Bitcoin has traded below its starting level for most of 2026, while US stocks kept rising. This review measures the year so far from Bitstamp's daily closing prices, the same data behind our bitcoin vs S&P 500 study, and lines the moves up against monthly fund flows and dated policy decisions. It describes what has happened, not what comes next, and past performance does not predict future results. For how the asset works, see what is bitcoin; for the rest of the asset class, start at the crypto hub.
How has bitcoin performed in 2026 so far?
Bitcoin was down 10.6% for 2026 at its November 1 close of $78,233.25, measured from the December 31, 2025 close of $87,496 on Bitstamp.
The stock comparison uses an earlier cutoff, October 28, the last date in our study. By then bitcoin was down 7.1% for the year and the S&P 500 price index was up 13.1%. The index figure leaves out dividends, so a fund that reinvested them did slightly better. Last year looked similar: bitcoin lost 6.3% in 2025 while the index gained 16.4%, the first year in the table below in which bitcoin fell and stocks rose. In 2018 and 2022, the other years in which bitcoin trailed, both fell.
| Year | Bitcoin | S&P 500 | Correlation of daily returns |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1336.4% | 19.4% | 0.05 |
| 2018 | -73.4% | -6.2% | 0.07 |
| 2019 | 94.1% | 28.9% | -0.11 |
| 2020 | 304.5% | 16.3% | 0.45 |
| 2021 | 59.4% | 26.9% | 0.26 |
| 2022 | -64.2% | -19.4% | 0.56 |
| 2023 | 155.7% | 24.2% | 0.16 |
| 2024 | 121.0% | 23.3% | 0.36 |
| 2025 | -6.3% | 16.4% | 0.42 |
| 2026 (to Oct 28, 2026) | -7.1% | 13.1% | 0.46 |
Two losing years in a row would be new for bitcoin in Bitstamp's record. From 2012 through 2025 it had three other down years, 2014, 2018 and 2022, and each was followed by a gain the next year. On November 1, the 2026 figure was still negative.
Worked example: Two $10,000 purchases on December 31, 2025
Suppose $10,000 went into bitcoin at the December 31, 2025 close and another $10,000 into an S&P 500 index fund the same day, ignoring fees. On October 28, 2026, the bitcoin stake was worth about $9,290, a 7.1% loss, and the index stake about $11,310 before dividends, a 13.1% gain, leaving a gap of about $2,020. By November 1 the bitcoin stake had slipped to about $8,941.
Prices have moved since those closes. The live quote, $77,867.16 (Nov 2, 2026), refreshes through the day; to bring the year-to-date return up to date, divide it by $87,496 and subtract 1. The bitcoin price page charts the whole year.
How far did bitcoin fall from its October 2025 record?
At the deepest point, on June 30, 2026, bitcoin closed 53.1% below its record of $124,728, set on October 6, 2025.
The low close was $58,526.17, reached 267 days after the peak. Measured inside the calendar year alone, from 2026's highest close to that June low, the fall was 39.6%. Trading during the day went lower than any close: CoinDesk reported bitcoin changing hands below $58,000 early on July 1, before it bounced back to about $60,000.
By the standards of bitcoin's own history, the slide was steep but not extreme. Our bitcoin drawdowns study counts five earlier declines of 50% or more from a record close since 2013. They averaged 73.8%, and the smallest, from April to July 2021, was also 53.1%. This one took 267 days to reach its lowest close so far, against a median of 364 days for the earlier five.
On November 1, bitcoin was 33.7% above the June low and still 37.3% below the record. A drawdown lasts until the price closes at a new high, so this one remained open.
Worked example: $10,000 bought at the record close
$10,000 of bitcoin bought at the $124,728 close on October 6, 2025 came to about 0.0802 BTC. That holding was worth about $4,692 at the June 30, 2026 low and about $6,272 at the November 1 close. To get back to $10,000 from $6,272, the price would need to rise about 59%, because the gain that repairs a loss starts from a smaller base than the loss did.
Did ETF flows move with bitcoin's price this year?
Every month this year, the direction of net flows into US spot bitcoin ETFs matched the direction of bitcoin's price relative to its record.
| 2026 | Net flow into US spot bitcoin ETFs | Bitcoin below its record at month end |
|---|---|---|
| January | −$1.6 billion | 32.5% |
| February | −$0.2 billion | 47.2% |
| March | +$1.3 billion | 45.3% |
| April | +$2.0 billion | 38.8% |
| May | −$2.4 billion | 41.2% |
| June | −$4.5 billion | 53.1% |
| July | +$0.2 billion | 49.6% |
| August | +$3.5 billion | 37.0% |
| September | +$2.6 billion | 33.0% |
| October | −$0.5 billion (through October 30) | 34.9% (October 28) |
Flows are from TFTC's Commoner Bitcoin ETF Tracker, which compiles SoSoValue and issuer data, checked on November 2, 2026. Month-end gaps use Bitstamp closes on the last US trading day of each month; the year began 29.9% below the record.
In the five months with net outflows, the gap below the record widened, and in the five with net inflows it narrowed. June was the extreme on both counts. The funds lost a record $4.5 billion, 29% more than in the previous worst month, February 2025, according to SoSoValue figures reported by CoinDesk, and bitcoin set its low on the month's last day. Across the ten months, roughly $9.2 billion of outflows and $9.6 billion of inflows left the funds close to flat, after net inflows of about $21 billion in 2025.
Matching directions do not show which caused which. Fund buyers may follow the price as much as they move it, and the funds are only one slice of demand: they leave out coins bought directly, funds listed abroad and companies that hold bitcoin. Bitcoin ETFs vs owning bitcoin explains how the funds work and what they cost.
What moved bitcoin in 2026?
No single event explains the year, but several dated developments lined up with its biggest moves.
A violent February. On February 5, bitcoin's close fell 14.0%, its worst day in the 12 months to October 28, amid weakening risk appetite tied partly to a selloff in tech shares and volatile precious metals, Reuters reported. The next day it rose 12.3%, the best day of the same 12 months.
A Fed leaning toward higher rates. On June 17 the Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% but said inflation remained elevated, partly because of supply shocks in sectors including energy. Its policymakers' median projection for the federal funds rate at the end of 2026 rose to 3.8% from 3.4% in March, and CoinDesk linked June's record fund outflows partly to that shift. On September 16 the Fed raised the range by a quarter point, and after its October 28 meeting the range stood at 3.75% to 4.00%. Consumer prices were 3.74% higher in September than a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Higher rates raise what cash and Treasury bills pay, which raises the bar for an asset that pays no income.
A Treasury move in August. On August 19 the Treasury said it would at least double its buybacks of longer-dated bonds, to $4 billion or more per operation from $2 billion, starting September 9. CoinDesk reported that yields and the dollar fell and that spot bitcoin ETFs took in $1.92 billion in the week to August 21. Bitcoin's gap below its record narrowed from 48.1% on August 18 to 37.0% on August 25, a rise of about 21% and its biggest weekly gain of the year in the weekly readings of our drawdowns study.
Mixed signals from Washington. An SEC interpretive release, joined by the CFTC and effective March 23, sorted crypto assets into five categories: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins and digital securities, and named bitcoin as an example of a digital commodity, which is not itself a security. Congress did not follow through: the CLARITY Act, a bill to set federal rules for crypto trading markets, passed the House 294 to 134 on July 17, 2025, but a Senate cloture vote to take it up failed 49 to 50 on September 15, 2026; it had not become law as of November 2, 2026. Bitcoin slipped to about $75,000 that week and then climbed back above $80,000 on September 18, CoinDesk reported, absorbing the failed vote and the Fed's increase within days. Crypto regulation in the US covers the wider rulebook.
How volatile was bitcoin compared with stocks?
Over the 12 months to October 28, 2026, bitcoin's annualized volatility was 44.1%, about 3.5 times the S&P 500's 12.7%.
Volatility here is the standard deviation of daily returns scaled up to a year, the usual yardstick for how widely a price swings. By that measure the past year was calmer than usual for both assets. Bitcoin's figure over 10 years is 68.3% and the index's 18.1%, and the ratio between them, 3.5, sat inside the range of 3.0 to 3.8 found for the 3-, 5- and 10-year windows.
The two moved together more than their long-run habit. The correlation of their daily returns was 0.47 over the past year and 0.46 for 2026 through October 28, against 0.28 over 10 years. At those levels they often rose and fell on the same days, but far from always: bitcoin closed higher on 47.7% of days in the past year, the index on 52.6%.
Extremes show the difference more plainly than averages. Bitcoin's worst day in the 12 months was the 14.0% drop on February 5 and its best the 12.3% gain the next day; the index's worst was a 2.6% fall on June 5 and its best a 2.9% rise on March 31. From peak to trough within the window, bitcoin fell 48.2% and the index 9.1%. At every 2026 month end, the S&P 500 was no more than 6.4% below its peak, while bitcoin was at least 32.5% below its record.
Worked example: Turning volatility into a daily dollar swing
Dividing annualized volatility by the square root of the number of trading days gives a typical daily move. For bitcoin, which trades every day, 44.1% divided by the square root of 365 is about 2.3%, so a $10,000 holding would typically swing by around $230 in a day. For the S&P 500, 12.7% divided by the square root of 252 trading days is about 0.8%, or around $80. Roughly two days in three fall inside those ranges when returns follow a bell curve, which crypto returns do only loosely: on February 5, the same bitcoin holding lost about $1,400.
What does bitcoin's 2026 mean for people who hold it?
It mostly confirms what the longer record already showed: bitcoin can lose half its value within months, even in a year when stocks rise.
- Position size matters more than timing. A 53.1% fall turns a $5,000 holding into about $2,345 and a $50,000 holding into about $23,450. Which of those is bearable depends on the rest of a portfolio; how much crypto to hold sets out the trade-offs.
- Regular purchases spread out the entry price. Buying a fixed dollar amount each month this year would have bought more coins in the cheaper stretches, such as June and July. Dollar-cost averaging in crypto explains the method, and the DCA calculator can test any start date.
- Losses can cut taxes, but only once realized. Selling coins worth less than their cost creates a capital loss that offsets gains, and net losses can offset up to $3,000 a year against ordinary income ($1,500 if married filing separately), with the rest carried forward. The wash-sale rule covers stock or securities; H.R. 9172 and H.R. 10357 would apply the wash-sale rule to digital assets; neither had passed the House as of November 1, 2026. Crypto tax-loss harvesting covers the details, and a tax professional can confirm how the rules apply to a given situation.
- Earlier recoveries are history, not a promise. Each of the five earlier 50%-plus declines ended in a new record, a median 469 days after the low, but nothing ensures this one will. The crypto profit calculator shows what any past purchase is worth now.
What do year-to-date figures leave out?
Year-to-date figures depend heavily on their start and end dates, and bitcoin's large daily swings make that sensitivity greater than it is for stocks.
Measured from January 13, when the weekly readings put bitcoin 23.5% below its record, the fall to November 1 was about 18%. Measured from the June 30 low, bitcoin was up 33.7% by the same date. Neither figure is wrong, which is why every number in this review carries a date.
Other limits matter too:
- Daily closes at midnight UTC miss intraday highs and lows, and prices differ slightly between exchanges.
- The S&P 500 figures are price-only, so they understate what a dividend-reinvesting fund earned.
- Volatility and correlation look backward, and a calm year says little about the next one.
- ETF flow totals cover only US spot funds and can be revised as issuers report.
For the long view of how bitcoin's booms and busts have unfolded, see crypto market cycles. For the dollar-pegged side of the crypto market this autumn, see our stablecoin market update for November 2026.