Bitcoin Nears Worst October Since 2014 as Tech Sell-Off Hits Markets

Bitcoin’s slide toward $77,000 came as market stress widened beyond crypto: US tech shares fell sharply, and gold hit its lowest price in a year. The combination put traders in the awkward position of weighing several risks at once: weaker corporate earnings guidance, doubts about whether heavy AI spending will produce enough revenue, and fallout from a major Binance hack. Bitcoin’s move therefore arrived in a broader retreat in risk appetite, though the simultaneous drop in gold suggests investors weren’t simply shifting from riskier assets into a traditional safe haven.

Tech stocks set the tone

At Friday’s Wall Street open, BTC remained below $80,000. TradingView data showed it down 1.1% on the day after reaching its lowest level since Sept. 18. That price action put the focus on whether crypto was responding to its own pressures or following the direction set by technology shares and other markets. A single session can’t settle that question, but the timing made the connection difficult to ignore.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US stocks opened sharply lower after tech companies issued weaker forward guidance. Intel had warned on Thursday that fourth-quarter sales would fall short of market expectations; its shares dropped nearly 30% at Friday’s open. The decline spread across major technology companies and chipmakers, sharpening concerns about confidence in AI-related businesses. The immediate issue wasn’t simply whether companies were spending on AI, but whether the spending could be matched by future sales and profits. When expectations are high, even a warning about weaker near-term demand can prompt investors to reconsider how much growth they’re willing to price in.

“With renewed fears over AI Monetization, the Equity rotation is likely to continue today but the broader indices will reflect Tech’s downside,” JPMorgan wrote in a note quoted by CNBC. The Nasdaq Composite, heavily weighted toward technology stocks, was down 2.5% at about 25,500 when the article was written, its lowest level since Aug. 3. That decline gave traders a clear signal that pressure was concentrated in a sector with a large influence on the wider market. For crypto, the relevance is indirect but meaningful: when investors cut exposure to growth-oriented assets, Bitcoin can face selling alongside technology shares, even when the immediate news is unrelated to digital currencies.

Gold fell alongside equities, reaching $3,891 an ounce, its weakest price in a year. That’s an unusual mix for a session shaped by market anxiety, since gold is often treated as a defensive holding. The move cautions against reading any one asset as a clean measure of investor sentiment. Prices can reflect several forces at once, and the available figures don’t establish why gold fell.

XAU/USD one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Crypto faces overlapping pressure

Crypto traders were also reckoning with the aftermath of a multi-billion-dollar hack involving Binance, the largest crypto exchange. The platform said it would cover losses from the theft of $6.3 billion in coins and tokens. A spokesperson told Cointelegraph the company had $5 billion in matching tokens available. Those statements address the exchange’s planned response and the assets it says it can draw on; they don’t, on their own, explain how traders will assess the incident’s effect on confidence across crypto markets.

The scale of the reported theft gives the episode weight beyond the immediate losses. Exchange security incidents can raise questions about custody, operational safeguards and the reliability of assurances made after a breach. That doesn’t mean every platform faces the same exposure, or that the event alone explains Bitcoin’s decline. It does mean traders had a company-specific shock to weigh at the same time as a broad retreat in technology shares. This is more significant than it looks: market pressure can build when unrelated concerns arrive together.

Related: Will gold’s ‘infinite mint bug’ make Bitcoin more valuable?

Trading firm QCP Capital said macroeconomic conditions, technology-sector concerns and the Binance incident had “created a period of heightened market repricing.” In its Friday analysis, the firm said technology companies’ guidance on future capital spending would be a key signal for the direction of AI infrastructure investment and expected profitability. That puts attention on what businesses say about planned spending and the returns they expect from it, rather than on the broad claim that AI will keep attracting investment. The distinction matters because investment can continue even as markets become less willing to assume that it will quickly translate into earnings.

What the pressure means for Bitcoin

At roughly $77,000, Bitcoin was on track to end the month down 7.7%. CoinGlass data put that on course to be its weakest October performance since 2014. The comparison describes the scale of the monthly decline, but it doesn’t identify a single cause or guarantee that the trend will continue. Bitcoin’s price was facing a market-wide test at the same time as a crypto-specific confidence shock.

If you’re working in this space, the near-term signals are fairly plain: whether technology companies’ outlooks ease concerns about AI returns, and whether the Binance response reassures traders. Neither can be read from Bitcoin’s price alone. Here’s the thing: when macro pressure and industry news overlap, separating their effects becomes difficult, and any quick explanation risks giving one factor too much weight. The numbers here are underwhelming for Bitcoin holders. And yet, the figures describe one period of trading, not a settled verdict on what comes next.

Several pressures at once. That’s the story for now.