Bitcoin holds $65,000 as $797bn tech selloff tests AI decoupling

Bitcoin held steady at $65,400 during Friday’s Asian session, barely moving while the Magnificent Seven tech stocks erased $797 billion in market value. The largest cryptocurrency was down less than 1% on the day, even as the equity selloff dragged the S&P 500 down 1.2% and the Nasdaq 100 down 1.9%.

The stock market rout was the worst single day for the megacap tech group since the tariff selloff of April 2025. Alphabet and Tesla triggered the plunge after reporting earnings that hardened investor fears over massive artificial-intelligence spending. Alphabet raised its capital expenditure forecast to as much as $205 billion this year. Meanwhile, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk called 2026 "a massive capex year" despite the company reporting profits well below expectations.

These results intensified a worry that has been building for weeks: Big Tech is pouring hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure faster than returns can justify. The Magnificent Seven has now fallen 11% below its late-May record, wiping out roughly $2 trillion in collective market value.

For market professionals, the critical takeaway from Thursday's session was not the tech decline, but bitcoin's refusal to follow it. Throughout June and July, the cryptocurrency had traded as a direct proxy for the AI capital cycle. It rallied when chip stocks surged and dropped when semiconductor sentiment wobbled. Thursday marked a rare stretch of independence, providing the first sign that the crypto-AI correlation might be fracturing.

However, declaring a permanent decoupling is premature. Bitcoin mining companies have aggressively rebuilt their operations to function as AI data-center operators over the past year. If Big Tech sustainably retreats from AI infrastructure spending, the financial impact would eventually transmit to these crypto-adjacent firms. The connection may simply be slower to transmit during a downturn than it was during the upside of the rally.

While bitcoin's 3% weekly gain highlighted its outperformance, the broader digital asset market leaned red. Ether slipped 3% to $1,879. Dogecoin was the weakest major token, falling 5% on the day to $0.069 and posting a 4% loss over the week. XRP declined 2% to $1.11, and Solana lost 3% to trade at $76. Hyperliquid's HYPE dropped to $58, down 4% over the past seven sessions. These losses were marginal compared to the devastation in the technology sector, underscoring the evolving divergence between digital assets and traditional equity proxies.