Bitcoin drops below $77,000 as chip rout deepens ahead of U.S. midterm vote

Bitcoin fell 2% to just under $77,000 as of Tuesday Asian morning hours, wiping out Monday’s bounce, as a deepening selloff in U.S. chipmakers dragged down Asian stocks hours before Americans vote in midterm elections.

That puts bitcoin below the roughly $77,600 it dipped to late Sunday, before buyers stepped in for a brief recovery.

ZEC took the worst of it, tumbling nearly 10% to about $1,140, a sharp turn for a token that led the majors on Monday. HYPE fell 5% to about $84, and SOL dropped 3% to about $92. BNB lost 2% and slipped below $700, while ether and DOGE each fell about 2%, with ether just above $2,250. XRP barely moved at $1.25, and TRX was the only major in the green, up about 2%, according to CoinDesk data.

The pain started on Wall Street. A gauge of U.S. chipmakers extended a three-day rout to 12%, and the Nasdaq 100 is now down 10% from its peak. Traders call a drop of that size from a recent high a correction. The S&P 500 slipped 0.5%.

South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi slid more than 3%, and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped almost 1%. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. Chinese stocks fell even after the central bank said it would encourage financial institutions to make more use of tools meant to support the stock market.

The yuan snapped a 13-day winning streak, its longest since 1996, after the People’s Bank of China asked banks to hold more foreign currency in reserve.

Oil plunged on optimism that the war in Iran is closer to ending, but it did little to lift the mood.

Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, and the first results will arrive as Asian markets open on Wednesday.