February 24 Market Recap: IBM Becomes the Latest AI Casualty as Crypto Market Suffers a Confidence Blow
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February 24 Market Recap: IBM Becomes the Latest AI Casualty as Crypto Market Suffers a Confidence Blow
The “replacement threat” posed by AI to traditional industries has once again become a reality—this time, the fallen giant is the Blue Giant.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: TechFlow
Returning from the Spring Festival holiday, global markets faced a double blow on the first working day.
First blow: Trump’s 15% global tariff.
Last Friday (February 21), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s “reciprocal tariff” policy—previously enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—by a 6–3 vote. This ruling had initially signaled potential relief for the global trading order. Yet over the weekend, Trump swiftly responded on Truth Social: since the Supreme Court blocked his “reciprocal tariffs,” he would instead deploy an alternative legal framework—immediately raising the existing 10% global tariff to 15%, citing decades of “looting” of the U.S. by other nations.
The European Commission responded immediately, demanding U.S. clarification on next steps and warning that such action could jeopardize the U.S.–EU trade agreement and transatlantic investment. The European Parliament promptly suspended ratification of the previously agreed-upon U.S.–EU trade deal.
This is a textbook case of “policy uncertainty” severely undermining market confidence—sudden, arbitrary, and inherently unpredictable in its follow-on implications.
Second blow: Anthropic’s Claude Code lands a direct hit on IBM’s heart.
During the Spring Festival (early February 23, Beijing time), Anthropic released a major update to Claude Code, announcing its AI’s ability to automate COBOL code modernization. COBOL—a programming language developed in the 1960s—still powers hundreds of billions of lines of code across global financial, aviation, and government systems. In its blog post, Anthropic stated: “COBOL modernization used to require an ‘army of consultants’ spending years… Now Claude Code can do it automatically.”
That phrase—“army of consultants”—struck directly at IBM. IBM’s consulting business has long relied on maintaining and upgrading COBOL legacy systems—a highly profitable segment of its operations. Yesterday (February 23), IBM’s stock plunged 13.4% in a single day—the largest drop among Dow Jones Industrial Average components—and is now down nearly 22% year-to-date.
The “substitution threat” posed by AI to traditional industries has once again materialized—this time toppling the Blue Giant.
U.S. Equities: Dow drops 883 points; defensive stocks the sole safe haven
Yesterday (Monday, February 23, U.S. Eastern Time), all three major U.S. indices tumbled sharply:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 883 points (-1.78%), closing at 48,742.
- The S&P 500 fell 0.9%, closing near 6,740.
- The Nasdaq dropped 1.2%, closing near 24,500.
Beyond IBM’s 13.4% single-day crash, payments and financial services were also hit by AI-related panic: American Express fell 7.32%; Salesforce dropped 5.11%. Software stocks once again bore the brunt—extending the “AI substitution panic” narrative that has dominated the past two weeks.
The sole outperforming sector was defensive consumer staples: Walmart rose 2.3% on the day—becoming investors’ preferred safe-haven asset.
Pre-market today (February 24): Futures edged higher—Dow futures up ~48 points (+0.1%), S&P 500 futures up 0.14%, and Nasdaq futures up 0.22%. Yet the VIX Fear Index remains elevated at 21—up 10% intraday—indicating markets remain far from calm.
Notably, Apple’s performance over the past month has begun to diverge. Bloomberg reported today that Apple is accelerating development of three new AI-powered wearable devices: smart glasses, pendant-style devices, and a next-generation AirPods—all built around the Siri assistant. Apple’s strategy in the “AI arms race” avoids heavy capital expenditure, focusing instead on high-margin hardware—contrasting sharply with Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Over the past month, Apple’s stock has outperformed the broader market.
Gold: King of safe havens surges to $5,240—three-week high
Amid widespread equity carnage, gold emerged as the biggest winner.
Yesterday, spot gold surged to $5,230–$5,242 per ounce, marking a three-week high and rising ~1.7% on the day. It opened today holding steady above $5,240.
The logic driving gold’s rally is clear-cut:
- Trump’s 15% global tariff has intensified geopolitical and trade-policy uncertainty—triggering a flight to safety into gold;
- Following the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the “reciprocal tariff,” the EU suspended ratification of the U.S.–EU trade agreement—pushing transatlantic economic relations into uncharted territory;
- Tensions in the Middle East persist: U.S. military deployment there now approaches the scale seen during the 2003 Iraq War; Iran just announced a temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz for several hours due to military exercises—reigniting geopolitical risk premiums;
- Fed rate-cut expectations remain intact, and falling real yields provide structural support for gold.
Silver underperformed gold but stabilized near $88/oz—recovering from last week’s lows.
Goldman Sachs raised its oil price forecast over the weekend, lifting its Q4 Brent crude target to $60/bbl from a prior lower estimate—citing stalled U.S.–Iran nuclear talks, U.S. assumption of control over Venezuela’s oil industry, and mounting pressure on Russian exports. Global oil supply-chain tightness has exceeded earlier expectations. Rising oil prices indirectly bolster inflation expectations—and thus support gold.
Crypto Market: Bitcoin breaks below $64,000; “Extreme Fear” persists
Bitcoin is currently trading between $64,000 and $65,400—a ~5% decline over the past 24 hours. Ethereum trades under broad pressure near $1,950.
IBM’s 13% plunge yesterday—driven by Anthropic—directly dragged down crypto markets. Over recent months, Bitcoin’s price correlation with software stocks has been exceptionally high.
More fundamentally, sentiment remains deeply fragile. The Fear & Greed Index stands at 5 (“Extreme Fear”), while the RSI sits at ~37.87 (“neutral-weak”). Technical indicators show 24 bearish signals versus only 6 bullish ones across 30 metrics.
Two “confidence killers” have further destabilized an already vulnerable market:
First, Wu Jihan’s Bitdeer liquidated all its Bitcoin holdings.
On Thursday, February 20, Bitdeer—the publicly traded mining firm chaired by Wu Jihan—posted a shocking weekly report on its official social media: as of February 20, its self-held Bitcoin balance (excluding customer deposits) stood at zero.
During the reporting period, Bitdeer mined 189.8 BTC—and sold every single one. It also net-sold 943.1 BTC, fully depleting its treasury’s Bitcoin reserves.
This “full liquidation” occurred at a highly dramatic juncture: Bitdeer’s self-operated hash rate just reached 63.2 EH/s—officially surpassing Marathon Digital’s 60.4 EH/s to become the world’s largest publicly traded self-mining company by hash rate.
Boasting the world’s #1 hash rate—yet holding zero Bitcoin.
Bitdeer explained the move as part of a full pivot toward AI infrastructure and high-performance computing, requiring liquidity for land acquisitions. Wu Jihan clarified that liquidating Bitcoin does not preclude future holdings.
Yet for the market, the signal is fatal: If the world’s top hash-rate miner no longer believes in Bitcoin, why should retail?
Second, Vitalik Buterin continues selling ETH.
According to on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, Vitalik sold ~1,869 ETH over the past two days (February 21–22), worth ~$3.67 million. So far this month, Vitalik has sold over 8,800 ETH—valued at ~$18.45 million.
Vitalik still holds ~224,000 ETH—worth ~$439 million (at $1,900/ETH). His ETH holdings have declined from a 2015 peak of 662,810 ETH to just 0.20% of total supply.
Founders’ sustained selling—compounded by weakening staking demand for ETH and Binance ETH inflows hitting a new high since November 2025—has pushed ETH down to ~$1,850, with a 24-hour decline exceeding 5% and a monthly loss of 30%.
Hedge funds have withdrawn steadily from Bitcoin spot ETFs over recent months; net outflows since year-start exceed $1 billion. Retail interest remains extremely low, with 24-hour trading volume hovering near $48.5 billion—a relatively depressed level.
Bitcoin’s core challenge today isn’t technical—it’s narrative. The “digital gold” thesis is being questioned amid gold’s surge and Bitcoin’s slump. Its role as an “inflation hedge” has also lost appeal amid delayed rate-cut expectations. And when an industry icon like Wu Jihan liquidates all Bitcoin to pivot into AI—and Vitalik sells millions in ETH—faith itself begins to erode.
Technically, $60,000 is a critical psychological threshold. A break below opens the door to the next support zone near $55,000–$58,000. Resistance at $70,000 appears unreachable in the near term.
Returning from the Spring Festival, global markets are digesting two seismic developments: first, Trump redefining trade policy via “legal layer-cake” tactics—plunging global trade order into fresh uncertainty; second, Anthropic’s blog post knocking a century-old tech titan—IBM—onto the “AI replacement list.”
Gold holds firm at $5,240; Bitcoin struggles beneath $64,000; and two pivotal figures in crypto—Wu Jihan and Vitalik—have each taken decisive actions: one’s firm emptied its entire Bitcoin treasury to invest in AI; the other sold over $18 million in ETH this month alone.
On Day One back at work, the market’s welcome gift was anything but friendly.
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