Bitcoin (BTC) May Have Outgrown Its Status as Just a Hedge Against Traditional Finance Risks

Bitcoin BTC/USD may have outgrown its status as just a hedge against traditional finance risks and is increasingly behaving like a Nasdaq-listed tech stock

Standard Chartered's Head of Digital Asset Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, says in a note shared with Benzinga that an analysis of Bitcoin's short-term trading behavior suggests the cryptocurrency may have outgrown its status as just a hedge against traditional finance risks and is increasingly behaving like a Nasdaq-listed tech stock.

What Happened: In a note shared Monday, Kendrick highlighted how Bitcoin's short-term trading patterns are highly correlated to the Nasdaq Composite, suggesting BTC is serving a dual role in modern portfolios.

While Bitcoin has long been positioned as a buffer against TradFi turbulence—such as the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023—the report finds that, on shorter timelines, the cryptocurrency moves closely in tandem with U.S. technology stocks.

To illustrate this, Standard Chartered created a hypothetical index dubbed “Mag 7B,” which inserts Bitcoin into the popular “Magnificent 7” tech-stock basket while removing Tesla.

According to Kendrick, this modified index generates both higher returns and lower volatility compared to the original Mag 7.

“We find that Mag 7B has both higher returns and lower volatility than Mag 7,” Kendrick wrote, adding that the findings suggest Bitcoin can serve as both a TradFi hedge and a technology stock proxy.

The “Magnificent 7” typically includes leading tech names such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla TSLA.

By swapping Tesla for Bitcoin, Kendrick argues the new “Mag 7B” index provides investors with a portfolio that is more resilient and potentially more profitable.

According to internal analysis at Standard Chartered, shifting from the original Mag 7 to Mag 7B over the past year would have resulted in around 16% lower portfolio volatility and nearly 6% higher total returns.

“This is despite the fact that Mag 7B has no bond allocation, while we estimate that a balanced portfolio would typically allocate around 60% to bonds,” Kendrick stated.

Why It Matters: As Bitcoin's presence in institutional portfolios continues to grow, Kendrick believes that its dual utility—acting both as a hedge and as a growth asset—could fuel additional capital inflows. “Over time, I think BTC may come to serve multiple purposes in investor portfolios,” Kendrick noted.

Kendrick also forecasts positive short-term momentum for Bitcoin, citing expectations of a more favorable U.S. tariff announcement and Nasdaq rebalancing.

“Higher Nasdaq will equal higher Bitcoin. $90,000 in focus now,” he added.

Bitcoin is trading up over 3.5% on Monday, lifting the total market cap of the crypto industry by 1.5% to $2.9 trillion.

Among major cryptocurrencies, Ethereum ETH/USD, XRP XRP/USD, Solana SOL/USD and Dogecoin DOGE/USD are trading up 4%, 3.2%, 6.5% and 3%, respectively.