Glassnode: AI Stocks Rally as Consumer Confidence Drops

U.S. equities reached a fresh all-time high on August 7, driven largely by gains in companies tied to artificial intelligence, while consumer confidence remains near its weakest level in a decade, Glassnode reports. Households are moving cash into assets even as many expect higher living costs and a softer economy, the firm finds.

Glassnode characterizes current confidence readings as “among the weakest readings of the past decade,” despite two months of improvement. The firm’s data show that the inflows of household cash have concentrated in AI-focused strategies rather than in bitcoin.

Bitcoin is trading at roughly half its October 2025 peak. The price sits between a Median Realized Price near $63,000 and a Short-Term Holder Cost Basis around $68,700, according to the report. Spot bitcoin exchange volume has fallen to levels not seen since 2019, and recent spot ETF flows represent what Glassnode describes as “a small fraction of any past accumulation wave.” Data show spot bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of about $389.7 million in a single week while equities continued to climb.

Macro data offer additional context. Core U.S. inflation held at 2.5% in July, a reading traders treated as benign and that helped extend equity gains. Despite that environment, bitcoin’s price action has been muted compared with prior periods when inflation or monetary policy worries coincided with crypto rallies.

The report also documents shifts in capital and infrastructure. Some bitcoin miners and technology companies are reallocating power contracts and data center capacity to handle AI computing workloads. These changes involve repurposing hardware and energy agreements to support AI tasks instead of crypto mining.

Glassnode’s report notes that current capital flows favor AI-linked equities and tokens over bitcoin. The firm also highlights that narratives supporting bitcoin’s scarcity or its potential benefit from rising U.S. national debt have not translated into clear price momentum in the period covered by the report.