Bitcoin drops back to about $75,800 as an AI chip rout drags the Nasdaq down more than 5%, erasing Wednesday's bounce

Bitcoin gave back Wednesday's rally on Thursday morning as a rout in chip stocks hit risk assets. CoinDesk's live blog put bitcoin at about $75,800 at roughly 11 a.m. Eastern, down 5.2% over 24 hours. CryptoTicker said it fell from $78,767 to $75,986 in about an hour, and that total crypto market value dropped 6.0% to about $2.58 trillion.

The trigger was the stock market. CoinDesk reported the Nasdaq down 5.1% at 11:03 a.m. and 4.3% by 11:57 a.m., after falling nearly 6% at one point, with Nvidia down 8% and Micron and AMD down by double digits. Coinbase, Circle and Strategy shares fell between about 8% and 10% in morning trading.

Leverage amplified the move. CoinDesk counted more than $1 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, mostly longs. CryptoTicker, citing CoinGlass, said more than $560 million was wiped out in a single hour. Totals differ by time window and data provider.

It reverses a calm start to the day. At 6:30 a.m. Eastern, bitcoin was near $80,250 after Wednesday's jump, and U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $74.6 million on Wednesday, according to Farside Investors, after about $1.16 billion of outflows across the three prior sessions. Traders now watch the roughly $75,600 level, the seven-week low set around Tuesday's election, and Friday's jobs report.