By Jonatan Randin, Senior Market Analyst at PrimeXBT
Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are rallying and breaking into fresh all-time highs. Global liquidity is approaching $200 trillion, also a fresh nominal high. By any reasonable read, we’re in a risk-on regime.
Bitcoin sits around $78,000, roughly 38% below its 6 October 2025 all-time high of $126,198. It just spent six months in what could be considered a bear market.
That gap deserves an explanation. Two things appear to be happening at once. Bitcoin is potentially missing the structural story that’s powering equities to new highs, and the global liquidity story that’s supposed to be Bitcoin’s bid is more complicated than it looks.
The AI productivity story Bitcoin can’t share
The single biggest force behind the equity rally could be AI productivity. With 28% of the S&P 500 reported, Q1 blended revenue growth is tracking at 10.3% year-on-year, the highest since Q3 2022 and roughly double the long-run mean of 5%. Blended earnings growth has accelerated to 15.1% year-on-year. Beat rates are running at 81% on revenue and 84% on earnings, both well above their 5-year averages.
Q1 sales and earnings growth expectations have accelerated to fresh cycle highs. Full-year 2026 earnings growth is now projected at 18.6%, well above the long-run average. US revenue per employee is reportedly growing 10.9% year-on-year, against just 4.3% for the rest of the world. The 1990s IT diffusion cycle took the US from a 1.5% to 2% trend productivity economy to a 3% trend productivity economy. The current cycle, which started in Q2 2022, could already be outpacing the 1990s on indexed terms.
AI may have given equities a fundamental tailwind that’s largely independent of liquidity conditions or geopolitical shocks. Bitcoin doesn’t have that. There’s no productivity narrative attached to BTC. There are no earnings to beat. Bitcoin’s bid is purely macro: liquidity, dollar, real yields, risk appetite, flows. When equities can lean on AI alone, Bitcoin needs the entire macro complex to align before it can move.
The liquidity story that doesn’t quite work
The second half is more interesting. Bitcoin is widely treated as the cleanest proxy for global liquidity. Its directional correlation with global liquidity sits near 83% on a rolling 12-month basis, the highest of any major asset class. Its quarterly liquidity sensitivity is roughly 7.6%, meaning that for every 1% change in global liquidity, Bitcoin has historically moved 7.6% over the following quarter. So if global liquidity is rising, Bitcoin should arguably be rising too. It hasn’t been.
The simplest answer could be that liquidity is availability, not just quantity. Research from CrossBorder Capital suggests global liquidity follows a roughly 65-month cycle of expansion and contraction. According to that framework, the most recent cycle peaked around Q3 2025 and could now be in its declining phase. The cycle peak in liquidity growth came roughly 12 weeks before Bitcoin’s October all-time high. The lead-lag has been remarkably consistent.
Several factors could potentially be working against effective liquidity right now. The debt refinancing wall is one: old low-rate debt is being rolled into new high-rate debt across governments and corporations, potentially absorbing liquidity into interest payments rather than productive investment. The US alone faces $3 to $4 trillion in annual refinancing needs through 2029. The oil and inflation shock is another: the Iran conflict and the resulting spike in crude prices have pushed inflation expectations higher, potentially tying central banks’ hands. The Fed remains on hold at 3.50% to 3.75%, with the dot plot projecting just one cut in 2026. Add in the shift from monetary to fiscal dominance, and the geopolitical shocks of the past two months, and you have a liquidity environment that could look supportive on the surface and isn’t, underneath.
Bitcoin’s post-ETP market structure has introduced a new variable too. Institutional ETP flows now act as a significant transmission channel between macro conditions and Bitcoin’s price. When those flows reverse, as they did in late 2025 with $4.57 billion of outflows in November and December, Bitcoin can trade like a macro-sensitive institutional product with large flow shocks rather than purely tracking the broader liquidity tide.
Weekly chart: oversold, but the deeper signal hasn’t aligned
The weekly RSI (blue) has entered oversold territory while the MVRV Z-Score (yellow) remains above the historical buy zone, a divergence not seen at any of the four previous cycle lows (circled).
The weekly chart is sending mixed signals. Bitcoin’s weekly RSI dropped into oversold territory earlier in April for the first time since 6 June 2022. Many traders look at that reading and call it bullish. The problem is that oversold doesn’t necessarily guarantee a reversal. The last time Bitcoin’s weekly RSI entered oversold territory in June 2022, the price went on to fall a further 41.67% before finding its ultimate cycle low in November of that year. Momentum can stay stretched for extended periods.
The deeper signal is the MVRV Z-Score, which sits around 0.5, approaching the green undervaluation zone but not yet inside it. Across the 2015, 2018, and 2022 cycle lows, two things tended to happen at the same time: weekly RSI entered oversold territory and the MVRV Z-Score dropped into the green buy zone below 0.10. That confluence is what made those bottoms significant.
Right now, for the first time in Bitcoin’s history at a major low, we have one signal but not the other. RSI has flagged exhaustion. MVRV hasn’t confirmed it. That divergence could mean one of three things: the correlation could be breaking down as Bitcoin matures with ETPs, institutional flows, and corporate treasury buyers changing the dynamics; there could be further downside ahead with MVRV potentially needing to catch down to what RSI is already signalling; or there could simply be a lag between the two and they may yet align in the weeks ahead.
What it means
Bitcoin’s underperformance against equities through the first quarter of 2026 wasn’t necessarily a failure of the liquidity thesis. It could be an illustration of its more careful version. Equities have a productivity tailwind that Bitcoin doesn’t. Liquidity itself is improving on the headline number but potentially contracting in its effective form, while volatility had to compress and positioning had to clear before flow could turn.
The structural setup for the next major Bitcoin move could be starting to come into focus. A $3 to $4 trillion annual US debt refinancing wall, a Fed that has signalled willingness to cut, and a business cycle approaching the point where intervention historically becomes necessary. The catalyst for the next sustained move higher could likely be a shift toward monetary easing, and that pivot has historically provided the fuel for Bitcoin’s most explosive rallies.
For long-term investors, the convergence of a low MVRV Z-Score, oversold momentum, and a maturing business cycle is the kind of setup that has historically preceded Bitcoin’s strongest multi-year returns. For shorter-term traders, the absence of a clean liquidity tailwind and the RSI/MVRV divergence could suggest the higher-conviction signal hasn’t yet arrived.
Bitcoin missed the AI rally because it arguably couldn’t have caught it. Whether it catches the next liquidity rally depends on whether the divergence between the two indicators resolves in its favour. The week ahead, with FOMC, Q1 GDP, March PCE, and a wave of mega-cap earnings, will tell us a lot more than the four months that came before it.
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About PrimeXBT
PrimeXBT is a global multi-asset broker and crypto asset service provider trusted by traders in more than 150 countries. The platform bridges traditional and digital markets within one integrated environment, redefining versatility and innovation in online trading. Clients can access Forex, CFDs on indices, commodities, shares, crypto, and Crypto Futures, as well as buy, store and exchange cryptocurrencies directly. This unified experience extends across both the native PXTrader 2.0 platform and MetaTrader 5, supported by advanced risk-management tools and a wide range of funding options in crypto, fiat and local payment methods. Since 2018, PrimeXBT has focused on empowering traders through broad multi-asset access, fair and transparent conditions, professional-grade technology and dedicated human support. By combining expertise, trust and a client-first approach, PrimeXBT sets a benchmark of excellence in the financial industry and provides traders with the tools they need to trade, grow and succeed with confidence.
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