Cryptocurrencies remain under significant sell-off pressure following a market shakeout driven by investor reactions to DeepSeek AI news.

As Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $100,000 and altcoins turned red amid a tech stock bloodbath, the crypto market experienced massive liquidations.

According to Coinglass, total crypto liquidations over the past 24 hours surged by more than 850% as of Jan. 27, with nearly $1 billion in long and short positions wiped out. At 2 pm ET, total liquidations stood at approximately $993 million, with long positions accounting for over $883 million and short positions at about $110 million.

More than 344,000 crypto traders were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with the largest single liquidation order amounting to $98.46 million in BTC-USDT on the HTX exchange.

Overall, liquidations reached over $311 million for Bitcoin, more than $143 million for Ethereum (ETH) and nearly $50 million in Solana (SOL) longs and shorts. XRP and Dogecoin accounted for $42 million and $33 million in liquidated positions respectively.

The nearly $1 billion in liquidated positions coincided with BTC’s decline below $98,000 and ETH’s drop to $3,000. The total crypto market cap fell by 8%, settling at $3.3 trillion.

DeepSeek and risk assets sell-off

The sell-off in crypto assets occurred alongside broader declines in risk assets, triggered by market reactions to DeepSeek, an AI system developed in China. Analysts have noted that DeepSeek poses a threat to U.S. dominance in the AI sector. Reports suggest that the system was developed at a fraction of the cost of U.S.-based projects like OpenAI and is open-source.

AI chip maker Nvidia’s stock fell 17% while Advanced Micro Devices was down 6% and Qualcomm 2%. Microsoft, Alphabet’s GOOGL and Amazon were also in the red.

“As Deepseek challenges U.S. AI dominance, the question lingers: Will Trump step in as the market’s hero, or let risk assets fend for themselves?” QCP Capital analysts posted on X.