LONDON (Reuters) – Bitcoin fell below $100,000 on Monday, hitting its lowest in 11 days, in a move analysts attributed to a wave of caution after the surging popularity of a Chinese artificial intelligence model sparked a selloff in Western AI-related stocks.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency struggled to make gains last week, as a rally that had seen it break above $100,000 after U.S. President Donald Trump’s election ran out of steam.
At 1156 GMT, bitcoin was at $98,852.17, down around 6% on the day, having fallen sharply in early trading to hit its lowest since Jan. 16.
Technology stocks plunged, as traders worried that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek could threaten Western companies’ dominance of the sector, in a move some called AI’s “Sputnik moment”, referring to the former Soviet Union’s launch of a satellite that marked the start of the space race in the late 1950s.
Bitcoin’s losses are “seemingly driven by some risk-off sentiment circulating the markets currently due to DeepSeek,” wrote eToro analyst Simon Peters.
Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, said a decline in Nasdaq futures had hurt crypto markets, but that disappointment over the Trump administration’s announcement about a cryptocurrency stockpile had put digital assets more at risk of a sharp selloff.
Crypto failed to feature in Trump’s day-one announcements after taking office last week, leaving some investors disappointed. In an executive order on Thursday, Trump created a working group to draft new crypto rules and explore a crypto stockpile, while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) spiked accounting guidance that the industry said had stymied crypto adoption.
The prospect of interest rates staying higher for longer also hurt riskier assets, said Thomas Puech, CEO of digital asset hedge fund Indigo.
U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers meet this week and are expected to keep interest rates on hold.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Amanda Cooper and Louise Heavens)
