Ether falls twice as hard as bitcoin and HYPE drops 10% as the chip trade unwinds

Ether (ETH) fell twice as hard as bitcoin on Friday and hyperliquid's $HYPE fell more than five times as hard, as a selloff in Asian semiconductor shares dragged every major cryptocurrency lower.

Ether dropped 4% to $1,850, though it remains up 4% over seven sessions and is the only major still green on the week. $HYPE was the worst of them at $60, down 10% on the day and 12% on the week, its steepest stretch since June. Solana slid 2% to $75 and is off 5% for the week.

XRP eased 2% to $1.09, BNB fell 2% to $571, TRON slipped to 32 cents and dogecoin lost 2%. Bitcoin held up best of the group, down 2% to about $63,400 and 1% on the week after failing twice at $65,000.

The selling started in semiconductors. MSCI's Asia Pacific equities gauge dropped 3%, heading for its lowest close in two months, while Japan's Nikkei 225 slumped 5% in its worst session since March. Taiwan Semiconductor was on track for its biggest one-day decline since April 2025 and Japan's Kioxia sank as much as 16%.

Last Friday bitcoin rose 4% on the day South Korea's Kospi jumped 8% and SK Hynix priced $26.5 billion of American depositary shares. Investors are now asking whether this year's AI rally moved too far too fast, and the answer is arriving in the chip tape rather than in anything onchain.

Ether's drop is the one worth watching. U.S. spot ether ETFs took in nearly $97 million over the first three days of this week, more than they gathered across all of last week, with BlackRock's funds accounting for almost all of it. That bid did not stop ether from falling harder than bitcoin when the chip tape turned.

Wintermute's OTC desk described the week as "consolidation under resistance rather than continuation," noting in an email that spot volumes fell rather than rose into the highs.

Glassnode's onchain metrics have yet to confirm a reversal, and the Fear and Greed Index at 25 remains in extreme fear.

Meanwhile, oil is doing the opposite of everything else. Brent rebounded to about $85 a barrel and is up 12% on the week, its biggest weekly gain since April, as hostilities escalated and shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz thinned. That is the fifth day of U.S. strikes on Iran, and it is rekindling inflation worries that Tuesday's data had just calmed.