The four categories are not moving together. $COIN is the laggard. $MSTR is flat on the month but up 29.5% over 90 days. $MARA has the biggest bounce off February lows. IBIT tracks Bitcoin tight enough that its monthly change is nearly flat.
That split is the story. Each name answers a different question about Bitcoin exposure, and the market is pricing those questions differently right now.
COIN Is The Clear Laggard
$COIN is down about 8% over the past month as of May 18, and the weekly tape was worse, roughly 12.5% below the prior Monday's close. The stock sits below its 20-day and 50-day moving averages. The 90-day gain of about 14% is the smallest in the group.
$COIN posted $1.41 billion in revenue last quarter. The exchange business is big. The recent underperformance versus other Bitcoin-linked names says the market is pricing more than spot correlation. Coinbase carries operating leverage to trading volume, and that cuts both ways when sentiment turns cautious.
Fear and Greed at 28 sits in fear territory. That kind of read tends to compress trading activity, which hits an exchange harder than a treasury holder or a passive wrapper.
MSTR Held The Recovery
$MSTR is essentially flat on the month, up less than a tenth of a percent over 30 days, while carrying a 29.5% gain over 90 days. The stock sits above its 50-day moving average but below the 20-day and 200-day. The 52-week range runs from a $104.17 low on February 5 to a $457.22 high in mid-July 2025. Current levels are closer to the low.
The $MSTR read runs through Bitcoin treasury mechanics, not operating earnings. BTC held, financing capacity, and the equity premium to the underlying position are what matter. A flat monthly tape while $COIN slides 8% reflects that structural difference. $MSTR is not immune to Bitcoin moves, but it does not carry $COIN's trading-volume sensitivity.
30-day realized volatility on $MSTR is 72%, high in absolute terms but normal for a leveraged Bitcoin proxy. $MARA sits at 70%, $COIN at 68%.
MARA's Bounce Is Real, The Range Context Cuts It Down To Size
$MARA is up 62% over 90 days, the biggest move in the group by a wide margin. It is also up about 5% on the month and positive year to date. The 52-week context softens those numbers: $MARA bottomed at $6.66 on February 5 and topped $23.45 in mid-October 2025. Current levels around $12 are still less than half the October high.
Miners carry the most operating sensitivity to Bitcoin price here. They earn Bitcoin through production, eat energy costs against that output, and hold BTC on the balance sheet. The 90-day recovery tracks the Bitcoin price recovery off February lows, not any fundamental shift in miner economics. The stock remains below its 200-day average. The longer-term trend has not turned.
$MARA's weekly tape was also down, off about 9% from the prior Monday. That short-term pullback after a strong run is worth tracking. Miners amplify Bitcoin moves both ways, and a fear reading is not a forgiving backdrop for more upside.
IBIT Tracks The Asset
IBIT is down less than 1% on the month and up about 13% over 90 days. The weekly tape was down roughly 6%, in line with Bitcoin itself. That tight correlation is the point. IBIT is a direct Bitcoin wrapper, and the price reflects Bitcoin, not management decisions or trading volume.
The IBIT spread in extended-hours activity was 9 basis points, the tightest in the set. That liquidity profile fits a large, mature ETF. The 52-week low of $35.30 on February 5 matches the same-day lows for $MSTR and $MARA, which confirms the February drawdown was a Bitcoin-driven event across all four categories at once.
The Macro Frame Explains The Split
Bitcoin dominance at 58.2% with total crypto market capitalization near $2.65 trillion means Bitcoin is pulling a disproportionate share of the tape. That is a Bitcoin-led market, not an altcoin rally. In that environment, IBIT tracks cleanly. $MSTR adds financing and treasury leverage on top. $MARA adds operating leverage. $COIN adds trading-volume sensitivity, and that is the variable getting punished while Fear and Greed sits at 28.
Bitcoin 30-day realized volatility at 28.4% annualized is calm by historical standards. VIX at 17.8 reads as a normal equity-volatility regime. The current fear print is a sentiment signal, not a volatility event. Sentiment turns faster than volatility, and $COIN's monthly gap against $MSTR and $MARA can compress or extend depending on trading volume.
All four share a short-term uptrend but sit below their 200-day averages. The 90-day recovery is real across the group. Whether it extends depends on different variables for each name: financing and BTC-per-share for $MSTR, volume recovery for $COIN, Bitcoin price and energy economics for $MARA, and Bitcoin price alone for IBIT.
Research only. Not investment advice.