Macro May Dictate the Moment—But Tokenization Is Defining the Decade| Bitwise Weekly Crypto Market Compass | Bitwise

André Dragosch, PhD Director, Head of Research — Europe

Ayush Tripathi Research Analyst

André Dragosch, PhD Director, Head of Research — Europe

Ayush Tripathi Research Analyst

Übersicht

Chart of the Week
Performance
Sentiment
Fund Flows
On-Chain
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Bottom Line
Appendix

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Last week, Bitcoin consolidated around $82K after retreating from $87K, as hotter-than-expected PCE inflation and soft consumer spending reignited macro-driven volatility across risk assets. Despite short-term pressure, structural themes like tokenization and stablecoins continue to build momentum beneath the surface.
Our in-house Cryptoasset Sentiment Index has flipped to signal a bearish outlook.
Bitcoin’s correlation with the Nasdaq Composite saw a meaningful uptick last week, reflecting its current sensitivity to macro conditions. These high-correlation regimes often mark moments when Bitcoin acts as a macro sentiment barometer—what Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan calls “the canary in the macro coal mine” (Chart-of-the-Week).

Chart of the Week

Performance

The past week saw Bitcoin trading down from $87K, consolidating at around $82K, with price action being affected by a flurry of macroeconomic developments that weighed on broader risk assets. February's core PCE inflation came in hot at 2.8%, while real consumer spending rose just 0.1%, underscoring a troubling divergence: persistent price pressures, but fading consumer momentum. Markets reacted quickly. Fed Funds futures markets are now pricing in a 16.7% probability of a rate cut at the May 7, 2025 FOMC meeting, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted their worst daily losses in weeks-closing out Q1 on a more fragile footing.

Against this backdrop of policy ambiguity and market fragility, Bitcoin's correlation with the Nasdaq Composite had experienced an uptick, highlighting its short-term sensitivity to macro-driven risk sentiment (Chart-of-the-week) .

This tightening of correlation reduces Bitcoin's role as a diversifier in multi-asset portfolios. Historically, however, these high-correlation regimes tend to be transitory and often reverse once macro conditions stabilize or once narrative clarity returns.

What makes the current regime notable is the underlying strength in Bitcoin's on-chain metrics. Accumulation activity is at its highest level since March 2024, with most wallet cohorts net buyers-aside from the ETF-dominated 100–1,000 BTC range. Meanwhile, exchange-held BTC has dropped to 2.63 million, a six-year low not seen since November 2018. Fewer coins on exchanges typically signal reduced near-term sell pressure and rising conviction among long-term holders.

In theory, these fundamentals should reduce Bitcoin's sensitivity to macro shocks. But in practice, macro forces continue to dominate short-term price action. Still, these periods of elevated correlation can serve as regime indicators: when correlations rise, Bitcoin behaves more like a high-beta tech stock; when they fall, it reclaims its role as a digitally scarce, structurally uncorrelated asset.

As Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan puts it, “Bitcoin may be the canary in the macro coal mine.”-a leading signal for inflections in broader market conditions, especially those tied to liquidity and sentiment extremes. While near-term volatility is driven by the macro cycle, the long-term trajectory remains supported by structural trends such as declining supply and rising institutional participation.

While Bitcoin's short-term dynamics remain tied to macro, a structural theme is building momentum under the surface: tokenization and stablecoins are fast becoming one of crypto's strongest use case.

At the Digital Asset Summit (DAS), Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz reiterated that the firm's core 2025 focus is stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). He described stablecoins as the “first real-world asset that's been tokenized”, and suggested tokenization will follow a classic trajectory: “first slowly, then all at once.”

His view was echoed by institutions across the stack. The NYSE, via Intercontinental Exchange, announced plans to explore Circle's USDC and tokenized funds like Hashnote's USYC for integration into its clearing and data services. Fidelity is reportedly preparing its own stablecoin launch.

Meanwhile, BlackRock's tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, passed $1 billion AUM and debuted a new share class on Solana. Ondo Finance's OUSG is also gaining traction along similar lines, targeting institutional allocators seeking round-the-clock liquidity and real-time settlement. The industry is increasingly coalescing around the view that tokenization and stablecoins are complementary, not competing. As Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden noted at DAS, “Tokenization cannot exist without stablecoins. If you've tokenized the asset side but not the money side, it doesn't work.”

This convergence-yield + instant transferability-is redefining capital efficiency. The vision? A world where payment and yield are no longer separate categories. Warden imagined a future where a tokenized money market fund could be used to buy coffee-and the merchant instantly starts earning the associated yield.

The implications of tokenization extend beyond efficiency-it's changing capital formation itself. Tokenized assets are now liquid, transparent, and interoperable. But this shift also elevates the importance of neutral settlement assets.

Stablecoins may power payments, but Bitcoin remains the only truly decentralized, non-sovereign reserve asset-immune to inflation, free from central issuer risk, and native to the blockchain ecosystem.

As the tokenized economy grows, demand will rise for collateral that doesn't rely on trust in a central counterparty. Bitcoin's role in this new architecture is not transactional-it's strategic. It's the anchor in a world of programmable money and tokenized assets, serving the same role that sovereign gold once did in Bretton Woods-but updated for the digital era.

In short, the arrival of tokenization doesn't sideline Bitcoin. It raises the floor for Bitcoin's relevance.

In general, among the top 10 crypto assets Dogecoin, Toncoin and Bitcoin were the relative outperformers.

Overall, altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin decreased from last week, with 20% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum also underperformed Bitcoin last week.

Sentiment

Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” has flipped to signal a bearish sentiment.

At the moment, 0 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.

Crypto Hedge Fund Beta have remained stagnant from last week and most noticeable we observed a significant drop in the Altseason index, falling from 50 to 25 last week.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently signals a “Fear” level of sentiment as of this morning, falling slightly from last week.

Performance dispersion among cryptoassets had followed suit and remains at very low levels, signalling that altcoins have continued to be highly correlated with the performance of Bitcoin lately.

Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has decreased last week, with around 20% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum also managed to underperform Bitcoin last week.

In general, increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin underperformance signals a bearish risk appetite at the moment.

Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) has fallen dramatically, moving from 0.44 to 0.10. The drop is in line with the general risk-off sentiment of investors, analysed in our performance section of this report.

Fund Flows

Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have decelerated last week, while still positive, signalling an improving sentiment among institutions.

Global crypto ETPs saw around +225.8 mn USD in weekly net inflows across all types of cryptoassets, after +689.6 mn USD in net inflows the previous week.

GlobalBitcoinETPs have experienced net inflows totalling +189.2 mn USD last week, of which +184.7 mn USD in net inflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US experienced minor net outflows, totalling -9.2 mn USD last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) also experienced minor net outflows equivalent to -4.1 mn USD, while the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) managed to attract capital of around +1.1 mn USD.

There were no observed outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) last week. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), however, experienced net inflows of around +172.0 mn USD last week.

Meanwhile, flows into globalEthereumETPs flipped positive last week, with around +22.9 mn USD in net inflows last week

US Ethereum spot ETFs, however, recorded net outflows of around -8.6 mn USD on aggregate. Nonetheless, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) experienced slight net inflows around +4.7 mn USD last week.

The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US had sticky AuM (+/- 0 mn USD) last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) saw minor net outflows of -0.7 mn USD while the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) saw minor net outflows of -0.3 mn USD

Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum have continued its positive trend last week, with around +15.4 mn USD in global net inflows.

However, thematic & basket crypto ETPs experienced minor net outflows of around -1.8 mn USD on aggregate last week. The Bitwise MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) had sticky AuM (+/- 0 mn USD).

Global crypto hedge funds have started to decrease their market exposure to Bitcoin. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds' performance to Bitcoin decreased around 0.83 per yesterday's close, down from 0.90 the week before.

On-Chain Data

In general, Bitcoin's on-chain developments have deteriorated slightly from last week.

Selling pressure has continued from last week, with around -0.87 bn USD in net selling volumes on BTC spot exchanges.

In terms of Spot Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD), which measures the difference between buying and selling volume, the metric has been negative most of last week, indicating dominance of sell-side pressure. However, it is worth noting that supply dynamics on exchanges tend to provide a slightly clearer explanation of price action.

Whales have removed bitcoins from exchanges on a net basis, indicating a decrease in whale selling pressure. More specifically, BTC whales removed a further -70,835 BTC off exchanges last week, a slight deceleration from the -91,067 BTC from the week prior. Network entities that possess at least 1,000 Bitcoin are referred to as whales. Meanwhile, ETH exchange balances also continue to drift lower and make fresh multi-year lows.

At the time of writing, only 2.63 million BTC remain on exchanges (13.2% of circulating supply), according to data provided by Glassnode, the lowest level since November 2018.

That being said, a measure of “apparent demand” for bitcoin over the past 30 days has continued its negative trend since February 2025 which is signalling that demand for bitcoins has been decelerating lately.

Futures, Options & Perpetuals

Last week, BTC futures open interest decreased by around +20k BTC while perpetual open interest decreased by around +4.3k BTC.

BTC perpetual funding rates started last week slightly negative, but remained positive from Wednesday, signalling a slightly bullish sentiment among perpetual futures traders.

In general, when the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions, which is indicative of bullish (bearish) sentiment.

The BTC 3-months annualised basis dropped from around 5.2% p.a last week to around 4.7% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges. BTC option open interest also decreased by around -120k BTC. The put-call open interest ratio had experienced an increase from 0.49 to 0.58.

The 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC continued to rise last week, indicating a modest increase in demand for put options and a less bullish market sentiment.

BTC option implied volatilities flipped last week, with 1-month realized volatility increasing by 3.81%.

At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 50.43% p.a.

Bottom Line

Last week, Bitcoin consolidated around $82K after retreating from $87K, as hotter-than-expected PCE inflation and soft consumer spending reignited macro-driven volatility across risk assets. Despite short-term pressure, structural themes like tokenization and stablecoins continue to build momentum beneath the surface.
Our in-house Cryptoasset Sentiment Index has flipped to signal a bearish outlook.
Bitcoin’s correlation with the Nasdaq Composite saw a meaningful uptick last week, reflecting its current sensitivity to macro conditions. These high-correlation regimes often mark moments when Bitcoin acts as a macro sentiment barometer—what Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan calls “the canary in the macro coal mine” (Chart-of-the-Week).

Appendix

Wichtige Hinweise

Die dargestellten Meinungen spiegeln eine Einschätzung des Marktumfelds zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt wider und stellen weder eine Prognose zukünftiger Ereignisse noch eine Garantie für zukünftige Ergebnisse dar. Sie unterliegen weiteren Diskussionen, Ergänzungen und Änderungen.

Die hierin enthaltenen Informationen dienen nicht der Erteilung von buchhalterischer, rechtlicher oder steuerlicher Beratung und stellen keine Anlageempfehlung dar. Auf sie sollte nicht vertraut werden.

Nichts in dieser Mitteilung ist als Empfehlung, Befürwortung oder Aufforderung zu einer Investitionstätigkeit auszulegen. Leser werden aufgefordert, gegebenenfalls unabhängige rechtliche, steuerliche oder finanzielle Beratung in Anspruch zu nehmen.

Für weitere Informationen zum Inhalt dieser Studie kontaktieren Sie bitte europe@bitwiseinvestments.com.

Über Bitwise

Bitwise ist einer der weltweit führenden spezialisierten Vermögensverwalter im Bereich Kryptoassets. Seit 2017 arbeitet Bitwise mit tausenden Finanzberatern, Family Offices und institutionellen Investoren weltweit zusammen, um den Zugang zu und das Verständnis für Kryptoassets zu ermöglichen. Bitwise verfügt über eine langjährige Erfahrung in der Verwaltung einer breiten Palette von Delta-One-, Index- und aktiven Anlagestrategien, darunter ETPs, ETFs, individuell verwaltete Mandate, Private Funds und Hedgefonds-Strategien, sowohl in den USA als auch in Europa.

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