Bitcoin’s Nasdaq Correlation Flips to +0.72 as Chip Stocks Drag BTC Off $64.6K

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading near $63,700, down from an intraday high of $64,660 hit earlier this week — its strongest level since June 22 — as a chip-stock selloff on Wall Street pulled equities lower and dragged BTC’s rolling correlation to the Nasdaq sharply into positive territory. At the time of writing, the S&P 500 was down 0.6% and the Nasdaq 100 was off 2.1%, with Micron Technology shares falling more than 9% on the session, per TradingView data cited by Cointelegraph.

The move matters for positioning as much as for price. Trader Daan Crypto Trades noted on X that BTC’s correlation to the Nasdaq “just flipped to +0.72 from -0.87 in the matter of days last week,” describing the shift as “the difference between trading like a complete hedge/inverse and trading like a high beta tech stock.” On the four-hour timeframe, the reading has settled back toward neutral, but the whiplash underscores how quickly BTC’s macro beta can reprice around a single sector’s earnings cycle.

ETF inflows hold up despite the equity drawdown

The pullback in BTC/USD came despite a second consecutive day of net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs, according to Farside Investors data referenced in the report. That combination — positive fund flows alongside a spike in equity-market correlation — suggests spot demand absorbed some of the selling pressure that would otherwise have come from a purely risk-off, high-beta reaction to the Nasdaq’s 2.1% drop.

Tuesday’s session also coincided with SpaceX’s addition to the Nasdaq 100, which The Kobeissi Letter called “the fastest inclusion into the Nasdaq 100 in the index’s history.” The timing places a fresh, high-profile equity entrant into the same index whose chip-sector weakness is currently setting the tone for cross-asset correlation with BTC.

Bollinger flags a ‘critical point’ for the W-pattern

On the technical side, John Bollinger, creator of the Bollinger Bands indicator, is tracking a “W”-shaped reversal pattern forming on BTC’s daily chart. “We are at a critical point,” he wrote on X Monday. “In a bear market bullish setups break and in a bull market bearish setups break. So if this W pattern is successful I would see it as a confirmation of a change in trend.”

Other chart-watchers were less convinced. Commentator Exitpump flagged a “rounding topping structure” on lower timeframes and expects further downside near-term. Trader Killa pointed to historical precedent, suggesting “the next correction on S&P should mark the true $BTC bottom according to history,” referencing prior cycles in 2015, 2018 and 2022 where equity-market corrections preceded BTC’s local lows.

What the data implies for positioning

With BTC’s correlation to tech equities swinging violently within days, traders leaning on Bitcoin as a portfolio hedge face a moving target: the same asset that traded near-inverse to the Nasdaq last week is now moving in lockstep with it. The $63,000 level is emerging as the immediate battleground, with ETF inflow data offering a counterweight to equity-driven selling — but the divergence between Bollinger’s bullish reversal read and the topping-pattern calls from other technicians leaves the near-term structure unresolved.

Read more: Bitcoin Holds $63K on 1.78 Long/Short Book as Coffee Steals the Hard-Asset Bid