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Bitcoin Turns Positive Year-to-Date as It Veers Toward Digital Gold Narrative
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James Van Straten
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By James Van Straten|Edited by Sheldon Reback
Apr 28, 2025, 8:19 a.m.
- Bitcoin has a strong positive correlation of 0.70 with gold, distancing itself from tech stocks. It has a 0.53 correlation the with Nasdaq 100.
- The BTC price is approaching $95,000 after its best weekly performance since late 2024.
- Despite President Trump’s aggressive tariffs on China causing a slowdown in global cargo shipments, bitcoin continues to show resilience against broader economic instability.
Bitcoin (BTC) returned to positive territory for the year for the first time in almost two months, approaching $95,000 and erasing a drop of as much as 18%.
Its current performance, up less 1.5% since Dec. 31, places it between gold, which has gained 24% and the Nasdaq 100, which is down over 7%. As a result, the narrative positioning bitcoin as either a leveraged tech stock or digital gold is leaning slightly toward the digital gold narrative. But only just.
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Analyzing bitcoin’s correlation coefficients over a 30-day moving average, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization now shows a strong correlation of 0.70 with gold and a weaker 0.53 correlation with the Nasdaq 100. This suggests bitcoin is aligning more closely with gold’s behavior than with tech equities. Correlation values can run between 1, a strong positive correlation, and -1, a strong negative correlation.
Last week, the bitcoin price rose 10%, its strongest performance since the week ended Nov. 17 during price run following President Donald Trump’s election victory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs continue to feed economic uncertainty. U.S. levies on Chinese goods were raised to 145% earlier this month, leading to a significant drop in cargo shipment demand, according to Bloomberg. As noted in the report, major retailers like Walmart are warning that empty shelves and higher prices could return, reminiscent of the COVID era.
James Van Straten is a Senior Analyst at CoinDesk, specializing in Bitcoin and its interplay with the macroeconomic environment. Previously, James worked as a Research Analyst at Saidler & Co., a Swiss hedge fund, where he developed expertise in on-chain analytics. His work focuses on monitoring flows to analyze Bitcoin’s role within the broader financial system.
In addition to his professional endeavors, James serves as an advisor to Coinsilium, a UK publicly traded company, where he provides guidance on their Bitcoin treasury strategy. He also holds investments in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy (MSTR), and Semler Scientific (SMLR).
