While the S&P 500 soared to new records above 7,000 this month, bitcoin did nothing but recapture the upward momentum that lifted the digital asset to a record high above $122,000 in October 2025.
A new Deutsche Bank survey of 3,400 global consumers may help explain why cryptocurrency is stuck in neutrality. Investors simply do not believe that 2026 will be the year of the return of bitcoin price mania.
In the US, 19% believe that the price of bitcoin will be between $20,000 and $60,000 by the end of 2026. Notably, in the US, 13% think that the price of bitcoin will fall below $20,000 in 2026. For comparison, bitcoin prices are currently at $77,000.
The Deutsche Bank team said:
– Most expect bitcoin to be lower than today, and very few predict a return to the record $120,000.
Bitcoin prices haven’t moved much over the past month as bulls have pushed the broader stock market to new highs.
Although the price of bitcoin has increased by approximately 7.7% in the last 30 days, the gains are uncertain. The digital asset spent much of late March and early April trading below the $70,000 mark. The price is up only 18% from the February lows.
The main reason bitcoin is not making new highs with the S&P 500 is a fundamental divergence in risk appetite.
While the stock market is buoyed by strong corporate earnings and a “war is normal” attitude on Wall Street, bitcoin currently behaves more like a high-beta risk asset than a safe haven, reports Ekapija. Investors are returning to proven trades in the technology sector like Nvidia ( NVDA ) as fears of a conflict with Iran ease a bit.
Wall Street currently remains pessimistic about bitcoin.
A new research paper from Google this month also cast a shadow over bitcoin.
In its paper, Google Quantum AI described a hypothetical 500,000 qubit quantum computer capable of deciphering bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography in less than nine minutes. Although this hardware does not currently exist, the findings have fueled discussions among cryptocurrency companies and developers about maintaining bitcoin’s quantum resilience.
