- Bitcoin was largely unchanged this week – through Thursday.
- The largest cryptocurrency has caused other major digital coins to fall.
- The crypto was sold off along with stocks due to fears over AI spending.
Bitcoin price fell sharply on Thursday to a low of $83,757 as the crypto market saw a sell-off triggered by investor fears over AI spending.
The largest and oldest cryptocurrency recently saw its price rise slightly to $83,788 after falling more than 6% over a 24-hour period, according to CoinGecko. Over the past week, it fell 6% and is down year to date.
Ethereum was also hit and was trading near $2,792, down more than 7% over 24 hours. While other major coins and tokens such as XRP and Solana have also seen similar daily declines.
The cryptocurrency selloff came as big tech stocks fell following news that Microsoft’s profits showed the software giant announced record spending. Investors fear that spending on AI will be too high and that results will take too long to bear fruit.
“Even though many people in the Bitcoin space view Bitcoin as the hardest money in the world and stack Bitcoin regardless of price, the vast majority of the market still views Bitcoin as a tech trade,” said Timot Lamarre, Director of Market Research at Unchained.
Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have in the past moved with U.S. stocks, particularly tech stocks.
The long destroyed
Traders betting on the future price of digital coins saw their positions quickly closed Thursday after the sell-off.
Over the past 24 hours, a total of $822.4 million in futures positions have been liquidated. Of this figure, $696.8 million were long positions.
And $313.7 million in positions betting on the future rise in Bitcoin’s price were liquidated today.
All eyes are on technology
Bitcoin remained largely unresponsive after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept interest rates unchanged and its president signaled no urgency to start cutting them.
The asset has generally performed well in a low interest rate environment. But this week, market observers are largely paying attention to the impact of big tech companies’ profits on the asset class.
Apple, Meta Platforms and Tesla will also report results this week. Experts said DL News that good results could increase risk on assets like Bitcoin.
Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent at DL News. Do you have any advice? Send an email to mdisalvo@dlnews.com.
