South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI fell as much as 9% during the early hours of the day, triggering a circuit breaker that halted trading, making it the seventh time that this has happened this year.

Taiwan was hit just as hard, with the TAIEX dropping about 9%, and chipmaker TSMC hitting its daily limit down. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 officially entered a bear market, down more than 20% from its peak.

Market analysts tallied the damage at more than $1 trillion across the region. Estimates suggest:

• The KOSPI is down 6% for about $203 billion (₩305trillion).
• The Nikkei is down 6% for about $450 billion (¥70.65 trillion).
• The Shanghai Composite is down 1.5% for about $210 billion.

The selling began in New York on Thursday as the Nasdaq 100 plunged 6.4%, wiping out about $2.5 trillion, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5% into correction territory, nearly 12% below its October peak. Semiconductors fell 12% and Nvidia lost 9%.

The trigger was clearly political, given that the dip came a day after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress. As a result, investors began pricing in tighter scrutiny of AI and data center expansion.

Fears also grew after Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa called for a halt on new data center development. Moreover, as Bitcoin.com News reported recently, Strategy’s Michael Saylor called it a 4σ day for equities, a move seen roughly once every 19 months.

Tokyo responded quickly and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said her country was monitoring global markets closely after the U.S. midterms, and acknowledged that it is hard to tell whether the drop in AI and chip shares will be temporary. Consequently, investors piled into safety as China’s 10-year bond yield fell to a record low.

Bitcoin did not escape the market’s wrath even though it lost less than tech. The asset’s price is down about 6% over 24 hours at roughly $75,600, after touching about $75,200. Bitcoin.com News tracked the first leg of the drop as BTC’s price tumbled below $77,000 on Thursday.

That relative strength is rare and macro analyst Alex Krüger pointed out that Thursday was only the second time in history that the Nasdaq fell more than 5% and bitcoin fell less. The other was March 16, 2020, when the QQQ dropped 12% and bitcoin 10.6%. On Thursday, the QQQ fell 6.4% and bitcoin 5.3%.

The derivatives market still took a beating, with crypto liquidations topping $1.25 billion over 24 hours, with almost 90% coming from long positions. Options traders are also circling the $75,000 line.

Lastly, a Deribit weekly expiry at 8 a.m. UTC on Friday has no call options placed at or below $75,000, which leaves bears with a large payout if bitcoin closes under that level.

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee told his followers that the drop looked like “Liberation Day plus DeepSeek,” adding that the longest such selloffs took to bottom out was about three days. Holding $75,000 through the options expiry and the U.S. open would support the case that bitcoin is decoupling from the AI trade. Bitcoin.com News recently reported experts arguing that an AI and tech selloff could eventually drive capital into crypto.

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