Bitcoin erased its post-election gains on Thursday, falling 5.4% to $75,871—below where it traded before the election—as a steep selloff in AI and semiconductor stocks spilled into crypto markets.
Crypto majors fell 4-6% on the day. Ethereum dropped 7.6% to $2,239, a steeper decline than the Nasdaq, while XRP lost 9.8% and Hyperliquid fell 4.9%. The CMC20 index fell 6.29%. More than $1.1 billion in crypto longs were liquidated before a slight relief rally overnight.
Stocks reverse course
The reversal followed a strong Wednesday session in which stocks had their best day in three months and Bitcoin climbed back above $80,800. On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 4.36%, its worst session since the Liberation Day tariffs in April 2025. The Nasdaq dropped 5.52% and closed in correction, more than 10% below last month's record. The Dow shed 1,833 points.
The damage concentrated in semiconductors. The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell more than 12%, its worst day since March 2020. Micron lost 17.5%, AMD 17.3%, Marvell 16.4% and Nvidia 9.3%. The Magnificent Seven shed roughly $1 trillion in market value, and the VIX touched 28.09 intraday, its highest since March. By the close, the U.S. stock market had lost $3 trillion in value.
Election result read two ways
Investors appeared to price in slower permitting and tighter oversight of the AI buildout, with several states where Democrats won having active local opposition to data center construction. Ipek Ozkardeskaya at Swissquote said, "We suspect there is going to be some scrutiny on this aggressive AI buildout." Rate expectations also shifted, with December hike odds falling to 70.1% from 82.7%.
Privacy coins outperform
Zcash fell 0.8% and Monero 2.2%, both less than the broad market, and both remain up on the week. Over the past year, Zcash is up 146% and Monero 74%, while BTC is down 26% and ETH down 34%.
Among top alt movers, WLFI gained 3%, PEPE 3% and ARB 4%. Oil rose 2% to $90 and gold fell 1% to $4,080. Stock futures were rebounding after the selloff, with Dow futures down 0.9% and Nasdaq futures up 1.6%.
Other developments
- Representative Robert Garcia, expected to chair House Oversight under the new Democratic majority, said the committee will investigate the Trump family's business dealings, including its crypto ventures, with World Liberty Financial likely among the first targets and inquiries possibly beginning in February.
- Trump-backed American Bitcoin swung to a $126 million third-quarter profit from a $57.2 million loss in Q2, driven by a $197 million gain on its bitcoin holdings.
- Zcash's NU7 upgrade will permanently freeze about 12,224 ZEC worth roughly $15.6 million by invalidating the only transaction format that can move coins out of Sprout, the chain's original 2016 privacy pool. The upgrade also cuts target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.
- Solana Labs launched Leap, a mobile app for trading tokenized stocks, ETFs, metals, currencies and crypto around the clock, built by the Dialect team Solana Labs acquired this year.
- China's central bank said it halted Solana's planned Accelerate China 2026 events in Shanghai and other cities and will investigate the domestic entities that placed the project's advertising in the Lujiazui financial district.
- The Bitcoin ETFs saw $430 million in net outflows on Thursday; the ETH ETFs saw $100 million in outflows.
Friday's October jobs report is next, after a week in which the market read the same political outcome two opposite ways inside two sessions.
