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Fundstrat co-founder and Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said on CNBC’s Squawk Box that the selloff in AI-linked stocks has run its course, Decrypt reported. His case rests on two claims: the market for AI computing is short of supply rather than oversupplied, and crypto’s muted reaction to a multibillion-dollar exchange hack suggests most sellers have already left.
The timing is notable. Friday, October 30, was also the day Intel shares fell nearly 30% to $65.76 after a weak fourth-quarter forecast, and the day US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a $643.2 million net outflow, their largest single-day withdrawal of October.
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Key facts
- Lee said “I think we’re at the bottom” on CNBC, while conceding that “bottoms are dangerous because you don’t know how much more downside you have at the bottom.”
- Intel shares dropped almost 30% to $65.76 after guiding quarterly revenue to $15 billion to $16 billion, a midpoint roughly $1.6 billion below analyst expectations, even after data center and AI revenue rose 78% year over year to $7.3 billion.
- Hackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance hot wallets in an October 29 breach; Binance has frozen about $3 billion, and Crypto Briefing reported the exchange has replenished roughly 95% of affected assets.
- Bitcoin fell about 4% to roughly $76,400 on Friday, more than $1.3 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, and US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $643.2 million that day.
- Seamus Rocca, CEO of Xapo Bank, told Crypto Briefing that Bitcoin’s ability to hold up through the hack and the tech selloff suggests its historical link to the Nasdaq may be loosening.
Intel shows demand alone doesn’t lift a stock
Lee separates an industry that cannot build fast enough from one that has built more than customers want, and says AI still belongs in the first group. Constraints on spending, political opposition among them, are slowing growth without marking a peak, in his account.
Intel illustrates how that distinction can fail to help shareholders. Orders were healthy and AI revenue climbed, but manufacturing limits kept the company from converting demand into sales, and its PC business added to the drag. Lee’s point that the market is short of capacity does not by itself fix an earnings miss.
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Reading the Binance hack as a stress test
Lee’s second argument looks at how crypto absorbed the October 29 theft, which Binance initially estimated at about $6.3 billion. In his view, a market that takes news of that size without a much deeper decline has fewer holders left to sell. Decrypt reported Binance froze roughly $3 billion of the assets and pledged its emergency reserve and company funds to cover losses.
Crypto Briefing adds details beyond the immediate price move. Bitget Wallet’s Market Flow report put Bitcoin’s support at $76,500 to $77,000 and resistance at $80,000 to $81,000, with futures open interest near $50 billion to $53 billion and funding rates mildly positive at about 0.005% to 0.01% per eight hours, which the firm read as stabilization rather than a fresh deleveraging wave. US spot Bitcoin ETFs logged roughly $643 million of net outflows on October 30, leaving the week with about $202 million in net withdrawals, according to the same report. Research lead Lacie Zhang said steady spot buying and stable leverage would be needed to confirm a recovery.
The two accounts also differ in emphasis on the hack’s origin. Crypto Briefing reports that most assets were drained in about 20 minutes across ten blockchains and that US authorities attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor operation; Decrypt’s account focuses on the dollar impact, the freeze and Lee’s market read.
Why it matters
Buying the dip in AI stocks is now a mainstream position, and Lee’s call gives that trade a public advocate at a moment when the same earnings that show strong AI demand are punishing chipmakers. For crypto holders, the more useful signal is that Bitcoin fell 4% — the kind of move that occurs routinely within bull runs — rather than breaking down, a contrast with its usual pattern of trading in step with the Nasdaq. Rocca cautioned that the recent performance is not proof Bitcoin has become a dependable inflation hedge in every market.
What to watch
Bitget Wallet’s levels are the near-term scoreboard: a close above $80,000 to $81,000 would support Lee’s case, while a break below $76,500 would undercut it. Continued spot ETF flows and the pace of Binance withdrawal restoration across networks are the other data points to track.
None of this is financial advice, and both stock and crypto markets remain volatile and uncertain.
Sources: Decrypt, Crypto Briefing, CoinCentral
