Bitcoin falls below $ 98,000 in risk-off movement as NASDAQ shares are crushed

Cryptocurrencies overturned to begin the last week of January, with the market for a cooling period after driving to a new record and drawing lower by the Deepseek-driven sale in technology shares.

The price of Bitcoin dropped 5% to $ 98,432.54 according to Coin Metrics. Previously, it dropped as low as $ 97,750.00. The wider market for cryptocurrencies, measured by the Coindesk 20 index, fell almost 10%.

Nasdaq futures fell about 4 % in early trade.

Shares of Coin base and Micro -strategy dropped 6 % and 5 % respectively in pre -market trading. Bitcoin mine workers who operate AI companies suffered deeper cuts. Core Science dropped 18.5 %while Terawulf lost 14 % and IRENFormerly known as Iris Energy, 10 per cent fell.

Crypto was under pressure from a downturn in technology shares. The Chinese Startup Deepseek said it may have created a competitive artificial intelligence model for a fraction of the award, which raises concerns over American dominance in AI and major technologies’ costs for AI models and data centers.

“Today’s 3% decrease in Nasdaq futures (on Deepseek news) has so far run digital asset liquidation overnight,” Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick said in a note on Monday. “This relationship highlights the continued strong (and strengthening) relationship between digital assets and the tech sector. (Bitcoin) remains heavily correlated to Nasdaq, much more than it does to gold.”

Bitcoin has seen more than $ 250 million in long liquidations over the past 24 hours, According to CoingeCkoSince merchants who used leverage to bet that the price of Bitcoin would continue to rise was forced to sell their assets to cover their losses.

The sale follows a mixed reaction from the market on President Donald Trump’s highly expected crypto order issued Thursday afternoon, and a lack of news since. Some crypto traders were disappointed with order did not completely commit to the establishment of a warehouse, and some did not care about the “stock” language versus a reserve. (While the latter would be actively involved in buying Bitcoin in regular installments, a warehouse simply would not sell any of the bitcoin that the US government currently has.) Bitcoin broke a new record over $ 109,000 last week in expectation of the notice .

“In the end, this digital assets set up more to be at risk of a sharp divestment, whether the driving force behind the sale came from digital assets or not (in this case Nasdaq),” Kendrick said of the market’s first reaction to the order. “Still, at least the Trump administration news out there, so the disappointment/confusion and therefore ‘the hope phase’ is over.”

Investors may also be deriscus ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve Meeting, which is scheduled to end Wednesday.

“Investors hope that Fed will lean more to the welcoming side, but are afraid that Fed will not be as pigeon -like as what the market would like to see,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX. “The most important takeaway right now is to see the forest through the trees. When we look at the Bitcoin diagram, there is nothing bearish at the price.”

-CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.