Tech crash 2.0: AI hype meets labour reality as Nasdaq and Bitcoin tumble in tandem

Anndy Lian
Tech crash 2.0: AI hype meets labour reality as Nasdaq and Bitcoin tumble in tandem

At the heart of this turmoil lies a potent mix of deteriorating labour market conditions, evaporating liquidity in digital asset markets, and a sharp repricing of artificial intelligence-driven equity valuations that had been stretched to unsustainable levels. The data paints a coherent picture of a market losing its nerve, with investors rapidly rotating out of speculative assets and into safer havens, even as technical indicators flash warnings of oversold conditions that may soon invite a countertrend move.

The trigger for this week’s pullback was unequivocally the labour market report from Challenger, Grey & Christmas, which revealed that US-based employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October 2025. This figure represents a staggering 175 per cent increase compared to the same month last year and marks the highest number of October layoffs since 2003.

The scale of these cuts, driven by a combination of slowing consumer and corporate spending and the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence for cost optimisation, sent shockwaves through equity markets already anxious about lofty valuations in the tech sector. The data provided tangible evidence of an economic slowdown that many investors had previously dismissed as transitory, forcing a reassessment of the resilience of the US economy in the face of persistent inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates.

This reassessment was immediately reflected in the performance of US equities on Thursday, November 6, 2025. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite bore the brunt of the selloff, plummeting 1.9 per cent, while the broader S&P 500 declined by 1.1 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 0.8 per cent. The sharp move lower in the Nasdaq, in particular, was a direct consequence of investors taking profits from AI-related stocks that had powered the market’s rally for much of the year.

The behaviour of the US Treasury market further validated this flight from risk. As investors sought safety, yields on government debt fell sharply. The yield on the two-year Treasury note dropped by 7.2 basis points to settle at 3.557 per cent, while the benchmark 10-year yield declined by 7.6 basis points to close at 4.083 per cent. This rally in bonds signalled growing expectations that the Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle may be nearing its end, or that a more severe economic downturn could be on the horizon, prompting a potential pivot in monetary policy.

The US Dollar Index, a traditional safe-haven asset, paradoxically weakened, falling by 0.5 per cent to 99.71. This counterintuitive move can be interpreted as a sign that the market’s fear is not of a global crisis that would boost demand for the dollar, but rather a more domestic US-centric slowdown. In such a scenario, the expectation of future rate cuts by the Fed outweighs the currency’s safe-haven appeal. This narrative was reinforced by the action in the commodities market.

Gold, the ultimate monetary hedge, saw its price rise to US$4,001 per ounce, a gain of 1.5 per cent, as capital rotated into a store of value perceived to be outside the direct influence of central bank policy. Conversely, oil prices weakened as the prospect of a US economic slowdown dented demand expectations. Brent crude settled at US$63.38 per barrel, down 0.2 per cent, a move exacerbated by Saudi Arabia’s decision to lower the official selling prices of its crude oil to Asian customers, a clear signal of its own concerns over future demand.

In the digital asset space, the market’s reaction was swift and severe. The crypto market fell 1.65 per cent over the last 24 hours, extending a 7.2 per cent weekly loss. This selloff was not driven by a single factor but by a perfect storm of negative catalysts. The primary trigger was a decisive technical breakdown in Bitcoin’s price structure.

For weeks, the US$100,000 level had served as a critical psychological and structural support. When Bitcoin’s price dropped below this key threshold, it activated a cascade of automated sell orders from a fragile market that had been clinging to hope. This breakdown was confirmed by its close below its 365-day moving average at US$102,000, a long-term trend indicator whose breach is a serious bearish signal for long-term investors.

Compounding this technical failure was a dramatic evaporation of market liquidity. In an environment of fear, traders became unwilling to take on risk. Derivatives volume plunged by 39 per cent in 24 hours, with open interest collapsing to its lowest level since May 2025.

The spot-to-perpetual trading ratio of 0.24, a metric that shows the dominance of leveraged trading over simple spot transactions, indicated that traders were not just selling but were also actively avoiding any form of leveraged position. This lack of liquidity amplified the price moves, creating a negative feedback loop where a small sell order could create a disproportionately large price drop due to the absence of buyers.

The behaviour of the spot Bitcoin ETFs provided the most compelling evidence of a macro-driven selloff. This week, these funds saw a staggering US$3.6 billion in net redemptions, marking one of the worst outflow streaks since their inception. This was not a retail-driven panic but a wholesale retreat by institutional investors. These large players, who are more attuned to macroeconomic signals and portfolio risk management, used the ETFs as a convenient vehicle to exit their crypto exposure en masse.

Their actions decisively tethered the fate of the entire crypto market to that of the Nasdaq, with the two assets showing a near-perfect 0.95 correlation this week. This link demonstrates that for the current market cycle, crypto is being treated not as a separate, uncorrelated asset class, but as a high-beta, risk-on component of the broader technology and growth equity complex.

The path forward for the markets is now precariously balanced on a knife’s edge. The current oversold conditions in both the Nasdaq and Bitcoin, with the latter’s RSI at a low 31.5, suggest that a short-term bounce is a distinct possibility. A sustained recovery will require a fundamental shift in the underlying narrative. For equities, that would mean evidence that the labour market is stabilising or that the Fed is ready to signal a clear pivot towards rate cuts.

For Bitcoin, the critical threshold is a decisive daily close back above the US$100,000 level to invalidate the bearish technical structure, coupled with a halt to the ETF outflows and a return of institutional confidence. Until these conditions are met, the market will remain vulnerable to any further negative macroeconomic data, and the current risk-off environment is likely to persist.

 Source: https://e27.co/tech-crash-2-0-ai-hype-meets-labour-reality-as-nasdaq-and-bitcoin-tumble-in-tandem-20251107/

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