Bitcoin, ether slip and rebound as South Korean stocks slide on AI-related concerns — SkimNews
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- Bitcoin dropped below $81,000 before recovering above $83,000 as South Korea's Kospi plunged 5.5%, driven by Samsung Electronics (-7%) and SK Hynix (-10%) — leaving the index roughly 38% below its June all-time high.
- AI-investment jitters triggered the selloff after Broadcom's CEO called current AI investing "casino-like" and reports of memory-chip advances at China's CXMT raised competition concerns for established chipmakers.
- Crypto derivatives saw $813 million in liquidations (up 284%) over 24 hours, with futures volume surging 66% to $212 billion while open interest fell 1.58% to $143.4 billion — a pattern the source identifies as leverage being flushed out, not added.
- Autheo (THEO) plunged 92% after a suspected exploit on Base, where an attacker minted 19 million unauthorized tokens, exchanged them for 700 ETH (~$1.76 million), and bridged the funds to Ethereum, per PeckShield.
- Bitcoin and ether options stayed remarkably calm despite the liquidations — implied volatility indexes sit near year-to-date lows — while put options dominated the most-traded BTC contracts for a second consecutive day.
- SK Hynix drew notable derivatives activity beyond the equity slide, with open interest rising roughly 28% as the share price fell 8%, a build the source links to fresh shorts on the TradFi side.
- Tokens broadly suffered: Starknet (STRK) dropped 17%, LayerZero (ZRO) lost 14%, and Blur (BLUR) slid 33% after announcing its website interface will close Nov. 12; only Stacks (STX) bucked the trend with an 11.4% gain.
- Investors are positioning ahead of Wednesday's US CPI report (3.6% YoY headline forecast, 2.5% core) and bank earnings from JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
Why it matters: Chip-heavy portfolios now face a dual catalyst — Wednesday's US CPI print and bank earnings from JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup could either deepen the AI-led selloff (the Kospi is already 38% off its June peak) or trigger a relief bounce. Crypto saw $813M in liquidations flush out leveraged longs while options markets stayed near YTD-low volatility, a combination that leaves spot calm built on a thinner speculative base.
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