Bitcoin has so far been called digital gold and has drawn attention as a safe-haven asset amid financial instability and market turmoil.

But recent price moves do not support that. As institutional investors participate more, bitcoin is increasingly moving in tandem with risk assets. In particular, uncertainty over AI’s impact on the software market has pushed tech stocks lower, directly affecting the crypto market as well.

On Feb. 13 local time, Cointelegraph cited recent research from Grayscale and reported that bitcoin is moving more like a growth stock than a safe-haven asset in the short term. Over the past 2 years, the correlation between bitcoin and software stocks has strengthened, becoming more pronounced alongside instability in the AI market.

Meanwhile, ethereum-holding company BitMine Immersion Technologies recently bought an additional 46,013 ETH even amid a sharp market drop. That lifted its holdings to more than 4,326,000 ETH, worth $8.8 billion at current prices. But BitMine is sitting on $8.1 billion in unrealised losses, and its shares also plunged. BitMine said it believes in ethereum’s long-term growth potential and expects a market recovery.

BlackRock accelerated its DeFi expansion and listed its tokenised money market fund, BUIDL, on Uniswap. That allows approved institutional investors to trade treasury products on-chain, and BlackRock also bought Uniswap’s governance token, UNI. BUIDL is the largest tokenised money market fund at $2.1 billion and is being issued on various blockchains including Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche.

Meanwhile, decentralised prediction market platform Polymarket filed a federal lawsuit to avoid regulation in Massachusetts. Polymarket argued that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should oversee its event-based trading and that state-level regulation undermines the federal market. The lawsuit is a pre-emptive move to sidestep state regulation, and Polymarket said it aims to resolve jurisdictional issues at the federal level.

As debate over bitcoin’s identity grows, attention is also on how uncertainty in the AI market affects cryptocurrencies. As institutions accelerate their push into DeFi, the boundary between traditional finance and blockchain is becoming more blurred. With market volatility rising, bitcoin is still unable to find direction between safe-haven and risk assets.