Bitcoin slides below $81,500 as tech stock sell-off spreads to Asian equities

JUST IN: $BTC slides toward $81,500 as a Wall Street tech sell-off spreads to Asian equities, with South Korea's Kospi down 2.3% and Japan's Nikkei 225 down 1.6%. 📉

Bitcoin just slid below eighty one and a half thousand dollars.

And this time it's not a crypto story. The selling started on Wall Street, in tech stocks, and it's rolling through Asia in real time. Seoul's Kospi is down two point three percent, Tokyo's Nikkei is off one point six, and Bitcoin is getting dragged along with everything else.

That's the uncomfortable part. Bitcoin was supposed to be the asset that marches to its own drum, digital gold, the hedge. On nights like this it trades like a tech stock with no closing bell. When risk comes off in New York, it comes off everywhere, and crypto is the only market open at three in the morning to catch it.

So watch the European open. If this sell-off keeps spreading, eighty one and a half thousand might not be the floor, just the latest stop on the way down.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.