Bitcoin is on track to close its strongest week since September 2025, rising around 8.5% and trading above $71,000.
The move stands out relative to other major assets.
Over the past week, bitcoin has started to pull away slightly from the broader market. Using BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a five-day indicator, IBIT rose about 3.5% and approached a one-month high on Friday.
In contrast, the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF (IGV), gold, and US stocks 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 more than two weeks ago, bitcoin has gained approximately 13%, outperforming both traditional risk assets and safe havens. During the same period, IGV rose by around 3%, while gold fell by around 6% and US stocks also posted losses.
On a monthly basis, the asset is up around 7% so far in March, which would mark its first positive month since September. That rally follows five consecutive negative months in which bitcoin fell as much as 50% from its October all-time high.
The buyers of the largest digital asset appear to be the United States, as institutional demand from the region appears to be gradually returning. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have seen roughly $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 yet.
Market sentiment remains extremely cautious. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has remained 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 aligned with the spot market. When funding rates are negative, short sellers call out 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 ready to take off, it does show that investors no longer value it as a purely risk asset.
As CoinDesk’s analysis showed, the move could simply mean that Bitcoin has potentially become a leading 24/7 indicator of how the broader market might trade in response to a macro event. The Middle East conflict is the perfect example of this, as the price moved before any other asset class when the war began. And now, it seems like everything else is following the price action, while Bitcoin remains stable.
Read more: Bitcoin’s recent drop to $60,000 warned stocks first; now they follow him
