Cryptocurrencies faced significant turbulence today due to the Chinese AI platform DeepSeek. Bitcoin $101,882 plummeted to $97,777, while NVIDIA suffered losses amounting to hundreds of billions. U.S. markets witnessed a wipeout of nearly $1 trillion, with cryptocurrencies seeing close to $1 billion in liquidations. What is happening?
Did DeepSeek Collapse?
As this article was being prepared, the platform announced it was under heavy attack. DeepSeek has had to pause its services and is implementing measures to address the situation. Currently, it has closed new member registrations to limit the attacks.
“Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek’s services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continuity. Existing users can log in as usual. Thank you for your understanding and support.”
DeepSeek, which emerged as a competitor to ChatGPT, claims to produce better results with much weaker chips. While outputs are relatively good compared to ChatGPT, many experts argue that the platform, alleged to have cost $5.8 million, is actually financed by the Chinese government, suggesting its true costs are significantly higher.
In just two months, a platform that can compete with ChatGPT for $5.8 million, while using much lower processing power, could lead to a decline in demand for NVIDIA chips. Furthermore, a reversal of an overvaluation story similar to the dot-com bubble may occur.
In response to these developments, Trump is likely to take counteractions. The negativity in risk markets today is primarily attributed to DeepSeek.