Coindesk

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)Last week, we described bitcoin above $100,000 as a coiled spring ready to unleash energy in either direction. Unfortunately for the bulls, that energy is being released downward as market sentiment shifts in response to concerns over the impact of the low-cost Chinese AI startup DeepSeek on the U.S. AI sector and American technological leadership.Bitcoin plummeted to $97,800 during Asian trading hours, with whales driving prices lower to liquidate overleveraged buyers on perpetual futures exchanges. GPU-heavy AI tokens saw sell-offs of up to 40%, with similar pressure affecting GameFi assets. Nasdaq futures tanked 700 points, with shares in chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) indicated 10% lower in pre-market trading. DeepSeek-R1 is expected to significantly...

Bitcoin (BTC) fell just below $98,000, a near 10% drawdown from all time highs, with investors questioning the continuation of the bull run. The fall was attributed to the concerns about China's DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence hyper-efficient model competing with the U.S. industry at a fraction of the cost.Since President Trump won the U.S. election, bitcoin has jumped from $66,000 to new all-time highs of $109,000. During the rally BTC corrected as much as 15% twice, in addition to multiple double-digit drawdowns. Therefore, bitcoin's 10% drop seems in line with previous drawdowns.A reliable indicator of support during a bull market is the short-term holder cost basis, which is the average on-chain cost for coins that have moved within the last 155...

Bitcoin (BTC) market sentiment has turned bearish, with Wall Street's tech-heavy Nasdaq futures trading 700 points lower. The risk aversion is driven by concerns that the cost-effective Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek could significantly challenge U.S. technological dominance.Bitcoin's perpetual futures funding rates, periodic payments made between long and short positions in perpetual futures contracts, have flipped negative, according to data source Velo Data. It's a sign of more bearish sentiment in the market - traders are chasing short positions in anticipation of lower prices.The leading cryptocurrency by market value has dropped over 3% since early Asian hours, reaching lows under $98,000 at one point, according to CoinDesk data. Futures tied to Nasdaq have dropped over 3.5%, with NVIDIA, the bell-wether...

Crypto exchange Bitpanda said it secured a markets in crypto assets license (MiCA) from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).The crypto asset service provider license will enable the exchange to operate across the European Union's 27 nations. The Austria-based company had 6 million users in December and will use the license to accelerate its growth, it said. "This milestone enables us to bring easy and safe investing to over 450 million people, unlocking unparalleled growth potential in a market we're ready to fully conquer," Eric Demuth, CEO and co-founder, said in the statement. The company joins Boerse Stuttgart Digital, which was awarded the first license by the German regulator. MoonPay, BitStaete, ZBD and prime brokerage and clearing company Hidden...

Bullish bets on higher crypto prices lost $770 million in the past 24 hours as bitcoin fell under $100,000, leading to some majors rapidly losing momentum in a bloody start to the week.Solana’s SOL and dogecoin (DOGE) dropped more than 10% to lead losses among majors, while ether (ETH), BNB Chain’s bnb, xrp (XRP) and Cardano’s ADA fell as much as 9%. Overall market cap fell 8.5% as of Asian afternoon hours Monday.Tokens outside of the top twenty and across different sectors showed similar woes, with memecoin pepe (PEPE), layer 1 upstart Aptos (APT), Gate.io’s GATE and AI Agent creation platform Virtuals (VIRTUALS) losing as much as 18%.Jupiter’s JUP was the only token in green with a 3.5% gain over...