Investing.com — recovered toward $65,000 on Saturday after sliding alongside semiconductor and technology stocks, as a new Chinese artificial intelligence model and fading expectations for US crypto legislation pressured risk appetite.
Bitcoin was trading at $64,729.5 as of 17:28 ET (21:28 GMT), up about 1% from its previous close after moving between $62,505 and $64,287. The cryptocurrency had approached $65,000 earlier in the week following softer US inflation data.
Friday’s decline followed the release of Kimi K3 by Beijing-based Moonshot AI, CoinDesk reported. The open-weight model outperformed Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 on a closely watched frontend coding benchmark.
Kimi K3 scored 1,679 on the leaderboard, compared with 1,631 for Claude Fable 5 and 1,618 for GPT-5.6. Moonshot’s previous model had ranked 18th, marking a 17-place improvement in one release.
The model has 2.8 trillion parameters and uses a mixture-of-experts design that activates only part of its architecture for each task. Its full weights are scheduled for public release on July 27, allowing developers to download and operate the system on their own hardware.
That prospect unsettled technology valuations by challenging assumptions that leading AI capabilities will remain scarce and expensive. Bitcoin has recently traded in step with semiconductor shares, strengthening its connection to the broader AI investment cycle.
The development also affects listed Bitcoin miners that have converted power capacity into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. Cheaper, more efficient models could reduce demand for expensive data-centre capacity and weaken the economics behind those contracts.
Regulatory uncertainty added another headwind. Polymarket traders lowered the probability of the CLARITY Act becoming law by December 31 to a record-low 32%, down from a February peak of 82%.
Senate negotiations remain stalled over ethics provisions covering public officials’ digital-asset interests. The legislation would divide oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but Congress is approaching its August recess with few legislative weeks remaining.
Separately, Ripple committed $250,000 in RLUSD-funded grants to 25 veteran- and military spouse-owned businesses. Each recipient will receive $10,000, employer training, and access to more than 20,000 military-connected job seekers.
Investors also weighed the impact of continued U.S.-Iran strikes across Gulf infrastructure to assess potential energy-driven inflation risks, which could reduce appetite for riskier assets.
Crypto price today: altcoins largely higher amid thin trading
Turning to broader crypto prices, most altcoins were higher amid thin Saturday trading.
World no.2 crypto Ether was up 1.1% on the day, while XRP had gained 0.5%.
Cardano had a gain of 0.6%, while BNB and Solana had risen 1.3% and 0.33%, respectively.
Among memecoins, Dogecoin had climbed 0.3%, while $TRUMP was up a massive 5%.