Bitcoin July 2025 Update

BTC hit an all-time high of $122.8K in July 2025, closing the month at $116K, up 8.1% MoM. The continued strength reflected improving investor sentiment, as markets grew more confident in the global economy’s ability to weather recent shocks. Risk assets broadly benefited, with BTC advancing alongside equities (S&P 500 hit an all-time high) despite geopolitical tensions. The momentum from BTC’s mid-April breakout has persisted for three consecutive months, supported by strong inflows and growing institutional participation, capping off another robust month for BTC. However, both stock and crypto markets experienced a broad pullback at month end after more US tariff rates were revealed. 

There were further market jitters as US President Trump stated that he ordered two nuclear submarines to "be positioned in the appropriate regions" in response to "highly provocative" comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Furthermore, the release of weaker-than-expected labor data spurred revisions in forecasts (discussed later). Below we show the “Doomsday Clock”, a design intended to warn the public about potential nuclear conflict. 

In July 2025, BTC’s correlation with major US market indexes showed notable fluctuation, reflecting a shifting relationship with traditional financial assets. Based on the most recent 10-day rolling correlation data, BTC maintained a generally positive correlation with the S&P 500 (SPY) at the beginning of the month while simultaneously declining with the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ). End-July saw particularly strong correlations, with BTC and QQQ reaching a peak correlation of 0.64 while BTC and SPY peaked at 0.43 on the same date. Conversely, BTC's relationship with gold deteriorated across the latter half of July, transitioning from a weak negative correlation to a strongly inverse one, reaching -0.5. These patterns indicate that while BTC temporarily behaved in tandem with equity markets, it increasingly decoupled toward month-end, showing signs of independent or risk-off behavior as correlations with both stocks and gold diverged at different periods.

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