Bitcoin firmed toward $66,000 this week as a US-Iran deal lifted equities and risk assets, but the rally hasn't closed a widening gap with global liquidity. At press time, BTC traded at $65,831, up 0.27% over the past day — still roughly 48% below its October peak. Meanwhile, global M2 money supply hit a record of nearly $135 trillion, and the S&P 500 is trading near its own all-time highs. The divergence between Bitcoin and the liquidity backdrop is now the most pronounced in Alphractal's dataset, the analytics firm said.
Most pronounced divergence on record
Alphractal described the current gap between Bitcoin and global M2 as the starkest it has ever measured. The observation comes as Bitcoin struggles to reclaim levels from last autumn despite a flood of central-bank liquidity. Past divergences in 2018 and 2022 were resolved over 6 to 18 months — either Bitcoin caught up or liquidity pulled back. Which direction plays out this time is the open question.
Volume and open interest slide
The price move this week hasn't been backed by conviction. Spot volume collapsed 40.4% to $5.8 billion. Futures open interest declined 3% to $30.6 billion, and long-side funding payments fell 22.3%. ETF trade volume dropped 38.1% to $11.1 billion. The numbers suggest traders are sitting on their hands — unwilling to chase the upside but not piling into shorts either.
Macro tailwinds, but Bitcoin waits
Analyst Martini Guy said the macro backdrop is improving while Bitcoin has not yet reflected it. The US-Iran deal that boosted risk assets this week is one example: Bitcoin moved, but not with the same force as equities. Glassnode described the recent move up from near $60,000 as base-building rather than a confirmed reversal — the kind of slow accumulation that can take weeks to resolve.
Lessons from 2018 and 2022
If past patterns hold, the wait could stretch. The 2018 and 2022 divergences took between six and eighteen months to close. The current one has been running for months already. Global M2 keeps rising, and the S&P 500 is riding that wave. Bitcoin has yet to join the party. The next few months will test whether the oldest crypto can follow liquidity as it has before — or if this time really is different.
