Asia Morning Briefing: Asia Wakes Up to an AI BTC-Nvidia Tailwind That’s Already Starting to Sputter

Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

The optimism that swept markets throughout the American Monday trading day on the back of Amazon’s $50 billion commitment to U.S. AI and supercomputing infrastructure is already meeting resistance.

For most of 2025, crypto has behaved less like an inflation hedge and more like a high-volatility AI proxy. That made Amazon’s $50 billion pledge a powerful sentiment boost, especially for miners pivoting into AI infrastructure. But Nvidia’s slide Tuesday – down 6% – exposed how fragile that thesis is.

If the AI complex can’t hold its footing, the linkage that pulled money back into bitcoin and growth tokens may not hold either, leaving the market without its key macro tailwind.

“Until NVDA stabilizes, BTC upside will remain capped by risk-budget constraints, even if onchain data improves,” Market Maker Enflux said in a note to CoinDesk. “When AI equities wobble, crypto loses one of the few secular-growth correlations that supported it in 2025.”

Positioning is reacting accordingly. Bitcoin failed to attract a dominance bid despite a risk-off tone, and flows are tilting toward selective narratives with clearer catalysts such as Solana, ETH, DePIN, GPU compute, and tokenization.

“BTC dominance is not spiking the way it normally does in fear cycles. Instead, liquidity is dispersing into Solana and ETH,” Enflux also wrote.

Asia trading will now hinge on whether AI names find footing. If Nvidia steadies, the growth linkage may reassert itself. If not, crypto may have to stand on its own without the beta boost that pushed capital into the sector earlier this year.

Market Movement

BTC: Bitcoin is holding in the high-$87,000 range after Monday’s AI-driven rebound, but it hasn’t built meaningful momentum or attracted a safety bid despite the broader risk wobble.

ETH:Ether is edging higher alongside rotation flows, holding above the mid-$2,900s as traders favor assets with clearer catalysts even while bitcoin stalls.

Gold: Gold climbed above $4,100 in early Tuesday trading, rising about 1% after Fed Governor Christopher Waller backed a December rate cut, bolstering demand for the metal as lower rates enhance its appeal versus interest-bearing assets.

Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets opened higher Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Topix up 0.9% as traders followed Wall Street gains and priced in hopes of a December Fed rate cut.

Elsewhere in Crypto:

• Texas Buys $5M in BTC ETF as States Edge Toward First Government Crypto Reserves (CoinDesk)
• MoonPay Granted New York Trust Charter, Joining Coinbase and Ripple (Decrypt)
• U.S. Hours Account for Nearly All of Bitcoin’s November Losses (CoinDesk)

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