This year, the market has played out a rather surreal script—the S&P 500 is up over 16%, while BTC has actually dropped by 3%. Looking back at the historical records, the last time the stock market rose while the crypto market fell was back in 2014. This kind of “decoupling” from other risk assets is rare, even during previous crypto bear markets.

What’s even more dramatic is that this downturn happened after Trump returned to the White House. At the time, the market was betting that he would loosen regulations and encourage institutional participation, but BTC’s performance didn’t follow the script at all. It seems that the gap between expectations and reality is more than just the distance of a single bull market.