8 min read - The stock market is trading near record highs on the back of the AI boom, while Bitcoin (BTC) has slipped below $70,000.
- Bitcoin now sits more than 40% below the record it set last October, even as the Nasdaq pushes to fresh highs.
- The AI build-out may be drawing capital, and even physical mining infrastructure, away from crypto rather than lifting it.
- Global liquidity, which Bitcoin tends to track closely, appears to have rolled over, a backdrop that could weigh on crypto more than on cash-generative tech.
The stock market keeps setting records. The Nasdaq is trading near all-time highs, carried by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom that has pulled capital into chipmakers and the companies building out AI infrastructure. Bitcoin has not joined in. It has slipped below $70,000 and sits well below the record it reached last October, even as equities climb.
For crypto traders, that gap is the part worth paying attention to. The usual assumption is that crypto and tech move together as risk assets. Right now they are pulling apart, and the reasons say a lot about where money is flowing. We recently looked at why Bitcoin has been lagging while the stock market holds near record highs, and the picture has only sharpened since.
Why the stock market keeps climbing
The rally is narrow and AI-led. A handful of large technology names, the chipmakers and the hyperscalers building data centres, are doing most of the heavy lifting. Combined capital spending across the largest AI players is on course to climb sharply again in 2026, and the market has rewarded it because these are cash-generative businesses funding the build-out from strong earnings.
That is the key difference. The bid into stocks is, at its core, an earnings story, and it has helped equities look through the oil-driven inflation and geopolitical pressure that have unsettled other markets. Bitcoin, which produces no earnings, has no equivalent cushion.
The AI boom may be competing with crypto, not feeding it
The clearest evidence sits in the mining sector. Faced with squeezed margins after the 2024 halving, a growing number of Bitcoin miners have been redirecting energy capacity, sites and capital toward AI and high-performance computing. More than $70 billion in AI and computing contracts have been signed across the listed miners, with names such as TeraWulf, IREN, Core Scientific and Galaxy Digital leasing large blocks of power to AI tenants on long-term deals.
To fund that switch, public miners sold a record amount of Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding even the quarter of the Terra collapse in 2022. Network hashrate fell over the first quarter for the first time since 2020. The market response is telling: several of the miners that pivoted toward AI have seen their shares rise this year, while Bitcoin itself has fallen. Capital that once reinforced the crypto ecosystem is now being rewarded for leaving it.
Liquidity may be the deeper driver
Beneath the headlines, the bigger force could be liquidity. Bitcoin has long been one of the most sensitive assets to the global liquidity cycle, tending to move ahead of it. According to Michael Howell of CrossBorder Capital, that cycle appears to have peaked in 2025 and entered a downswing, a backdrop in which Bitcoin tends to feel the pressure first. Benjamin Cowen of Into the Cryptoverse makes a related point through his business-cycle work, arguing crypto has moved into a later, more defensive phase where rallies tend to be tactical rather than the start of a fresh trend.
Both are views rather than certainties, but they line up with what the tape is showing: restrictive policy, elevated yields and a firm dollar weigh more heavily on a long-duration asset like Bitcoin than on AI leaders insulated by their earnings.
What’s weighing on sentiment
The softer backdrop shows up across the data. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw their largest monthly outflow of the year in May. On-chain spot demand has been weak. Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, made its first sale since 2022, and the break below $70,000 triggered the heaviest crypto long liquidations of 2026. None of it points to a fresh wave of buyers stepping in.
The Nasdaq on the charts
With that backdrop in mind, here is where the AI-driven side of the market sits technically.
Nasdaq, daily: a rally of roughly 35% from the late-March low, with 29,500 marked as the nearest support below price.
The Nasdaq has run hard off its late-March low. From that low to the current level near 30,650, the index is up by roughly 35%, a steep, momentum-driven advance that ranks among its strongest stretches in recent years. Price has continued to print higher highs and sits above both the 20 and 50 EMAs, which have tracked the move higher.
The cleanest level below price sits around 29,500, the nearest visible support if the index pulls back. Below that, the rising 20 and 50 EMAs could act as the next references, having underpinned the trend through the advance.
Bitcoin on the charts
The crypto side looks very different.
Bitcoin, daily: price has broken below 70,000 and slipped back into its prior range, with the daily RSI deeply oversold.
Bitcoin broke below the 70,000 support level on 2 June, triggering a liquidation cascade that was the largest of the year so far, and has slipped back inside its previous range. Price is now trading around the mid-67,000s, below both the 20 and 50 EMAs that sit overhead near the mid-70,000s.
The daily RSI is deeply oversold, down near the low-20s, a reading not seen since the February sell-off when Bitcoin first reached the 60,000 area. To the upside, the 70,000 level that was support has now flipped to resistance. To the downside, the 60,000 support could come back into play if the weakness continues.
The divergence, side by side
Putting the two together shows the gap clearly.
Nasdaq (white) and Bitcoin (orange) since February: the two tracked together into mid-May before their short-term correlation broke down.
Overlaying the Nasdaq (white) against Bitcoin (orange) shows how the relationship has shifted. From the February low, where Bitcoin established its base around the 60,000 area, the two moved broadly in step for several months, rising and falling together as risk assets often do.
That changed around 13 May. From that point the short-term correlation broke down: the Nasdaq has continued higher into fresh record territory near 30,650, while Bitcoin has rolled over and slipped back toward the mid-67,000s. The two lines that had been tracking each other since February have visibly pulled apart, which is the divergence at the heart of this piece.
What to watch
- Whether the Nasdaq can hold its record-high structure or shows signs of the AI bid fading.
- Whether Bitcoin can reclaim $70,000 or continues to test lower support toward 60,000.
- Any shift in global liquidity, a Fed move, or a turn in ETF flows that could mark a change in the crypto backdrop.
- Signs that capital is rotating back toward crypto rather than away from it.
Trading involves risk.
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