Bitcoin Is Down 48 Percent From Its Peak. Riot, Galaxy, and Mara Climbed Anyway. The Difference Was AI Data Centers.

By Kresmion Research, June 22, 2026

Bitcoin has fallen about 48 percent from its October peak, yet over the past three months Riot, Galaxy, and Mara each climbed sharply instead of falling. The reflex is to call this a crypto-stock decoupling, but that misreads what happened. The names that rose are not the purest crypto plays. They are the ones turning into AI data-center operators, and the ones that stayed pure crypto, Coinbase and the Bitcoin holding company Strategy, fell right alongside the coin. The dividing line this spring was not crypto exposure. It was the pivot to selling compute.

This is not a recommendation, and it is not a forecast. It is a description of how a basket of widely traded crypto-linked stocks moved against Bitcoin over the past three months, and the one business shift that separated the winners from the losers.

Key takeaways

What actually happened to the basket

Take six of the most heavily traded crypto-linked stocks and measure them over the same three month window, against a Bitcoin that fell about 8 percent in that stretch and about 48 percent from its October high.

Four of them rose, and not by a little. Riot Platforms gained about 110 percent, Mara about 68 percent, Galaxy Digital about 65 percent, and Robinhood about 53 percent. Two of them fell: Coinbase dropped about 17 percent and Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, dropped about 9 percent through June 12, its most recent close in our data. So in the same window, with the same coin falling behind all of them, the spread between the best and worst performer was more than 120 percentage points.

That spread is the story. If this were simply about crypto exposure, the names would have moved together. They did the opposite.

The line that separated them

The four that rose share one thing, and it is not a crypto thing.

Riot and Mara are Bitcoin miners, which means they already own the scarce inputs that artificial intelligence computing is starving for: power contracts, land, cooling, and grid interconnects. Over the past year both have been redirecting that capacity toward hosting AI and high performance computing workloads, the same pivot the market has rewarded across the data-center space. Galaxy is the cleanest version of it. Its Helios campus in West Texas won grid approval in January and signed a lease with the AI cloud provider CoreWeave, a buildout The Block reported as the cornerstone of a record quarter, with Helios revenue beginning to contribute this year. The single biggest up day in the group, Galaxy gaining about 21 percent in one session, landed in early June, in the middle of the Bitcoin decline, on that data-center story rather than anything about the coin. Robinhood is the odd one out of the four: its lift came from diversification away from crypto trading, into derivatives, prediction markets, and new products, rather than from data centers.

The two that fell have no such second engine. Coinbase still earns the bulk of its money from trading activity that rises and falls with crypto volume, so when the cycle turned, so did the stock. Strategy is the purest case of all. It is essentially a leveraged Bitcoin holding wrapped in an equity, and over the window it not only fell with the coin but made its first Bitcoin sale in years. There was no non crypto business to re-rate it. It is Bitcoin, with leverage and a ticker.

The catch, and why this is not a free decoupling

Here is the part the headline version leaves out. None of these stocks actually stopped moving with Bitcoin on a day-to-day basis. Measured on daily returns, every name in the basket still carries a positive correlation to Bitcoin, running from roughly 0.5 for Riot and Galaxy up to about 0.8 for Strategy, broadly in line with where those correlations have sat historically. The two that fell are the most correlated of the group.

So the decoupling is in the trend, not in the daily beta. The AI data-center re-rating lifted the level of Galaxy, Riot, and Mara enough to overwhelm a falling Bitcoin over three months, but it did not sever the daily link. On any given red day for the coin, these names still tend to sell off with it. They are not a hedge against Bitcoin and not Bitcoin proof. They are crypto-sensitive companies that found a second, larger story, and that second story did the heavy lifting on the way up. If the data-center revenue stalls, the second story fades and the daily Bitcoin sensitivity is what remains.

How Kresmion reads it

The useful frame is not crypto stocks versus Bitcoin. It is which of these companies has a revenue engine that the market will price on something other than the crypto cycle. This spring that engine was AI and high performance computing capacity, and it is why a Bitcoin miner and a Bitcoin holding company, both nominally crypto, ended the same three months more than 120 percentage points apart. The label on the ticker mattered less than the business underneath it.

The observable thing to watch is the next sharp Bitcoin down move and the next earnings season. If Galaxy, Riot, and Mara fall hard alongside Bitcoin on a bad day, that confirms the daily link is intact and the re-rating was a level shift, not immunity. And if the AI data-center revenue actually lands on the income statement as promised, the gap holds. If it slips, the cleanest tell will be these names quietly re-coupling to the coin.

This note is part of Kresmion's Research Notes. Kresmion tracks the price and positioning data behind these names, with research pages for Bitcoin, Coinbase, and Strategy, and a learning library of methodology primers.

Frequently asked questions

Did crypto stocks decouple from Bitcoin?

Only some of them, and only in trend rather than in daily movement. Over the past three months, as Bitcoin fell, Riot, Mara, Galaxy, and Robinhood rose while Coinbase and Strategy fell with the coin. But measured on daily returns, every one of these stocks still moved with Bitcoin, with correlations of roughly 0.5 to 0.8. The cumulative paths diverged because some of these companies re-rated on a non crypto story, not because they stopped reacting to Bitcoin day to day.

Why did Riot, Mara, and Galaxy rise while Bitcoin fell?

The common thread is a pivot toward artificial intelligence and high performance computing data centers. Bitcoin miners like Riot and Mara already control power, land, and cooling, the scarce inputs AI computing needs, and have been redirecting that capacity to host AI workloads. Galaxy is building its Helios data-center campus in West Texas and has leased capacity to the AI cloud provider CoreWeave. The market re-priced these companies on a data-center story rather than on the crypto cycle.

Why did Coinbase and Strategy fall with Bitcoin?

Because they remained pure crypto plays. Coinbase earns most of its revenue from trading activity that moves with crypto volume, and Strategy is essentially a leveraged Bitcoin holding in equity form, which even made its first Bitcoin sale in years during the window. Neither had a separate, non crypto business for the market to re-rate, so both tracked the coin lower.

Does this mean these stocks are a safe way to play crypto?

No. None of these names is Bitcoin proof. Every one of them still carries a positive daily correlation to Bitcoin, so on a sharp down day for the coin they tend to fall too. The risers simply had a second growth story large enough to overcome a falling Bitcoin over three months. If that story stalls, the underlying Bitcoin sensitivity is what remains. This is an observation about what happened, not advice to buy or sell any of these securities.