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Bitcoin is still a great way to diversify portfolio even if it trades like a tech stock, analyst says

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BTC's rolling 90-day correlation with equity indices (NYDIG)

Bitcoin’s recent tendency to move in step with U.S. equities does not erase its value as a portfolio diversifier.

That’s according to financial services and infrastructure firm NYDIG. In a weekly market note, Greg Cipolaro, the company’s global head of research, said correlations between bitcoin and stock benchmarks such as the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and the software-heavy IGV ETF have risen in recent months.

The shift has led some market watchers to argue that the cryptocurrency now trades like a proxy for technology stocks. But Cipolaro disputes that view.

BTC's rolling 90-day correlation with equity indices (NYDIG)

Even with correlations near 0.5, equities explain only a small share of bitcoin’s movements, Cipolaro wrote. Statistically, that level means roughly one quarter of price changes are driven by stock market factors, leaving the remaining three quarters tied to forces unique to the crypto market.

Those forces include capital flows into bitcoin funds, shifts in derivatives positioning, network adoption trends and regulatory developments.

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Cipolaro said recent price alignment likely reflects the current macro backdrop rather than a structural merger between asset classes. Both bitcoin and growth stocks respond to liquidity conditions and investor appetite for risk.

“That differentiation supports bitcoin’s role as a portfolio diversifier,” Cipolaro wrote. “While cross-asset correlations with equities are currently elevated, they remain far from determinative of bitcoin’s returns.”

Bitcoin’s evolving role

NYDIG’s note also touched on recent comments from prominent investors. Chamath Palihapitiya and Ray Dalio have sparked debate over whether early advocates have turned on the asset. Cipolaro argued instead that the debate has shifted, from whether bitcoin could survive to whether it could serve as a reserve asset for central banks.

Palihapitiya, an early supporter who back in 2013 called bitcoin “Gold 2.0,” recently questioned whether the asset fits the needs of sovereign balance sheets.

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Dalio has raised similar concerns for years, pointing to volatility, regulatory risk and long-term technological threats such as advances in quantum computing.

Cipolaro said these critiques reflect changing expectations as bitcoin moves from a retail-driven asset to one held by institutions. Even so, he argued that bitcoin’s long-term growth does not depend on central bank adoption.

Instead, the network has expanded from individual users to family offices, asset managers, and exchange-traded funds, a path that differs from many past financial innovations, which began with institutional capital.

Central bank ownership may ultimately validate the asset class further, but it is not a prerequisite for continued growth,” Cipolaro wrote. “

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“​Bitcoin’s value comes from its globally distributed network, political neutrality, and technical and economic properties that enable censorship-resistant value transfer, digital scarcity, and independent operation free from any single government, institution, or monetary authority,” the note concluded.

Read more: Crypto bulls slam Ray Dalio’s ‘tired narratives’ in defense of bitcoin’s future

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Crypto World

BitGo Partners with StableX to Support $100M Crypto Treasury Plan

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Western Union, NYSE

BitGo will provide custody and trading services for StableX Technologies’ digital asset treasury as it plans to acquire up to $100 million in crypto tokens tied to the stablecoin sector.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, BitGo Bank & Trust, N.A. will serve as the custodian for StableX’s digital asset holdings, while BitGo’s trading platforms will help execute the company’s planned acquisitions through its over-the-counter liquidity desk.

StableX (SBLX) is a publicly traded company focused on stablecoin infrastructure and related technologies. Shares of the Nasdaq-listed company gained as much as 9% in afternoon trading following the news, before closing up 1.6%.

Chen Fang, chief revenue officer at BitGo, told Cointelgraph that the “partnership underscores BitGo’s expanding role as the go-to infrastructure provider for a new wave of publicly traded companies building digital asset treasury strategies.” He added:

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“The StableX deal is notable because it goes beyond Bitcoin-centric treasury strategies. It signals demand for institutional custody infrastructure around stablecoin ecosystem tokens.”

StableX has already begun building its digital asset treasury, previously announcing purchases of tokens including FLUID and Chainlink’s LINK (LINK) in October.

BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure company founded in 2013, provides custody, trading and other services for institutional crypto clients. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in January, pricing its shares at $18 in its initial public offering.

The stock rose about 25% on its first day of trading before reversing course and later falling below its IPO price. The NYSE-traded shares closed up more than 11%.

Western Union, NYSE
Source: Yahoo Finance

Related: Societe Generale-FORGE launches EURCV stablecoin on Stellar

Investment products target stablecoin infrastructure

Interest in the stablecoin sector has grown as the total stablecoin market capitalization has climbed to more than $314 billion, according to the latest DefiLlama data. Though dedicated investment products remain limited, some investors are beginning to focus on the infrastructure that supports these tokens.

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In September, Bitwise filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a Stablecoin & Tokenization ETF designed to track companies and digital assets tied to the stablecoin and tokenization sectors.

The proposed exchange-traded fund would follow an index composed of companies involved in stablecoin issuance, infrastructure, payments and exchanges, alongside crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Western Union, NYSE
Stablecoin market cap. Source: DefiLlama

In January, MarketVector Indexes also launched benchmarks focused on stablecoin and real-world asset tokenization infrastructure, which underpin two exchange-traded funds from Amplify ETFs: the Amplify Tokenization Technology ETF (TKNQ) and the Amplify Stablecoin Technology ETF (STBQ).

Several stablecoin issuers are also publicly traded companies. Circle issues the USDC stablecoin, the second-largest dollar-pegged token in circulation, while PayPal launched its PayPal USD stablecoin (PYUSD) in 2023 to support blockchain-based payments and settlement.

Western Union, one of the world’s largest remittance providers, recently announced its planned stablecoin settlement system will run on Solana and include a US Dollar Payment Token (USDPT), which the company expects to launch in the first half of 2026.

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