Bitcoin fell 1.4% to around $80,100 on Thursday, dipping briefly to $79,600 before catching a bid, as a hawkish Federal Reserve hold and disappointing earnings from Samsung and Alphabet rattled tech-linked markets. AI-related tokens were among the hardest hit across the crypto market, CoinDesk reports.
Bitcoin (Credits: CoinDesk)
Fed Dissent: Two Officials Wanted a Rate Hike
The Fed held interest rates steady on Wednesday, as expected — but with a hawkish twist: two officials dissented in favor of a quarter-point increase, and Chair Kevin Warsh declined to signal what might come in December. The September PCE inflation report, the Fed’s preferred gauge, is still due.
The cautious stance weighed on risk assets broadly. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.2% after Samsung shares dropped 4% despite a record quarterly profit — the chipmaker disappointed investors on shareholder returns. Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.1% after Alphabet missed earnings expectations, with its shares sinking roughly 10%.
AI Tokens Slump as Altcoins Take the Brunt
Altcoins suffered worse than Bitcoin. Ether fell 1.7% to about $2,321, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index dropped 3.4%. AI-linked tokens led the slide: Near (NEAR) fell 7.8%, Bittensor (TAO) lost 3.1%, and JasmyCoin (JASMY) dropped 10% — the steepest fall in the CoinDesk 100, per the report.
There was a counterweight: U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $137 million on Wednesday, a third straight day of inflows, adding $423.7 million over the period, according to Farside Investors data cited by CoinDesk. Institutional demand is holding even as macro headwinds — a divided Fed and tech earnings misses — keep pressure on risk assets.
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Source: CoinDesk — read the full story there.
