U.S. technology shares and major cryptocurrencies fell sharply in a risk-off trading session, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping as much as 5.35% intraday and Bitcoin losing 5.58% over 24 hours. The selling pressure hit semiconductor stocks particularly hard, while Ether, Solana, XRP and several high-volume tokens posted steeper declines than Bitcoin.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell as much as 11.6% during Thursday's session, according to the market figures provided. Nvidia dropped as much as 9%, while TSMC and Tesla were each down as much as 11%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 2.38%, and the S&P 500 declined as much as 3.57%.
The move placed crypto alongside the most volatile segment of the equity market rather than in a separate defensive category. Bitcoin's 5.58% decline was followed by a 7.69% fall in Ether, a 6.12% drop in Solana and a 7.05% slide in XRP. Uniswap's UNI lost 10.69%, while Hyperliquid's HYPE fell 8.23%.
Gold-backed tokens were among the few assets resisting the sell-off. Tether Gold's XAUT gained 0.82% in the high-volume group, while Paxos Gold's PAXG rose 0.74% in another 24-hour ranking. Their modest gains tracked a familiar pattern during periods of sharp selling in growth-oriented assets: traders moved toward assets designed to mirror physical gold rather than tokens more closely tied to crypto trading activity.
Wealth losses followed declines in technology holdings
The slide in large-cap technology companies also reduced the estimated fortunes of executives with major stakes in those businesses. Figures from a real-time billionaire ranking showed Elon Musk's wealth falling by $91.2 billion, or 10.5%, during the session.
Michael Dell's fortune declined by $20.5 billion, Jensen Huang's by $15.1 billion, Larry Ellison's by $13.2 billion and Mark Zuckerberg's by $12.9 billion, according to the same ranking. The five executives' combined decline totaled $152.9 billion, with Musk accounting for nearly 60% of the group's losses.
Such calculations fluctuate with listed share prices and estimates of private-company values, particularly in Musk's case. They nonetheless illustrate how quickly a concentrated technology sell-off can affect both public equity valuations and the wealth of founders and executives whose holdings remain heavily linked to their companies.
The crypto market showed a similarly broad retreat. BNB declined 3.84%, NEAR fell 7.53% and Zcash's ZEC slipped 0.57%. Only XAUT advanced among the 10 highest-volume tokens in the supplied market snapshot.
A separate list of token movers showed Litentry's LIT rising 4.48% and Injective's INJ gaining 3.18%, though these advances were exceptions rather than evidence of a broad recovery. Lower-liquidity products linked to equities or leveraged market positions recorded far larger percentage swings, including gains in AAOZ, AXTQ and SOXS.
Binance breach prompts U.S. banking checks
Market turbulence coincided with fresh concern over operational risks at centralized crypto platforms after a reported $6.3 billion hack involving Binance. The Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency contacted banks to ask about unusual activity and potential service disruptions, while lenders reviewed internal cybersecurity procedures.
Binance said it had been communicating with regulators globally and providing updates on the incident. No evidence was reported that the U.S. banking system had been affected.
The episode has revived discussion over whether crypto market infrastructure should borrow more safeguards from traditional finance. One proposal would move certain settlement processes from T+1, meaning settlement one business day after a transaction, toward a one-hour model. A shorter settlement window could give platforms and counterparties more time to identify suspicious transfers before stolen assets move through multiple wallets or networks.
Binance has also pursued blockchain-level recovery measures. The company filed a governance proposal on Arbitrum seeking the return of 8,425.997 ETH and 74.56 million ARB linked to the reported hot-wallet attack. Using CoinGecko prices cited in the proposal, those assets were worth roughly $31.3 million on Nov. 5. Binance estimated that the governance process could take seven weeks or longer.
Polygon developers separately proposed a hard-fork recovery plan covering about 70.49 million stolen POL, valued at approximately $6.8 million. The proposal would move tokens from five attacker-controlled addresses to verified recovery wallets without changing POL's total supply. It identified 23.86 million POL connected to Polymarket and 46.63 million POL connected to Binance, with initial testing planned on the Polygon Amoy testnet.
Network upgrades focus on speed and recovery controls
Base deployed its Denim upgrade on mainnet, introducing native 200-millisecond block times, equivalent to five full blocks per second. The upgrade replaces pre-confirmations with native blocks and introduces BaseTime, a tool enabling millisecond-level timing in smart contracts while preserving the standard second-based block.timestamp field.
Denim also updates Base's B20 token standard, allowing token issuers to require approval for transfers and use address lists as allowlists or blocklists. Those controls could be useful for regulated assets, including tokenized securities and institutional settlement systems, where issuers may need to restrict transfers between specific wallets.
On Solana, Anza urged mainnet validators to upgrade to Agave 4.4.1 before epoch 1079, warning that nodes without the update would be forked out of the network. The patch applies a minimum loaded-data threshold to loader-v3 ProgramData accounts.
Regulation remains split across major markets
In Washington, the outlook for the proposed CLARITY Act has become less certain following the Democratic Party's midterm election performance. Commentary from policy analysts suggested the market-structure bill could remain stalled through 2028, with congressional attention instead likely to focus on oversight and enforcement.
Progress in stablecoins and tokenized equities may continue through agency rulemaking and existing law rather than a comprehensive market-structure statute. The White House Office of Management and Budget has begun reviewing a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal governing how broker-dealers conduct digital-asset business. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also submitted a proposal intended to strengthen consumer protections in prediction markets.
Outside the United States, Greece's parliament passed a law establishing a 10% capital gains tax on crypto profits, while exempting annual gains of up to EUR500. South Korea's finance ministry said it intends to delay the start of its proposed crypto gains tax by two years, to 2029. The current South Korean plan would apply a 22% rate to annual gains above 2.5 million won.
Arkansas has also accused prediction market platform Kalshi of failing to disclose risks associated with professional trading and possible insider activity, while allowing users under 21 to access products. The state is seeking unpaid taxes and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
The combined market decline, security response and regulatory activity leave crypto traders facing two immediate pressures: heightened sensitivity to technology-stock volatility and closer scrutiny of the platforms, networks and products used to move capital during periods of stress.
After this sharp sell-off, learn how to build safer strategies in volatile markets with our guide on crypto crash survival.
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