Bitcoin Ends Q1 Closely Following S&P 500

Bitcoin closed the quarter down 2%, tightening the correlation with the S&P to nearly 0.9 (1 is perfect correlation, -1 is perfectly inverted).

While bitcoin touched $48,000 earlier in the week, it has since dropped below $45,000 to close out the week.

The correlation between the index and bitcoin appears to be cyclical; bitcoin’s losses will outpace the stock market’s given the 24/7 nature of the asset.

Likewise, its fast rebound will also outpace the S&P.

Traders are concerned about the prolonged nature of the Russia-Ukraine war, and threats from the Kremlin to cut off Europe’s supply of natural gas unless the contracts are denominated in Rubles.

As CoinDesk previously reported, although bitcoin had one of its worst-ever starts to a year, it ended up gaining around 9% throughout March occasionally outperforming US stocks.

However, many layer-1 tokens like Solana, Terra, AVAX and Cardano were able to outperform bitcoin with double-digit gains on mainstream curiosity about the launch of Ethereum 2.0 according to analysts who spoke with CoinDesk.