Bitcoins a very modest recovery from its steep overnight selloff quickly faded during US morning trading on Monday as broader risk markets fell sharply.
Trading at $65,400 near noon on the East Coast, bitcoin has fallen 35% over the past 24 hours.
The action took place as US stocks fell. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were each lower by more than 1%, led by renewed weakness in software stocks and private equity names.
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF ( IGV ) sank another 5% to a fresh 52-week low and is now down nearly 35% since October on concerns that generative AI tools could disrupt traditional software business models. Whether true or not, current market thinking is that crypto is just software, and bitcoin and IGV price movements of late have been almost perfectly correlated.
Adding to this bearish theme are continued concerns that AI could lead markets to the cusp of a major negative credit event similar to the global financial crisis of 2008. This is currently reflected in private equity share prices. These companies have great exposure to the aforementioned software sector. Blow Owl Capital ( OWL ) — which last week sold assets in an attempt to quell investors seeking liquidity — is lower by another 3.5% on Monday and 32% year-to-date. BlackStone ( BX ), Ares Management ( ARES ) and Apollo Global Management ( APO ) all added to their significant recent losses, falling between 6% and 8%.
Crypto often trades as a high-beta proxy for technology and broader liquidity conditions, and Monday’s weakness reflected that dynamic. While BTC has so far stayed above the worst lows of early February, it is still trading in a tight range between $60,000 and $70,000 as risk appetite remains fragile.
Adding to all this is uncertainty about global tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s earlier use of sweeping tariffs, Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, said in a note.
“This triggered a classic risk-off environment,” Kruger said. “Investors pulled back from speculative assets like crypto, with bitcoin behaving more like a high beta risk game than ‘digital gold’.”
