coverage endedJul 17, 2026, 9:00 PM
Live markets: Bitcoin returns to $63,000 as Nasdaq trims large early loss
A deepening global selloff in chipmakers dragged risk assets lower, pulling bitcoin back from the $65,000 level it reached on this week's soft inflation print.
Memory chips are the bedrock powering AI systems. (dujin yun/Pixabay)SpaceX in talks with Department of Defense for providing computer capacity: WSJ
Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) and the Pentagon are discussing a deal for SpaceX to provide billions of dollars of computing capacity to assist in powering the agency’s AI models, reported the WSJ on Friday afternoon.
SpaceX has inked agreements along similar lines with Anthropic and Google in recent months, the report noted.
The news provided a momentary jolt to SPCX’s roughed-up shares, but they’ve mostly given up that gain, still down 4.4% on the day at $125.36.
Trump Media discussing $100,000 fee for faster access to president's social media posts: FT
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) yesterday raised eyebrows with its Truth API announcement, in which businesses — for a price — would get faster access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts.
That would include the account of Donald Trump himself, which would be quite valuable given the president’s frequent market-moving posts.
The FT this afternoon reported that Trump Media has been pitching potential clients a price of as much as $100,000 per month for such access.
“People will pay because they have to,” an executive at a hedge fund told the FT. “If you’re behind on that news, you’ll get crushed.”
Meta and Anthropic in talks on $10 billion computing power deal: NYT
Anthropic is pursuing a deal to rent computing power from Meta (META) AI data centers, which could be valued at up to $10 billion over two years, the NYT reports.
According to the story, Anthropic first proposed the deal in June, and Meta is currently considering it.
META shares are off session lows, now down 2.9%, and data center names — sharply lower earlier in the day — are narrowing losses, with Keel Infrastructure (KEEL) and Hut 8 (HUT) moving into the green.
Bitcoin climbs over $63,000 as Nasdaq narrows loss to 1%
Down about 2.5% at its worst levels Friday, the Nasdaq has trimmed that drop to just 1% at the noon hour on the East Coast.
Both Micron and SanDisk have reversed sizable declines, each now more than 3% higher for the day.
That’s helping crypto stage a modest recovery, with bitcoin (BTC) rising to $63,300, though still down 2% over the past 24 hours.
Kimi K3 'important inflection point for AI,' says tech investor
“Kimi K3 may be an important inflection point for AI,” said Gavin Baker, CIO at Atreides Management. “Potentially negative for Anthropic and OpenAI while being net positive for essentially every other company in the world.”
“A world where there are only 2-3 dominant frontier labs with 90% inference margins is net negative for every other layer while being awesome for those 2-3 labs,” Baker continued. “Those labs would become monopsonies for power, data centers, semiconductors and hyperscalers and would obviously vertically integrate over time into all those layers while also completely subsuming the application/software layers.”
Apple reclaims most valuable company spot from Nvidia
With all eyes focused on the chipmaker selloff, Apple (AAPL) has been quietly rising for the past month, hitting a new record high earlier this week.
With Nvidia (NVDA) again lower Friday morning, its market cap has slipped back to $4.86 trillion, below Apple’s $4.88 trillion.
A rare sell-side firm without a buy rating on Apple, HSBC on Friday threw in the towel with an upgrade.
Apple, said HSBC, is “well placed to leverage its 2.5 billion installed device base with its forthcoming revamped Apple Intelligence … This AI boost comes at the right moment, when we think Apple has one of its most innovative product pipelines in place.”
Crypto-related stocks down sharply as AI trade wipeout continues
Thirty minutes into Friday’s U.S. session, the Nasdaq is off the lows, but still down 1.8% for the day, with the semiconductor ETF (SOXX) off by 4%.
Bitcoin (BTC) is lower by 2.3% to $62,800 and ether (ETH) by 3.5% to $1,815.
Read more: Bitcoin faces fresh headwinds as China’s Kimi beats Claude, GPT in coding benchmark
Most tied to the AI trade, former bitcoin miners-turned-data-center-providers are leading declines among crypto stocks. Hut 8 (HUT), Bitdeer (DTDR), and MARA Holdings (MARA) are all lower by more than 7%.
Strategy (MSTR) is down 2.25%, with its preferred stock STRC off 1%. Coinbase (COIN), Bullish (BLSH), and Circle (CRCL) are all lower by about 1.5%.
Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital inks stadium deal with Texas Tech
The home of Texas Tech’s Red Raider football team will now be known as Galaxy Stadium, as Galaxy Digital (GLXY) is the official data center and digital assets partner of that university’s athletic program under a 15-year agreement.
Normally, a news item like this might well be ignored, but it’s the second such deal of late between an AI infrastructure provider and an athletics program, following IREN’s pact with basketball’s Golden State Warriors.
These stadium naming rights deals have a long history of marking cycle tops. Pac Bell Park anyone?
SpaceX slips further after cancellation of Starship V3 launch
“Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” said Elon Musk Thursday evening. “Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days.”
SPCX shares are lower by 4.4% pre-market to $125.40, roughly 7% below their IPO price of $135.
WTI futures eye biggest weekly gain since April
Futures tied to WTI crude oil are on track for their best week since mid-April, surging nearly 12%.
That rebound has fresh implications for bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency recently climbed to a three-week high above $62,000 after softer-than-expected July inflation data eased fears of near-term Fed rate hikes. Those cooler inflation numbers were largely thanks to last month’s oil price drop. But that data is now starting to look stale.
With oil roaring higher again, inflation worries could quickly return, potentially dragging BTC lower. The cryptocurrency has already given back some ground and is trading below $64,000.
Bitcoin's reversal attempt has failed, with the downtrend channel still intact
Bitcoin fell as much as 3% over 24 hours to roughly $62,800, failing to confirm the reversal that this week's soft inflation print had set up, said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, in a message to CoinDesk.
The move never produced a higher high, and the price dropped back below its 50-day moving average, returning to the downtrend channel that has held since June.
The lower boundary of that channel sits near $56,000. Before it, Kuptsikevich flags support at $61,000 and $59,000, both previous local lows. External pressure did the work, with a deepening global selloff in chipmakers pulling risk assets lower on Friday.
Bitcoin slips to $63,000 as the chip rout goes global
Bitcoin fell to about $63,000 on Friday, down 1.7% over 24 hours and 2.2% on the week, as a deepening selloff in chipmakers dragged risk assets lower, per CoinDesk data. Ether held better at $1,836, still up 2.4% over seven days, while Hyperliquid led the losses at 8% on the day and 12% on the week.
Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 1.8% and S&P 500 contracts fell 0.9% as a semiconductor ETF slid 3% in premarket trading. Taiwanese stocks fell into a technical correction and Asia's main benchmark hit a two-month low. Europe held up better on lower tech exposure.
The question driving it is the one that has hung over the sector all month. Chipmakers are under scrutiny over whether the hundreds of billions that AI hyperscalers are spending will produce the returns to justify their valuations, and TSMC's results this week did not settle it.
Crypto is following the same current it has all quarter. This week's soft inflation print gave bitcoin a lift toward $65,000, but that was a macro trade, and the chip selloff is pulling the other way. The Fed meets July 28 and 29.
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