If it feels like bitcoin gets hit harder when stocks fall and barely benefits when they rise, that’s because the data shows exactly that dynamic at play.
For months, BTC has behaved in a lopsided pattern: tightly linked to the Nasdaq 100 during market sell-offs, yet losing much of that relationship when tech stocks recover. This week reinforced the trend. The Nasdaq dropped 2% on Thursday, and bitcoin slid twice as much. Friday’s rebound in equities, however, saw almost no follow-through in crypto.
With six weeks left in 2025, the Nasdaq 100 is up 20% on the year. Bitcoin is up just 3%.
Asymmetry, Not Decorrelation
Wintermute analyst Jasper De Maere argues bitcoin hasn’t decoupled from stocks at all. The BTC–Nasdaq correlation remains high near 0.8. The real story, he says, is asymmetry.
“This isn’t a breakdown of correlation, but a reflection of asymmetry, the uneven way BTC responds to risk,” said De Maere. “When equities rally, BTC’s reaction is muted. When they sell off, BTC tends to move more sharply in the same direction.”
His preferred measure, “performance skew,” captures how often bitcoin outperforms in risk-on environments (positive skew) or lags in risk-off ones (negative skew).
Skew has been firmly negative for an extended period. Using a rolling 365-day window, De Maere found that the share of days with positive skew versus the Nasdaq has fallen to its lowest level since the late-2022 bear-market bottom.
Weak speculative appetite, slowing ETF inflows, flat stablecoin issuance and still-shallow liquidity across exchanges have all contributed to the imbalance.
A Pattern Seen Near Bottoms
Despite the discouraging backdrop, the signal may ultimately be constructive.
“Historically, this kind of negative asymmetry doesn’t appear near tops but rather shows up near bottoms,” De Maere said. “When BTC falls harder on bad equity days than it rises on good ones, it usually signals exhaustion, not strength.”
His conclusion: the sustained negative skew points to investor fatigue — a condition that has often coincided with major turning points in bitcoin’s previous cycles.
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