Bitcoiners take a victory lap as crypto holds up well during market turmoil

Bitcoiners are taking a victory lap after it held up relatively well this week, as the broader market took it for a wild roller coaster ride. The flagship cryptocurrency followed equities higher on Friday to end the week with a 5% daily gain. That move put it up 5.4% for the five days ended Friday, according to Coin Metrics. That was in line with the 5.7% gain in the S & P 500 . Gold outperformed bitcoin, and the U.S. dollar index underperformed it. (For the full week, which Coin Metrics measures from the 4:00 p.m. ET stock market close one Friday to the next due to bitcoin's 24/7 trading, the price was slightly lower.) Investors were quick to point out bitcoin's resilience throughout the week, relative to big swings in the major stock indexes that traders are more accustomed to seeing in crypto. At its lowest point, bitcoin fell just below $75,000, after trading above $80,000 for most of the year. That may offer a glimmer of hope for long-term investors, but traders with a shorter time horizon are still holding their breath for tariff-related uncertainty to clear. "What I'm looking for now is confirmation of some kind of Fed action related to bonds — or a resolution with China," said Garrison Yang, co-founder of Mirai Labs. "Short of that, I'm not interested in positioning unless we hit extremes. This feels like peak uncertainty." "I don't buy the idea that bitcoin has evolved into a global hedge," he added. "We're seeing some BTC-as-digital-gold narrative activity right now, but if equities retest lows, I expect BTC to dump with everything else." BTC.CM YTD mountain Bitcoin, YTD The volatility began last week after President Donald Trump announced his sweeping trade plan, stoking a violent sell-off that was soon reversed after he gave a 90-day reprieve for "reciprocal" tariffs on all countries but China. Thomas Perfumo, economist at the crypto exchange Kraken, said two key catalysts for bitcoin developments will be a trade agreement between the U.S. and China and Federal Reserve interest rate decisions. From a technical perspective, Wolfe Research noted that bitcoin's current momentum implies further downside which could lead to a retest of support at the $70,000 level, saying "while the coni has stayed more resilient than the rest, there's no doubt the path of least resistance is currently to the downside." Additionally, of nine bull indicators tracked by the crypto data provider CryptoQuant, only one is active: that bitcoin remains above its 365-day moving average of $76,100. This number supported bitcoin's price in August 2024, July 2021 and December 2021. A sustained break below that level, however, would indicate the start of a bear market, according to CryptoQuant. Subdued volatility Unlike traditional assets, bitcoin's pops and drops were relatively subdued this week, which some investors took as a mark of its maturity. At its low point of the week, it was down about 30% from its January peak of $109,350.72. That's comparable with tech stocks like Nvidia, which at one point was down 43% from its peak, and Apple, which at one point fell almost 35% from its high. For further comparison, bitcoin's peak-to-trough drawdown in the 2021 downturn was 49.86%. Bitcoin selling this week came mostly from short-term traders likely wanting to take advantage of the volatility, according to CryptoQuant. Data shows big transfers of bitcoin from short-term holders – those who have held for up to six months – after the sell-off on Monday and then again after the 90-day pause announcement. Whales, or holders with between 100 and 10,000 bitcoin in their balance, were the most active. They moved 71,000 within the hour after the pause announcement. Bitcoin miners were big sellers earlier in the week, selling about 15,700 bitcoins on Monday in what was the largest daily outflow for the mining cohort this year. That selling was supported by institutional demand via bitcoin ETFs and corporate treasuries like that of Strategy , formerly MicroStrategy. "You have … this shift in view that bitcoin is potentially the next store-of-value asset for the world," Perfumo said. "You see it in the demand from ... institutional investors … with all the net inflows from the bitcoin ETFs." "What we're seeing is a pretty strong bid with these drawdown events on bitcoin," he added. "The biggest buyers … would be players like MicroStrategy and the collective bitcoin ETF issuers." —CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting. Get Your Ticket to Pro LIVE Join us at the New York Stock Exchange! Uncertain markets? Gain an edge with CNBC Pro LIVE , an exclusive, inaugural event at the historic New York Stock Exchange. 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