Bitcoin Closes Three-Month Performance Gap With S&P 500 as $90K Target Gains Traction

Bitcoin has suddenly regained the relative ground it had lost to the S&P 500 over the previous three months. In other words, the cryptocurrency had been performing worse than U.S. large-cap stocks throughout that period, but its sharp rally over the past 72 hours proved strong enough to close the entire performance gap in short order.

Comparing Bitcoin with the S&P 500 is a standard way analysts track whether crypto is leading or lagging broader risk appetite in equities, which is why the ratio's three-month slide — and its sudden reversal — carries meaning beyond Bitcoin's own price chart.

According to Glassnode's session rewind chart, the BTC-to-S&P 500 relative-performance ratio declined from around 3x to nearly 2.2x over the past three months. However, Bitcoin's sharp rally over the latest four trading sessions pushed that ratio back up to approximately 2.82x. Although the S&P 500 remains up around 20% from the chart's September 2025 starting point, Bitcoin has clearly shown its ability to recover lost ground at speed.

What pushed Bitcoin to close this gap in a few days?

The recovery comes on the heels of BTC's price action rallying from $62,000 to around $78,000 in just a few days. Beyond the price move itself, other factors helped Bitcoin outweigh the S&P 500: the Bitcoin ETF market recorded $1.92 billion over the past week, expectations around U.S. crypto legislation continued to build, and Treasury actions helped calm bond-market stress. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, approved in the United States in January 2024, have since become one of the main channels through which institutional investors gain exposure to BTC, which is why their weekly flow figures are watched as a demand signal.

This does not mean, however, that Bitcoin's underperformance is permanently over or that a new bull market is guaranteed. As a result of the rally, the RSI index has now entered overbought territory. The Relative Strength Index is a momentum oscillator that measures the speed and size of recent price changes, with readings above 70 conventionally treated as a sign that an asset has become stretched. As the historical pattern has shown, every race into overbought or oversold territory has called for a pullback, and the same outcome could occur again.

Where is Bitcoin heading?

Despite the uncertainty, The Kobeissi Letter has reportedly raised the probability it assigns to Bitcoin finishing 2026 above $90,000, with the estimate jumping from 12% to 48% in just three days. The timing is notable, as this shift took place alongside $3.5 billion in leveraged cryptocurrency positions being liquidated between August 20 and 21 — liquidations being the forced closure of leveraged positions when prices move against the trader.

AMBCrypto's recent analysis offers further context, indicating that Bitcoin's rebound has strengthened its bullish structure, with strong support sitting between $61,849 and $63,111 and limited overhead supply above $75,733. A break above this level could open the path toward $83,307–$84,569, where another major supply cluster is located. The reference points for judging whether the catch-up holds are the ones already visible in the data: ETF flow figures, the evolution of U.S. crypto legislation, and whether the BTC-to-S&P 500 ratio stays near its recovered level.

Summary

Bitcoin's price surge above $75,000 has helped the cryptocurrency close its three-month performance gap with the S&P 500. Following the bullish rally, many are now anticipating BTC's next move to above $90,000 by the end of 2026.

Source: AMBCrypto