A rally in cryptocurrency prices faded as Wall Street’s risk-off mode dragged down the broader market alongside heavy losses in tech shares.
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) seems to be taking a bit of a pause as October wraps up, trading around $70,600 in early US trading, down about 2.35% in the past 24 hours. ETH/USD lost 4.7% while Polkadot was down about 5%.
Despite today’s slump, the original cryptocurrency have climbed over 8% this week. Moreover, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw strong inflows, pulling in $893 million on Wednesday for its second day in a row above the $850 million threshold. Most of this demand was led by BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)'s IBIT, which alone brought in $872 million.
With earnings season underway, traders are also gearing up for the U.S. presidential election and key economic reports, like next nonfarm payrolls numbers, looking for hints on rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
"Stocks are sliding in the US this morning for a variety of reasons, including underwhelming mega-cap tech earnings Wed night (META had some warnings about elevated costs while MSFT provided Dec Q revenue guidance that fell short of expectations)," Vital Knowledge analysts said.
Wall Street slipped on Thursday as Microsoft and Meta’s warnings about rising AI expenses cooled the excitement around megacap stocks.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) shares dipped 2.8%, and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) fell 5.1%, even though both topped earnings expectations in their Wednesday reports. Adding to the pressure, the United States 10-Year edged up past 4.3%, weighing further on stocks.
Bitcoin has been closing in on its all-time high this week, rising from around $71,000 to past $73,500 by Tuesday. This upward momentum comes just a few days before the U.S. elections—a time many traders view as bullish for the markets regardless of the results.
Polls show a tight race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, stirring up market speculation as Bitcoin nears its all-time high of $73,798, last seen in March. The recent surge has brought the most-traded cryptocurrency within striking distance of this peak, adding to the pre-election excitement in the market.