Bitcoin traded near $65,400 during Friday's Asian session, down less than 1% on the day, even as nearly $800 billion evaporated from the largest U.S. technology stocks. The resilience marks a notable departure from a month-long pattern in which cryptocurrency prices moved in lockstep with semiconductor and AI infrastructure equities.
The Magnificent Seven — the megacap technology cohort that has propelled U.S. equities for three years — fell 4.8% on Thursday, shedding approximately $797 billion in market value. It was the group's worst single-day performance since the tariff-driven selloff of April 2025, according to Bloomberg data. The S&P 500 declined 1.2%, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.9%.
The AI Spending Catalyst
The equity rout was triggered by disappointing earnings and alarming capital expenditure guidance from two of the sector's biggest spenders. Alphabet raised its full-year capex forecast to as much as $205 billion, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk described 2026 as "a massive capex year" even as the company reported profits well below analyst expectations.
Both announcements, delivered after Wednesday's market close, crystallized a concern that had been building for weeks: Big Tech is pouring hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure faster than returns can justify the investment.
Crypto's Surprising Resilience
What makes the session notable is what did not happen in crypto. Bitcoin's modest decline stood in sharp contrast to the carnage in equities. Ether slipped 3% to $1,879. Dogecoin led the majors lower with a 5% drop to $0.069, while XRP fell 2% to $1.11 and Solana lost 3% to $76. Hyperliquid's HYPE token declined 4% over seven sessions to $58.
These are losses, but modest ones relative to the magnitude of the equity selloff.
Throughout July, bitcoin had traded as a proxy for the AI capital cycle — rising when chip stocks rallied and falling when they wobbled. The correlation was so strong that crypto analysts had begun citing semiconductor earnings as a primary input for bitcoin price forecasting.
Decoupling or Delay?
Whether Thursday's resilience represents a genuine decoupling or merely a delayed reaction remains an open question. Bitcoin mining companies have spent the past two years repositioning themselves as AI data-center operators, converting cheap energy sites into hosting facilities for high-performance computing. A sustained retreat from AI infrastructure spending would eventually reach them through that channel, even if the transmission mechanism is slower on the downside than on the way up.
The bitcoin options market offered a more optimistic read. Open interest at the $70,000 and $72,000 call strikes on Deribit has accumulated to nearly $5 billion, with calls outnumbering puts by a significant margin — a positioning that suggests traders see upside potential rather than further downside.
The broader crypto market capitalization held steady, with total stablecoin supply remaining unchanged week-over-week — an indication that capital is not flowing out of the ecosystem, even if it is not aggressively flowing in.
For now, bitcoin's behavior during one of the most significant equity sell-offs of the year provides at least preliminary evidence that the two markets may not be as tightly linked as the summer rally suggested. One session does not establish a trend, but it offers the first counter-data point in a month of tight correlation.