Miner shares fell by 30% due to the rising popularity of the AI startup DeepSeek

What’s new? Bitcoin managed to climb above $100 000 after a massive correction on January 27. Still, bitcoin miner stocks failed to recover as Chinese AI startup DeepSeek caused the market to question whether bitcoin mining companies have value as data center operators.

CoinDesk’s material

What else is known? The CoinDesk 20 cryptocurrency index also fell 5,6%, led by double-digit losses in the AI protocol tokens Render (RNDR) and Filecoin (FIL). The native token of the Solana (SOL) blockchain, which is a key market for AI agent tokens, also fell by more than 10%.

The sharp decline led to the liquidation of nearly $1 billion in leveraged cryptocurrency positions, according to CoinGlass data.

The Nasdaq closed the session down 3% and Nvidia led the losses, down 17% and losing $465 billion of its market value for the day. According to Geoffrey Kendrick, the head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered bank, this reinforced bitcoins close correlation with technology stocks.

Standard Chartered allows the possibility of the BTC further correction due to its high correlation with the stock market

According to the expert, the collapse of the crypto market on January 27 was a consequence of the fall in futures on Nasdaq

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The broad market pullback also affected crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and crypto investment company Galaxy (GXY) shares, with daily declines of 6,7% and 15,8%, respectively. Shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR), the largest corporate bitcoin holder, performed relatively well, down only 1,5%.

Shares of bitcoin mining companies suffered even more severe losses, with Riot Platforms (RIOT) and MARA Holdings (MARA), the largest by capitalization, falling 8,7% and 16%, respectively.

Mainers that have switched to high-performance computing to provide infrastructure for AI training and lease capacity to AI startups suffered even more. Core Scientific (CORZ), TeraWulf (WULF), Bitdeer (BTDR), Cipher Mining (CIPH), and Applied Digital Corporation (APLD) all fell 25-30% in price at the end of the day.

Market participants will focus on this week’s Fed meeting and earnings reports from major tech companies. They have been strong so far, but upcoming reports from Nvidia and others should beat expectations to keep the momentum going, says Nansen analyst Aurelie Barthere.