Despite the end of the recent “crypto winter,” which brought overwhelming optimism to the crypto market, digital assets have found mainstream appeal and a friendly US government has announced that Bitcoin ($BTC) has underperformed its share price over the past 12 months.
Specifically, the benchmark S&P 500 index rose 26.98% over the past 52 weeks, from 5,921 to 7,519. $BTC The stock fell 30.35% from $108,927 to $75,867, resulting in an overall underperformance of approximately 56%.
Additionally, and perhaps more worryingly, while Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies will decline and consolidate in 2026, stock prices appear to only be accelerating their year-to-date (year-to-date) rise.
Why Bitcoin has underperformed the S&P 500 by more than 50% in the past 12 months
Here was a popular interpretation of the event on social media platform X earlier this year. $BTC It followed an established circular path.
Popular on-chain analyst Ali Martinez, for example, explained that Bitcoin’s then-ongoing crash was the expected result of the high of over $125,000 recorded in late 2025, and based on past performance, predicted the digital asset would bottom at over $38,000 in October.
Institutional investors believe Bitcoin will recover in 2026
Notably, large financial institutions, which are relatively new to the market, have taken a completely different view and have, in effect, declared the traditional path of assets as follows: $BTC abolition.
For example, Bernstein set a year-end Bitcoin price target of $150,000 while estimating that there is no end to the crypto bear market in 2026. Similarly, Standard Chartered lowered its forecast from $150,000 but still opted for a bullish forecast. $BTC For $100,000.
But critics speculate that in some ways the sector as a whole is slipping away from success.
Is the crypto market running out of growth ideas?
For years, cryptocurrencies have relied on revolutionary narratives about the transformation brought about by blockchain technology, while blaming undue regulatory pressure (usually personified in the form of former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler) for their setbacks.
By 2026, the asset class had gained significant institutional recognition and a friendly regulatory environment without much change in terms of significant revolutionary changes other than supporting the mass proliferation of prediction markets.
On the other hand, perhaps the explanation for the relative stagnation of cryptocurrencies despite numerous tailwinds can be found precisely in the success of the S&P 500.
With hopes that blockchain will usher in a financial revolution, part of the popularity of digital assets lies in their volatility and the ability to quickly turn hundreds or thousands of dollars into hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
When investing in stocks gives faster and bigger returns than Bitcoin
As of this writing, May 27, stock prices are playing that particular role, in part, thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, or AI bubble.
For example, a $1,000 investment in Bitcoin at the end of 2022, near the low point of the last “crypto winter,” would have been worth about $4,500 as the cryptocurrency rose from about $17,000 to $75,867.
If you had bought Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock at a similar time, the stock price would have skyrocketed from $17 to nearly $215, turning $1,000 into about $14,000.
Even sales $BTC Around the high near $125,000, $1,000 would have turned into $7,300, and the gain would have been $6,700 less than holding NVDA stock.
There are more “altcoins” than virtual currencies among stocks in 2026
Finally, the promise that stock markets will deliver bigger and faster returns than cryptocurrencies by 2026 is not limited to the world’s largest digital assets and the world’s largest companies.
A look at the year-to-date heatmaps for the S&P 500 and crypto markets reveals that, as of this writing, far more major stocks have posted triple-digit gains since New Year’s Day.
Moreover, unlike digital assets, which suffer from a lack of an all-out bullish narrative for the time being, more traditional stocks are rising based on a dominant and domineering vision for the future of AI.
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