Ether drops 5.6%, XRP falls 4.9% as tech rout hits crypto

Major altcoins fell more sharply than bitcoin as a global tech stock rout dragged risk assets lower on Thursday.

Ether dropped 5.6% to $1,555, XRP fell 4.9% to $1.03 and dogecoin slid 3.8% to $0.074 as a global tech stock rout pulled risk assets lower.

Much of the new money and investor attention has flowed into AI plays lately, leaving crypto fighting for a smaller share of overall risk appetite, said Gabe Selby, head of research at CF Benchmarks. He described the move as a broad market cooldown rather than anything broken in crypto itself.

South Korea's Kospi tumbled as much as 9%, triggering its second trading halt of the week, as chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung both fell more than 8%. Apple shares dropped 6.1% on news it raised prices on Macs, iPads and home devices, stoking fears that higher component costs will slow the memory-chip rally underpinning the AI trade. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.5%. Bitcoin dipped near $58,000 before recovering toward $60,000, trading around $59,888, down 2.7% on the day.

Selby sees the current $50,000 to $60,000 zone as historically where buyers step in for bitcoin, with $55,000 as the support to watch below and $61,000 to $62,000 as the level bulls need to reclaim. The broader picture remains unchanged: crypto is falling on a tech selloff it did not start, with little of its own to lift it while money keeps rotating into AI.

The selloff extended a weekslong decline for the crypto market. Bitcoin has fallen 54% from its record high of just over $126,000 in October, with the global crypto market cap dropping to $2 trillion from $4.28 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Coatue Management founder Philippe Laffont told CNBC he was "a little bit more worried" about bitcoin, citing competing investment opportunities in AI and SpaceX. BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said the AI momentum is "suckling a lot of the oxygen out of the room."

Among altcoins, solana held up better at $68.20, off 1.2% on the week, while Hyperliquid's HYPE fell 5.4%. Tron was the lone gainer, up 0.4%. XRP touched $1.01 on Thursday, its lowest price of 2026, leaving the token down 43% year-to-date. Despite the price weakness, XRP whale flows on the 90-day moving average have stayed positive throughout the quarter at 5.143 million XRP per day, showing consistent net accumulation by large wallets, according to CryptoQuant. Spot XRP ETFs recorded $2 million in net inflows on June 24, lifting June's total to $31 million.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.