Sophia Bennett
Crypto Analyst
Wall Street just posted its longest winning run in over two years. The S&P 500 logged a ninth consecutive weekly gain, a streak matched only a handful of times in the past four decades. Oil steadied. Treasuries climbed. Risk sentiment was genuinely improving.
Bitcoin and the rest of crypto did not move with any of it.
The S&P 500 posted its ninth consecutive weekly gain on Friday, the longest such run since 2023, putting the index up almost 20% from its March lows. Brent crude settled around $92 a barrel on hopes the US and Iran will sign off on a 60‑day ceasefire extension.
Despite that constructive backdrop, major cryptocurrencies continued to drift lower through the week.
The Numbers Do Not Lie
The week‑on‑week price action across the largest tokens told the same story from every angle.
Bitcoin slipped 2.6% over the past seven days to $73,445, ether 2.5% to $2,011, Solana 2.2% to $82.42, and TRON's TRX 5.6%, its worst weekly drop in the top ten. DOGE finished roughly flat.
For a market that had been hoping the broader risk rally would eventually pull crypto along, these numbers were a disappointment. The S&P was up 20% from March lows. Bitcoin was down on the week. That gap is not a coincidence.
ETF Outflows Are the Key Driver
The institutional demand that had been propping Bitcoin through the first quarter is now pulling back, and the timing could not be worse.
The slide came alongside softer spot bitcoin ETF inflows, which added to the downward pressure even as macro conditions improved.
Bitcoin ETF outflows reached a record nine‑day streak as investors pulled $2.8 billion from spot Bitcoin ETF products.
Nine consecutive days of outflows from Bitcoin ETFs is the longest such streak since these products launched. It represents a meaningful shift in institutional positioning, from accumulation to distribution, and it is happening at exactly the moment when the macro environment would otherwise support flows going the other direction.
HYPE Stands Alone
Not every token in the market fell. One stood out dramatically, and for reasons that go well beyond short‑term speculation.
Hyperliquid's HYPE token ripped 19.4% on the week to $65. BNB closed up 1.9% and XRP eked out a 0.7% weekly gain.
The catalyst for HYPE's surge was a remarkable endorsement from an unlikely source. Intercontinental Exchange chief Jeffrey Sprecher praised the decentralised perpetuals venue at a Bernstein conference, calling it "bigger than NASDAQ."
When the CEO of the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange calls a DeFi protocol bigger than Nasdaq, the market pays attention.
The Iran Deal Is the Wildcard
The entire macro rally rests on a geopolitical foundation that has not yet been fully secured.
President Trump said Friday he was ready to make a final determination on a preliminary agreement but restated his demand that any deal require Iran to abandon its nuclear program, surrender its enriched uranium, and open the Strait of Hormuz.
Those conditions sit well beyond what Iran has publicly indicated it would accept. The macro rally is one bad headline from reversing, and crypto, already showing weakness despite the stock market strength, would likely feel that reversal harder than most.
The stocks rally is real and it has lasted nine weeks. But crypto investors waiting for it to drag Bitcoin higher are still waiting, and the ETF data suggests the institutional players who were supposed to lead that move have quietly started heading for the exit.