BTC slips below $60K again while AI eats the lunch money 💸

Bitcoin fell back below $60,000 on Wednesday for the second time this month, with BTC trading at $59,464.98, a 3.2% decline, as risk assets rotated toward technology and the artificial-intelligence trade pulled capital away from digital assets, gold and oil. The decline pushed bitcoin to its lowest point in 21 months, according to CoinGecko data, putting the asset on track for a third straight daily decline. Ethereum dropped 3.1% to $1,610, XRP fell 3.1% to $1.07, Solana declined 2.6% to $67, and Dogecoin slid 4.6% to $0.075. XRP's weakness brought it within reach of breaking below $1 for the first time since shortly after President Donald Trump's 2024 reelection win, while Dogecoin touched its lowest level since late 2023.

The crypto pullback coincided with sharp moves in other assets long associated with the "debasement trade." Gold fell below $4,000 per ounce and oil slipped below $70 per barrel, while the Nasdaq gained 0.8% at midday Wednesday, underlining a divergence between digital assets and U.S. tech equities. South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix filed on Wednesday to raise nearly $30 billion in a U.S. share offering, in what would be the largest overseas company capital raise since Saudi Aramco's $26 billion sale in 2019. The weakness in crypto also preceded Thursday's release of the Federal Reserve's Personal Consumption Expenditures index, with economists expecting a 4.1% annual increase in consumer prices, the third consecutive monthly acceleration. Following hawkish remarks from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh a week ago, analysts said investors were pricing in tighter monetary policy, which typically weighs on risk assets, with the CME Watch tool projecting a rate hike at the Fed's September meeting.

Market participants pointed to shifting sentiment around the largest cryptocurrency. Billionaire hedge fund manager Philippe Laffont told CNBC on Tuesday that he has become "a little bit more worried" about bitcoin's future, arguing that investors now have a wider range of opportunities than in previous years. "I don't know what to think about Bitcoin anymore," he said, citing growth stories at companies such as SpaceX and emerging AI firms, along with the rise of stablecoins reducing bitcoin's uniqueness as an alternative financial asset. Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, called Wednesday "undoubtedly painful," but added, "We've seen this movie before." Leon said a risk-off move hitting AI and semiconductor stocks was weighing on a digital-asset market that is already depressed, and that "this bear market shall pass, and crypto will come out stronger on the other side." 21Shares, which had earlier in 2026 predicted bitcoin would break from its four-year cycle, said in its latest "State of the Market" report that "six months in, we have to be honest: price action still looks famili…" as BTC broke below $60,000 again.

Trading activity also reflected a seasonal shift, according to Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at Wintermute, who wrote in a note that "flows are suggesting traders have started going into summer recess" and that bitcoin may consolidate at current levels, "at the mercy of the equity market which has the potential to pull crypto down alongside it in case of a further risk-off rotation."