Kospi Crashes, Chip Darlings Stumble, Bitcoin Shrugs It Off Like a Pro 🤷‍♂️

Bitcoin traded around $63,800, ether near $1,899 and XRP at $1.07 on Wednesday, with most major cryptocurrencies rising between 1% and 2% even as South Korea's Kospi index slid 11% — its second straight double-digit decline and one of the worst two-day stretches on record. SK Hynix fell roughly 17% after reporting quarterly profit up 557%, which still missed expectations, while Samsung lost 12% ahead of its own results on Thursday. The MSCI Asia Pacific index dropped 2% to its lowest since mid-April and Nasdaq 100 futures extended a five-day losing streak, their longest this year.

The moves extended a selloff that began Monday in U.S. markets, when shares in NVDA led a tech-led decline that carried into Asia. Bitcoin had earlier touched roughly $66,921 before sliding to $62,684 during early Tuesday trading, according to Decrypt's morning snapshot, which also noted over $670 million in crypto liquidations over 24 hours, including $533 million from longs. Ether fell as low as $1,875, solana to $73, and AI-linked tokens such as FET, NEAR and HYPE dropped as much as 10% over 24 hours. Taker long/short volume in futures flipped bearish at 51.5%, and futures open interest declined in SHIB, AVAX, LINK and DOGE, while XRP open interest rose nearly 6% to 2.35 billion tokens. The Senate shelved the Crypto Clarity Act to prioritize a Russia sanctions bill and federal nominations, leaving only the final days before the Aug. 8 recess and an unresolved dispute over restrictions on government officials' crypto holdings.

Analysts at Bitfinex said the link between bitcoin and equities depends on the source of the stress. "BTC trades with equities when the stress is macro and [interest] rates-driven, and decouples when the stress is idiosyncratic to the equity market. An earnings-and-capital-expenditure debate is precisely that, so on this data the correlation is overstated," they wrote in a note. By Thursday the chip rout showed its first signs of easing as Samsung said chip profit rose more than 250-fold on AI memory shortages; the Kospi swung between a 6% gain and a 2% loss before settling. Bitcoin held near $64,100, ether near $1,905 and solana at $74, with roughly $28 billion in BTC volume and $10 billion in ETH volume, while U.S. earnings split overnight with Microsoft up nearly 9% after its fastest cloud growth in four years and Meta down 8% on a weak revenue forecast.

The Federal Open Market Committee begins its meeting Wednesday with Chair Kevin Warsh's decision and press conference due July 29; markets expect a hold in the 3.50%–3.75% range. Core PCE and GDP data follow on Thursday. The weekly picture shows HYPE down 8%, XRP off 6%, solana down 5%, dogecoin down 4% to $0.07 and bitcoin down 3%, with BNB the only major holding a weekly gain at $572.