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Crypto Journalist
Anas Hassan
Crypto Journalist
Anas Hassan
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The crypto market continues to underperform equities since April, with major assets showing flat movement.
Bitcoin is down more than 15% over the past 30 days despite recent macro tailwinds from the Fed rate cut and the announcement to end quantitative easing (QT) by December.
The S&P 500 maintained a gain of 1.66% over the past 30 days, extending year-to-date gains to 16.76%.
This contrasts sharply with Bitcoin’s mere 4.2% YTD gain, despite being the smallest asset with about $2.1 trillion in market capitalization compared to the S&P 500’s more than $60 trillion valuation.
Liquidity in expansion, but not in Crypto
According to the November 2025 Market Report from the creation fund of the Wintermute crypto market, liquidity is expanding in the world, but the capital is not reaching the crypto sector.
U The Federal Reserve’s M2 money supply shows an increasing liquidity trend since June 2023, with an addition of more than $2 trillion, which is now more than $22 trillion by September 2025.
Despite this expansion, crypto ETF inflows are tiringand digital asset treasury (DAT) activity on blue-chip crypto like Bitcoin, ethereum, Solanaand BNB they are dry.
“The crypto market structure looks healthy with leverage cleared and positioning clean, but a pickup in ETF or DAT flows will be the key signal for renewed liquidity and a potential catch-up leg.” Wintermute said.
The Fed’s rate cut fails to lift crypto
Last week Fed rate cutFOMC minutes, and US tech earnings brought inevitable volatility.
The selloff saw more than $19 billion in leverage removed.
Some investors were caught leaning too bullish on the event since the 25bps was already cheap.
The concerning part, however, is that the equities stabilized quickly, but the crypto did not rebound.
The crypto market since then has lost more than $500 billion, with Bitcoin falling to about $104,000, Ethereum sliding to $3,500, and BNB and SOL more than 20% each.
Most altcoins have been slaughtered, with outperformance driven by short-term narratives.
The GMCI-30 fell 12% last week. Losses were widespread as the Gaming sector fell 21%, L2s 19%, Memes 18%, and Mid and Small Caps fell 15-16%.
Only AI (-3%) and DePIN (-4%) showed resistance, helped by strength in names like TAO.
“Compared to other asset classes, crypto is the worst performer,” Wintermut concluded.
Liquidity restructuring shows Crypto Bull Run Not Over
Global liquidity is clearly expanding, but central banks are cutting rates in relative strength, not weakness.
The problem is that incremental liquidity isn’t flowing into crypto like it used to.
Jasper De Maere, crypto strategist at Wintermute, noted that for this reason, “The concept of the four-year cycle is no longer relevant, even when the increasingly strong voices on CT begin to attribute a negative price performance.”
The mechanics that once drove the crypto cycle of four yearsincluding the supply of miners and the dynamics of the medium, it does not matter anymore in a mature market.
What is driving performance now is liquidity.
The US government shutdown compounds the problem
On-chain data from CryptoQuant shows that the prolonged shutdown of the US government has directly affected the flow of liquidity in Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the failure of federal spending could remove $ 7-14 billion of economic production.
This means that what is currently developing is more than fiscal uncertainty; it’s a liquidity freeze, and the crypto market reflects it.
While the CBO expects a temporary recovery once the shutdown ends, data on the chain suggests that confidence and capital will take longer to recover.
“For Bitcoin, this period is not a simple dive to buy – it is a stress test of conviction, liquidity and patience in a market shaped by fiscal dysfunctions.” concluded an analyst from XWIN Research Japan.
