Tom Lee stated that the AI stock sell-off has bottomed out, and Bitcoin's resilience shows that the selling pressure may have been released

Co-founder of Fundstrat and Chairman of Bitmine, Tom Lee, stated on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that he believes the sell-off in AI stocks has bottomed out, reasoning that the demand in the AI market remains tight and supply is limited, not due to overcapacity. He admitted that determining the bottom is very difficult, saying, "At the bottom, you don't know how much more downside there is, so the bottom is dangerous." He further pointed out that spending constraints, including political resistance, are slowing down industry growth, but this does not mean the AI boom has peaked.

This judgment is particularly critical for companies related to AI infrastructure. Taking the data center business as an example, the supply shortage may cause customers to queue and also limit suppliers' ability to convert orders into revenue. Intel's stock plummeted nearly 30% to $65.76 last Friday due to its fourth-quarter earnings guidance falling short of expectations; despite revenue from data center and AI business growing 78% year-on-year to $7.3 billion, manufacturing capacity constraints still prevent it from meeting demand. The company expects quarterly revenue to be between $15 billion and $16 billion, with the median about $1.6 billion lower than analysts' expectations, and the weak PC business further increases pressure.

Lee's second argument comes from the cryptocurrency market. He noted that the cryptocurrency market's reaction to the Binance security incident was relatively limited, with the exchange initially estimating the affected scale at about $6.3 billion. He believes that if cryptocurrency is a leading indicator of risk assets, then the sellers have basically cleared out. Last Friday, Bitcoin fell about 4% to around $76,400, with over $1.3 billion in leveraged positions being liquidated, and the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF saw a net outflow of $643.2 million that day, marking the largest single-day outflow in October. Binance stated that it has frozen about $3 billion in affected assets and promised to cover the losses with emergency reserves and company funds.