Bitcoin climbs to $78,000 as crypto sits out the AI selloff

Bitcoin Holds Steady Above $78,000

Bitcoin rose 1.9% since midnight UTC, climbing to roughly $78,000 even as other risk assets showed signs of strain, a divergence that traders have increasingly pointed to as evidence crypto is trading on its own dynamics for the moment.

Nasdaq 100 index futures fell 1.65% after renewed public calls to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development, reviving investor unease about regulatory risk to the AI-driven rally that has powered much of the past year's gains in large technology stocks.

Oil Jumps on a Saudi Pipeline Closure

Crude oil prices gained almost 4% after a pipeline closure in Saudi Arabia raised concerns about a disruption to global supply, a reminder that energy markets remain sensitive to infrastructure outages even amid broader efforts by producers to diversify supply routes.

The combination of resilient crypto prices, a shaky session for tech-heavy equity futures, and a sharp move in oil illustrates how differently individual asset classes can react on the same day, even without a single unifying macroeconomic driver behind all three moves.

What Traders Are Watching

Market participants said they would be watching whether bitcoin's resilience holds if the equity selloff deepens, since sustained weakness in broader risk assets has historically weighed on crypto prices with a lag, even during stretches when the two have briefly diverged.