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Bitcoin flat near $64,000 as oil hits a one-month high and Kimi AI selloff lingers
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- DeepHorus
Bitcoin held near $64,000 on Monday, caught between rising oil prices and lingering effects from a Chinese AI model release that rattled markets at the end of last week. The largest cryptocurrency traded at approximately $64,200, roughly flat on the day and up 3% over the past week, with about $18 billion changing hands. Ether stood at $1,860, up 5% in seven sessions and the strongest performer among major cryptocurrencies. Other tokens showed little movement: XRP held at $1.09, Solana traded at $76, BNB slipped to $565, and dogecoin remained steady near $0.07, while Hyperliquid's HYPE dropped 10% on the week to $60 amid a broad risk-off tone.
The flat performance comes as conflicting forces buffet crypto markets. On one side, Brent crude oil surged as much as 4% to $91.42 a barrel, its highest since June, as escalating U.S. and Iranian strikes moved beyond military targets. The war-driven gains revived inflation worries and concerns about interest rate policy, which typically pressure risk assets like cryptocurrencies. On the other side, a semiconductor selloff triggered on Friday by Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model release continued to ripple through global equities, dragging crypto down with it to close last week.
Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, an open-weight Chinese model that claimed the top spot in a widely watched coding benchmark, sparked the selloff that hit chip stocks hard. The aftershock carried into Asian markets on Monday, with South Korea's Kospi falling 3.5% upon returning from a holiday. U.S. futures steadied, with the Nasdaq 100 up 0.5%, but the fundamental question raised by the model—whether Chinese AI can undercut the U.S.-led tech trade—remained unresolved.
For crypto, these two forces roughly cancel each other out. War-driven oil is inflationary, which is negative for risk assets and undermines the case for the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady. Meanwhile, a strong Chinese AI model threatening the semiconductor trade pressures the chip stocks that bitcoin has tended to track closely this month. This leaves the market in a state of indecision, awaiting clearer direction.
The week's key test will come from corporate earnings rather than macroeconomic data, as no major U.S. economic releases are scheduled. Alphabet reports on Tuesday, Tesla on Wednesday, and Intel on Thursday, with their results offering insight into the AI trade's health after last week's wobble in AI and semiconductor shares. These earnings will determine whether the capital spending underpinning the sector—and the miner-to-AI pivot riding on it—still has a solid foundation.
In a separate positive sign for the crypto exchange market, centralized exchange trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot volumes climbing 15.3% to $1.11 trillion. Additionally, real-world asset perpetual volumes surged to a record $311 billion, indicating renewed trader interest in derivative products. While the immediate outlook for Bitcoin remains clouded by oil and AI concerns, the exchange data suggests underlying market activity is picking up, potentially setting the stage for a more substantial move after this week's earnings verdict.
