Bitcoin holds near $63,000 as chip stocks pressure risk assets

Bitcoin hovered around $63,000 on Tuesday after briefly reaching its strongest level in two weeks, while a sell-off in U.S. chip stocks weighed on broader risk appetite. For everyday investors, the move put Bitcoin back in the familiar zone between crypto-specific demand and the pull of tech-heavy stock indexes.

TradingView data cited by Cointelegraph showed BTC rising as high as $64,660, its highest mark since June 22, before cooling after Wall Street opened. Bitcoin was recently shown at $63,446.35, up 0.99%.

The pressure came as U.S. equities weakened. Cointelegraph reported that the S&P 500 was down 0.6% and the Nasdaq 100 was lower by 2.1% at the time of writing. Chip names led the decline, with Micron Technology falling more than 9% after its earnings had been closely watched by traders in the prior month.

Bitcoin tracks a choppier tech trade

Bitcoin often trades like a risk asset, meaning it can rise when investors are comfortable taking more risk and fall when they cut exposure to volatile assets. That relationship is not fixed, but it was back in focus Tuesday as weakness in the Nasdaq 100 coincided with Bitcoin’s pullback from its intraday high.

Trader Daan Crypto Trades said on X that Bitcoin’s correlation with the Nasdaq had moved to +0.72 from -0.87 in a matter of days the prior week. Correlation measures how closely two assets move together, with +1 meaning they move in the same direction and -1 meaning they move in opposite directions.

Daan Crypto Trades described the shift as the difference between Bitcoin trading like an inverse hedge and behaving more like a higher-volatility tech stock. He said the relationship was “back to the middle” on the four-hour time frame, referring to a shorter-term chart used by active traders.

Bitcoin also had a supportive crypto-market factor in the background. Farside Investors data cited by Cointelegraph showed a second straight day of net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are funds that hold Bitcoin directly and trade on stock exchanges, giving investors a brokerage-account route to BTC exposure.

Micron slides as SpaceX enters Nasdaq 100

The stock-market side of the story was not limited to chips. Cointelegraph reported that Tuesday was also due to bring SpaceX into the Nasdaq 100 after turbulence in its own shares in late June.

The Kobeissi Letter said on X that SpaceX’s entry marked “the fastest inclusion into the Nasdaq 100 in the index’s history.” The Nasdaq 100 tracks many of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, so changes to the index can matter because funds that follow it may need to adjust their holdings.

Some crypto traders stayed cautious on shorter time frames. Commentator Exitpump said on X that Bitcoin was facing rejection near its four-hour 200-period exponential moving average, a trend indicator that gives more weight to recent prices. Exitpump said failure to hold the 30-day rolling volume-weighted average price would confirm a bearish bias.

Trader Killa tied Bitcoin’s next potential move to equities, suggesting on X that the next correction in the S&P 500 could mark a true Bitcoin bottom based on patterns from 2015, 2018 and 2022.

Bollinger watches a possible trend change

John Bollinger, creator of the Bollinger Bands volatility indicator, offered a more constructive read on Bitcoin’s chart. Bollinger Bands plot price around a moving average to show when an asset is trading near the upper or lower end of its recent range.

Bollinger said on X that Bitcoin was at “a critical point” as he watched a possible W-shaped reversal pattern on the daily chart. He added: “In a bear market bullish setups break and in a bull market bearish setups break. So if this W pattern is successful I would see it as a confirmation of a change in trend.”

That leaves Bitcoin near a technical crossroads: ETF inflows and a potential reversal pattern on one side, tech-stock weakness and short-term caution on the other.

This story draws on original reporting from Cointelegraph.