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Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Slips 3% To $76K As Asian Stocks Track US Tech-Led Selloff

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Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Slips 3% To $76K As Asian Stocks Track US Tech-Led Selloff

Bitcoin slipped 3% on Wednesday to $76,000 as investors carried a sour mood into the Asia session after a tech-led sell-off hit US benchmarks and encouraged a shift toward more economically sensitive industries.

In early trade, Japan and Australia opened lower, and futures pointed to losses in Hong Kong.

Market snapshot

  • Bitcoin: $78,719, up 2%
  • Ether: $2,334, up 1.8%
  • XRP: $1.61, up 0.5%
  • Total crypto market cap: $2.72 trillion, up 2.6%

Software Rout Drags US Indexes Lower As Rotation Away From Big Tech Deepens

Overnight, falling software names pulled down the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, even as most stocks in the S&P 500 finished higher and value shares continued to outpace growth in 2026 amid a broader rotation away from the “Magnificent Seven”.

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The damage started with legal software and data services. Experian, London Stock Exchange Group and Thomson Reuters tumbled, and the selling spread across the wider software sector, sending the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF down about 4.5%.

The slide picked up pace late in the session after Advanced Micro Devices sank in after-hours trade on a disappointing sales forecast. Traders also stayed cautious ahead of earnings from Alphabet and Amazon later this week, as investors demanded clearer payoffs from costly AI spending.

Crypto Markets Mirror Global Risk Aversion As Bitcoin Slips

Crypto traders watched the same risk-off undercurrent spill into digital assets. Bitcoin fell for a second day and extended an almost four-month slide, and investor Michael Burry warned that a drop through key thresholds could trigger cascading liquidations and wipe out value.

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Tony Severino, market analyst at YouHodler, said Bitcoin remains locked in a tightening range, and he pointed to a signal building on longer timeframes.

“Bollinger Bands on the monthly chart are the tightest they have ever been, reflecting an extreme level of volatility compression,” he said. “At the same time, Bitcoin continues to trade below the monthly basis line, with only days left before a monthly close that would confirm acceptance beneath it.”

Across markets, the shared theme this week looks less about direction and more about pressure building under the surface. Currency volatility has risen. The dollar has softened.

Software Stocks Slide As AI Competition Spurs Fresh Investor Jitters

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Metals have held extreme levels without a clear break, and Bitcoin has stayed stuck in one of the tightest volatility regimes in its history, conditions that tend to frustrate short-term traders while signalling markets are working off time rather than trend, he said.

On Wall Street, the focus tightened on software makers seen as vulnerable to AI-driven competition after Anthropic rolled out a legal tool for its Claude chatbot. Nvidia and Microsoft each fell almost 3% as the S&P 500 software and services index slid 3.8% for a fifth straight session.

Away from tech, pockets of the market showed more resilience. FedEx extended a record-breaking rally, and Walmart pushed past $1 trillion in market value. Palantir jumped almost 7% after strong quarterly results, while PepsiCo gained 4.9% after announcing price cuts on core brands like Lay’s and Doritos.

In other moves, oil climbed after the US Navy shot down an Iranian drone heading toward an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.

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Federal Reserve officials kept the rate outlook in play. Tom Barkin said policy easing has bolstered the jobs market as officials turn back to getting inflation to target, and Stephen Miran said the absence of strong price pressures means rates need to be lowered again this year.

The post Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Slips 3% To $76K As Asian Stocks Track US Tech-Led Selloff appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Crypto World

Ketman Project Identifies 100 North Korean IT Workers Working in Web3

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Ketman Project Identifies 100 North Korean IT Workers Working in Web3

The Ketman Project, funded by an Ethereum Foundation stipend, identified 100 North Korean IT workers and alerted about 53 projects employing DPRK operatives.

The Ethereum Foundation said it funded a six-month project that exposed 100 North Korean operatives who had infiltrated Web3 companies under fake identities.

The foundation on Thursday shared a recap of its ETH Rangers program, which was launched in late 2024 to provide “stipends for individuals doing public goods security work” within the ecosystem.

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One of the recipients used the capital to build the Ketman Project to focus on investigating “fake developers” embedded within crypto, particularly operatives from the People’s Republic of Korea.

During the six-month stipend period, the Ketman Project identified “100 different DPRK IT workers operating within Web3 organizations” and reached out to about 53 projects to alert them about having potentially employed active DPRK operatives.

“This work directly addresses one of the most pressing operational security threats facing the Ethereum ecosystem today,” the Ethereum Foundation said.

North Korean operatives have been plaguing the crypto sector, leading to billions worth of crypto stolen over the years. One of the highest-profile hacking groups from North Korea is known as the Lazarus Group.

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Ketman Project website articles on DPRK operatives. Source: Ketman Project

The Ethereum Foundation did not go into detail about how the Ketman Project was able to identify the DPRK operatives. However, the project’s website has an extensive range of articles explaining the types of “tactics, behaviors and operational patterns” the operatives deploy.

Related: CIA to integrate AI ‘co-workers’ to process intelligence, catch spies

They include technical red flags such as reusing avatars and profile metadata across multiple GitHub accounts, exposing unlinked email addresses during accidental screen sharing, and displaying default language settings, such as Russian, that contradict their claimed nationality.

Alongside identifying North Korean operatives, the Ketman Project also developed an open-source detection tool to identify suspicious GitHub activity and co-authored an industry-standard framework for identifying DPRK IT workers in partnership with blockchain-focused nonprofit organization the Security Alliance.

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