s not dependable as a short-term hedge towards fairness drawdowns,” says Gannatti. “Throughout market stress, Bitcoin usually behaves like a threat asset, not a secure haven.”

That held true lately, too. When Trump’s tariff announcement triggered a worldwide flight to security, gold rallied whereas each the Nasdaq and Bitcoin dropped double digits. Capital flowed out of speculative property and into conventional hedges, like gold. Bitcoin — and tech shares — didn’t get better till later.

Bitcoin isn’t the one asset to alter its conduct over time

Bitcoin’s transformation isn’t distinctive. The conduct of property can — and does — change when the macroeconomic backdrop shifts.

Maybe the most effective examples is dot-com period tech shares.

Within the Nineteen Nineties, early web firms have been wildly speculative — overly optimistic valuations, zero income and unpredictable swings. The bubble burst in March 2000. The Nasdaq misplaced 77 % of its worth over the subsequent two years, wiping out lots of the over-hyped web firms that by no means turned a revenue.

However over time, the survivors matured into basically sound companies, corresponding to Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL). As valuation fashions improved, so did pricing stability.

Bitcoin could be on an identical path.

”Bitcoin has repeatedly proven that it’s right here for the long run,” says Joan Nix, an economics professor at Queens School in New York. “As larger institutional adoption happens and liquidity will increase within the crypto world, Bitcoin is in a superb place to emerge as a winner, like Amazon and eBay did after the tech growth bust within the late Nineteen Nineties.”

Consultants nonetheless battle to worth Bitcoin

A part of the confusion round Bitcoin’s conduct is that no person fairly is aware of how one can worth it — and even how one can categorize it. Is it a forex? A commodity? A decentralized tech protocol?

In contrast to shares, Bitcoin doesn’t produce money circulation. In contrast to bonds, it doesn’t pay curiosity. And in contrast to commodities, its utility is only digital. That makes conventional valuation fashions principally ineffective.

Some researchers have tried tweaking current frameworks to assist retail buyers gauge Bitcoin’s worth. However none of those frameworks absolutely clarify its conduct.

Some asset managers now use a “mosaic” method — mixing fashions primarily based on adoption curves, community results and even vitality consumption (like hash fee). Nonetheless, none of them work completely, making it much more troublesome to foretell what the value of Bitcoin would possibly do subsequent.

“Whereas Bitcoin trades as a dangerous asset, the jury remains to be out on whether or not conventional asset pricing

fashions can adequately account for its volatility,” says Nix.

Will Bitcoin proceed behaving like a Massive Tech inventory?

Some analysts suppose the excessive correlation between Bitcoin and tech shares is right here to remain. So long as it’s handled as a threat asset by institutional gamers, Bitcoin will probably proceed transferring with the broader market.

If that’s the case, retail buyers could also be smart to pay extra consideration to exterior drivers impacting tech shares — corresponding to rates of interest and inflation — and provides much less credence to crypto-specific catalysts, like halving cycles, regulatory developments and community upgrades.

However others argue the correlation could be morphing.

In 2025, Bitcoin’s value nonetheless strikes in sync with Massive Tech typically, however they’re not rising and falling for a similar causes anymore, says Gannatti.

When the general market is in a “risk-on” temper — which means buyers really feel assured and are keen to take extra dangers — Bitcoin and tech shares have a tendency to maneuver collectively.

“However when fairness markets rotate primarily based on sector earnings, Bitcoin usually decouples,” says Gannatti.

What’s taking place in 2025 reveals how the market has advanced. Massive Tech’s positive factors are principally about income. Bitcoin’s positive factors are extra about investor beliefs and the way a lot cash is sloshing round within the system.

“Whereas quick bursts of correlation should seem, Bitcoin’s narrative is turning into extra distinct,” says Gannatti.

So perhaps Bitcoin hasn’t absolutely surrendered its distinctive id — however it’s nonetheless extra entangled with world finance than ever earlier than. That’s why specialists like Nix warning buyers towards treating Bitcoin as something however unstable.

”At this stage in its evolution, the place there may be little consensus over what crypto-specific drivers will clarify its long-term efficiency, it’s a speculative threat asset,” says Nix. “Retail buyers must be cautious about allocating something however a small proportion of their retirement portfolios to it.”

Checking in with a monetary advisor could be a good transfer, too.

Backside line

For now, Bitcoin is performing like a high-volatility, high-beta tech inventory. It rises when buyers’ threat urge for food is excessive and falls when macroeconomic headwinds reemerge. Since 2020, its correlation with shares has spiked and its conduct has shifted from “digital gold” to “digital Nasdaq.”

However that may not final endlessly. Much like how tech shares advanced from dot-com chaos to blue-chip firms, Bitcoin might chart its personal path. Its distinctive traits — fastened provide, decentralized design, long-term bullish buyers — might put Bitcoin again into a category of its personal because the market matures.

For now, although, anybody treating Bitcoin as a hedge or secure haven is more likely to be disillusioned. It tends to journey the identical curler coaster as Massive Tech — and it’s not displaying indicators of stepping off anytime quickly.

Editorial Disclaimer: All buyers are suggested to conduct their very own impartial analysis into funding methods earlier than investing choice. As well as, buyers are suggested that previous funding product efficiency isn’t any assure of future value appreciation.