Cryptoverse: Bitcoin wants to break its bond with stocks

livemint.com:

After months of tears and tantrums, bitcoin wants to split up with stock markets.

The cryptocurrency, which has been closely correlated with tech stocks for much of its torrid 2022, is staging one of its strongest efforts yet to break away.

Its 30-day correlation with the Nasdaq slid to 0.26 last week, its level lowest since early January, where a measure of 1 indicates the two assets are moving in lock step.

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The correlation, which shows the degree to which the two move in sync with each other over a 30-day period, has hovered above 0.75 for much of the year and at times has approached perfect unison - at 0.96 and 0.93 in May and September.

For some crypto backers, any bitcoin break-up from Big Tech is a sign of strength.

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"The latter's growth has been somewhat tapped out, and investors are looking for the next growth industry. Bitcoin and crypto is one of those 'next' growth industries," said Santiago Portela, CEO of FITCHIN, a Web3 gaming ecosystem.

The nascent uncoupling does indeed coincide with a period of comparative calm and consolidation for the teenage cryptocurrency a year after it began its epic nosedive from the heady heights of $69,000 hit in November last year.

Bitcoin is hovering near one-month highs around $20,500 and rose over 5% last week, outperforming the Nasdaq's 2% gain as dour quarterly results from Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon weighed.

The crypto winter has been cold and hard, though.

The total market cap for cryptocurrencies has shrunk by more than a third to $984 billion from nearly $3 trillion in November 2021, according to