Bitcoin fell about 5.9% in the 24 hours to 3 a.m. ET Friday, sliding from about $80,360 to $75,620 on Binance as a selloff in artificial intelligence and chip stocks swept U.S. markets on Thursday. The drop erased the post-midterm rally that lifted bitcoin above $81,000 on Wednesday. Most of it came between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. ET Thursday, around the U.S. stock market open, when the price fell from about $79,700 to $75,568.

Bitcoin fell as low as $75,208 late Thursday, its lowest price since Sept. 16, according to Binance trading data. That makes it a seven-week low.

Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy, argued last week that bitcoin’s holder base had little exposure to the AI trade. “None of the people freaking out about AI own Bitcoin,” Thorn said on Unchained on Oct. 29, adding that “it’s not in their inventory to sell” because those investors had already left the trade. Thorn, who on the show called continued weekly closes above the 50-week moving average “the clearest tripwire” for whether bitcoin has bottomed, wrote on X late Thursday that it was “great to see thursday close above the 50 week moving average” after a volatile session.

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Chip Stocks Lead the Selloff

The Nasdaq Composite closed down 5.52% on Thursday and the S&P 500 fell 4.36%, both their worst sessions since April 2025. The Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.36%, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 12.25% and Nvidia fell 9.26%. Coinbase and Strategy each closed down more than 9%.

Bitcoin’s decline was smaller than the Nasdaq 100’s. Trader Alex Krüger wrote on X that Thursday marked “the second time in history the Nasdaq fell more than 5% and Bitcoin fell less than the Nasdaq,” after March 16, 2020.

Carlos Guzman, vice president of research at GSR, said Tuesday’s midterm elections appeared to have set off the selloff and that leverage made it worse. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, told Reuters she suspected the AI buildout would face some scrutiny. The Kobeissi Letter, a market commentary newsletter, posted that markets “had already largely priced in the outcome” of the election and called the downturn “more technical than fundamental,” pointing to excessive leverage.

Liquidations and Levels to Watch

CoinGlass data showed $1.26 billion in liquidations across crypto derivatives venues in the 24 hours to about 7:43 a.m. UTC Friday, 88.6% of it from long positions. Bitcoin accounted for $331.64 million. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, published by Alternative.me, fell to 28, or “Fear,” on Friday from 50 a day earlier.

Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at Wintermute, pointed to $73,000 and then $68,000 as downside levels, and said bitcoin would need to reclaim and hold $80,000 to show strength.

Related Listen: How the 50-Week Moving Average Signals Bitcoin’s Bear Market Is Over