Live updates: Bitcoin rises above $83,000 as SpaceX results, possible Tesla merger, lift markets

After plunging 32% following its IPO Tuesday — and taking U.S. peers down along with it — South Korean data center player Elice surged 30% overnight (the daily limit), though still remaining below its IPO price.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 3.3%.

Helping things were strong preliminary results from the U.S.’s Super Micro Computer (SMCI), which is higher by 12% pre-market. The company sees third-quarter sales of $18.5 billion - $19.5 billion, far ahead of estimates for $15 billion.

Strong results from SpaceX, as well as possible merger plans with Tesla, are also lifting animal spirits.

Among the neoclouds bouncing pre-market: CoreWeave (CRWV) +2.9%, IREN IREN +4%, Hut 8 HUT +4.4%, TeraWulf WULF +5%.

Chatter about a possible merger between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla is lifting U.S. stock index futures (Nasdaq 100 +0.6%), and Europe’s Stoxx 50 is higher by 0.9%. Bitcoin is off yesterday’s lows, rising to $83,400.

France’s stressed government bond market, though, is showing more cracks. The 10-year OAT yield rose above 5% earlier for the first time since 2022. It’s currently edged back to 4.995%, up nearly 8 basis points on the day.

The German 10-year Bund yield is higher by just 2.8 basis points, raising the Bund/OAT spread to 158 basis points, the highest since the EU debt crisis of 2011.

“Is France spinning out of control?,” went an FT opinion piece yesterday, written by Le Monde’s Sylvie Kaufmann.

“Decades of uncontrolled public spending — France has not had a balanced budget since 1974 — and years of ‘whatever it takes’ after the pandemic have pushed the public deficit to 5.4% of GDP this year,” wrote Kaufman. “The national debt has reached 119%, its highest level since 1946, and keeps ballooning.”

“The current unrest, if it continues, will scare away investors. This is a bad but not insurmountable situation. Remedies do exist — but who will muster the political courage to launch the necessary reforms?”

Bitcoin is hanging just above $82,500 on Wednesday, the level XS.com’s Simon-Peter Massabni calls its most important support, as stock futures climbed on SpaceX’s blowout results and oil pushed back above $110.

Bitcoin’s fate is tied to tech again. It fell in lockstep with the Nasdaq last week after the hot U.S. inflation report and a selloff in AI and chip stocks, and Massabni, XS.com’s head of business development, said that link is getting stronger.

“In the short term, this development challenges the notion that Bitcoin can consistently serve as an independent safe haven from traditional market volatility,” he said.

A “decisive and sustained break” below $82,500 could hand control to sellers and expose bitcoin to a drop toward $70,000, Massabni said. That’s the downside case laid out by market maker Wintermute, and it would mean a further 15% slide from here.

Tech gave bitcoin some cover on Wednesday.

Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.4% and S&P 500 futures 0.2%. SpaceX jumped 9% before the open after its AI and satellite internet businesses drove earnings well above forecasts, and a report that Anthropic may spend $750 billion on computing power eased worries about the AI spending boom.

Brent topped $110 a barrel on attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, and Treasury yields edged higher. Meta and Tesla report later Wednesday.

A move back above $84,000 would take the $70,000 scenario off the table.