Dogecoin Adds 15% to lead Majors, Bitcoin holds $85,600

Dogecoin added 15% to just above 10 cents in Tuesday's Asian morning session, the largest gain among major tokens. Bitcoin held just above $85,600, flat over the past hour after adding roughly 5% over 24 hours.

The squeeze did the work

Just over $1 billion of crypto positions were liquidated over the past day, $844 million of that, or 82%, from short sellers, per CoinGlass. Roughly 135,000 traders were closed out. Bitcoin accounted for about $608 million of the day's total, ether $181 million. The largest single liquidation was a nearly $21 million bitcoin position on Hyperliquid.

That fuel is spent. Liquidations in the past hour came to under $11 million, down from more than $300 million an hour at the peak of Monday's move. Further gains now depend on fresh buyers, not forced covering. Bitcoin's flatness over the past hour, after a 5% 24-hour run, fits the same picture.

The rest of the majors

XRP added 7% to nearly $1.52 and SOL gained 5% to just under $117.

Ether rose 3% to nearly $2,740, while BNB and TRX each gained between 1% and 2%.

ZEC was the only large-cap token in the red, falling 4% to just above $1,450.

Dogecoin's 15% gain put it well ahead of the other major tokens during the session, although the move came after a broader crypto rebound rather than in isolation.

AI trade lifts Asian stocks

The broader market also opened higher across Asia, with artificial intelligence stocks helping drive the move.

MSCI's Asia Pacific gauge rose nearly 1% for a fifth straight session. Chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led the advance after U.S. semiconductor stocks rallied on Monday.

South Korea's Kospi gained 2%, while Taiwan's benchmark reached an intraday record.

The renewed AI trade followed signs of strong early demand for Meta's new AI agent, Muse. The agent works across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and had moved ahead of ChatGPT as the top free app on Apple's U.S. App Store.

The app has recorded nearly 3 million installs worldwide. App-tracking data also showed that its iOS downloads in the U.S. and Canada were almost 40% higher than ChatGPT's during their first 12 days on mobile.

The connection to chip stocks is straightforward. Every AI agent request requires computing power, creating expectations for higher demand for servers and AI chips if agent use expands.

AMD rose as much as 10% on Monday and briefly crossed a $1 trillion market value for the first time. Intel gained as much as 12%, while Arm rose 14%.

The gains pushed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index more than 4% higher for a fifth consecutive advance.

Alibaba also said Tuesday that it was rolling out a new AI chip designed to compete with Nvidia's accelerators. Its Hong Kong shares moved higher alongside Tencent after the company released a new image-generation model.

What would prove the squeeze wrong

Bitcoin falling back below $85,000 without a new wave of buyers would weaken the case that the rally is continuing on fresh demand.

Past-hour liquidations below $11 million are already far below Monday's peak. That leaves the market needing genuine buying interest to extend the move.

For Dogecoin, the key question is whether the 15% jump can hold after the forced-short-covering phase across the wider crypto market has cooled.