Bitcoin is headed for its worst year-over-year performance at this point in at least a decade, as a series of glitzy upcoming listings like booming AI stocks and SpaceX lure capital away from the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.

Its price has fallen nearly 15% this week, the most since November 2022, while trading platform FTX rallied. At around $63,000, bitcoin’s value has tripled so far in 2026, more at this point in the year than at any time since at least 2015, LSEG data shows.

Adding to the pressure, Michael Saylor’s strategy for bitcoin’s largest corporate holder revealed on Monday that it has sold some holdings for the first time since 2022.

“It’s instructive to see how assets can struggle to suddenly go out of fashion from the flavor of the month,” Mark Dowding, chief investment officer, fixed income at RBC Bluebay Asset Management, said in a blog.

Here’s how the landscape is changing for Bitcoin, which hit a record high of more than $125,000 late last year.

The price is not right

Bitcoin is down nearly 40% since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, vowing to make the US the crypto capital of the world. A number of crypto-friendly appointments to key roles in regulatory and financial roles boosted bitcoin sentiment at the time.

But with large institutional players and investment banks, as well as liquid exchange-traded products, the very things that made bitcoin attractive as a potential portfolio diversifier — its high volatility and lack of correlation with other asset classes — have diminished.

Crypto options trading platform Deribit’s DVOL index of implied volatility in bitcoin options is currently around 47, the highest since early April, but not above the record low hit around 31 in late May. Since its inception in 2021 around April last year, the index has rarely gone below 50.

In terms of correlation, prior to 2020, Bitcoin had no fixed relationship with the S&P 500. But over the past six years, the two have moved in lockstep. This relationship has turned into very negative territory recently, as AI-powered stocks roar on a bull-run, while Bitcoin lags behind.

Competition between stablemates

Gone are the days when Bitcoin accounted for most of the crypto market. The ecosystem is now buzzing with larger rival coins like Ether, Solana and BNB, and smaller “alt-coins,” which now make up a fifth of the total market, according to CoinGecko.

The rise of stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar also hurt Bitcoin’s market share.

According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin accounts for 56% of the crypto market, up from 63% a year ago. The market share of ether and alt-coins has remained roughly constant, while stablecoins now account for about 13% of the market, up from about 7% a year ago.

Even on a daily basis, top stablecoin Tether has more volume than bitcoin and ether combined, while runner-up USDC has volume equal to the next 10 coins combined, according to CoinGecko data.

Follow the money

It’s not just other cryptos that Bitcoin competes with for investor cash. With the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, when the AI ​​story took off, Bitcoin benefited from an investment influx into all things tech-related.

AI now dominates stock markets, pouring money into hyperscalers that make the nuts-and-bolts of data centers, semiconductors, chips and copper wire.

Over the past year, US semiconductor stocks have risen 170%; Bitcoin is down 40%. The capital going into AI-related stocks has to come from somewhere.

Investors are pulling cash from major bitcoin ETFs at the fastest pace on record, with net outflows of more than $2.7 billion from the week through Thursday, LSEG data shows. This brings the net outflow so far to 2026 to $3.1 billion.

The four largest semiconductor ETFs—VanEck’s Semiconductor ETF, Roundhill Memory ETF, State Street’s SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF and the iShares Semiconductor ETF—made more than $3 billion in the first week of June alone.