Bitcoin and US government bonds were never supposed to be friends. One is a decentralized digital asset with no issuer. The other is debt backed by the US government.
Yet a new study from Fidelity Digital Assets says the two are now moving in step, and the reason has a lot to do with Washington’s balance sheet.
In research published on October 15, 2026, the firm found that the correlation between Bitcoin’s market capitalization and the real rate on 10-year US Treasury bonds has climbed above 0.6. That is a record, and it marks a sharp break from how the two assets usually behave around each other.
What Fidelity found
Historically, Bitcoin sat on the negative or near-zero end of that scale relative to Treasury yields. Fidelity’s research says that relationship has now flipped into clearly positive territory, with the reading pushing past 0.6.
The “real” part of real rates also matters. It refers to bond yields after adjusting for inflation, which gives a cleaner view of what lenders actually earn.
The recent price action backs up the pattern. Bitcoin gained nearly 30% over the two months leading up to the report’s release. Over that same window, 10-year Treasury rates rose more than 10%.
The fiscal backdrop behind the shift
Fidelity attributes the change to macroeconomic forces, and specifically to growing pressure on US public finances.
US federal debt has now passed $40 trillion. Interest payments on that debt have also become the second-largest expense in the federal budget, overtaking Medicare.
Fidelity’s research suggests investors may be responding to the same concern by turning to Bitcoin. The asset’s supply is capped at 21 million coins, and its issuance schedule is transparent and fixed in code.
Chris Kuiper, Fidelity’s Vice President of Research, has pointed to this dynamic directly. In commentary on October 1, 2026, he highlighted fiscal deficits and soaring debt levels, framing the link between rising Treasury yields and Bitcoin’s price gains as a reflection of investor sentiment toward those pressures.
What this means for investors
The most immediate takeaway is that Bitcoin may no longer behave the way many portfolio models assume. If it now tracks real yields rather than moving against them, traders who relied on older relationships could find their hedges working differently than expected.
There is also the question of durability. A correlation above 0.6 is a record precisely because it has not happened before. Watching whether the relationship holds through shifts in fiscal policy, budget negotiations, and Treasury auctions will be key.
For now, Fidelity’s data suggests the market is treating Bitcoin as part of the conversation about America’s finances. With debt past $40 trillion and interest costs ahead of Medicare, that conversation does not look likely to quiet down anytime soon.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.