Micron, Marvell and On Semiconductor, each more than doubled in 2026, led the drop. The selloff pulled the S&P 500 down 1.4% and the Nasdaq 100 down 3.3%. An attempted rebound in Asian chip stocks failed to hold on Wednesday, with Taiwan Semiconductor down more than 3%.
Oil kept falling as the other half of the macro picture. Brent crude slipped about 1% toward $76 a barrel as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz became more visible following the US-Iran interim peace deal. A gauge of the dollar climbed to a seven-month high as investors moved toward safer assets.
The crypto-specific signal sits in the fund flows, said Mike McCluskey, co-founder of tx, in an email to CoinDesk. He called bitcoin’s stabilization in the low-to-mid $60,000s a measured response to the Federal Reserve’s hawkish turn, given how hard such shifts usually hit digital assets.
US spot bitcoin ETFs have seen a record 30-day net outflow of more than $6 billion, which McCluskey described as sustained institutional de-risking by the same buyers that drove this cycle. Until those flows clearly reverse, he said, relief rallies are likely to hit a hard ceiling.
McCluskey also flagged Friday’s options expiry on Deribit, with roughly $10.6 billion in notional value set to expire. An option is a contract giving the right to buy or sell at a set price, and notional value is the total value of the assets those contracts cover.
