Crypto News: A Chinese AI curveball

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Donald Trump sees the stock market as his preferred gauge of success.

By that measure, yesterday's selloff over the implications of Chinese artificial-intelligence startup DeepSeek was ominous for the US president.

The slide in equities was led by the same tech stocks that have driven markets to records globally: AI darling Nvidia lost $589 billion in value, the most in corporate history.

Underlining how inflated these stocks have become, Nvidia's loss equates to the annual economic output of Sweden.

It's the contrast with DeepSeek's more frugal model that unsettled investors.

DeepSeek created an open-source AI chatbot known as R1 that appears to be as effective as US pioneers like OpenAI at a fraction of the cost. Its surprise arrival questioned not only big-tech valuations, but the very nature of America's global lead in the field.

Trump called the development "a wake-up call" for US companies, even as he welcomed it as "good, because you don't have to spend as much money."

It's certainly awkward, coming a week after the president announced an AI infrastructure plan worth as much as $500 billion. Elon Musk's subsequent public doubts over the sums involved look increasingly salient.

More worrying for both sides of the aisle in Washington, DeepSeek's achievement came in the face of successive waves of US curbs on exports of advanced technology that were meticulously crafted to hinder precisely this kind of development.

That approach looks in tatters as China challenges US tech supremacy at the leading edge.

True, DeepSeek relied on Nvidia chips to get there, and a lag in the impact of tech curbs means the US chokehold will tighten.

But China has already demonstrated that adversity is the mother of invention.

Trump has been relatively benign as regards Beijing so far. That may be about to change. — Alan Crawford

WATCH: Jen Zhu Scott of investment platform IN. Capital speaks with David Ingles and Stephen Engle on "Bloomberg: The China Show."

Global Must Reads

Trump said he wants to enact across-the-board tariffs that are "much bigger" than 2.5%, the latest signal that he's preparing widespread levies to reshape US supply chains. Trump spoke aboard Air Force One after a Florida speech where he also pledged duties on specific sectors, including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, copper and aluminum, and strongly suggested he could impose them on automobiles from Canada and Mexico.

The US Senate confirmed Scott Bessent as the next secretary of the Treasury, anointing the chief economic spokesman for Trump's sweeping agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and trade rebalancing. The former hedge-fund manager won confirmation by a vote of 68 to 29 yesterday, including 15 Democrats, and becomes Trump's fifth Cabinet pick to get confirmed.

Scott Bessent. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Trump has rapidly named congressional supporters, donors, friends and even family to his Cabinet and other top jobs. Some of them will sail through Senate confirmation hearings. Others didn't even get that far, like former US Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida. Check out our comprehensive guide here.

Chinese authorities threw property developer China Vanke a lifeline in a rare show of support that signals it's considered too big to fail after dozens of firms defaulted amid a punishing housing slump. Vanke's bonds soared as investors bet the company will avoid the fate of China Evergrande and Country Garden, which collapsed in recent years with little help from Beijing or other government entities.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen embarked on a tour of major European capitals to muster support in the spat with Trump over Greenland, a day after her government earmarked additional funds to help defend the Arctic island. Greenland may still need several years to arrange a referendum on independence, a senior lawmaker in the Danish parliament told us.

Frederiksen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin today. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Protests brought oil loadings from two key Libyan ports to a standstill, hindering about a third of the OPEC member's crude exports, a reminder of global supply risks from ongoing tensions in the North African country.

Argentina's Salta province started a bidding process to build a fence near the Bolivian border as part of President Javier Milei's efforts to crack down on drug trafficking and contraband.

Trump announced that Indian Premier Narendra Modi will probably come to the White House next month, while sources say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to visit the US president in Washington next week to discuss the ceasefire in Gaza.

Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, a key ally of President Aleksandar Vucic, resigned following weeks of protests by students demanding political change in the Balkan nation.

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Chart of the Day

Big investment firms are turning positive on French government debt, betting lawmakers will soon approve a budget to pull the country back from the brink of fiscal chaos. With French 10-year bonds yielding among the highest in the euro region, buyers are taking the view that they're getting paid appropriately for the risk of political gridlock that left investors reeling last year after President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election.

And Finally

Juan Antonio Samaranch stepped down as head of the International Olympic Committee in 2001 after a turbulent 21-year stint in charge. A quarter of a century later, his son, also named Juan Antonio, is among the frontrunners in a competitive field to be president of a more cost-conscious IOC. Committee members will take a secret ballot in March, and Samaranch junior wants to put his almost 40-year career in banking toward rethinking how the organization funds itself.