- Bitcoin was largely unmoved this week — until Thursday.
- The biggest cryptocurrency brought down other major digital coins.
- Crypto sold off with stocks over AI spending fears.
Bitcoin’s price dipped hard on Thursday to a low of $83,757 as the crypto market experienced a sell-off sparked by investor fears around AI spending.
The biggest and oldest cryptocurrency was recently priced slightly higher at $83,788 after dropping over 6% over a 24-hour period, according to CoinGecko. Over the past week, it has dropped by 6% and is down year-to-date.
Ethereum also took a hit and was trading for nearly $2,792 — a 24-hour dip of more than 7%. While other major coins and tokens such as XRP and Solana also experienced similar daily drops.
The crypto sell-off came as big tech stocks dipped on news that Microsoft earnings showed the software giant had reported record spending. Investors are worried that AI expenditure is too big and results are taking too long to bear fruit.
“Regardless of the fact that many in the Bitcoin space see Bitcoin as the world’s hardest money and stack Bitcoin regardless of price, the vast majority of the market still sees Bitcoin as a tech trade,” Timot Lamarre, director of market research at Unchained, said.
Bitcoin and the wider crypto market has in the past moved along with US equities — particularly tech stocks.
Longs wiped out
Traders betting on the future price of digital coins had their positions fast closed Thursday following the sell-off.
In the past 24 hours, a total of $822.4 million in futures positions have been liquidated. Of that figure, $696.8 million were long positions.
And $313.7 million in positions betting on the future price of Bitcoin going up have today been liquidated.
All eyes on tech
Bitcoin was largely unmoved after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept interest rates unchanged and its chair signalled no urgency to begin cutting them.
The asset has typically performed well in a low-interest rate environment. But market observers this week are largely paying attention to what earnings from major tech companies will do to the asset class.
Apple, Meta Platforms and Tesla will also report earnings this week. Experts told DL News that strong results could lift risk-on assets like Bitcoin.
Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.
