Bitcoin is on track to close its strongest week since September 2025, up around 8.5% and trading above $71,000.
The move stands out compared to other large assets.
Over the past week, bitcoin has begun to deviate slightly from the broader market. Using BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a five-day proxy, IBIT is up about 3.5% and neared a one-month high on Friday.
In contrast, the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF (IGV), gold and US stocks all trended lower as the week progressed. This suggests that bitcoin is starting to lose its strong correlation with software and technology, at least in the short term.
The divergence comes as bitcoin began to diverge from its traditional counterparts. Since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, over two weeks ago, bitcoin has risen about 13%, outperforming both traditional risk assets and safe havens. Over the same period, IGV is up around 3%, while gold is down around 6%, and US stocks have also suffered losses.
On a monthly basis, the asset is up about 7% so far in March, which would mark its first positive month since September. That recovery follows five consecutive negative months, in which bitcoin fell as much as 50% from its peak in October.
The buyers of the largest digital asset appear to be the US as institutional demand from the region appears to be gradually returning. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have recorded approximately $1.3 billion in net inflows so far in March, putting them on track for their first month of net inflows since October.
However, the divergence does not mean that bitcoin is completely out of the woods just yet.
The market sentiment remains extremely cautious. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has stayed in “extreme fear” territory. At the same time, perpetual futures funding rates remain negative. Funding rates are periodic payments exchanged between traders in perpetual futures markets to keep contract prices in line with the spot market. When funding rates are negative, short sellers pay long positions, indicating that bearish positioning is dominant and traders are willing to pay to maintain short exposure.
While this may not mean that bitcoin is all but clear to take off, it does show that investors are no longer pricing it as a purely risky asset.
As CoinDesk analysis showed, the move could simply mean that bitcoin has potentially become a 24/7 leading indicator of how the overall market might act in response to a macro event. The Middle East conflict is the perfect example of this as the price moved ahead of all other asset classes when the war first started. And now everything else seems to follow its price action while bitcoin remains stable.
Read more: Bitcoin’s recent crash to $60,000 first alerted stocks – now they’re following suit
