BTC-USD
Bitcoin — the alternative asset / high-beta risk proxy
Official name: Bitcoin / US Dollar
Latest value
70764.6172
as of 2026-04-12
All-time percentile
89th
1-year change
-17.0%
Time series
Showing 913 of 1 826 data points
About this series
US dollar price of Bitcoin. Daily close from Yahoo Finance, series spans back to late-2014. Bitcoin has evolved in how it's perceived: from a fringe asset, to "digital gold," to a high-beta risk asset that mostly correlates with tech stocks.
Why it matters: Bitcoin is now a meaningful asset class by market cap, and for long-term investors it's a useful regime-change indicator. When BTC and equities move together, you're in a "risk-on everything" regime. When BTC decouples (either up or down), it signals something specific about crypto-native flows or liquidity conditions. Also useful for tracking broad speculative sentiment.
How to read it: Compare to ^GSPC — the Bitcoin/S&P correlation has been strongly positive since 2020, which makes BTC more of a "high-beta risk proxy" than a diversifier. When that correlation breaks down, either crypto-specific news is dominating (ETF approvals, halvings, regulations) or something unusual is happening in liquidity conditions.
Caveats: 24/7 market — no weekends or holidays, unlike equities. Much higher volatility than traditional assets (20% drawdowns are routine). The "store of value" thesis is actively contested; treat BTC price movements as speculative/flow-driven rather than fundamentally anchored.