Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez | Photo alliance | Getty Images
Cryptocurrencies fell to begin the last week of January, with the market in a cooling period after running towards a new record and reduced by deep selling in technology stocks.
The price of bitcoin fell 3% to $100,776.81, according to coin measurements. Earlier, it fell as low as $97,750.00. The broader cryptocurrency market, as measured by the Coindesk 20 Index, was down 7%.
The NASDAQ was down more than 3%.
Actions of Jamming And Microstrategy fell about 2% each. Bitcoin miners who have AI power businesses have suffered deeper cuts. Scientific core slipped 21%, while Terawulf lost 16%. Irenformerly known as Iris Energy, fell 16%.
Crypto was under pressure from a rout in tech stocks. Chinese startup Deepseek says it has created a competitive AI model for a fraction of the cost, sparking concerns about US dominance in AI and Big Tech’s spending on AI models and data centers.
“Today’s 3% drop in NASDAQ futures (on Deepseek News), so far, has driven the sell-off in digital assets overnight,” Standard’s Geoff Kendrick said Monday Chartered in a note. “This relationship highlights the continued strong (and strengthening) relationship between digital assets and the technology sector. [Bitcoin] Remains highly correlated to the NASDAQ, much more so than gold. “
Bitcoin Falls Below $100,000, Trailed by Deepseek Exchange Selloff
Bitcoin has seen over $250 million in long liquidations over the past 24 hours, According to Coinglassas traders who used leverage to bet the price of bitcoin would continue to rise were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses.
The sell-off follows a mixed market response to President Donald Trump’s widely anticipated executive order on Crypto, issued Thursday and a lack of news since. Some crypto traders were disappointed order did not fully commit to establishing a stockpile, and some did not care about the language “storage” versus a reserve. Although the latter involves actively buying bitcoin in regular installments, a stockpile would simply not sell any of the bitcoin currently held by the US government. Bitcoin hit a new all-time high above $109,000 last week in anticipation of the executive order.
“Ultimately, this set up digital assets as being more at risk of hot selling, whether or not the driver of the selling came from digital assets (in this case Nasdaq),” Kendrick said of the initial market reaction to the order. “Nevertheless, at least the news from the Trump administration is out there, so the disappointment/confusion and therefore the “hope phase” is over.”
Investors may also trade ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting, which is expected to end on Wednesday.
“Investors are hoping that the Fed will lean more to the dovish side, but will be concerned that the Fed may not be as dominant as the market would like to see,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX. “The most important takeaway right now is to see the forest through the trees. When we look at the Bitcoin chart, there is nothing bearish in the price action.”
– CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to reporting.
