Bitcoin Stays Above $80,000 as Kospi's 8% Slide Halts Trading

Bitcoin stayed above $80,000 Thursday morning as South Korea’s benchmark stock index, the Kospi, plunged 8% intraday and triggered a 20-minute trading pause, while most tracked crypto assets fell.

Bitcoin traded around $81,200 at 6:52 a.m. ET (10:52 UTC), down about 0.5% from midnight UTC after recovering from an overnight slide toward $80,000. Ether fell 2% to about $2,370 at the same time.

An 80-asset crypto index dropped 2.2%, while a five-asset measure fell 0.7%; 94 of 100 tracked assets were lower. The Kospi touched 5,528.05 points at 11:38 p.m. ET Wednesday (03:38 UTC Thursday). The exchange’s circuit breaker suspends trading for 20 minutes once the index stays 8% or more below its prior close for a minute.

The Kospi later pared its losses before the local close, making 8% an intraday drop rather than its closing decline. The market moves followed U.S. inflation data showing consumer prices rose 3.7% year over year in September, up from 3.4% in August, and increased 0.6% from August to September.