Bitcoin lost ground on Tuesday, slipping 0.5% to trade near $81,400, as a wave of risk aversion tied to artificial intelligence spending rolled through equity markets in Asia and then Europe.
The decline came even though US-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds had just recorded their largest single-day inflow in almost a month. Wire coverage of the move suggested that the fund demand was not enough to offset the cautious tone in broader markets, and options traders were described as looking for protection against further declines.
The pressure on risk assets was centered on technology shares in Asia. South Korea's Kospi index dropped 3.7%, with the slide linked to fresh worries about investments connected to AI. Broader reports on the regional session said Asian equities retreated overall, with the AI concerns joined by escalating protests in France as a second source of unease.
The selloff did not stay within the region. Semiconductor stocks in Europe also fell, following the lead set in Asia as investors reassessed the outlook for AI-related spending. The sequence illustrated how sentiment around the technology theme was moving across time zones, from the Asian morning into European trading.
For crypto, the episode underlined the way bitcoin has at times moved alongside equities when investors pull back from risk. The modest size of the drop, half a percent, contrasted with the far steeper fall in South Korean stocks, and it came with ETF buying on the other side of the ledger. The reported appetite for downside options protection nonetheless pointed to some nervousness among derivatives participants.
The sources reviewed by FXMARE did not give further detail on the scale of the ETF inflow, the specific options positioning, or the precise AI-related developments that triggered the fresh round of concern, so those points remain unquantified here.