Bitcoin Slips Under $75K as Global Tech Rout Drags Crypto Down

Bitcoin touched $74,762 Friday morning, its lowest price since Aug. 21, before clawing back some ground. By 11:48 a.m. EST it was trading just under $75,700, still down nearly 1.5% over 24 hours. The dip capped a stubborn session: bitcoin punched through $76,000 three separate times, and each breakout was met with a fast wave of selling.

The third attempt, around 8:25 a.m. EST, is where the floor gave way. Before that, the coin had held firm above $75,000 following a 5% slide roughly a day earlier — support that finally buckled under the weight of a wider market rout.

The trigger was a global flight from tech. Wall Street's Magnificent 7 logged steep losses Thursday, and the pain rolled into Asia by early Friday, with South Korea's KOSPI index plunging as much as 9% and briefly tripping a circuit breaker. Japanese and Taiwanese indices took heavy hits too. The retreat followed reports that Democratic lawmakers plan to target AI companies — data center operators in particular — over voter concerns, rattling investors already queasy about enormous AI capital spending.

Fresh U.S. jobs data piled on. The economy added 165,000 positions, blowing past the 64,000 consensus and complicating bets on upcoming Federal Reserve rate cuts. Bitunix analysts pointed to a convergence of worries — AI capex returns, data center regulation and the unwinding of leveraged positions — as the force behind sharp drops in tech and semiconductor shares.

Money is running for cover, not crypto. Assets in money market funds hit a record $8.016 trillion, a sign investors are chasing liquidity. Even so, the selling pressure in digital assets is easing: Coinglass data shows total bitcoin liquidations at $125 million, about $105 million of that from longs, while the broader crypto market's liquidations fell to $470 million from more than $1 billion a day earlier.

Per Bitunix, the tech sell-off has also trimmed market expectations for a December Fed move, with analysts suggesting tighter financial conditions from the market itself could reduce the need for further tightening. Looking ahead, they argue the real question is whether rising energy costs bleed into broader prices, and whether an AI spending slowdown starts to weigh on corporate financing and hiring — a balancing act for central banks trying to stop tight conditions and slow growth from feeding on each other.