Bitcoin loses its spark: $BTC slips under $60K while AI stocks hog the limelight 🤖

Bitcoin fell below $60,000 on Wednesday for the second time this month, dropping as low as $59,217 before firming to $60,700, a 2.7% decline over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. The $59,464.98 price tag on $BTC marked the asset's lowest level in 21 months and extended a third consecutive daily decline. Ethereum slid 3.1% to $1,610, XRP fell 3.1% to $1.07, Solana dropped 2.6% to $67, and Dogecoin lost 4.6% to $0.075, according to the same data. For XRP, the slump brought the token within reach of $1, a level last seen shortly after President Donald Trump's 2024 reelection win, while Dogecoin touched its weakest price since late 2023.

The digital-asset weakness coincided with sharp pullbacks in gold and oil. Gold slipped below $4,000 per ounce and oil dropped under $70 per barrel, undermining the 2025 "debasement trade" that had favored hard assets on concerns over government debt and fiat currencies. Tech stocks moved in the opposite direction, with the Nasdaq up 0.8% at midday and the S&P 500 trading up 0.4% as the AI trade continued to draw investor interest and capital. South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix filed on Wednesday to raise nearly $30 billion in a U.S. share offering, the largest overseas company capital raise since Saudi Aramco's $26 billion sale in 2019.

Hedge fund manager Philippe Laffont told CNBC he has become "a little bit more worried" about bitcoin's future, adding, "I don't know what to think about Bitcoin anymore." He argued that companies such as SpaceX and emerging AI firms offer growth stories that are easier to evaluate over long time horizons, while the rise of stablecoins has reduced bitcoin's uniqueness as an alternative financial asset. Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at crypto asset manager Bitwise, called Wednesday "painful" but added, "We've seen this movie before. This bear market shall pass, and crypto will come out stronger on the other side." ETF issuer 21Shares conceded in a Wednesday "State of the Market" report that its earlier prediction that bitcoin would break from its four-year cycle in 2026 has not played out, writing, "Heading into 2026, we believed that Bitcoin's four-year cycle could be finished. Six months in, we have to be honest: price action still looks famil[iar]."

Traders positioned for a relief bounce even as the macro backdrop remained cautious. Analyst Killa wrote on X that "it's time to start bouncing soon on the LTF," targeting a move toward $70,000, while trader RektForecast saw $BTC/USD holding $60,000 as a floor "for the rest of the month" before retesting $70,000 as a "poor high." Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at Wintermute, said "flows are suggesting traders have started going into summer recess," adding that consolidation at current levels remained "at the mercy of the equity market." Investors are awaiting Thursday's Personal Consumption Expenditures index, with economists projecting a 4.1% annual increase in consumer prices, the third consecutive monthly acceleration, ahead of a September Federal Reserve meeting that CME Watch projected would include a rate hike.