Negative Skew in Bitcoin: What It Means for Bulls and Market Trends
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently experiencing a phenomenon known as negative skew, where it falls more on risk-off days and rises less on risk-on days relative to the Nasdaq-100 index. This asymmetric response has not been seen since the late-2022 bear market bottom. Despite maintaining a high correlation with Nasdaq-100 at around 0.8, BTC's price movements are uneven: it shows muted gains during equity rallies but sharper declines during sell-offs. For example, in a recent week, the Nasdaq dropped approximately 2% while BTC fell about twice as much; the next day, the Nasdaq recovered modestly but BTC did not mirror this rally.
Year-to-date through the last six weeks of 2025, Nasdaq-100 has gained about 20%, whereas BTC has increased only about 3%. Jasper De Maere, an analyst at Wintermute, remarks that this pattern indicates an asymmetry in BTC’s response rather than a breakdown in correlation. The performance skew, which measures BTC's outperformance during risk-on versus risk-off periods, currently shows negative skew, meaning BTC lags more during risk-off times relative to risk-on.
Several factors contribute to this negative skew. These include diminished mindshare and liquidity in the BTC market, evidenced by slowing ETF inflows, a plateau in stablecoin issuance, and market depth being below levels seen in early 2024. Historically, this kind of negative asymmetry tends to emerge near market bottoms, signaling exhaustion rather than strength when BTC experiences steep declines on bad equity days. The data implies that BTC investors may have been exhausted for some time, suggesting a potential near-term bottom for the cryptocurrency.
