Connect with us

Published

on

A bitcoin is on a screen showing the bitcoin-U.S. dollar exchange rate.

Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez | picture alliance | Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies tumbled to begin the final week of January, with the market in a cooling period after running to a new record and pulled lower by the DeepSeek-driven sell-off in tech stocks.

The price of bitcoin fell 3% to $100,776.81, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it fell as low as $97,750.00. The broader market of cryptocurrencies, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, dropped 7%.

The Nasdaq was down more than 3%.

Shares of Coinbase and MicroStrategy fell about 2% each in premarket trading. Bitcoin miners that power AI ventures suffered deeper cuts. Core Scientific slid 21%, while Terawulf lost 16%. Iren, formerly known as Iris Energy, fell 16%.

Crypto was under pressure from a rout in tech stocks. Chinese startup DeepSeek said it may have created a competitive artificial intelligence model for a fraction of the cost, sparking concerns about U.S. dominance in AI and big tech’s spending on AI models and data centers.

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

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Bitcoin falls under $100,000, dragged by DeepSeek stock sell-off

Bitcoin has seen more than $250 million in long liquidations over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, as traders who used leverage to bet the price of bitcoin would continue to rise were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses.

The selling follows a mixed response by the market to President Donald Trump’s widely anticipated executive order on crypto, issued Thursday afternoon, and a lack of news since. Some crypto traders were disappointed the order didn’t fully commit to the establishment of a stockpile, and some didn’t care for the “stockpile” language versus a reserve. (While the latter would involve actively buying bitcoin in regular installments, a stockpile would simply not sell any of the bitcoin currently held by the U.S. government.) Bitcoin hit a new record above $109,000 last week in anticipation of the executive order.

“Ultimately this set up digital assets to be more at risk of a sharp sell-off whether the driver of the sell-off came from digital assets or not (in this case Nasdaq),” Kendrick said of the market’s initial reaction to the order. “Nevertheless, at least the Trump administration news is out there, so the disappointment/confusion and therefore ‘hope phase’ is over.”

Investors may also be derisking ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting, which is scheduled to conclude Wednesday.

“Investors are hoping the Fed will lean more to the accommodative side but are fearful the Fed won’t be as dovish 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 chart, there is nothing bearish about the price action.”

—CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Technology

Micron shares jump on earnings beat, rosy guidance as data center revenue triples

Published

on

By

Micron shares jump on earnings beat, rosy guidance as data center revenue triples

Signage outside the Micron offices in San Jose, California, on Dec. 17, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Micron shares popped 6% in extended trading Thursday after the company reported second-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates and offered better-than-expected guidance.

Here’s how the company did:

  • Earnings per share: $1.56, adjusted vs. $1.42 expected by LSEG
  • Revenue: $8.05 billion vs. $7.89 billion expected by LSEG

Revenue increased 38% from $5.82 billion during the same period in 2024, Micron said in a press release. The memory and storage solutions company reported net income of $1.58 billion, or $1.41 per share, up from $793 million, or 71 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Data center revenue tripled, the company said.

Revenue for the fiscal third quarter will be about $8.8 billion, Micron said, topping the $8.5 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings will be roughly $1.57 a share, the company said, beating the $1.47 average estimate.

Prior to Thursday’s close, Micron shares were up 22% for the year, while the Nasdaq is down more than 8%.

Micron will host its quarterly call with investors at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Continue Reading

Technology

BlackRock’s head of digital assets says staking could be a ‘huge step change’ for ether ETFs

Published

on

By

BlackRock’s head of digital assets says staking could be a ‘huge step change’ for ether ETFs

Omar Marques | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Appetite for ether ETFs has been tepid since their launch last July, but that could change if some of the regulatory wrinkles holding them back get “resolved,” according to Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock.

There’s a widely held view that the success of ether ETFs has been “meh” compared to the explosive growth in funds tracking bitcoin, Mitchnick said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York City Thursday. Though he sees that as a “misconception,” he acknowledged that the inability to earn a staking yield on the funds is likely one thing holding them back.

“There’s obviously a next phase in the potential evolution of [ether ETFs],” he said. “An ETF, it’s turned out, has been a really, really compelling vehicle through which to hold bitcoin for lots of different investor types. There’s no question it’s less perfect for ETH today without staking. A staking yield is a meaningful part of how you can generate investment return in this space, and all the [ether] ETFs at launch did not have staking.”

Staking is a way for investors to earn passive yield on their cryptocurrency holdings by locking tokens up on the network for a period of time. It allows investors to put their crypto to work if they’re not planning to sell it anytime soon.

But Mitchnick doesn’t expect a simple fix.

“It’s not a particularly easy problem,” he explained. “It’s not as simple as … a new administration just green-lighting something and then boom, we’re all good, off to the races. There are a lot of fairly complex challenges that have to be figured out, but if that can get figured out, then it’s going to be sort of a step change upward in terms of what we see the activity around those products is.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has historically viewed some staking services as potential unregistered securities offerings under the Howey Test – which is used to determine whether an asset is an investment contract and therefore, a security. But a more crypto friendly SEC is moving swiftly to reverse the damage done to the industry under the previous regime. Its newly formed crypto task force is scheduled to kick off a roundtable series Friday focused on defining the security status of digital assets.

Ether has been one of the most beaten up cryptocurrencies in recent months. It’s down more than 40% year to date as it has struggled with conflicting and difficult-to-comprehend narratives, weaker revenue since its last big technical upgrade and increasing competition from Solana. Standard Chartered this week slashed its price target on the coin by more than half.

Mitchnick said the negativity is “overdone.”

“ETH … at the second grade level is easier to define … but at the 10th grade level is a lot harder,” he said. “Second grade level: it’s a technology innovation story. … Beyond that, it does get a little more vast, a little more complicated. It’s about being a bet on blockchain adoption and innovation. That’s part of the thesis as we communicate it to clients.”

“There are three [use cases] that we focus on that have a lot of resonance with our client base: it’s a bet to some extent on tokenization, on stablecoin adoption, and on decentralized financing,” he added. “It does take a fair bit of education, and we’ve been on that journey, but it’s going to take more time.”

BlackRock is the issuer of the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF. It also has a tokenized money market fund, known as BUIDL, which it initially launched a year ago on Ethereum and has since expanded to several other networks including Aptos and Polygon.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Technology

Tesla to recall 46,000 Cybertrucks, citing exterior panel that can increase ‘risk of crash’

Published

on

By

Tesla to recall 46,000 Cybertrucks, citing exterior panel that can increase 'risk of crash'

A Tesla Cybertruck is parked in front of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 11, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Tesla is recalling more than 46,000 of its Cybertrucks due to a cosmetic exterior trim panel that it said can “delaminate and detach from the vehicle,” potentially becoming a road hazard and “increasing the risk of a crash.”

The recall covers an exterior part of the vehicle, known as a cant rail, and it will affect all Cybertruck vehicles manufactured from November 2023 to February 2025, Tesla wrote in a filing to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Cybertrucks’ recall comes at an already-challenging time for the embattled EV maker, whose value has dropped by more than 40% as CEO Elon Musk continues his role as a top advisor in the Trump administration.

Owners of affected vehicles can take their Cybertrucks to Tesla’s service department for free replacement of the cant rail, the company wrote in its filing.

Both Tesla and The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Following the recall filing, The Information reported that the company plans to introduce a new innovation to the Cybertruck’s battery this year that would “sharply decrease battery manufacturing costs,” citing a senior executive.

Continue Reading

Trending