LIVE: Bitcoin crashed to $79,000 temporarily, shakes Uptober excitement

Bitcoin mining companies are getting hit hard on Thursday, and the damage goes well beyond Bitcoin’s latest price slump. Investors are also pulling money out of businesses that have spent heavily on artificial intelligence infrastructure, following fresh questions about OpenAI’s financial performance.

A Financial Times report suggests OpenAI’s revenue, measured at its current yearly pace, is roughly $20 billion below earlier indications. That has put more pressure on mining firms trying to build a second business around AI computing and data centers.

These companies need enormous amounts of money to build facilities, buy equipment, and secure electricity. With questions now hanging over AI revenue expectations, their shares have suffered some of the day’s biggest losses across the cryptocurrency industry.

Cipher Digital (CIFR) and Hut 8 (HUT) have both surrendered 10%, while TeraWulf (WULF) is trading 8% lower.

Riot Platforms (RIOT) has lost even more, falling 11%. The company announced a computing infrastructure partnership with Anthropic earlier this year as part of its expansion beyond traditional Bitcoin mining.

Companies whose operations remain more closely tied to mining Bitcoin aren’t escaping the selling either. MARA Holdings (MARA) has shed 6%, while CleanSpark (CLSK) is down 9%.

Elsewhere, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) and Bitcoin-heavy corporate investor Strategy (MSTR) have each declined approximately 3%.

The pressure on these stocks comes at a particularly difficult time for businesses that depend on cheap financing. Federal Reserve officials are increasingly talking about raising borrowing costs again, largely because expensive energy could keep inflation elevated.

St. Louis Federal Reserve President Alberto Musalem added his voice to those warnings on Thursday.

Alberto explained that the central bank needs to prevent higher fuel costs from spreading into other parts of the economy. He also pointed to continued consumer demand and disruptions to the supply of goods as risks that could make inflation harder to control.

He said additional increases in the Fed’s benchmark interest rate would be necessary to bring inflation down within a reasonable period.

However, Alberto didn’t put a number on how much further rates might rise. His outlook instead covers approximately 18 months, during which he expects policymakers to work toward restoring inflation to the Fed’s 2% target.

Bitcoin (BTC) is having a rough Thursday. What started as a small drop earlier in the day has turned into a much bigger selloff, sending the cryptocurrency to its lowest level in about a month. Bitcoin was last trading around $81,362, after briefly slipping to just above $80,000.

The OG crypto has lost 4% in the past 24 hours and more than 8% since approaching $87,000 four days ago. And somehow, Bitcoin is still holding up better than most of the crypto market.

The two tokens Ethereum and XRP have both declined by 6% over the last 24 hours, whereas Solana has lost 9%. All three have been losing between 10 and 38% of their value in the past seven days, even though October is said to be good for cryptocurrencies.

On the other hand, Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the crypto flash crash that occurred on October 10, 2025. This was one of the worst crashes to hit the market. At the time of the crash, the value of bitcoin had just peaked above $126,000. The coin dropped in value from about $122,000 to $105,000 in minutes during thin trading in the evening in America.

Wall Street is also trading lower Thursday, with rising oil prices and weakness in technology stocks putting pressure on equities. The S&P 500 has lost 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has slipped 67 points, or 0.1%.

Meanwhile, the war involving Iran is making an already difficult trading session even more complicated.

President Donald Trump said he wasn’t interested in reaching an agreement with Iran to end the war, as reports emerged that Washington was preparing a major bombing campaign in the Middle East.

Those developments pushed crude prices sharply higher before Trump said the U.S. would not strike Iran ahead of November’s midterm elections. Oil pulled back from its session highs following those remarks, although prices remained substantially higher.

The Brent crude oil price was currently trading at about $104 per barrel, having risen 4%, and the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) future contract increased by an additional 4% to about $91.

On the other hand, the 10-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury yields had hit their highest point in 24 years this week, further putting pressure on investors, who were already facing high energy costs and declining asset prices.

Since then, however, yields have cooled off following the sale of 30-year bonds by the government. The 10-year Treasury yield has decreased by over 3 basis points to 5.244%, and the 30-year yield has decreased by 4 basis points to 5.621%.