Bitcoin holds above $75,000 as KOSPI falls 8%

Bitcoin held above $75,000 on Friday after falling as much as 6.6% on Thursday, as a sell-off in U.S. technology stocks spread to Asian markets.

BTC/USD traded near its 50-week simple moving average at about $75,733, according to TradingView data. The cryptocurrency fell to about $75,109 on Bitstamp during Thursday’s decline.

The S&P 500 dropped 4.4% on Thursday, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks 30 semiconductor companies, declined 12.2%.

South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index fell more than 8% shortly after Friday’s open, triggering a circuit breaker that halted trading for 20 minutes. The index later reduced its losses and closed 6% lower at 5,059.69 points, its lowest closing level since March 31.

South Korean authorities announced measures to reduce forced selling. Brokerages will be exempt from a requirement to maintain a 140% collateral ratio on margin loans for three months starting Monday, according to the government. Officials said they would prepare further measures if market volatility increased.

The government described the global stock-market volatility following the U.S. midterm elections as serious and said South Korea’s domestic market had reacted too strongly to external factors.

Analysts linked Thursday’s U.S. stock-market decline to concerns that Democratic gains in the House and Senate could lead to tighter artificial intelligence regulation. The concerns added to existing worries about high spending on AI infrastructure and technology.

Market commentary cited Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari’s call for a “pause on advanced AI development” and said an outright U.S. ban on AI was unlikely. The commentary described Thursday’s decline as more technical than fundamental because losses were concentrated in technology stocks. Excluding that sector, the S&P 500 fell about 2.5%.

Economist Mohamed El-Erian called for agreement on AI policy. He wrote that the U.S. approach to AI reflected the technology’s productivity and national-security potential but had raised concerns about safety, access to information and the impact on society. He attributed the market backlash to those concerns, gaps in information and investor behavior.

Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 has become more positive in recent months, increasing the likelihood that the cryptocurrency will move alongside other risk assets during broad stock-market sell-offs.

Reviewed and fact-checked by Alex Panasenko on November 6.