Cointelegraph

Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block Inc. has begun informing hundreds of employees that their roles could be eliminated during annual performance reviews, as the firm undertakes a wider restructuring effort.

As much as 10% of Block’s workforce may be affected, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The company employed just under 11,000 people as of late November, an executive reportedly said at the time.

The potential layoffs come as Block reshapes its operations following a reorganization launched in 2024 aimed at improving efficiency and aligning its product lines. The company is working to more closely link its peer-to-peer payments platform Cash App with its merchant services arm Square.

At the same time, Block is expanding newer initiatives, including its Bitcoin (BTC) mining division Proto and an artificial intelligence project known as Goose.

Block shares ended Friday up nearly 5%. Source: Google Finance

Related: Cash App plans to unlock stablecoin transactions ’soon’

Block expected to post $403 million Q4 profit

Block is scheduled to release quarterly earnings on Feb. 26, according to Bloomberg. Analysts expect adjusted profit of about $403 million, or 68 cents per share, on revenue of roughly $6.25 billion for the fourth quarter, per the report.

The company last reported third-quarter net income of $461.5 million on $6.11 billion in revenue. Gross profit rose 18% year over year, driven by 24% growth in Cash App and 9% growth in Square, though the stock fell after the release as some performance metrics missed Wall Street expectations.

For the third quarter, Bitcoin generated about $1.97 billion in revenue, down from $2.4 billion a year earlier but still the company’s second-largest revenue stream. Block held 8,780 BTC worth over $1 billion by the end of September, recording a $59 million quarterly valuation loss.

Related: Jack Dorsey urges tax-free status for ‘everyday’ Bitcoin payments

Square launches Bitcoin payments for merchants

In November last year, Square, the payments platform owned by Block, rolled out a Bitcoin payment option, allowing merchants to accept BTC directly at checkout through its point-of-sale terminals. Sellers can process transactions in multiple ways, including Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin and automatic conversion between Bitcoin and fiat currency.

The launch added on earlier tools that let merchants convert a portion of daily card sales into Bitcoin as part of Square’s broader payment and wallet ecosystem. More than four million sellers across eight countries use Square.

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest continued reducing its exposure to crypto exchange Coinbase on Friday, unloading $22 million worth of shares across multiple exchange-traded funds (ETFs) while adding to its position in digital asset platform Bullish.

According to ARK’s trade disclosures, the firm sold 92,737 Coinbase Global shares from the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), 32,790 shares from the Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and 8,945 shares from the Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). The combined transactions totaled 134,472 shares, worth around $22.1 million.

The sale came as ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, has reversed course on Coinbase, selling 119,236 COIN worth about $17.4 million on Thursday after a brief purchase earlier in the week. The Thursday sale was the firm’s first Coinbase sale of 2026 and its first since August 2025.

Meanwhile, Coinbase stock climbed during the Friday session, closing at about $165 after gaining roughly 13% on the day. However, the exchange’s shares are still down by 26% year-to-date (YTD), according to data from Google Finance.

Coinbase shares closed Friday up by 13%. Source: Google Finance

Related: Cathie Wood’s ARK boosts crypto shares amid stock pullback

ARK boosts Bullish stake

At the same time, ARK accumulated shares of Bullish across multiple funds. The investment manager purchased 278,619 shares in ARKK, 70,655 shares in ARKW and 43,783 shares in ARKF, accumulating a total of 393,057 shares worth $10.7 million.

Bullish shares ended the trading day near $27, up about 10%. However, the stock is down by 27% YTD as the company reported a net loss of $563.6 million, or $3.73 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2025, reversing a profit of $158.5 million recorded a year earlier.

Alongside the crypto moves, ARK added Alphabet, Recursion Pharmaceuticals and Tempus AI, while reducing exposure to several high-growth technology companies including Roku, The Trade Desk and PagerDuty.

Related: Cathie Wood’s ARK adds Coinbase, Circle, Bullish as crypto slides

Crypto slump weighs on ARK ETFs

As Cointelegraph reported, a fourth-quarter pullback in digital asset markets hurt several of Cathie Wood’s ARK ETFs. In its latest quarterly report, ARK said weakness in companies tied to digital assets, particularly Coinbase, was a major drag on flagship funds including ARKK, ARKW and ARKF.

Coinbase shares fell more sharply than major cryptocurrencies during the period as centralized exchange trading volumes dropped 9% quarter-on-quarter after October’s liquidation event. The stock declined nearly 35% from October to year-end, underperforming both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

Bitcoin’s drop below $70,000 is being seen very differently by long-time holders and institutional investors, according to Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley.

“I think long-time holders are feeling unsure, and I think the new investor set, institutions are sort of getting a new crack at the apple,” Horsley said during an interview with CNBC on Friday. Horsley said that institutional buyers are “seeing prices they thought that they’d forever missed.” 

It was only in October that Standard Chartered's head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, said he doesn’t expect Bitcoin to fall below $100,000 again.

Bitcoin “getting swept up” with the rest of macro

Horsley acknowledged that Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent plunge comes at an unusual time, given the ramp-up in efforts toward regulatory clarity and growing institutional interest. Bitcoin is down 22.60% over the past 30 days, trading at $69,635 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

Horsley said that Bitcoin is in a bear market and is “getting swept up” with the rest of the macroassets as investors are “selling everything that is liquid.”

“In the present moment, it is mostly trading with other liquid assets,” he said.

Hunter Horsley spoke to CNBC on Friday. Source: CNBC

Gold has since fallen 11.43% from its all-time high of $5,609 on Jan. 28, trading at $4,968 at the time of publication, according to Trading Economics. 

Meanwhile, Silver has fallen 35.95% from its all-time high of $121.67 on Jan. 29, trading at $77.98 at the time of publication.

Horsley points to strong inflows from institutions

Horsley said demand for Bitcoin remains strong, particularly from institutional investors.

He said that Bitwise manages over $15 billion in institutional funds and saw more than $100 million in inflows on Monday alone, when Bitcoin was trading around $77,000.

Related: Bitcoin difficulty drops by over 11%, sharpest drop since 2021 China ban

“There’s a lot of volume, and there are sellers and buyers,” Horsley said.

Curiosity among retail investors has also spiked. Google Trends data shows worldwide searches for “Bitcoin” reached a score of 100 for the week starting Feb. 1, the highest level in the past 12 months, as the price fell to $60,000 on Tuesday, a level not seen since October 2024. 

Meanwhile, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) saw $231.6 million in inflows on Friday, following two days of heavy outflows during the turbulent week for the asset.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb says it has resolved an incident in which a promotional reward error credited certain user accounts with excess Bitcoin.

In a Sunday statement, the exchange confirmed it recovered 99.7% of the overpaid Bitcoin (BTC) on the same day the incident occurred. The remaining 0.3%, totaling 1,788 Bitcoin that had already been sold, was covered using company funds to ensure customer balances remained fully matched.

“Bithumb's holdings of all virtual assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), are 100% equivalent to or exceeding user deposits,” the exchange wrote.

According to Bithumb, most of the excess Bitcoin was retrieved directly from accounts, while the portion already liquidated in the market required reimbursement from corporate reserves.

Bithumb incident response process. Source: Bithumb

Related: Bithumb flags $200M in dormant crypto assets across 2.6M inactive accounts

Bithumb rolls out compensation plan

The exchange also announced some compensation measures. Users connected to the platform at the time of the incident will receive 20,000 Korean won ($15) each. Traders who sold Bitcoin at unfavorable prices during the disruption will receive full reimbursement of their sale value plus an additional 10% payment. The platform will also waive trading fees for all markets for seven days starting Monday.

The incident began on Friday when a system issue during a promotional event credited some users with an unusually large amount of Bitcoin, briefly causing sharp price swings on the exchange when recipients began selling the funds. The platform quickly restricted affected accounts and stabilized trading within minutes, preventing broader liquidations.

The exchange said the incident was not related to hacking and that no customer assets were lost, with deposits and withdrawals continuing as normal. While the company did not disclose the total amount involved, some users claimed roughly 2,000 BTC had been credited.

Related: South Korean lawmaker faces scrutiny over family ties to crypto exchange: Report

Centralized crypto exchanges face operational issues

Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have continued to encounter operational problems. In June, Coinbase said account restrictions had been a major issue and reported reducing unnecessary freezes by 82% after upgrading its machine-learning systems and internal infrastructure, following years of complaints from users locked out of accounts for months without any security breach.

Similar concerns emerged during the Oct. 10 market sell-off, when Binance users reported technical difficulties that prevented some traders from closing positions at peak volatility. While the exchange said its core trading system remained operational and blamed broader market conditions for most liquidations, it later distributed about $728 million in compensation to affected users.

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

The crypto industry is likely to see more projects snapped up by larger companies, which may lead to a much less fragmented sector in the months ahead, says Bullish CEO Tom Farley.

“I was in the exchange sector during continual massive consolidation…the same thing is going to happen starting right now in crypto,” Farley said during an interview on CNBC on Friday.

Farley, who served as president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) until 2018, said the recent drop in the crypto market will be a key catalyst, with Bitcoin (BTC) down nearly 45% from its October all-time high of $126,100 and trading at $69,405 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap

Farley says the consolidation should have already happened

However, he said that the industry’s consolidation should have happened earlier, but inflated valuations kept false optimism going. “It should have happened a year or two ago,” he said.

Tom Farley spoke to CNBC on Thursday. Source: Tom Farley

“People were still holding onto this hope that they’d get 2020 valuations, and so we’d have conversations with companies that would say, hey, we have $10 million in revenue, it’s not growing, we want $200 million to buy the company,” he said.

“That dream is going to be over,” Farley said, adding that “people are going to realize they don’t have businesses, they have products, and they need to merge up, and they need to scale, and that is going to happen.” 

Consolidation in the crypto industry cuts both ways. Underperforming projects may be absorbed by larger companies, but this process can lead to redundancies, layoffs, and internal disruption in the industry as companies merge or wind down.

Eva Oberholzer, the chief investment officer at venture capital firm Ajna Capital, told Cointelegraph in September 2025 that VC firms have become much more selective with the crypto projects they invest in, due to market maturation.

“It’s harder because we have reached a different stage in crypto, similar to every cycle we have seen for other technologies in the past,” Oberholzer told Cointelegraph.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

Retail investors are scrutinizing the crypto market for signs that it may have bottomed out to gauge when to buy more crypto assets, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.

“Retail traders are trying to meta-analyze the market, looking for signs of others quitting to time their own entries, which often happens near bottoms,” Santiment said in a report on Saturday.

Santiment has linked this to the word “capitulation,” which has become a top-trending crypto term on social media, according to the platform’s data.

Source: CryptoQuant

The term describes investors selling their holdings out of fear that the market won’t recover, a scenario that analysts typically monitor when assessing whether the market has reached a bottom.

“Capitulation” may have already happened, says Santiment

“If everyone is waiting for ‘capitulation,’ the bottom might have already happened while they were waiting for a clearer sign,” Santiment said.

Meanwhile, Google Trends data shows searches for “crypto capitulation” rising from a score of 11 to 58 between the weeks ending Feb. 1 and Feb. 8.

The search volume for “crypto capitulation” surged over the past week. Source: Google Trends

Crypto investors are usually cautious about calling a market bottom too soon. History shows prices can keep falling even when most people think the worst is over.

Market analyst Caleb Franzen said in an X post on Saturday that while capitulation is the “word of the week,” many investors don’t understand that “bear markets typically experience multiple capitulation events.”

It comes as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price dropped as low as $60,000 on Thursday, a level it hasn’t seen since October 2024, amid its ongoing downtrend.

Some analysts are skeptical of the “cycle bottom”

Crypto analyst Ted said in an X post on Friday that “yesterday's dump looks like capitulation, but it's not the cycle bottom.”

Echoing a similar sentiment, crypto analyst CryptoGoos said, “We haven't seen true Bitcoin capitulation so far.”

Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin has fallen 24.27%, trading at $68,970 as of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures overall crypto market sentiment, fell further into the “Extreme Fear” territory on Sunday, with a score of 7, signaling extreme caution among investors.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

The number of traders expecting an interest rate cut at the March Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting has risen to 23%, following investor fears of a hawkish stance from Kevin Warsh, US President Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve chair nominee.

Investors and traders forecasting a rate cut surged by nearly 5% from Friday, when only 18.4% signaled they were expecting an interest rate cut, according to data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group.

Those anticipating a rate cut in March forecast a 25 basis point (BPS) cut, with no investors expecting a rate cut of 50 BPS or more.

Interest rate target probabilities for the March 2026 FOMC meeting. Source: CME Group

President Trump nominated Warsh in January as a replacement for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term is over in May.

Interest rate policy can influence crypto asset prices, with easing liquidity conditions seen as a positive price catalyst, and tightening liquidity conditions through higher rates impacting asset prices negatively, as access to financing dries up.

Related: Bitcoin’s next bull market may not come from more 'accommodative policies'

Markets and investors spooked by Warsh’s nomination

“The nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair has shaken markets to the core,” crypto market analyst Nic Puckrin said in a message shared with Cointelegraph.

Puckrin attributed the sharp decline in precious metals toward the end of January and early days of February to investor perceptions of Warsh, who is viewed as more hawkish, meaning he is in favor of keeping interest rates higher for longer. He said:

“Markets are digesting Warsh’s views on future Fed policy, most notably the central bank’s balance sheet, which he says is ‘trillions larger than it needs to be’. If he does adopt policies to shrink the balance sheet, markets will have to reckon with a lower-liquidity environment.”

Thomas Perfumo, a global economist at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, told Cointelegraph that Warsh’s nomination sends a ‘mixed’ macroeconomic signal to investors.

The nomination of Warsh may signal that liquidity and credit will stabilize in the US, rather than expand, as crypto investors had anticipated, Perfumo said.

Magazine: If the crypto bull run is ending… it’s time to buy a Ferrari: Crypto Kid

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a US financial regulator, reissued a staff letter on Friday to expand the criteria for payment stablecoins to include national trust banks, recognizing their eligibility to issue the fiat-pegged tokens.

The CFTC amended Staff Letter 25-40, which was issued on December 8, 2025, to include national trust banks, financial institutions allowed to function in all 50 US states.

National Trust Banks typically do not provide retail banking services like lending or checking accounts. Instead, they offer custodial services, act as executors on behalf of clients and provide asset management services. The CFTC letter said:

“The [Market Participants] Division did not intend to exclude national trust banks as issuers of payment stablecoins for purposes of Letter 25-40. Therefore, the division is reissuing the content of Letter 25-40, with an expanded definition of payment stablecoin.”

CFTC Staff Letter 26-05 updating the definition of payment stablecoins and recognizing the ability of national trust banks to issue fiat-pegged tokens. Source: CFTC

The letter reflects the regulatory climate in the US toward stablecoins after US President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS stablecoin bill into law in July 2025.

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act is a comprehensive regulatory framework for US dollar stablecoins, blockchain tokens pegged to the dollar. 

Related: CFTC pulls Biden-era proposal to ban sports, political prediction markets

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation outlines a plan for banks to issue stablecoins

In December 2025, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a US banking regulator, proposed a framework under which commercial banks could issue stablecoins.

The proposal allows banks to issue the tokens through a subsidiary subject to oversight by the FDIC, which will gauge whether both the parent company and subsidiary are compliant with GENIUS Act requirements for issuing stablecoins.

These requirements include redemption policies, sufficient backing collateral for the stablecoin in the form of cash deposits and short-term government securities, as well as assessments of the bank and subsidiary’s overall financial health.

Under the GENIUS Act, only overcollateralized stablecoins, which are backed 1:1 with fiat currency deposits or short-term government securities, like US Treasury Bills, are recognized.

Algorithmic stablecoins and synthetic dollars, which rely on software to maintain their dollar pegs or complex market trading strategies, were excluded from the regulatory framework.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

The Bitcoin network mining difficulty, a metric tracking the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the Bitcoin (BTC) ledger, fell by about 11.16% in the last 24 hours, the worst drop in a single adjustment period since China’s 2021 ban on crypto mining.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is at 125.86 T and took effect at block 935,429, data from CoinWarz shows. The average block time is over 11 minutes, overshooting the 10-minute target.

Difficulty is projected to fall again in the next adjustment on February 23 by about 10.4% to 112.7 T, according to CoinWarz.

The Bitcoin network mining difficulty from 2014 to 2026. Source: CoinWarz

China announced a ban on crypto mining and began enforcing a crackdown on digital assets in May 2021, resulting in several downward difficulty adjustments between May and July 2021, ranging from 12.6% to 27.9%, according to data from CoinWarz. 

The steep downward adjustment came amid a broad crypto market downturn, which crashed the price of Bitcoin by over 50% from the all-time high of over $125,000 to a low of $60,000, and a winter storm in the US that caused temporary miner downtime. 

Related: Bitcoin's 'miner exodus' could push BTC price below $60K

Winter Storm Fern sweeps through the US and curtails miner hashrate

A severe winter storm swept through the United States in January, impacting 34 states across 2,000 square miles with snow, ice and freezing temperatures that disrupted electrical infrastructure.

Large areas of the United States experienced power outages and service disruptions during winter storm Fern. Source: AccuWeather

The disruption to the power grid caused US-based Bitcoin miners to temporarily curtail their energy usage and halt operations, reducing the total network hashrate, the amount of computational power expended by miners to secure the Bitcoin protocol.

Foundry USA, a US-based mining pool and the biggest mining pool by hashrate in the world, briefly lost about 60% of its hashing power amid winter storm Fern.

The mining pool’s total hashing power declined from nearly 400 exahashes per second (EH/s) to about 198 EH/s in response to the storm. 

The market share of Bitcoin mining pools. Source: Hashrate Index

Foundry USA’s hashrate recovered to over 354 EH/s, the mining pool’s hashing power at the time of this writing, and it still commands 29.47% of the market share, according to Hashrate Index.

However, the total Bitcoin network hashrate declined to a four-month low in January amid deteriorating crypto market conditions and miners shifting operations to AI data centers and other forms of high-performance computing.

Magazine: Bitcoin mining industry ‘going to be dead in 2 years’: Bit Digital CEO

Bitcoin (BTC) experienced on of the biggest sell-offs over the past month, sliding more than 40% to reach a year-to-date low of $59,930 on Friday. It is now down over 50% from its October 2025 all-time high near $126,200.

Key takeaways:

Analysts are pointing to Hong Kong hedge funds and ETF-linked U.S. bank products as possible drivers of BTC’s crash.

Bitcoin could slip back below $60,000, putting the price closer to miners’ break-even levels.

BTC/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

Hong Kong hedge funds behind BTC dump?

One popular theory suggests that Bitcoin’s crash this past week may have originated in Asia, where some Hong Kong hedge funds were placing substantial, leveraged bets that BTC would continue to rise.

These funds used options linked to Bitcoin ETFs like BlackRock’s IBIT and paid for those bets by borrowing cheap Japanese yen, according to Parker White, COO and CIO of Nasdaq-listed DeFi Development Corp. (DFDV).

They swapped that yen into other currencies and invested in risky assets like crypto, hoping prices would rise.

This was the highest volume day on $IBIT, ever, by a factor of nearly 2x, trading $10.7B today. Additionally, roughly $900M in options premiums were traded today, also the highest ever for IBIT. Given these facts and the way $BTC and $SOL traded down in lockstep today (normally…

— Parker (@TheOtherParker_) February 6, 2026

When Bitcoin stopped going up, and yen borrowing costs increased, those leveraged bets quickly went bad. Lenders then demanded more cash, forcing the funds to sell Bitcoin and other assets quickly, which exacerbated the price drop.

Morgan Stanley caused Bitcoin selloff: Arthur Hayes

Another theory gaining traction comes from former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.

He suggested that banks, including Morgan Stanley, may have been forced to sell Bitcoin (or related assets) to hedge their exposure in structured notes tied to spot Bitcoin ETFs, such as BlackRock's IBIT.

Source: X

These are complex financial products where banks offer clients bets on Bitcoin's price performance (often with principal protection or barriers).

When Bitcoin falls sharply, breaching key levels like around $78,700 in one noted Morgan Stanley product, dealers must delta-hedge by selling underlying BTC or futures.

This creates “negative gamma,” meaning that as prices drop further, hedging sales accelerate, turning banks from liquidity providers into forced sellers and exacerbating the downturn.

Miners shifting from Bitcoin to AI

Less prominent but circulating is the theory that a so-called “mining exodus” may have also fueled the Bitcoin downtrend.

In a Saturday post on X, analyst Judge Gibson said that the growing AI data center demand is already forcing Bitcoin miners to pivot, which has led to a 10-40% drop in hash rate.

Source: X

For instance, in December 2025, Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms announced its shift toward a broader data center strategy, while selling $161 million worth of BTC. Last week, another miner, IREN, announced its pivot to AI data centers.

Meanwhile, the Hash Ribbons indicator also flashed a warning: the 30-day hash-rate average has slipped below the 60-day, a negative inversion that historically signals acute miner income stress and raises the risk of capitulation.

BTC Hash Riboon vs. price. Source: Glassnode

As of Saturday, the estimated average electricity cost to mine a single Bitcoin was around $58,160, while the net production expenditure was approximately $72,700.

BTC/USD daily chart vs. production and electrical cost. Source: Capriole Investments

If Bitcoin drops back below $60,000, miners could start to experience real financial stress.

Long-term holders are also looking more cautious.

Data shows wallets holding 10 to 10,000 BTC now control their smallest share of supply in nine months, suggesting this group has been trimming exposure rather than accumulating.

Tether has frozen more than half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency at the request of Turkish authorities, blocking funds tied to an alleged illegal online betting and money-laundering operation.

Last week, prosecutors in Istanbul announced the seizure of approximately €460 million ($544 million) in assets belonging to Veysel Sahin, accused of operating unlawful betting platforms and laundering proceeds. Officials initially declined to identify the crypto firm involved, but the company was Tether Holdings SA, the issuer of the $185 billion USDt (USDT) stablecoin, CEO Paolo Ardoino told Bloomberg.

“Law enforcement came to us, they provided some information, we looked at the information and we acted in respect of the laws of the country,” Ardoino reportedly said. “And that’s what we do when we work with the DOJ, when we work with the FBI, you name it,” he added.

The action came as part of a broader investigation targeting underground gambling and payment networks in the country. Turkey has already seized more than $1 billion in assets through related probes, according to Bloomberg.

Tether, Circle blacklist 5,700 wallets

According to analytics firm Elliptic, stablecoin issuers, primarily Tether and Circle, had blacklisted about 5,700 wallets containing roughly $2.5 billion by late 2025. About three-quarters of those addresses held USDT at the time they were frozen.

Tether also told Bloomberg that it has assisted authorities in more than 1,800 investigations across 62 countries, resulting in $3.4 billion in frozen USDT connected to alleged criminal activity.

Despite the cooperation, USDt continues to attract scrutiny. US prosecutors last month charged a Venezuelan national with laundering $1 billion, largely using the token, while blockchain researchers have linked large USDt transactions to sanctions-evasion activity.

A forensic map tracing laundered crypto from a suspect to exchanges. Source: Elliptic

Last year, Bitrace also reported that $649 billion in stablecoins, or about 5.14% of total stablecoin transaction volume, flowed through high-risk blockchain addresses in 2024, with Tron-based USDt accounting for more than 70% of the activity.

Tether’s USDT hits $187B market cap

As Cointelegraph reported, Tether’s USDt reached a record $187.3 billion market capitalization in the fourth quarter of 2025, growing by $12.4 billion despite a broader crypto downturn triggered by October’s liquidation cascade. While USDt expanded, rival stablecoins struggled, with Circle’s USDC (USDC) ending the quarter largely flat and Ethena’s USDe losing about 57% of its value.

Network usage also surged. Monthly active USDt wallets climbed to 24.8 million, roughly 70% of all stablecoin-holding addresses, while quarterly transfer volume rose to $4.4 trillion across 2.2 billion transactions, marking new onchain records.

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

Bitcoin (BTC) failed to hold $69,000 as the weekend began amid predictions of fresh macro lows next.

Key points:

Bitcoin faces a lack of acceptance above $69,000, while traders see new lows to come.

Analysis says that the rebound into the weekend was nothing more than a “relief rally.”

Two CME futures gaps provide potential targets for BTC price upside.

BTC price bottom “not in,” analysis warns

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action dropping more than $4,000 versus the daily open.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

With the old 2021 all-time high increasingly turning to resistance, already wary traders were in no mood for relief.

“TLDR: The $BTC bottom, is not in. My priority right now is capital preservation,” Keith Alan, cofounder of trading resource Material Indicators, warned X followers the day prior. 

“If you're thinking, ‘We're so back,’ we're not. There is literally no evidence of that yet.”

BTC/USDT order-book liquidity data with whale orders. Source: Keith Alan/X

Alan described the 2021 $69,000 highs as “important” within what he called the ongoing “relief rally.”

“$60k was a gift yesterday, but there's a high probability that lower is likely before the Bull Market returns,” he continued.

Zooming out, trader and analyst Rekt Capital also had reason to believe that the worst of the bearish BTC price move was not over.

“Whenever Bitcoin peaks in its Bull Market in Q4 of the Post-Halving year... It tends to produce a multi-month Relief Rally from the Macro Triangle Base before breaking down from the Triangle to transition into Bearish Acceleration,” he wrote on X, comparing BTC/USD with the 2022 bear market.

“This is the 4th consecutive cycle that this historical tendency has continued. And history suggests there's more downside to come.”

BTC/USD one-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X

Bitcoin bulls bet on CME gap fills

Saturday’s retracement, meanwhile, left a new potential “gap” in CME Group’s Bitcoin futures market.

A classic short-term price magnet, the gap joined another left at $84,000, and both were now of interest to traders eyeing a broader market relief move.

Will we see this #Bitcoin CME Gap filled next week?

$84,215 🎯 pic.twitter.com/ZHaKynuR3F

— Elja (@Eljaboom) February 7, 2026

“Today: correction day. Tomorrow: back up again towards the CME gap. Next week: continuation to $75k+,” crypto trader, analyst and entrepreneur Michaël van de Poppe forecast.

BTC/USDT four-hour chart. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X

Samson Mow, CEO of Bitcoin adoption company JAN3, included the higher CME gap as one of two questions that “every financial analyst should be asking themselves.”

The other topic revolved around the ability of large-scale corporate buyers to add BTC to their treasuries at current 15-month lows.

“I believe the answers are not for long and very soon,” he concluded.

Vietnam is preparing to introduce a tax framework for cryptocurrency transactions that would align digital assets with securities trading, according to a draft policy circulated by the Ministry of Finance.

Under the proposal, individuals transferring crypto assets through licensed service providers would face a 0.1% personal income tax on the value of each transaction, local outlet The Hanoi Times reported. The structure mirrors the levy currently applied to stock trades in the country.

According to the report, the draft circular, released for public consultation, classifies crypto transfers and trading as exempt from value-added tax. However, the turnover-based tax would apply to investors regardless of residency status whenever a transfer is executed.

Companies operating in Vietnam would be taxed differently. Institutional investors earning income from crypto transfers would be subject to a 20% corporate income tax, calculated on profits after deducting purchase costs and related expenses, per the report.

Related: No companies apply for Vietnam crypto pilot amid high barriers

Vietnam formally defines crypto assets

Authorities also reportedly provided a formal definition of crypto assets, describing them as digital assets that rely on cryptographic or similar technologies for issuance, storage and transfer verification.

The draft also outlines strict requirements for operators. Firms seeking to run a digital asset exchange would need at least 10 trillion Vietnamese dong (about $408 million) in charter capital, a threshold higher than that required for commercial banks and far above capital standards in many other industries. Foreign ownership would be permitted but capped at 49% of an exchange’s equity.

Vietnam is ranked fourth in the world for crypto adoption. Source: Chainalysis

The proposed rules come as Vietnam began a five-year pilot program for a regulated crypto asset market launched in September 2025. On Oct. 6, 2025, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance confirmed that no companies had applied to participate in the five-year crypto pilot at that time, citing high capital requirements and strict eligibility conditions.

Related: Vietnam central bank expects credit growth amid rapid crypto adoption

Vietnam opens licensing for crypto exchanges

Last month, Vietnam started accepting applications for licenses to operate digital asset trading platforms, marking the operational launch of its planned pilot program for a regulated crypto market.

“Applications for the aforementioned administrative procedures will be accepted beginning January 20, 2026,” the State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC) said, framing the move as part of a broader effort to bring crypto under formal regulatory oversight.

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) saw $231.6 million in inflows on Friday, following two days of heavy outflows during a turbulent week for Bitcoin.

The iShares Bitcoin (BTC) Trust ETF (IBIT) saw $548.7 million in total outflows on Wednesday and Thursday as crypto market sentiment declined to record-low levels, with Bitcoin’s price briefly dropping to $60,000 on Thursday, according to Farside.

Preliminary Farside data show inflows across nine US-based spot Bitcoin ETF products totaling $330.7 million, following three days of collective outflows totaling $1.25 billion.

Bitcoin ETF flows reveal investor sentiment

So far in 2026, IBIT has posted just 11 trading days of net inflows.

Bitcoin holders and crypto market participants closely watch Bitcoin ETF flows for clues about where the price is headed and whether interest in the asset is rising.

Bitcoin is trading at $69,820 at the time of publication. Source: CoinMarketCap

It comes as Bitcoin's price has fallen 24.30% over the past 30 days, with Bitcoin trading at $68,050 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

On Thursday, the IBIT “crushed its daily volume record,” with $10 billion worth of shares trading hands, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

IBIT rebounds on Friday after price plunge

Balchunas added that IBIT dropped 13% on the day, its “second-worst daily price drop since it launched,” with its largest daily price decline at 15% on May 8, 2024.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF soared 9.92% on Friday. Source: Google Finance

However, the IBIT rebounded 9.92% on Friday, closing at $39.68, according to Google Finance.

ETF analyst James Seyffart noted on Wednesday that while Bitcoin ETF holders are facing their “biggest losses” since the US products launched in January 2024 — paper losses of around 42% with Bitcoin below $73,000 — the recent outflows still pale compared with the inflows seen at the market’s peak.

Before the October downturn, spot Bitcoin ETF net inflows were around $62.11 billion. They’ve now fallen to about $55 billion.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

The United States has approved a newly created national bank for the first time during President Donald Trump’s second term, granting a charter to crypto-friendly startup Erebor Bank.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) confirmed the approval on Friday, allowing the lender to operate nationwide, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The institution launches with about $635 million in capital and aims to serve startups, venture-backed companies and high-net-worth clients, a segment left underserved after the 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Erebor is backed by a roster of prominent technology investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 8VC and Elad Gil. The project was founded by Oculus co-creator Palmer Luckey, who will sit on the board but not manage daily operations.

Related: Nomura-backed Laser Digital seeks US bank charter amid crypto banking push: Report

Erebor targets defense tech, robotics, AI

The bank is reportedly positioning itself as a specialist lender to emerging industries such as defense technology, robotics and advanced manufacturing. Prospective clients include companies developing AI-driven factories, aerospace research and pharmaceutical production in low-gravity environments.

“You can think of us like a farmers’ bank for tech,” Luckey reportedly told the WSJ, arguing that traditional banks often lack the expertise needed to assess startups with unconventional assets.

Erebor also plans to integrate blockchain-based payment rails enabling continuous settlement, an unusual feature in the US banking system, where transactions typically follow business hours. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. previously approved deposit insurance for the institution.

The bank’s strategy includes extending credit backed by crypto holdings or private securities and financing purchases of high-performance artificial-intelligence chips.

Related: OCC Comptroller says WLFI charter review will remain apolitical

Erebor hits $4 billion valuation

In October, Erebor received preliminary conditional approval from the OCC. One month later, its deposit insurance application was approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Erebor was valued at roughly $2 billion in a funding round last year and later reached a $4 billion valuation after raising $350 million in a funding round led by Lux Capital.

Magazine: Bitget’s Gracy Chen is looking for ‘entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs’

Google search volume for the term “Bitcoin” surged over the past week as the asset’s price briefly fell to the $60,000 level for the first time since October 2024.

Google Trends data, based on partial figures for the current week, shows worldwide searches for “Bitcoin” reaching a score of 100 for the week starting Feb. 1 — the highest level over the past 12 months. 

The previous peak was a score of 95 in the week of Nov. 16–23, when Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below the psychological $100,000 level for the first time in nearly six months.

Google search interest for the term “Bitcoin” surged since Feb. 1. Source: Google Trends

Google search interest is one of several commonly used indicators among crypto analysts to gauge retail interest in Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, which typically spikes during significant price moves, particularly major rallies to new all-time highs or sudden sell-offs.

The increase comes as Bitcoin dropped from about $81,500 on Feb. 1 to roughly $60,000 within five days, before rebounding to $70,740 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin is down 15.51% over the past seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap

Some market observers suggest the current price range may be drawing renewed attention from a broader retail audience. Bitwise head of Europe, André Dragosch, said in an X post on Saturday, “Retail is coming back.”

Meanwhile, CryptoQuant’s head of research, Julio Moreno, said in an X post on Saturday that US investors are buying Bitcoin after it reached $60,000. “The Coinbase premium is now positive for the first time since mid-January,” Moreno said.

Other indicators suggest that investors are still cautious about the crypto market. The Alternative.me Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell further down once again on Saturday to an “Extreme Fear” score of 6, nearing levels that haven’t been seen since June 2022.

The sentiment indicator’s decline to such low levels has led some market participants to suggest it could signal a buying opportunity.

Crypto analyst Ran Neuner said in an X post on Friday that, “every single metric is telling you that Bitcoin has never been more undervalued on a relative basis.”

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

Bitcoin’s next major catalyst may come from the common assumption being flipped on its head that interest rates are bullish for Bitcoin only when they fall, according to a crypto analyst.

“I think we should expect that having more accommodative policies may in fact actually not be the catalyst to help us go into a bull market,” ProCap Financial chief investment officer Jeff Park said during an interview with Anthony Pompliano on Thursday.

“We have to accept that reality and possibility,” Park said. Accomodative policies, such as lowering interest rates, are employed by the US Federal Reserve to stimulate economic growth, reduce unemployment, and increase liquidity. Bitcoiners often see these conditions as more favorable for riskier assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), as traditional investments like bonds and term deposits become less attractive.

Jeff Park spoke to Anthony Pompliano on The Pomp Podcast. Source: Anthony Pompliano

Rising interest rates are usually seen as a negative for Bitcoin, but Park said that may not be the case forever. He said Bitcoin’s next biggest upside catalyst — and potentially its “endgame” — may be its entry into what he called a “positive row Bitcoin,” where the asset’s price continues to rise even as US Federal Reserve interest rates rise. 

“Perfect holy grail” for Bitcoin

“This is the mythical, elusive perfect holy grail of what Bitcoin is meant to be, which is when Bitcoin goes up as interest rates go up, which is very counterintuitive to the QE theory,” he said.

However, Park said this idea would undermine the “risk-free rate itself.”

Park emphasizes the monetary system “is broken”

“In that world, what we’re saying is actually because the risk-free rate is not the risk-free rate, because the dollar hegemony is not the dollar hegemony, and we are no longer able to price the yield curve in the ways we’ve known,” Park said.

Park explained that the monetary system is “broken” and the relationship between the Fed and the US Treasury is “not at the level it should be” to drive the direction of national securities.

Traders on the crypto prediction platform Polymarket are giving the highest probability, 27%, to three total Fed interest rate cuts in 2026.

Bitcoin is trading at $70,503 at the time of publication, down 22.53% over the past 30 days, according to CoinMarketCap.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin's derivatives signal caution, with the options skew hitting 20% as traders fear another wave of fund liquidations.

Bitcoin price recovered some of its Thursday losses, but it still struggles to match the gains of gold or tech stocks amid low leverage demand.

Bitcoin (BTC) has gained 17% since the $60,150 low on Friday, but derivatives metrics suggest caution as demand for upside price exposure near $70,000 remains constrained. Traders fear that the liquidations of $1.8 billion of leveraged bullish futures contracts in five days indicate that major hedge funds or market makers may have blown up.

Aggregate liquidations in Bitcoin futures contracts, USD. Source: CoinGlass

Unlike the Oct. 10, 2025, market collapse that culminated with a record $4.65 billion liquidation of Bitcoin futures, the recent price weakness has been marked by three consecutive weeks of downside pressure. Bulls have been adding positions between $70,000 and $90,000, as aggregate futures open interest increased despite forceful contract liquidations due to insufficient margins.

Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest, BTC. Source: CoinGlass

The aggregated Bitcoin futures open interest on major exchanges totaled 527,850 BTC on Friday, virtually flat from the prior week. Although the notional value of those contracts dropped to $35.8 billion from $44.3 billion, the 20% change perfectly reflects the 21% Bitcoin price decline in the seven-day period. Data indicates that bulls have been adding positions despite the steady price decline.

To better understand if whales and market makers have turned bullish, one should assess the BTC futures basis rate, which measures the price difference relative to regular spot contracts. Under neutral circumstances, the premium should range between 5% and 10% annualized to compensate for the longer settlement period.

Bitcoin 2-month futures annualized premium. Source: laevitas.ch

The BTC futures basis rate dropped to 2% on Friday, the lowest level in more than a year. The lack of demand for bullish leverage is somewhat expected, but bulls will take longer than users to regain confidence even as Bitcoin price breaks above $70,000, especially considering that BTC is still  44% below its all-time high.

Bitcoin derivatives metrics signal extreme fear

Traders’ lack of conviction in Bitcoin is also evident in the BTC options markets. Excessive demand for put (sell) options is a strong indicator of bearishness, pushing the skew metric above 6%. Conversely, when fear of missing out kicks in, traders will pay a premium for call (buy) options, causing the skew metric to flip negative.

BTC 2-month options skew (put-call) at Deribit. Source: laevitas.ch

The BTC options skew metric reached 20% on Friday, a level that rarely persists and typically represents market panic. For comparison, the skew indicator stood at 11% on Nov. 21, 2025, following a 28% price correction to $80,620 from the $111,177 peak reached twenty days earlier. Since there is no specific catalyst for the current downturn, fear and uncertainty have naturally intensified.

Related: What’s really weighing on Bitcoin? Samson Mow breaks it down

Traders are likely to continue speculating that a major market maker, exchange, or hedge fund may have gone bankrupt, and this sentiment erodes conviction and implies a high probability of further price downside. Consequently, the odds of sustained bullish momentum remain low while BTC derivatives metrics continue to signal extreme fear.

Crypto’s latest sell-off isn’t just a price story. It’s showing up on balance sheets, inside spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and even in how infrastructure gets used when markets turn.

This week, Ether’s (ETH) slide is leaving treasury-heavy companies nursing massive paper losses, while Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs are giving a new wave of investors their first real taste of downside volatility. 

At the same time, extreme weather is reminding miners that hash rate still depends on power grids, and a former crypto miner-turned-AI darling shows how yesterday’s mining infrastructure has quietly become today’s AI backbone.

This week’s Crypto Biz newsletter breaks down BitMine Immersion Technologies’ widening paper losses, BlackRock Bitcoin ETF investors slipping underwater and the impact of a US winter storm on public miner production.

BitMine’s ETH paper losses widen

BitMine Immersion Technologies, chaired by Tom Lee, is facing mounting paper losses on its Ether-heavy treasury as ETH slid below $2,200 during the latest crypto sell-off.

The decline has pushed the company’s unrealized losses past $7 billion, underscoring the risks tied to balance sheets built around volatile digital assets.

BitMine currently holds about $9.1 billion worth of Ether, including a recent purchase of 40,302 ETH, leaving the company highly exposed to further price swings.

While the losses remain unrealized unless assets are sold, they highlight the fragility of crypto treasury strategies when markets turn lower. Lee has pushed back on the criticism, arguing that unrealized losses are inherent to ETH-holding companies. “BitMine is designed to track the price of ETH,” he said, adding that in a downturn, ETH weakness is to be expected.

Source: Dropslab

BlackRock Bitcoin ETF holders slip underwater

As Bitcoin crashed below $80,000, aggregate returns for investors in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) turned negative, highlighting the depth of the recent selloff and its impact on investor portfolios.

According to Unlimited Funds chief investment officer Bob Elliott, the average dollar invested in IBIT is now underwater. Bitcoin has since extended its decline below $75,000, adding further pressure to returns.

IBIT was one of BlackRock’s most successful ETF launches, becoming the asset manager’s fastest fund to reach $70 billion in assets. Those investors are now getting a firsthand lesson in Bitcoin’s volatility, especially when price action moves decisively to the downside.

Source: Bob Elliott

US winter storm slams Bitcoin production

A powerful winter storm sweeping across the US in late January forced Bitcoin miners to sharply curtail production, underscoring how sensitive mining remains to energy grid stress during extreme weather.

New data from CryptoQuant shows daily output from public miners averaged about 70 to 90 BTC before the storm, then plunged to just 30 to 40 BTC at the height of the disruption. The drop was abrupt, reflecting widespread shutdowns as miners reduced load or went offline to avoid strain on local power grids.

The slowdown proved temporary. As weather conditions improved, production began to recover, highlighting the flexibility miners retain but also the volatility introduced by grid-dependent operations.

The CryptoQuant data tracks publicly listed miners, including CleanSpark, MARA Holdings, Bitfarms and Iris Energy, offering a snapshot of how large-scale US mining operations respond when power becomes scarce.

Source: Julio Moreno

CoreWeave shows how crypto infrastructure became AI’s data center backbone

CoreWeave’s evolution from crypto miner to AI infrastructure provider offers a clear example of how mining-era hardware is being repurposed for the AI boom, highlighting how computing resources migrate across technology cycles.

According to The Miner Mag, Ethereum’s shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake sharply reduced demand for GPU-based mining, pushing CoreWeave and similar operators to pivot toward AI and high-performance computing. 

While CoreWeave no longer operates as a crypto company, its transition has become a blueprint for other miners exploring diversification, including HIVE Digital, Hut 8 and MARA Holdings.

CoreWeave’s pivot gained new prominence after Nvidia agreed to a $2 billion equity investment in the company, reinforcing the idea that infrastructure built for crypto mining is now forming a critical layer of AI’s data center backbone.

Crypto Biz is your weekly pulse on the business behind blockchain and crypto, delivered directly to your inbox every Thursday.

AI platform ai.com, founded by Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek, announced on Friday that it will be launching an autonomous AI agent for retail consumers.

The agentic AI will be able to execute functions including trading stocks, workflow automation and simple tasks like calendar updates and managing changes to online social profiles, according to an announcement from the company.

The agents will feature segregated user data, secured by encryption keys unique to each user, and run according to user-set restrictions on what the agent is allowed to do, the announcement said. 

AI agents have garnered significant attention from users over the last year. About one quarter (23%) of respondents surveyed by investment research firm McKinsey indicated that their organizations were expanding the use of AI agents, according to a November report from the company.

A survey tracking agentic AI usage in organizations. Source: McKinsey & Company

The growth of autonomous AI agents can automate crypto trading strategies and wallet management, removing the technical barrier-to-entry for new users unfamiliar with blockchain systems and onchain transaction execution, proponents of the technology say. 

Related: Crypto dev launches website for agentic AI to ‘rent a human’

How agentic AI can remove the barrier to entry for cryptocurrencies and Web3

These technical barriers include choosing the correct blockchain network and token protocols to send funds to, and complex user interfaces that are harder to navigate for new users, according to Jonathan Farnell, CEO of crypto exchange Freedx.

Agentic AI can abstract away the technical complexity of cryptocurrencies by selecting the cheapest and fastest execution pathways and simplifying stablecoin usage, according to Tether co-founder Reeve Collins.

This can include optimization for arbitrage or yield-bearing opportunities, Collins told Cointelegraph.

“When AI is integrated, all of the complexity in this space will be gone,” Collins said, adding that autonomous AI agents will allow users to hold and navigate larger portfolios of increasingly diverse token standards. 

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