Bitcoin Scores a Rare Win Over the S&P 500 With a 2.6% Rally

Bitcoin did something on Monday that has become genuinely uncommon in 2026 — it beat the stock market. The largest cryptocurrency rose 2.6% to over $64,000, registering its best daily performance in over a month. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 fell 0.52%, putting BTC and equities on opposite sides of the ledger for the first time in weeks. That kind of divergence used to be normal. Bitcoin spent most of its history as the higher-beta asset relative to stocks, meaning it typically moved more than equities in both directions. Monday’s session was a throwback to that dynamic — and blockchain analytics firm Glassnode made clear just how unusual it has become.

BTC Has Been Losing to Stocks for Months

“BTC outperformed the stock market today. This has become a less common occurrence lately,” Glassnode noted in a Telegram message. “In fact, BTC only outperformed the S&P 500 on around one third of trading days over the last three months.”

Underperforming two-thirds of the time means Bitcoin hasn’t been acting like a higher-beta play on risk. It’s been acting like a laggard. Our coverage of how Bitcoin’s 14-year outperformance streak against the S&P 500 finally broke earlier in 2026, and Monday’s rally — while encouraging for bulls — doesn’t reverse that broader trend.