Cointelegraph

Coinbase has reported a net loss of $667 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, snapping the crypto exchange’s eight-quarter streak of profitability.

In its Q4 earnings released on Thursday, Coinbase said its earnings per share was 66 cents, which missed analyst expectations of 92 cents per share by 26 cents.

The company said its net revenue fell 21.5% year-on-year to $1.78 billion, falling short of analyst expectations of $1.85 billion.

Transaction-related revenue dropped nearly 37% year-on-year to $982.7 million, while subscription and services revenue jumped more than 13% over the year to $727.4 million.

It’s the first net loss Coinbase has reported since the third quarter of 2023, and comes as the crypto market fell over the quarter, with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping nearly 30% from a high of $126,080 in early October to under $88,500 by Dec. 31.

Bitcoin has fallen 25.6% to $65,760 so far this year, having climbed from a crash to under $60,000 earlier this month.

Despite the earnings miss, shares in Coinbase (COIN) rose 2.9% in after-hours trading on Thursday to $145.18 after a 7.9% decline over the trading day to close at $141.1.

Key financial results for Coinbase in Q4 and the 2025 financial year. Source: Coinbase

Coinbase said 2025 was a “strong year” for the company, both operationally and financially, and said it made strides towards its plan of an “everything exchange.”

“In 2025, more than 12% of all crypto in the world resided on Coinbase,” the company said. “We’re building and connecting more products to facilitate customers doing more with their assets.”

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Bitcoin (BTC) sellers resumed their activity on Thursday as the Bitcoin price turned away from its intraday high of $68,300. Analysts said that Bitcoin remained in capitulation, which could push the price lower, potentially reaching a bottom during the last quarter of 2026.

Key takeaways:

Multiple onchain indicators suggest Bitcoin is in deep capitulation as downside risks remain.

Long-term holder net-position change shows extreme distribution, mirroring past corrections that preceded further downside before bottoms.

Analysts forecast BTC price to hit a bottom in Q4/2026 based on various technical and onchain metrics.

Bitcoin’s capitulation persists

Bitcoin’s 46% drawdown from its all-time high of $126,000 has left a significant portion of holders underwater, and data shows they are now reducing their exposure.

Glassnode’s long-term holder (LTH) net-position change shows that Bitcoin held by these investors over 30 days decreased by 245,000 BTC on Feb. 6, marking a cycle-relative extreme in daily distribution. Since then, this investor cohort has been reducing its exposure by an average of 170,000 BTC, as shown in the chart below.

Related: Binance teases Bitcoin bullish 'shift' as crypto sentiment hits record low

Similar spikes in LTH net position change appeared during the corrective phases in 2019 and mid-2021, leading to BTC price consolidating before extended downtrends.

Bitcoin long-term holder net position change. Source: Glassnode

CryptoQuant data shows that Bitcoin’s MVRV Adaptive Z-Score (365-Day Window) has fallen to -2.66, reinforcing the intensity of the sell-side pressure.

“The current Z-Score reading of -2.66 proves that Bitcoin remains persistently in the capitulation zone,” CryptoQuant contributor GugaOnChain said in a Thursday Quicktake post, adding:

“The indicator suggests that we are approaching the historical accumulation phase.”

BTC: MVRV Adaptive Z-Score (365-Day Window). Source: CryptoQuant

Bitcoin’s Realized Profit/Loss Ratio is about to break below 1, levels that have historically aligned with “broad-based capitulation, where realized losses outpace profit-taking across the market,” Glassnode said. 

Bitcoin Realized Profit/Loss Ratio. Source: Glassnode

Analysts say Bitcoin will bottom out toward the end of 2026

According to multiple analyses, Bitcoin could extend its downtrend, possibly reaching as low as $40,000 to $50,000 during the last quarter of the year.

The “final capitulation on $BTC is still ahead,” Crypto analyst Tony Research said in a recent post on X, adding:

“My take is, $BTC will bottom at $40K–50K, most likely forming between mid-September and late November 2026.”

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: Tony Research

Fellow analyst Titan of Crypto said that previous bear cycles in 2018 and 2022 printed their lows 12 months after the bull market top. 

Bitcoin’s current all-time high of $126,000 was reached on Oct. 2, 2025. 

“If this cycle follows the same rhythm, that puts the low around October,” the analyst added.

On-Chain College shared a chart showing that Bitcoin’s Net Realized Loss levels hit extreme levels at $13.6 billion on Feb. 7, levels last seen during the 2022 bear market. 

“The 2022 loss peak occurred 5 months before the actual bear market bottom was printed,” the analyst said, suggesting that BTC could form a bottom in July 2026.

Bitcoin net realized profit/loss, USD. Source: Checkonchain

As Cointelegraph reported, many analysts expect 2026 to be a bear market year, and various forecasts predict the BTC price dropping to as low as $40,000.

New analysis published Wednesday by the Federal Reserve proposes that crypto be categorized as a distinct asset class for initial margin requirements used in “uncleared” derivatives markets, including over-the-counter trades and other transactions that do not pass through a centralized clearinghouse.

The working paper said that is because crypto is more volatile than traditional asset classes and does not fit into the risk categories outlined in the Standardized Initial Margin Model (SIMM) that classifies asset classes.

These include interest rates, equities, foreign exchange and commodities, according to authors Anna Amirdjanova, David Lynch and Anni Zheng.

Cover page of the Federal Reserve staff working paper. Source: Federal Reserve Board

The trio propose a distinct risk weighting for “floating” cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Binance (BNB), Ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), XRP (XRP), and “pegged” cryptos like stablecoins.

A benchmark index equally divided between floating digital assets and pegged stablecoins could also be used as a proxy for crypto market volatility and behavior, they said.

The performance and behavior of the benchmark index could then be used as an input to more accurately model “calibrated” risk weights for crypto, according to the authors.

The crypto benchmark index of six floating cryptocurrencies and six pegged stablecoins used in the paper. Source: Federal Reserve Board

Initial margin requirements are critical for derivatives markets, where traders must post collateral to ensure against counterparty default when opening a position. Crypto’s higher volatility means traders must post more collateral as a buffer against liquidation.

The working paper proposal reflects the maturation of crypto as an asset class and how Federal authorities in the United States are prepping regulatory frameworks to accommodate the growing sector.

Related: Hong Kong greenlights crypto margin financing and perpetual trading

Fed clears the way for banks to engage with crypto

In December, the central bank reversed its previous guidance, first issued in 2023, which limited US banks’ engagement with cryptocurrencies.

“Uninsured and insured banks supervised by the Board will be subject to the same limitations on activities, including novel banking activities, such as crypto-asset-related activities,” the Fed’s 2023 guidance said.

The Federal Reserve also proposed the idea of giving crypto companies access to “skinny” master accounts, bank accounts that have direct access to the central banking system but have fewer privileges than full master accounts. 

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Bitcoin (BTC) formed a new weekly low at $65,500 on Thursday, and the price has continued to trend lower over the past four days. Derivatives data also indicate that traders are heavily positioned to the downside. 

Analysts said that this setup may lead to a sharp move higher that forces sellers to close their positions, even as other indicators hint that the move may not be straightforward.

Key takeaways:

The seven-day average funding rate for Bitcoin has turned strongly negative for the first time since March 2023 and November 2022.

Bitcoin liquidity and stablecoin flow data show renewed capital outflows, reducing the odds of a sustained squeeze.

Bitcoin one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin funding stays red as short positions rise

Bitcoin’s daily funding rate has remained in deep red territory since the beginning of February, marking its most negative period since May 2023. The seven-day simple moving average has flipped negative for the first time in nearly a year.

Bitcoin daily funding rate. Source: CryptoQuant

The funding rate is a periodic payment between the traders in futures markets. When it is negative, the short sellers pay long traders, signaling that the bearish positions are crowded, and vice versa.

Crypto analyst Leo Ruga said the current “red funding rate for days” signals that the bearish or short trade may be getting overcrowded. Ruga added,

“This is the kind of negative funding that typically appears during bottoming phases. Not because shorts are wrong, but because extended negative funding often marks exhaustion of selling pressure.”

Similarly, market analyst Pelin Ay highlighted that the funding rate recently dropped near -0.02 last Friday, with sharp negative spikes. Ay added that when sharp price declines coincide with negative funding, it can set the stage for a short squeeze, particularly if $58,000 holds as the local support. 

Related: Bitcoin must close week at $68.3K to avoid 'bearish acceleration:' Analyst

The last time Bitcoin’s daily funding rate stayed deeply negative for 10 to 20 days after a bullish phase was in May 2021 and January 2022. In May 2021, BTC corrected for nearly two months before breaking out to new highs. In January 2022, the negative stretch preceded a broader bearish cycle. Thus, an extended negative funding has not produced an immediate reversal in the past.

Bitcoin funding rate comparison between May 2021 and Jan. 2022. Source: CryptoQuant

Onchain data supports a cautious view. Bitcoin researcher analyst Axel Adler Jr. noted that the SSR oscillator, which measures Bitcoin’s strength relative to stablecoins, has mostly stayed in the negative territory since August 2025. 

A brief move into positive territory in mid-January (+0.057) coincided with a rally above $95,000, but the oscillator has since dropped to -0.15 as the price pulled back toward $67,000.

Bitcoin Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR). Source: Axel Adler. Jr

Stablecoin flows tell a similar story. The 30-day change in USDT market cap turned positive in early January (+$1.4 billion), but it has since reversed to -$2.87 billion, signaling a period of capital outflows. 

Until liquidity trends and the SSR oscillator turn sustainably positive, Adler Jr. said that the BTC market remains in a “risk-off” phase.

Related: Binance completes $1B Bitcoin conversion for SAFU emergency fund

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Key takeaways:

Ether exchange-traded funds saw $71 million in inflows, signaling strong institutional appetite.

Weekly decentralized exchange volume doubled to $20 billion, narrowing the revenue gap with Solana.

Ether (ETH) price failed to sustain levels above $2,000 on Thursday, leaving traders to weigh the potential catalysts for a market turnaround. While optimism has waned since the crash to $1,745 on Friday, both exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows and ETH derivatives metrics are showing early signs of a reversal. 

Traders now question if there is enough momentum for a bounce back toward $2,400.

US-listed Ether ETFs' daily net flows, USD. Source: Farside Investors

US-listed Ether ETFs recently broke a three-day streak of outflows, attracting $71 million in fresh capital between Monday and Tuesday. Crucially, assets under management have stabilized at $13 billion, which is sufficient to maintain institutional interest. Ether ETFs currently average over $1.65 billion in daily trading volume, a level of liquidity that enables participation by the world’s largest hedge funds.

To put Ether ETFs in perspective, the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE US)— the largest in the US energy sector — trades an average of $1.5 billion per day. That instrument tracks a combined $2 trillion market capitalization across companies such as Exxon (XOM US), Chevron (CVX US), ConocoPhillips (COP US), The Williams Companies (WMB), and Kinder Morgan (KMI US).

ETH metrics and ETF inflows signal potential market recovery

While institutional appetite for Ether ETF trading is a positive indicator, it does not guarantee that demand for ETH derivatives is inherently bullish.

ETH 2-month futures basis rate. Source: Laevitas.ch

On Wednesday, the annualized premium (basis rate) of ETH futures remained below the 5% neutral threshold. This lack of demand for bullish leverage has been a constant theme for the past three months. However, the indicator has stabilized at 3%, even as the ETH price hit its lowest level in nine months. These derivatives markets are displaying moderate resilience, which remains an encouraging sign for Ether investors.

Ethereum Total Value Locked, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Ether’s price weakness has driven Ethereum’s Total Value Locked (TVL) to $54.2 billion, down from $71.2 billion one month prior, according to DefiLlama data. Reduced deposits in the network’s smart contracts represent a major risk, as lower chain fees diminish the native staking yield. Moreover, Ethereum’s supply burn mechanism remains dependent on excessive demand for blockchain processing. 

Despite these worsening conditions, demand for Ethereum decentralized applications (DApps) has been gradually improving throughout 2026.

Ethereum 7-day DEX volumes (left) vs. DApps revenue (right), USD. Source: DefiLlama

Weekly decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes on the Ethereum network surged to $20 billion, up from $9.8 billion one month prior. This increased activity caused DApps revenue to reach $26.6 million in the seven days ending Feb. 8, providing a healthy indicator of ETH demand. While Solana remained the clear leader with $31.1 million in weekly DApps revenue, the gap between the two networks is narrowing.

Those monitoring Ether price performance exclusively fail to see that ETH onchain metrics and derivatives have displayed resilience, especially as inflows into Ether ETFs resumed. While it might take a couple of weeks for investors to fully regain confidence, there are strong indicators that a near-term rally toward $2,400 is possible.

Bitcoin miner Cango said it closed a previously announced $10.5 million equity investment from Enduring Wealth Capital Limited and entered into agreements for an additional $65 million in equity financing from entities owned by Cango chairman Xin Jin and Chang-Wei Chiu, a director of the company.

According to Thursday’s announcement, the $10.5 million investment was completed through the issuance of seven million Class B shares priced at $1.50 each. The shares carry 20 votes per share, increasing Enduring Wealth Capital’s voting power to 49.7% from 36.7%, while its economic ownership remains below 5% of outstanding shares.

The additional $65 million would be raised through the issuance of about 49 million Class A shares, which carry one vote per share, at $1.32 each. The investments are being made through entities wholly owned by Jin and Chiu and remain subject to customary closing conditions, including approval from the New York Stock Exchange. The company said it expects the transactions to close this month.

If completed, Chiu would hold about 12% of total outstanding shares and about 6.7% of voting power, while Jin would hold about 4.7% of shares and 2.6% of voting power.

The financing follows Cango’s Feb. 9 sale of 4,451 Bitcoin (BTC) for about $305 million, proceeds of which were used to partially repay a Bitcoin-backed loan and reduce leverage.

The company said the divestment is part of a broader shift toward AI and high-performance computing, with plans to repurpose its global, grid-connected mining infrastructure to provide distributed compute capacity for the AI industry.

Cango’s stock price was down about 7.7% at time of writing, according to data from Yahoo Finance. Sector-tracker CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF was down 3.8%.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Earnings misses and BTC volatility pressure mining sector

Cango’s capital raise follows sharp declines in publicly traded Bitcoin miners last week. CleanSpark fell about 19% during regular trading on Feb. 5 and dropped another 8.6% after hours after missing quarterly estimates, while IREN slid about 11.5% and another 18.5% after hours after reporting revenue below expectations and a quarterly net loss.

RIOT Platforms and MARA Holdings also declined about 15% and 19%, respectively.

The sell-off in mining stocks coincided with a sharp decline in the price of Bitcoin, which dropped about 12% the same day, sliding from about $71,426 to $62,822, according to CoinGecko data.

Bitcoin price over the past month. Source: CoinGecko

Large Bitcoin transfers were also recorded during the period. On Feb. 5, miner-linked wallets transferred 28,605 BTC, worth about $1.8 billion, one of the largest single-day outflows since November 2024, according to CryptoQuant data. Another 20,169 BTC moved the following day.

Though several Bitcoin miners were deep in the red last week, many stocks remain up on the year. IREN, the top Bitcoin miner by market cap, is up about 10% year-to-date.

Applied Digital and TeraWulf are the strongest performers, each up about 45% year-to-date, while Core Scientific has gained about 25% and Riot Platforms is up about 17%. Hut 8 has risen nearly 15% over the same period. 

Of the top 10 Bitcoin mining stocks by market cap, MARA Holdings and CleanSpark are the only two trading in negative territory year-to-date. MARA is down about 17% on the year, while CleanSpark has declined about 6.5%, according to data from BitcoinMiningStock.io.

Top 10 Bitcoin mining stocks by market cap. Source: Bitcoinminingstock.io

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Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH) continue to seach for price stability after trading at respective intraday lows of $66,171 and $1,912 on Thursday.

As this process runs its course, new analysis from Bloomberg analysts investigates how the spot BTC and ETF holders are faring amid sustained price weakness and slowing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) inflows.

Key takeaways:

Net value of the spot Bitcoin ETF assets fell to $85.76 billion from $170 billion (Oct 2025 peak), with the 2026 net flows at roughly -$2 billion.

The spot Ether ETF assets value dropped to $11.27 billion from $30.5 billion, with ETH trading near $2,000 vs. a $3,500 cost basis.

Only about 6% of Bitcoin ETF assets exited during the recent downturn, indicating limited capitulation.

Average cost basis of US spot ETF deposits. Source: Glassnode

Bitcoin, Ether ETF asset values contract as inflows stall

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said that the Ether ETF holders are “sitting in a worse position” than Bitcoin ETF investors. With ETH below $2,000, well below the estimated $3,500 average cost basis, i.e., the average price at which spot ETF investors accumulated their positions, the drawdown has exceeded 50% at its recent low of $1,736.

By comparison, Bitcoin is currently priced at $66,171, also below its estimated $84,063 ETF cost basis, though the drawdown is notably less at 21%.

Ether ETFs cost basis and ETH price. Source: James Seyffrat/X

Seyffart noted that the total net inflows into ETH ETFs have declined by only about $3 billion, suggesting most ETH ETFs investors have held their positions during the recent dip.

Assets held in the spot Bitcoin ETF peaked at $170 billion in October 2025 and now stand at $85.76 billion. The inflows slowed sharply after mid-2025, with $13.7 billion recorded in the first half of the year, $7.64 billion in the second half, and roughly $2 billion in outflows year-to-date. Since July 2025, the cumulative net flows amount to $5.64 billion.

Total Spot BTC ETF net inflows. Source: SoSoValue

Last Thursday, senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that only about 6% of total Bitcoin ETF assets exited during the recent selloff. BlackRock’s IBIT has declined to $51 billion from $100 billion at its peak value, but it remains one of the fastest ETFs to reach $60 billion in assets.

Related: Bitcoin miner outflows spike in January, but public sales remain limited

Bitcoin ETF flows enter bear-market regime

The rolling 30-day Bitcoin ETF flows have turned firmly negative following a failed attempt to return to inflows territory. Excluding a brief rebound, this marks the longest stretch of sustained outflows since launch.

30-day rolling BTC ETF netflows. Source: ecoinometrics/X

Glassnode data also noted that the 30-day simple moving average of net flows for both Bitcoin and Ether spot ETFs has remained negative for most of the past 90 days. The data shows no clear sign of renewed demand.

Macroeconomic newsletter Ecoinometrics said that the rate of these outflows suggests investors are actively reducing exposure rather than reacting to short-term volatility.

The newsletter added that the combination of price weakness and sustained negative flows aligns with a “bear-market regime” rather than a temporary correction.

Related: Bitcoin futures data shows bears gearing up for an assault on $60K

Fresh data from Glassnode claims that Bitcoin (BTC) could be in for another “prolonged phase of range-bound” price action if key support levels are not reclaimed.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin is stuck between key cost-basis levels, predicting 2022-type consolidation unless key support levels are reclaimed.

Bitcoin price needs to take out the resistance at $72,000 to break out of consolidation.

Bitcoin faces overhead supply challenges

In the Feb. 11 edition of its regular newsletter, The Week On-chain, onchain data provider Glassnode confirmed key supply zones constraining upside follow-through and “creating overhead resistance potential during relief rallies.

The BTC/USD pair is trading within a new range defined by the True Market Mean currently at $79,200 and the realized price near $55,000, closely resembling the structural environment observed during the first half of 2022.

According to Glassnode, Bitcoin’s price is expected to continue oscillating within this corridor until new buyers emerge and gradually accumulate supply.

The chart below shows that the price spent the period between April 2022 and June 2022 trapped between the True Market Mean and the Realized Price before entering an extended bear market, bottoming around $15,000 in November 2022.

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A break out of this range would require an extreme catalyst, “either a decisive reclaim of the True Market Mean near $79.2K, signaling renewed structural strength, or a systemic dislocation similar to LUNA or FTX that forces price below the Realized Price around $55K,” Glassnode said, adding:

“In the absence of such extremes, a prolonged phase of range-bound absorption remains the most probable path for the mid-term market.”

Bitcoin risk indicator: Realized price and cost basis. Source: Glassnode

Glassnode’s UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD), a metric that shows at which prices the current set of Bitcoin UTXOs were created, also revealed wide and dense supply zones above $82,000 that have been gradually maturing into the long-term holder cohorts.

“Overhead supply remains structurally heavy, with significant clusters positioned between $82K–$97K and $100K–$117K, representing cohorts now holding substantial unrealized losses,” the onchain data analytics platform said, adding:

“These zones may act as latent sell-side overhang, particularly if prolonged time under water or renewed downside volatility triggers further capitulation.”

Bitcoin’s UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD). Source: Glassnode

Bitcoin “whales are closing longs and opening shorts relative to retail,” said founder and CEO of Alphractal Joao Wedson in a recent X post, adding:

“There is a high probability that Bitcoin will enter a consolidation phase, ranging and building structure over the next 30 days.”

Bitcoin whales vs retail delta. Source: Alphractal

Bitcoin price is stuck between two key levels

Bitcoin’s 20% recovery from 15-month lows below $60,000 was rejected by resistance from the $72,000 level. 

It is now consolidating within the recently established support below $65,000 and the resistance at $68,000, which analyst Daan Crypto Trades said bulls must “break above to attack $72,000 again.”

Source: Daan Crypto Trades

CoinGlass’ liquidation heatmap shows Bitcoin in a classic liquidation sandwich with heavy ask orders between $69,000 and $72,000 and dense bid positions below $66,000, as shown in the figure below. This highlights the relative tightness of the current market structure.

Bitcoin liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin must take out resistance at $72,000 to revive the hopes of a recovery toward the 20-day EMA at $76,000 and the 50-day SMA above $85,000, suggesting that the BTC price may have bottomed out in the near term.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform backed by the family of US President Donald Trump, announced on Thursday that it will launch foreign currency exchange (FX) and remittance services for its users.

The planned foreign exchange and remittance platform, called World Swap, seeks to challenge traditional remittance and FX service providers with lower fees and a simplified user interface, according to Reuters.

Daily global FX trading volume surpassed $9.6 trillion in April 2025, according to a report from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), and the personal remittances market topped $892 billion in annual volume in 2024, according to data from the World Bank.

Annual remittances volume from 1970 to 2024. Source: World Bank

No exact timeline was given for the rollout. Cointelegraph reached out to World Liberty Financial but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The expansion into FX and remittances follows WLFI's application for a national trust bank charter in January and the launch of World Liberty Markets, a lending platform, as WLFI continues to grow while attracting scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers in the US.

Related: OCC Comptroller says WLFI charter review will remain apolitical

World Liberty Financial faces probe following foreign investment ties

In January, the Wall Street Journal published a report revealing that an investment vehicle registered in the United Arab Emirates purchased a 49% stake in WLFI for $500 million, four days before the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.

The investment vehicle, Aryam Investment 1, is backed by United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The report triggered a probe into WLFI and the transaction from Democratic Representative Ro Khanna. “This is about public trust and transparency,” the California lawmaker said. 

Trump denied knowledge of the deal. “My sons are handling that — my family is handling it,” Trump said, adding, “I guess they get investments from different people.”

Representative Stephen Lynch on Wednesday questioned Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins about the World Liberty Financial deal and Trump’s crypto projects. Source: US House Committee on Financial Services

However, Democratic lawmakers voiced concerns about the deal during a US House Committee on Financial Services hearing on Wednesday.

Massachusetts Representative Stephen Lynch and California Representative Maxine Waters characterized the deal as a potential national security threat that could allow the president’s office to peddle influence and engage in foreign pay-to-play schemes.

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After years of debate in some corners of the crypto industry, Bitcoin and digital assets are on the verge of a long-awaited “supercycle,” typically defined as an extended, structurally driven boom that lasts beyond a normal market cycle.

However, the only development resembling such durable, capital-intensive expansion may be underway in AI infrastructure, according to the latest newsletter from Blockbridge Consulting, which has been rebranded to TheEnergyMag from TheMinerMag.

In the newsletter, analyst Wolfie Zhao described a “trillion-dollar build supercycle” tied to AI data center infrastructure.

While the so-called Magnificent Seven tech giants are projected to spend more than $600 billion combined on AI investments this year, Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies with exposure to AI and high-performance computing are also ramping up capital deployment.

One example is IREN, formerly known as Iris Energy, a Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin miner that has expanded into AI data center infrastructure.

In its most recent quarter, IREN reported about $800 million in net spending on property, plants and equipment. According to TheEnergyMag’s analysis, the company “deployed more capital in a single year, building AI data center infrastructure and procuring GPU hardware than it spent across three years expanding its Bitcoin mining fleet post-IPO.”

The fourth quarter of 2025 marked record PP&E spending by IREN, reflecting its accelerating pivot toward AI-focused infrastructure. Source: TheEnergyMag

Related: Bitcoin mining’s 2026 reckoning: AI pivots, margin pressure and a fight to survive

Bitcoin mining: An industry in transition

IREN is one of several traditional Bitcoin miners that have shifted aggressively into AI and high-performance computing, in part to diversify away from increasingly compressed mining margins. Others pursuing similar strategies include MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, HIVE Digital Technologies and Bitdeer Technologies.

The past year may have marked one of the most challenging periods for the Bitcoin mining industry, as collapsing revenues collided with rising debt loads. The downturn followed a sharp correction in Bitcoin’s price that began in October 2025. After peaking over $126,000, Bitcoin slid steadily and briefly fell below $60,000 in February.

Bitdeer, which released its fourth quarter 2025 results on Thursday, said the period “marked a strategic inflection point as we accelerated our transition toward high-performance compute infrastructure and colocation services."

Chief business officer Matt Kong said that the company’s power portfolio will be a strategic asset as “We expect the global AI infrastructure supply / demand imbalance to widen,” according to a statement.

Frank Holmes, CEO of HIVE Digital Technologies, recently outlined why this may be a pivotal moment for miners to expand into AI.

“Bitcoin miners are winning the AI data center arms race,” he wrote in a Forbes column, arguing that large-scale AI facilities take years to build, while miners already control power, land and data center infrastructure that can be repurposed for high-performance computing.

Source: Frank Holmes on X

Related: Bitcoin miner production data reveals scale of US winter storm disruption

Bitcoin (BTC) battled a key 200-week trend line around Thursday’s Wall Street open as “bearish acceleration” fears persisted.

Key points:

Bitcoin threatens to add the 200-week exponential moving average to its list of new resistance levels.

History offers lessons for what happens when price rejects from the key 200-week trend line.

Mayer Multiple values continue to show BTC in deep “oversold” territory.

Bitcoin’s fate hangs on $68,300 reclaim

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action focusing on the area around $67,000 for a second day.

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

Bulls already faced a lack of momentum — something stopping them from reclaiming the old 2021 all-time high at $69,000.

Now, Bitcoin’s 200-week exponential moving average (EMA) came into focus as a potential second new resistance level.

Commenting on the phenomenon, trader and analyst Rekt Capital employed comparisons to previous Bitcoin bear markets to warn that a failure to rescue the 200-week EMA would result in worse price downside.

“What would confirm additional downside for Bitcoin? Historically, a Weekly Close below the 200-week EMA (black) followed by a post-breakdown retest of the EMA into new resistance (red circles) has triggered additional Bearish Acceleration,” he wrote alongside a chart on X. 

“The 200-week EMA (black) represents the price point of ~$68300. Therefore a Weekly Close below ~$68300 followed by a bearish retest of it would likely position Bitcoin for a repeat of history with additional downside over time.”

BTC/USD one-week chart with 200EMA. Source: Rekt Capital/X

Analysis had hoped that the EMA would act as a long-term BTC price floor prior to last week’s break below $60,000. Together with the 200-week simple moving average (SMA), it now forms a “cloud” of support that price has so far avoided violating.

BTC/USD one-week chart with 200SMA, 200EMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Adopting a more hopeful tone, William Clemente, head of strategy at crypto over-the-counter settlement platform Styx, eyed a buying opportunity.

“Throughout Bitcoin's life span we have seen two indicators continue to be the best global market bottom signals: The Mayer multiple (distance from 200 day moving average) and the 200 week moving average,” he argued on the day. 

“Both of these are clearly in long term accumulation territory.”

Bitcoin Mayer Multiple, 200-week SMA data. Source: William Clemente/X

Classic BTC price metric screams “cheap”

Continuing on the topic, the X analytics account named after famous economist Frank Fetter stressed just how rare current Mayer Multiple readings were.

The Multiple is one of the best-known Bitcoin price yardsticks, and readings below 0.8 traditionally signify good long-term odds of returns. At the other end of the scale, a reading above 2.4 implies that caution is warranted.

“Only 5.3% of days have seen the Bitcoin Mayer Multiple at a lower level. Yeah it can go lower but I’m running out of ways to say BTC is cheap here,” the account told followers.

Bitcoin 200-day SMA quantile regression. Source: Frank A. Fetter/X

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin last saw such low Mayer Multiple levels during the 2022 bear market.

Last week, Charles Edwards, founder of quantitative Bitcoin and digital asset fund Capriole Investments, agreed.

“It rarely hits 0.6x. Can price go lower?” he queried. 

“Yes, but this is historically one of the best buy signals in Bitcoin history.”

Key takeaways

A simple data-entry error allowed 620,000 nonexistent BTC to appear in user accounts for 20 minutes because trades update a private database first, with onchain settlement happening later.

Around 1,788 BTC worth of trades were executed before the exchange locked everything down. What could have been dismissed as a harmless error turned into a serious operational and regulatory event.

Regulatory filings showed Bithumb held only 175 BTC of its own in Q3 2025, while it held custody of over 42,000 BTC for customers. This highlights how heavily the system depends on accurate internal accounting.

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service focused on why faulty internal data could result in executable trades. It raised fundamental questions about safeguards and tradability controls.

Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, ran a regular promotional campaign in early February 2026. However, it turned into a major regulatory concern. What started as a simple internal data-entry mistake briefly displayed hundreds of thousands of “ghost Bitcoin” on user dashboards. Some account holders actually traded those balances, prompting regulators to examine the inner mechanisms of centralized crypto platforms more closely.

This article explores how the ghost Bitcoin incident became a key example of vulnerabilities in exchange accounting. It also discusses the reasons behind South Korea’s accelerated move toward more rigorous, bank-like supervision of virtual asset services.

From a modest promotion to a serious error

Bithumb intended to offer a small reward program, crediting users with a modest amount of Korean won, typically 2,000 won ($1.37) per person. Reward programs are a standard tactic to boost user activity.

Instead, an input mistake caused the system to credit Bitcoin (BTC) rather than fiat. For about 20 minutes, the exchange’s internal ledger reflected roughly 620,000 BTC across hundreds of accounts. The value of the ghost BTC was in billions of dollars, vastly exceeding the exchange’s own holdings and total customer reserves.

Staff quickly detected the problem, froze the affected accounts and reversed the credits. But during that brief period, some users sold the ghost Bitcoin in their accounts, executing trades worth around 1,788 BTC before a full lockdown.

Although payouts were processed, it appears that no tokens actually left the exchange. Later, the platform successfully recovered 93% of the lost value in a mix of Korean won and other cryptocurrencies.

How “ghost Bitcoin” can exist

Centralized exchanges operate differently from decentralized ones. They do not settle every trade onchain in real time. Instead, they update user balances on an internal ledger, a private database, allowing fast execution. Onchain movements are batched and processed later, often during deposits or withdrawals.

This architecture facilitates quick trading, high liquidity and competitive fees, but it relies entirely on the accuracy of the exchange’s internal records. Users essentially trust that these records match real asset holdings.

In this case, the ledger temporarily showed unbacked Bitcoin balances. According to a regulatory filing, Bithumb’s own Bitcoin reserves were surprisingly lean in Q3 2025, holding only 175 BTC compared to the 42,619 BTC it manages for its customers.

Did you know? South Korea was among the first countries to mandate real-name bank accounts for crypto trading, a rule introduced in 2018 to curb anonymous speculation and reduce money laundering risks in digital asset markets.

Why regulators viewed it as a systematic failure

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) acted promptly, concluding that the problem was not merely a typing error but that trades proceeded based on faulty internal data.

This raised core questions: How can an exchange enable trading of assets it does not hold? What safeguards could prevent erroneous balances from becoming tradable? And who is accountable when users benefit from such mistakes?

The FSS conducted on-site inspections at Bithumb and indicated that a formal probe could be launched to examine whether any laws were breached. They cited the event as evidence that existing crypto rules may not sufficiently address internal system oversight.

Ripple effects of the Bitcoin promotion error in the industry

The incident’s impact extended well beyond Bithumb, triggering a wave of industry-wide scrutiny. Digital Asset eXchange Alliance, South Korea’s major crypto alliance, responded by launching a thorough audit of internal controls across all member platforms.

Meanwhile, legislators pointed to the event as evidence of systemic vulnerabilities in centralized exchanges. They noted that operational security had failed to keep pace with the market’s rapid growth.

Ultimately, the crisis highlighted a harsh reality: A single exchange’s failure could threaten the stability of the entire ecosystem.

Did you know? In traditional finance, similar “fat-finger” errors have triggered billion-dollar equity market disruptions, including temporary trading halts on major stock exchanges, showing that operational risk is not unique to crypto.

Liability and consumer protection concerns

A key debate arose over the liability of trades executed on erroneous credits. Some users sold BTC quickly before account freezes took effect. Bithumb reported recovering most of the value and absorbing shortfalls with its own funds. Regulators noted that, under applicable laws, users who profited from erroneous credits could potentially be subject to clawback or restitution claims.

This incident exposed ambiguities in centralized crypto platforms. Displayed balances appear definitive to users, yet they remain reversible if systems make an error. The case compelled regulators to address how protections apply when technical failures produce real financial outcomes.

Advancing to “Phase Two” regulation

Regulators stated that the incident exposed regulatory blind spots in earlier digital asset laws. As they pointed out, regulations emphasized custody, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and the prevention of manipulation but largely overlooked internal ledger management.

The event is now driving discussions regarding enhanced oversight of the crypto ecosystem, including:

Required multi-level approvals for promotions and credits

Stricter, more frequent checks between ledgers and actual reserves

Defined procedures for erroneous trades and reversals

Audit and disclosure standards comparable to traditional finance.

This shift moves beyond token listings or promotions to scrutinize the underlying operational infrastructure.

Did you know? South Korea’s crypto trading volumes frequently spike during overnight US market hours, reflecting how global time zones can amplify the impact of exchange incidents beyond domestic users.

A test of trust in centralized exchanges

Although Bithumb took steps quickly to limit the damage, the impact on its reputation is likely to linger. The incident taught users that a balance displayed on a centralized exchange indicates a claim on the platform’s internal systems. It does not indicate direct ownership of onchain assets.

For regulators, the Bitcoin promotion error pointed to a broader concern. As digital asset markets expand, public trust rests on internal mechanisms that function entirely behind closed doors. Should these protocols falter even briefly, the impact could be severe. South Korea’s response has made it evident that regulators now view ledger integrity in crypto exchanges as a systemic risk rather than just an operational detail.

The “ghost Bitcoin” episode will remain in public memory not primarily for its magnitude but for the critical vulnerability it exposed. In crypto transactions, the invisible accounting systems working behind the scenes are as important as the blockchains functioning underneath.

Bitcoin (BTC) market sentiment has begun to recover as exchange traders reconsider selling.

Key points:

Bitcoin taker flow finally sees positive values after a month of seller dominance.

“Aggressive” sell pressure is fading at current price levels, analysis says.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index hits record lows despite BTC price stabilization.

Bitcoin exchanges eye “early signs of stabilization”

New findings from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant released on Thursday show net taker flow flipping positive for the first time in a month.

“Bitcoin market sentiment is showing early signs of stabilization, and Binance’s 7-day Net Taker Flow reflects that shift when viewed in proper macro context,” contributor Crazzyblockk summarized in one of its “Quicktake” blog posts.

The metric, expressed as the difference between market buy and market sell orders, has been deep in negative territory since mid-January.

“After reaching nearly -$4.9B in cumulative net selling in early February, Binance’s 7-day taker flow has steadily recovered and flipped positive to around +$0.32B,” Crazzyblockk continued. 

“The sentiment ratio has moved from roughly -3% back into positive territory, signaling a clear decline in sell-side aggression.”

Bitcoin exchange seven-day net taker flow (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

The post added that the phenomenon was visible across major exchanges, with Binance nonetheless showing a “stronger shift in net buying pressure than peers.”

The change comes as BTC price action attempts to stabilize around 20% above recent 15-month lows near $59,000.

As Cointelegraph reported, however, market participants see a risk of stagnation below $69,000 — a key resistance level ever since the top of the 2021 Bitcoin bull market.

Crypto sees more “extreme greed” than ever

The split between exchanges, meanwhile, continues to be visible via the Coinbase Premium Index.

This indicator measures the difference in price between Coinbase’s BTC/USD and Binance’s BTC/USDT pairs, and has also been almost entirely “red” since the middle of last month.

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Index (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

A negative Premium implies lower US spot demand compared to Asia, and the latest CryptoQuant data confirms that the status quo remains despite the modest BTC price bounce.

Commenting, trading company QCP Capital described the Premium reduction, implying a “moderation in U.S.-led spot selling pressure.”

QCP tempered enthusiasm as it referenced “extreme fear” signals from crypto market sentiment gauge, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.

“That said, sentiment remains fragile, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index still deep in extreme fear territory at 9, which is less ‘all clear’ and more ‘thin ice that happens to be holding,’ it wrote in its latest “Asia Color” market update on Wednesday.

The Index has since dropped to just 5/100, a score which ranks among its lowest ever recorded.

🚨 TODAY: Crypto Fear & Greed Index plunges to 5 Extreme Fear, the lowest level on record. pic.twitter.com/30srOiR5Ak

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) February 12, 2026

Near.AI co-founder Illia Polosukhin loves OpenClaw, the AI agent that has gone viral for its abilities as an autonomous assistant, but thinks its a total security black hole.

So hes working on recreating OpenClaw in Rust, with all the different tools sandboxed in isolated WebAssembly environments so that if one goes rogue, it doesnt affect anything else. The system also treats prompt injections as security risks and protects against credential theft. 

Polymarket traders have been experimenting with OpenClaw to find profitable bets, but a viral post this week reported that it can still reveal private keys despite explicit instructions not to. 

Polosukhin says the solution with IronClaw is to not let the LLM touch secrets at all. Secrets are reportedly stored in an encrypted vault, with the large language model granted permission to use them only for specific sites. 

Source: @ilblackdragon

“People are losing their funds and credentials using OpenClaw,” Polosukhin explained this week. “A number of people have stopped using it as [they’re] afraid it will leak all of their information. We started working on security-focused version IronClaw.”

George Xian Zeng, general manager of Near.AI, tells Magazine that when Polosukhin gets inspired, he works fast.

“He built the basis of it in one evening,” explains Zeng. “He was feeding his baby and building IronClaw at the same time.”

OpenClaw was originally called Clawdbot and was briefly known as Moltbot. Polosukhin has already made an enormous contribution by coming up with a way cooler name. 

You have two other options and both suck says Near.AI

Why is OpenClaw such a security risk?

Clawdbot went viral in the first place because it’s a harness that controls a bunch of agents, tools and integrations working together to do useful stuff. The system remembers your conversation even as you switch between Telegram and Slack, and can perform actions on your computer and in your browser.

But with great power comes great security risks. Giving it terminal access, along with all your credentials and crypto wallet, is an exploit waiting to happen. It uses JavaScript, which has a large attack surface, but Rust eliminates entire classes of memory-safety bugs. Plus, its not very popular, so few hackers know how to use it.

(@ilblackdragon)

Polushkin has made 74 GitHub commits in the past week, and Zeng expects IronClaw to be finished and available on Near.AI in a matter of weeks.

In the meantime, Near.AI Cloud lets anyone spin up an OpenClaw in the cloud in around half an hour (it’s in beta, so you have to apply for access right now). It runs in a Trusted Execution Environment, so everything is encrypted and nobody, including Near, can access your data. 

If you want to have a private chat with DeepSeek for legal advice, you don’t have to worry about incriminating chat logs appearing in discovery. (Which is a significant risk as Magazine highlighted in January.) Near’s OpenClaw also anonymizes requests to commercial models such as Gemini and ChatGPT 5.2.

One problem yet to be solved is the amount of risk involved in downloading skills from ClawHub. Slowmist this week reported that 341 of the available skills contain malicious code to collect passwords or data. 

“The cool thing … is that anyone can build a skill. But the dangerous thing about the current marketplace is that anyone can build a skill,” says Zeng.

“How do you make a marketplace that’s safe and effective, right? We’re still going through how exactly do you make that work? I think it’s reasonable to consider maybe, like, a curated marketplace.”

Near has also launched a crypto-based marketplace enabling AI agents to hire each other or for humans to hire agents. At present, many of the 1,900 available jobs involve building for Near itself, but building or buying skills might emerge as an interesting use case. 

"Think of it as your guardian angel in the digital space"

Illia Polosukhin explains IronClaw's evolution, from OpenClaw in secure environments to AI you can actually trust to be on your side. pic.twitter.com/2dzuusKbwD

— The Rollup (@therollupco) February 9, 2026

Amazon’s AI surveillance state 

Amazon’s Super Bowl commercial for its Ring doorbell sparked a swift privacy backlash. The ad showcased its AI-powered Search Party feature, which uses neighborhood cameras to find a cute lost dog.

But its pretty obvious that the feature, which is switched on by default, could turn your neighborhood into a surveillance state and track your every move. My neighborhood WhatsApp group is already full of doorbell camera footage of people stealing packages and letting down other peoples tires.  

Rival doorbell camera company Wyze released this very funny take-down.

Thing of absolute beauty. Give whoever made this video a big fat raise, Wyze
pic.twitter.com/3uYktNfXsC

— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) February 11, 2026

Olas releases prediction market bots for Polymarket

Everyone suddenly seems to be running AI agents to try and uncover arbitrage strategies on Polymarket to exploit data update delays or market inefficiencies such as when Yes and No are both priced at 45c, meaning if you buy both, you can theoretically make a 10c profit.

Olas has been working on the presumption that AI agents will be the main traders on prediction markets in the future and offers the Omenstrat agent on its Pearl marketplace. These agents have collectively accounted for 13 million transactions on the Omen prediction platform on Gnosis. Rechristened Polystrat, the agents are now being unleashed on Polymarket.

“This was always a somewhat niche application,” says David Minarsch, co-founder of Olas and CEO of Valory. “Users were saying, OK, well, why doesn’t this thing run on Polymarket?”

These agents dont attempt to identify arbitrage; instead, they use a range of news sources, public data, and other tools to predict outcomes in markets that resolve in under four days.  Minarsch says they “are sufficiently powerful to have above average performance over long time horizons. 

“What we see with Omestrat is that over time they have a 55% to 65% success rate depending on which models, tools they use.”  

According to data shared with Magazine, the win rate is between 59.2% to 63.6% across categories like sustainability, science, business and curiosities, but falls to 37.96% to 48.57% for bets on fashion, arts, animals and social. For sports, you might as well flip a coin (51.01%).

And of course, those results are from Omen, which is a much smaller marketplace than Polymarket.

Read also

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You can tailor your betting strategy by chatting with your Polystrat, and all critical wallet and bet-related functions are hardcoded to prevent the agent from going rogue with your funds.

“That’s a key architectural design decision, which really restricts the capability of the agent,” Minarsh says. “So, our fully structured agent won’t suddenly become your personal assistant. But it also means it’s safer.”

Olas takes a cut of fees paid to tools, models and other agents. You can run it locally, but using it via the Pearl store requires staking OLAS. Minarsh says funding it with $100 will enable the agent to bet autonomously on enough markets to get a sense of its strengths and weaknesses.

All Killer, No Filler AI News

That viral story in The New York Times about a writer who churned out 200 books with AI might have just been an ad for an AI book generation course.

Polymarket has partnered with Kaito AI to launch attention markets, where you can place bets on how viral something is and whether its being received in a positive or negative way. 

The Super Bowl was plastered with ads for AI from 16 tech companies. Theres a theory that any tech sector that dominates Super Bowl ads crashes soon after; web companies dominated in 2000, and crypto companies were everywhere in 2022. 

Everyones talking about how the text-to-video AI generation tool Seedance 2.0 will transform movies, but a new McKinsey report says AI tools are already transforming the production process by turning screenplays into storyboards, and generating lists of locations, props and other requirements.

This one-minute video was apparently created by Seedance with just one image and one prompt:

Seedance 2.0 kinda makes it hard for agencies and production houses to ignore AI now.pic.twitter.com/20QMJTJl00

— Dinda Prasetyo (@heydin_ai) February 11, 2026

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Opinion by: Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral

Despite the recent plummet in Bitcoin (BTC) and other major cryptocurrencies, 2025 was a high watermark year for crypto as new price highs were hit for major coins.

The US administration’s regulatory push provided a seal of approval, signalling that crypto was on the path to maturity. Banks, which have been cautious with crypto over the past five years, rapidly changed their tune.

Beneath all this progress lie deeper structural issues in the crypto market that more US regulation won’t solve.

The October 2025 market correction clearly revealed liquidity issues which are still prevalent today. While they are not causing the current crash, illiquidity hampers market stability.

A shortage of crypto credit and prime brokerage are directly contributing to crypto’s liquidity droughts. If the industry does not create more crypto credit, an artificial ceiling will be placed on cryptocurrencies.

Market shock

The Oct. 10, 2025, correction itself was not unusual; sudden sharp volatility continues to be a staple of crypto. It’s for this reason some market participants, like hedge funds, find it attractive. What was more revealing was how quickly liquidity evaporated and how slowly it has — or in this case hasn’t — returned. Geopolitical and policy decisions have caused spikes in volatility across traditional financial markets, including equities, bonds and foreign exchange (FX).

Synchronized price declines and volatility spikes during October’s correction highlight the market’s limited ability to absorb selling pressure under stress. Source: Amberdata.

Yet liquidity in these markets recovered rapidly, allowing traders to easily access these markets. FX traders have highlighted how advancements in trading technology have made those markets so efficient that spreads have disappeared. It leaves very little for those firms that benefit when the price between buy and sell orders widens.

Structural, not cyclical, issues

The same cannot be said for crypto. Not only did liquidity dry up in the aftermath of Oct. 10, but it remained thin months later as sellers struggled to find buyers. The same is still the case today, as the value of major coins plummeted. The fall in value is due to a loss of conviction in cryptocurrencies as an asset, but poor liquidity is being fueled by structural issues.

One of the principal constraints is a shortage of credit. In crypto, trades are mostly pre-funded, and the use of leverage for market making is small. When volatility spikes, capital is quickly withdrawn, and spreads widen dramatically. The absence of sustainable, transparent credit mechanisms leaves the market brittle at precisely the moments when liquidity is most critical. This isn’t necessarily enough to stop a decline in prices, but it can shore up market conditions.

To overcome these structural issues, the industry needs to look at what works well in traditional finance and adopt similar mechanisms that play into crypto’s decentralized finance strengths. Better access to credit is the essential step.

In FX, for example, market makers can become risk takers temporarily, supported by credit lines from prime brokers that allow them to continue quoting prices to liquidity takers even during periods of high stress. In other words, credit fuels market activity. Crypto lacks this support due to the absence of adequate credit.

More crypto prime brokerage is essential

Regulation constrains how investment banks engage in cryptocurrency markets. The capacity of banks to hold and finance crypto exposures is limited by Basel III and the prudential rules around crypto assets, which impose high capital requirements.

Even if a more favorable US administration loosens these rules, conditions will remain challenging, and the likelihood of banks entering crypto prime brokerage at scale is low due to the volatile nature of crypto.

The crypto market needs a resilient and broad layer of crypto prime brokerage with more credit provision if liquidity conditions are to improve. The liquidity shortfall is not a deep mystery. In many cases, there are buyers and sellers out there, but they exist in fragmented pools between isolated markets.

More crypto credit would substantially improve liquidity, as market makers and investors do not need to wholly pre-fund trades. Capital can be used more dynamically, instead of being locked up, which is a major issue today. This would enable companies to deploy more of their capital, connecting with more buyers and sellers, which in turn allows liquidity takers to place more trades.

At the same time, prime brokers enable netting between counterparties, which frees up capital for more trading. Crucially, broader provision of credit allows more institutional firms to directly participate in spot cryptocurrency markets, bringing much-needed participants to deepen trading and liquidity. Credit combined with trading and settlement infrastructure would quickly bring more firms together with credit and shared infrastructure for margin exchange and settlement, creating a market more attractive to liquidity providers.

The crypto market structure must evolve if it is to keep momentum in 2026. Regulatory developments or crypto-friendly administrations will not be enough to power the asset class forward amid dramatic sell-offs in major cryptocurrencies. If more credit is available, the crypto market will have deeper trading activity and more resilient liquidity. Failure to build this infrastructure will limit crypto to being an asset class of booms and busts.

Opinion by: Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral.

Bitcoin market observers believe that the recent price slump may actually reflect the asset’s wider adoption by institutions, which still don’t see it as a risk-off asset.

It’s been rough out there for crypto in recent months. Since October, when Bitcoin’s price reached a high of over $120,000, BTC has been gradually sliding. In recent weeks, it dropped sharply, down over 25% on the month.

Amid the sell-off, market observers have been looking for explanations. Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan attributed the fall to the notorious four-year cycles that have previously defined crypto market price swings.

Others, including one US Federal Reserve governor, claim that the recent price movements show that institutions are risk-averse and that Bitcoin itself hasn’t reached the status of digital gold — yet.

Bitcoin is down over 25% on the month. Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin still seen as risky, “not digital gold”

Institutional interest in Bitcoin and crypto could be one reason for the recent sell-off. While major financial institutions have lots of money to pour into the crypto market, their appetite for risk is much lower than retail investors, and Bitcoin is still broadly seen as a risky asset.

Chris Waller, a governor of the United States Federal Reserve, spoke to this effect at a recent monetary policy conference on Monday. He said that much of the “euphoria” around crypto that accompanied the new administration of President Donald Trump is now fading.

“I think there was a lot of sell-off just because firms that got into it from mainstream finance had to adjust their risk positions.”

These sentiments were echoed by Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz on Tuesday, who said in an interview with CNBC that the crypto industry has brought in “institutions where people have a different risk tolerance.”

“Retail people don’t get into crypto because they want to make 11% annualized ... They get in because they want to make 30 to one, eight to one, 10 to one.”

Crypto asset manager Grayscale noted in a report that recent Bitcoin price action more closely correlates to software stocks with high enterprise values than to historically stable assets like gold. The investment company stated that short-term price movements have not been tightly correlated with gold or other precious metals.

Source: Grayscale

Bloomberg commodity strategist Mike McGlone, also a noted Bitcoin bear, claimed that Bitcoin is still highly speculative. “[Bitcoin] has proven it’s neither digital gold nor leveraged beta,” he said, adding, “It’s a highly speculative [number]-on-the-screen tracking nothing with unlimited competition.”

Grayscale remained more optimistic about Bitcoin’s long-term prospects. “The network will likely continue operating well beyond our lifetimes and the asset may retain its value in real terms ... in a wide range of outcomes for the economy and society,” it said.

The company also highlighted the central role institutions will have in the future success of the asset, which it noted was dependent on regulatory clarity, something the US hasn’t yet achieved.

Lack of progress on CLARITY signals risk

The CLARITY Act, which is currently under debate in the US Senate, would overhaul how crypto is regulated in the country, from the agencies that oversee rules for decentralized finance (DeFi).

The bill has stalled for weeks as crypto bigwigs like Coinbase and the bank lobby are at loggerheads over stablecoin interest: a core aspect of the exchange’s business model that banks feel could threaten financial stability.

Failure for Congress to deliver quickly on a crypto market structure bill has added to this insecurity, according to Waller. “The lack of passing of the CLARITY Act I think has kind of put people off on this,” he said.

Novogratz also emphasized the effect the bill could have on markets. He said that both Democrats and Republicans want to pass the bill and that “we need it for spirit back in the crypto market.”

Grayscale underscored the importance of CLARITY and the GENIUS Act in its report, the latter of which passed in July 2025. It stated that “improving regulatory clarity for the crypto industry is a structural trend much bigger than one piece of legislation.”

More favorable regulations will drive an increase in use cases in “stablecoins, tokenized assets, and other applications of public blockchain technology,” which in turn will “drive value to blockchain networks and their native tokens.”

High-level talks to clear the roadblocks on CLARITY are currently underway. On Tuesday, executives from the crypto and banking industries met at the White House for another closed-door meeting.

Ripple legal chief Stuart Alderoty said, “Compromise is in the air. Clear, bipartisan momentum remains behind sensible crypto market structure legislation.”

Meanwhile, analysts debate just how low the Bitcoin bear market can go. Kaiko Research shared a research note with Cointelegraph, which claimed that the $60,000 mark could be a “halfway point.”

“Analysis of on-chain metrics and comparative performance across tokens reveals a market approaching critical technical support levels that will determine whether the four-year cycle framework remains intact,” Kaiko said.

McGlone said that $60,000 is just a “speedbump on the way back down” to $10,000, citing a number of reasons. These include interest in crypto supposedly shifting from digital assets to stablecoins and the likelihood that “cheer-leader and chief, President Trump, will be a lame duck this time next year.”

A lame-duck president who is also pro-crypto may find it difficult to effect the change they want in Congress. It remains to be seen whether crypto will secure the regulatory clarity it wants for institutions to fully jump in.

Magazine: Is China hoarding gold so yuan becomes global reserve instead of USD?

Bitcoin miner outflows jumped to 28,605 BTC, worth about $1.8 billion, on Feb. 5, one of the largest single-day transfers since November 2024, as prices swung sharply during a volatile trading session.

Another 20,169 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $1.4 billion, left miner-linked wallets on Feb. 6, according to data from CryptoQuant. The last comparable spike occurred on Nov. 12, 2024, when outflows reached 30,187 BTC.

The spike coincided with sharp price swings, with BTC trading at about $62,809 on Feb. 5 before rebounding to $70,544 a day later. Large miner wallet transfers during volatile sessions often draw scrutiny because they can signal potential selling pressure. 

Eight miners disclosed January figures so far: CleanSpark, Bitdeer, Hive Digital Technologies, BitFuFu, Canaan, LM Funding America, Cango and DMG Blockchain Solutions. They reported a combined production of roughly 2,377 BTC for the month. That total is far below the 28,605 BTC transferred in a single day on Feb. 5.

Outflows likely reflect broader ecosystem flows

The scale of the Feb. 5 and Feb. 6 outflows exceeds the January production of the publicly reporting firms reviewed by Cointelegraph. 

Even combining disclosed January sales from CleanSpark, Cango and DMG, confirmed selling amounts remain a fraction of the 28,605 BTC transferred in a single day. 

However, miner outflows do not automatically equate to capitulation or immediate spot-market selling.

According to CryptoQuant, miner outflow includes transfers to exchanges as well as internal wallet movements and transfers to other entities, meaning the metric does not by itself confirm that coins were sold on the open market.

Given the scale of the transfers relative to disclosed public miner sales, the movements may reflect activity beyond large, listed firms.

Bitcoin Miner Outflow 30-day chart. Source: CryptoQuant

Public miner disclosures show mixed treasury moves

CleanSpark reported mining 573 BTC and selling 158.63 BTC during the month, ending January with 13,513 BTC on its balance sheet. 

Cango mined 496.35 BTC and disclosed selling 550.03 BTC, stating it would continue to sell newly mined Bitcoin to support the expansion of its artificial intelligence and inference platform.

On Feb. 9, the company sold an additional 4,451 BTC for about $305 million to partially repay a Bitcoin-collateralized loan and fund its AI pivot.

Other firms took a different approach. Canaan mined 83 BTC and increased its reserves to 1,778 BTC and 3,951 ETH. LM Funding mined 7.8 BTC and reported no sales, lifting its treasury to 364.1 BTC. 

Meanwhile, Hive used structured pledge mechanics tied to 480 BTC to preserve liquidity while maintaining operations.

While some miners report monthly production results consistently, others only report intermittently or have shifted to quarterly disclosures. 

January miner data compiled by Cointelegraph. Source: Cointelegraph

Winter storms affect US miner hashrates

Network hashrate also fluctuated sharply in late January as severe winter storms hit parts of the United States. On Jan. 27, Bitcoin’s hashrate fell to 663 exahashes per second over two days, marking a more than 40% drop.

Total mining hashrate. Source: Blockchain.com

The temporary decline came as miners curtailed operations to stabilize regional power grids during extreme cold and surging energy demand. US-based firms reported reduced uptime, including Marathon Digital Holdings and Iren, which saw sharp short-term drops in daily production.

Blockchain.com data showed that hashrate recovered in early February after the drop during the last week of January. 

Magazine: 6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto

The United States National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has proposed its first rules under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, sketching out how subsidiaries of federally insured credit unions could apply to become federally supervised payment stablecoin issuers. 

The NCUA, which oversees more than 4,000 federally insured credit unions serving roughly 144 million members and about $2.38 trillion dollars in assets as of mid-2025, is using this proposal to set out the process and standards for licensing such issuers. 

Under the proposal, any payment stablecoin issuer that is a “subsidiary of an insured credit union” would need to obtain an NCUA permitted payment stablecoin issuer (PPSI) license before issuing coins. 

Federally insured credit unions would also be prohibited from investing in, or lending to, payment stablecoin issuers unless those issuers hold an NCUA PPSI license. 

The draft is narrowly focused on licensing and investment limits. A forthcoming proposal will implement GENIUS Act standards and restrictions for PPSIs, including requirements related to reserves, capital, liquidity, illicit finance, and information technology risk management.

NCUA proposed rule for licensing of PPSIs. Source: NCUA

For now, the rulemaking is about defining the licensing and oversight architecture, and any eventual rollout of stablecoin services to members would depend on future approvals and additional standards. 

“A forthcoming proposal will propose regulations to implement the standards and restrictions imposed by the GENIUS Act on PPSIs,” the preamble states.

​​Public chain neutral and 120‑day clock

Two features stand out for the broader crypto market. First, the NCUA would be barred from denying a substantially complete application solely because a stablecoin is issued “on an open, public, or decentralized network,” language that explicitly prevents public blockchain issuance from being rejected on that basis alone.

Second, once an application is deemed “substantially complete,” the agency would have 120 days to approve or deny it, and if the NCUA fails to act within that window, the application would be “deemed approved” by default.

The proposal also implements a core GENIUS Act design choice. Insured depository institutions, including credit unions, cannot issue payment stablecoins directly and must instead use separately supervised subsidiaries that meet uniform federal standards. 

For credit unions, that generally means routing activity through credit union service organizations and other qualifying entities that fall under NCUA’s jurisdiction as “subsidiaries of an insured credit union.”

​The document is only a notice of proposed rulemaking. Stakeholders have 60 days from Federal Register publication to comment before the NCUA can finalize or revise the licensing regime.

Cointelegraph reached out to NCUA for additional comments, but had not received a response by publication.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs stablecoins showdown looms as GENIUS Act nears

Securitize is launching a stablecoin backed by tokenized private credit assets in partnership with Hamilton Lane, OKX Ventures and stablecoin infrastructure firm STBL, expanding efforts to bring institutional real-world asset yield onto blockchain rails.

Securitize has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure provider STBL, Nasdaq-listed private markets investment management firm Hamilton Lane and crypto exchange OKX’s investment wing, OKX Ventures, to support the launch of a new real-world asset (RWA)-backed stablecoin on X Layer.

The new stablecoin will bring together institutional private credit, regulated tokenization and programmable settlement to support the “next generation onchain financial infrastructure,” said Securitize in a Thursday X post.

The new product, described as an ecosystem-specific stablecoin, will be issued on OKX’s X Layer network and backed by tokenized exposure to Hamilton Lane’s Senior Credit Opportunities Fund through a feeder structure facilitated by Securitize.

The stablecoin will use a dual-token architecture designed to separate yield generation from the stable unit itself, as lawmakers and regulators in the United States scrutinize stablecoins that distribute passive returns to holders.

The new stablecoin marks a “definitive leap forward in the convergence of institutional private markets and onchain finance,” said STBL in a Thursday X post.

“This initiative brings deep liquidity, programmable settlement, and compliant yield management to the X Layer ecosystem, setting a new standard for how capital flows onchain.”

STBL’s yield architecture seeks to side-step US regulatory concerns

Securitize said the structure aims to combine regulated tokenization of private credit with programmable settlement, while keeping the stable token distinct from the underlying yield.

Under the model, returns accrue at the collateral layer rather than being paid directly to stablecoin holders. STBL said in a statement that the framework is intended to align with emerging regulatory expectations that seek to distinguish stable payment instruments from investment products.

Source: OKX Ventures, Securitize

Cointelegraph has approached OKX Ventures and STBL for comment on the token’s architecture and yield expectations.

While the underlying RWAs are accruing the yield in the background, the new stablecoin framework seeks to separate the stablecoin from returns, to avoid the recent regulatory scrutiny on yield-bearing stablecoins, wrote STBL in an X post on Jan. 14.

“Because USST holders are not promised, paid, or marketed yield, our model aligns naturally with emerging regulatory expectations that seek to distinguish stable units of account from investment instruments.”

Source: STBL

Related: Binance completes $1B Bitcoin conversion for SAFU emergency fund

The stablecoin architecture came in response to the US market structure bill, which included a provision seeking to ban passive yield on stablecoin holdings.

The ESS stablecoin framework’s dual economy seeks to address this by acquiring the yield from the underlying RWA assets through a separate token, so that the ESS stablecoin won’t be categorized as a yield-bearing stablecoin.

Securitize is the largest tokenization platform with over $4 billion worth of tokenized assets. The platform is backed by the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock and investment banking giant Morgan Stanley.

Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs — Inside story