Bitcoin rose despite a sharp fall in major U.S. semiconductor stocks, moving out of step with equities. As calls emerge in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry to control development speed for safety reasons, market attention is focusing on why bitcoin and AI-related assets are diverging.

Decrypto, a blockchain media outlet, reported that bitcoin climbed as high as $78,280 during the session on Sept. 14 local time. Nvidia, Intel, AMD and Marvell Technology and other major semiconductor stocks fell across the board.

The trigger for the market moves was the argument for slowing down from within the AI industry. Dario Amodei (다리오 아모데이), CEO of Anthropic, published an article over the weekend titled "We Must Advance the Frontier at a Controlled Pace" and said there is a need to intentionally slow the pace of AI model performance improvements.

Amodei said recursive self-improvement is accelerating the pace of technological progress in the AI industry. He also assessed the OpenAI and Hugging Face-related agent swarm incident as a warning signal showing risks that could arise during AI technology development.

Other key figures in the AI industry also publicly agreed with Amodei. Sam Altman (샘 알트먼), CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk (일론 머스크), owner of xAI, each expressed agreement within a day.

The market is seen as taking this as a signal that an expansion of investment in the AI industry could be slower than expected. Analysts said the broad weakness in semiconductor stocks, which have been classified as AI beneficiaries, after the U.S. stock market opened was not unrelated to that view.

Nvidia fell as much as 3% during the session and Intel slid more than 5%. AMD dropped about 6% and Marvell Technology fell as much as 7.5%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged about 6%. Gold, silver and many AI-related stocks also weakened.

The crypto market moved in the opposite direction. Bitcoin rose about 2% since midnight UTC, recovering to a level 4.8% below the intramonth high of $82,284 set on Sept. 3. Ether rose about 2.1% to around $2,514 and XRP gained 3.3%. Total crypto market capitalisation also increased about 1.5%.

Bitcoin prices have recently been reacting more sensitively to interest rate expectations and U.S. regulatory policy than to AI-related stocks. Bitcoin fell to $76,877 after hawkish Jackson Hole remarks in late August by Kevin Warsh (케빈 워시), chair of the Federal Reserve. It moved back above $80,000 on Sept. 3 after Fed Governor Christopher Waller (크리스토퍼 월러) signalled he could support keeping rates on hold. At the time, the market also saw a short squeeze worth more than $415 million.

Expectations for the Clarity Act, a U.S. crypto market-structure bill, also appear to have influenced bitcoin's rise. On Polymarket, the probability that the Clarity Act will pass within 2026 rose to 31% over the weekend. That came as expectations for a Senate vote grew again after U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to revised ethics provisions that had blocked progress on the bill since July.

The Senate is scheduled to hold a cloture vote on the Clarity Act on Sept. 15. Republicans hold 53 seats, but at least 2 Republican senators are expected to vote against it, meaning about 9 additional yes votes from Democrats are needed for passage.

As a result, the market sees the Sept. 15 vote outcome as a key variable that will determine the direction of crypto prices. If the chances of passage rise, easing regulatory uncertainty could provide further upside momentum for major cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, but if the vote unfolds unexpectedly it is difficult to rule out the possibility of giving back the recent rebound.

As tech stocks come under pressure from calls to slow AI development, bitcoin has risen on regulatory and rate expectations. Attention is also on the fact that, unlike when AI and crypto moved together as risk assets for a time, the key drivers moving each market have recently been changing.

Ultimately, market focus is turning to the pace of future investment in the AI industry, the Clarity Act vote set for Sept. 15 and subsequent monetary policy decisions by the Fed.