Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in October: CryptoQuant’s Data Shows Why It Has Not Reconnected

Recent chart, shared by, CryptoQuant, covering February 2025 through March 2026 tells the structural story before the analyst commentary does.

Open interest across all exchanges and all Bitcoin derivatives symbols climbed steadily from around 30 billion in early 2025 through a broad plateau between 35 billion and 45 billion that persisted from April through September. Price tracked broadly alongside, reaching into the $110,000 to $125,000 range by mid-2025 before pulling back.

Then October arrives on the chart, marked by a shaded pink zone. Open interest, which had been holding near its cycle highs around 45 billion, collapses sharply. The bars drop from peak levels to approximately 25 billion within the shaded window before recovering partially and then fading further through November and December. Price follows the same trajectory, falling from above $120,000 toward $95,000 and continuing lower through the end of 2025. By March 2026, open interest sits at 21.9 billion and Bitcoin trades at $70,300. Both readings are at their lowest levels since the chart’s February 2025 starting point.

The October Reset

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost identifies October 10 and 11, 2025 as the structural turning point. The liquidation event during that window wiped out approximately 19 billion dollars in leveraged positions and reduced open interest by around 70,000 BTC. That was not simply a price shock. It was a reset of the market’s risk capacity, the point at which the leverage architecture that had been building through 2025 was forcibly unwound.

What followed was the break from the historical pattern. Bitcoin had long traded as a high-beta version of equities, amplifying moves in the S&P 500 in both directions. Following the October deleveraging, the 30-day correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 turned negative. Equities recovered through late 2025, supported by AI-driven earnings growth. Bitcoin did not follow. Leverage failed to rebuild, liquidity weakened, and spot BTC ETF outflows turned the institutional vehicle that had driven 2024’s rally into a source of net selling pressure rather than demand.

Why the Inversion Makes Sense Now

The more recent development Darkfost flags is a specific inversion rather than a general decoupling. As geopolitical tensions around Iran escalated, equities declined on rising energy prices, inflation concerns, and the implied pressure on corporate earnings from higher yields. Bitcoin strengthened during the same window.

That relative strength is not a wholesale safe-haven reclassification. Darkfost frames it as partial capital rotation, with some funds shifting into Bitcoin as a short-term diversification trade rather than a fundamental reassessment of its asset class status. The distinction matters. Rotation is a tactical move. Reclassification would be a structural one. The data does not yet support the latter.

What the deleveraged state of the market does provide is a cleaner transmission mechanism for new inflows. With open interest at 21.9 billion against a cycle high near 45 billion, the leverage overhang that amplified downside moves through late 2025 has been substantially reduced. New capital entering the market now encounters less structural resistance on the way up than it would have twelve months ago.

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What to Watch

Darkfost identifies three variables as the ones that will determine whether the current decoupling persists or reverses. ETF flows matter because institutional demand through that channel was the dominant price driver in 2024, and its absence has been the dominant headwind in 2026. Open interest recovery matters because sustained price appreciation historically requires derivatives markets to rebuild participation alongside spot demand. Macro conditions matter because the Iran-driven inversion could reverse quickly if geopolitical risk fades and equity markets stabilize.

For now, the market is in what Darkfost describes as a phase of fragmentation rather than synchronization. Bitcoin and equities are responding to different inputs. That is unusual. It is also, based on the open interest chart, directly traceable to a single event seven months ago.

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