Dogecoin and Hyperliquid's HYPE led weekly crypto losses as AI stocks lure buyers

Dogecoin and Hyperliquid's HYPE led the week's losses across crypto, falling near 10%, as money kept flowing toward stocks tied to the artificial-intelligence boom and away from major tokens.

Dogecoin slid 9.6% over seven days to about $0.076 and HYPE lost 9.9%, the steepest falls among the majors. Ether dropped 8.4% to about $1,581 and XRP fell 7.8% to $1.06, while solana and tron held up better, roughly flat on the week at $72 and $0.32.

Bitcoin was the steadier major, down 5.3% to around $60,345 on Saturday after dipping to about $58,800 on Friday and recovering, per CoinDesk data.

"Bitcoin approached $58K at its lows late Thursday and early Friday, but in both cases, aggressive buying quickly pushed it back into the $60K range," Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro chief market analyst, told CoinDesk. "This pattern resembles margin position liquidations during downtrend spikes, followed by strong buying on pending orders during the recovery."

"Given deteriorating sentiment among institutional investors and their ability to quickly divest from cryptocurrencies to stabilise their balance sheets, it is worth preparing for continued pressure and periodic sell-off spikes by leveraged traders," he added.

The contrast with equities remains a theme. Wall Street kept rotating out of the chipmakers that have led the market and into a broader set of companies tied to steady growth.

The S&P 500 closed little changed, but most of its members rose, and the equal-weighted version of the index, which strips out the dominance of the largest stocks, hit a record high. Falling oil helped sentiment, while semiconductor shares took another leg down after a run that still left them on track for their best quarter ever.

The swings in chip stocks point to a bigger shift. The optimism around AI is giving way to worries about how far valuations have run, and while few think the AI trade is over, the idea that those stocks only rise is fading. The money is leaving semiconductors is spreading into the rest of the market rather than out of risk altogether, and crypto is not catching any of it.

The drags specific to crypto remain. Outflows from US spot bitcoin ETFs, a hawkish Federal Reserve and a strong dollar have weighed all week, and bitcoin is still sitting on its 200-week moving average, a long-term line that has marked extended weak stretches before.

Risk appetite is not gone, only selective, and for now it is passing crypto by.