Cointelegraph

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has officially launched his new website ai.com to the public, allowing users to create personal AI agents that can perform everyday tasks on their behalf.⁠Brayden Lindrea⁠

The ai.com commercial aired during Super Bowl 60 on NBC on Monday, a sporting event that draws in over 100 million viewers a year, promoting the beta launch of the AI platform.

For now, users can register their ai.com username handles but must then wait in a queue to have their private, personalized AI agents spun up.


Marszalek said the AI agents can perform everything from managing emails and scheduling meetings to canceling subscriptions, completing shopping tasks, and planning trips.

Marszalek said his mission with ai.com is to accelerate artificial general intelligence “by building a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”

ChatGPT creator OpenAI launched an enterprise-focused AI agent platform, Frontier, last week, while software engineer Peter Steinberger released AI agent OpenClaw in November 2025, which gained popularity in January.

Marszalek said he bought the AI-themed domain in April fion — said to be the largest publicly disclosed domain sale in history — and has since built a team to bring the product to market.

Pseudonymous crypto and AI researcher 0xSammy said the move resembles how Marszalek scaled Crypto.com to over 150 million customers by buying a popular domain and investing heavily in marketing:

“One of the most recognisable URLs on the internet + 128M eyeballs + a Super Bowl ad = the biggest single-day domain launch in history?”



Marszalek said ai.com saw “insane traffic” in the first few hours of launching, which briefly caused the website to crash before coming back online.


Source: AI.com
Tech heavyweights also ran AI ads
Google ran a 60-second Gemini AI advertisement during Super Bowl 60, while Anthropic also ran a commercial promoting its Claude chatbot.

Related: Crypto PACs secure massive war chests ahead of US midterms

Amazon also ran a commercial showcasing its Alexa AI product, while Meta advertised Oakley-branded AI glasses.

These tech companies reportedly paid around $8 million to run 30-second advertisements during the Super Bowl.

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is calling on the Senate Banking Committee to proceed with confirmation hearings for Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh, despite a standoff over an ongoing probe into current Fed chair Jerome Powell. 

Speaking with Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Bessent referenced recent pushback from Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who said he plans to stall on processing the next Fed chair until the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into Powell is resolved. 

“Senator Tillis has come out and said he thinks that Kevin Warsh is a very strong candidate,” Bessent said, adding: 

“So I would say, why don’t we get the hearings underway and see where Jeanine Pirro’s investigation goes?”

Scott Bessent speaking about Kevin Warsh and Thom Tillis. Source: Fox News

Despite his support for Warsh, Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has vowed on multiple occasions to block the nomination until the DOJ gets “to the truth” of the matter, as part of a push to protect Fed independence. 

“I’d be one of the first people to introduce Mr. Warsh if we’re behind this and support him, but not before this matter is settled,” Tillis told CNBC on Wednesday.  

Republicans control 13 out of the 24 seats in the Senate Banking Committee, meaning that they could vote as a bloc to push through Warsh. However, with Tillis looking to halt the process, he could use his vote to oppose Warsh, putting the ultimate decision in the hands of the Democrats.  

The DOJ, led by attorney Jeanine Pirro, initially opened up an investigation into Powell in early January, serving the Fed with grand jury subpoenas and threats of criminal charges relating to expenses on a multi-year renovation project at Fed office buildings.

Powell promptly denied the assertions and argued on Jan. 11 that the investigation was politically motivated as the Fed’s interest rate policy was against the wishes of US President Donald Trump. 

On Jan. 30, Trump officially nominated Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair to succeed Powell. 

Related: Federal Reserve entering 'gradual print' mode — Lyn Alden

Following a presidential nomination, the nominee must then appear before the Senate Banking Committee for a review hearing. The committee then votes on whether to send the nominee to the full senate with a favorable or non-favorable recommendation, or no recommendation at all. 

Finally, the full Senate then holds a debate and vote, and if the nominee is confirmed, they can be officially sworn in as the next Fed chair. 

Magazine: The critical reason you should never ask ChatGPT for legal advice

The Federal Reserve has heard arguments from crypto companies and banking associations on a proposal to allow so-called “skinny master accounts,” which would give fintech firms limited access to the central bank’s payments infrastructure.

The Fed received 44 comments in response to its proposal, which closed on Friday, seeking feedback on offering a “payment account,” with crypto companies backing the idea and banks urging caution.

In opening up comments on the proposal in December, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said the new payment accounts were needed due to “rapid developments” in payments and that they would “support innovation while keeping the payments system safe.” 

Payment accounts won’t have the same privileges as master accounts (commonly owned by big banks) — they wouldn’t earn interest or be given access to Fed credit and would have balance limits.

Crypto backs getting accounts

In response to the proposal, stablecoin issuer Circle said in a letter that the accounts would “play an important first step in carrying forward Congress’ vision under the GENIUS Act” and argued they would “materially strengthen US payments.”

An excerpt from Circle’s letter to the Fed, arguing that a payment account would be a boon to domestic payments. Source: Federal Reserve

The recently formed Blockchain Payments Consortium called the accounts an “overdue and much-welcomed addition” that it said would “eliminate uncompetitive practices that undercut consumers and concentrate risk around a handful of banks.”

Anchorage Digital Bank, the country’s first federally chartered crypto bank, said that “specific deficiencies” in the proposal must be addressed regarding overnight balance limits, interest on reserves and access to the Fed’s automated clearing house.

The Fed floated setting an overnight balance limit at the lesser of $500 million or 10% of the account holder’s total assets and would not give interest on account balances or allow access to its clearing house, which offers same-day and international payments.

Banks raise concerns about access to Fed system

However, multiple banking associations responded to the Fed with concerns about allowing different entities into the central banking system.

The American Bankers Association said that many of the entities that would be eligible for a payment account “lack a long-run supervisory track record, are not subject to consistent federal safety-and-soundness standards and may rely on evolving statutory or regulatory regimes.”

The Wisconsin Bankers Association said that it believes access to the accounts “should depend not only on legal eligibility, but also on an institution’s demonstrated capabilities in governance, risk management, internal controls, and compliance.”

Better Markets, a nonpartisan organization that lobbies for financial reform, called the payment accounts an “irresponsible and reckless giveaway to the crypto industry” that should be rescinded.

The group said the accounts would “implicitly and unnecessarily” expand the Fed’s mandate and that the types of companies that would request access to such accounts “present huge risks to the Federal Reserve System and the financial system.”

The Fed will consider the feedback before it makes a final rule on its proposal, which could take months.

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

Just one victim lost $12.2 million in January by copying the wrong address from their transaction history in an “address poisoning attack,” adding to a similar $50 million attack in December, according to Scam Sniffer.

Address poisoning is when attackers send small transactions or “dust” from addresses that look similar to ones in the target’s transaction history, hoping the victim will copy the wrong address.

Scam Sniffer added that signature phishing also surged recently, with $6.27 million stolen from 4,741 victims in January, a 207% increase compared to December.

Two wallets accounted for 65% of all signature phishing losses.

Signature phishing is slightly different as it tricks users into signing malicious blockchain transactions, such as unlimited token approvals.

Address poisoning and signature phishing attacks have increased in January: Source: Scam Sniffer

Address poisoning trend not slowing down 

“Address poisoning is one of the most consistent ways large amounts of crypto get lost,” reported security firm Web3 Antivirus on Thursday.

Some of the biggest address poisoning losses it tracked over time ranged from $4 million to $126 million. “Recent incidents show this trend isn’t slowing down,” they stated. 

Related: Stablecoin ‘dust’ txs on Ethereum triple post-Fusaka: Coin Metrics

The researchers explained that address poisoners “generate full addresses that match the same first/last few characters you see, but the middle is different, so it looks ‘identical.’” 

Dust attacks on Ethereum have surged 

Analysts speculate that the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade in December has contributed to the increase in attacks because it made the network cheaper to use in terms of transaction costs. 

Stablecoin-related dust activity is now estimated to make up 11% of all Ethereum transactions and 26% of active addresses on an average day, reported Coin Metrics earlier in February. 

The firm analyzed over 227 million balance updates for stablecoin wallets on Ethereum from November 2025 through January 2026, finding that 38% were under a single penny — “consistent with millions of wallets receiving tiny poisoning deposits,” it stated. 

Blockchain intelligence firm Whitestream reported on Sunday that the decentralized DAI stablecoin “has gained a reputation as a preferred stablecoin for illicit actors, serving as a ‘parking place’ for illegally sourced funds.”

“This is due to the protocol’s governance, which does not cooperate with authorities in freezing DAI wallets,” it stated, referencing recent address poisoning attacks. 

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

Digital asset manager CoinShares has brushed aside concerns that quantum computers could soon shake up the Bitcoin market, arguing that only a fraction of coins are held in wallets worth attacking.

In a post on Friday, CoinShares Bitcoin research lead Christopher Bendiksen argued that just 10,230 Bitcoin (BTC) of 1.63 million Bitcoin sit in wallet addresses with publicly visible cryptographic keys that are vulnerable to a quantum computing attack.

A little over 7,000 Bitcoin are held in wallets with between 100 and 1,000 BTC, while roughly 3,230 Bitcoin are held in wallets with 1,000 to 10,000 BTC, equating to $719.1 million at current market prices, which Bendiksen said could even resemble a routine trade.

The remaining 1.62 million Bitcoin are held in wallets with holdings under 100 BTC, which Bendiksen claimed would each take a millennium to unlock, even in the “most outlandishly optimistic scenario of technological progression in quantum computing.”

Split of quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin across various holding sizes. Source: CoinShares

The CoinShares researcher said these “theoretical risks” stem from quantum algorithms such as Shor’s, which could break Bitcoin’s elliptic-curve signatures, and Grover’s, which could weaken the Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit (SHA-256).

However, he argued neither quantum algorithm could alter Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap or bypass proof-of-work, two of the Bitcoin network’s most foundational features.

Quantum fears have been among the many drivers of Bitcoin FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in recent months, with critics warning that any compromise of its cryptography could threaten a network that currently secures $1.4 trillion in value.

The Bitcoin at risk are unspent transaction output (UTXO) wallets, which are chunks of Bitcoin tied to wallet addresses that have not been spent. Many of these Bitcoin wallets at risk come from the Satoshi era.

The issue has divided the Bitcoin community over whether to implement a quantum-resistant hard fork or wait. 

Related: Bitcoin ETFs ‘hanging in there’ despite BTC plunge: Analyst 

Some Bitcoiners, such as Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream CEO Adam Back, believe quantum threats are overblown and will not disrupt the network for decades.

Bendiksen shares those views, stating that Bitcoin is “nowhere near dangerous territory,” noting that cracking its cryptography would require millions of fault-tolerant qubits — currently far beyond the 105 qubits achieved by Google’s latest quantum computer, Willow.

“Recent advancements, including demonstrations by Google and others, represent progress but fall short of the scale needed for real-world attacks on Bitcoin.”

Others, such as Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards, view quantum computing as a potential “existential threat” to Bitcoin, arguing that an upgrade is needed now to strengthen network security.

Source: Dom Kwok

Edwards said Bitcoin could be repriced significantly higher once a solution is implemented, which some, like Blockstream researcher Jonas Nick, suggest could involve the adoption of post-quantum signatures.

Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons

The US Federal Reserve is entering into a “gradual” era of money printing that will stimulate asset prices “mildly” but will not be as dramatic as the “big print” that many in the Bitcoin (BTC) community anticipated, according to economist and Bitcoin advocate Lyn Alden.

“My base case is roughly in line with what the Fed expects: to grow its balance sheet approximately at the same proportional pace as total bank assets or nominal gross-domestic product (GDP),” Alden said in her Feb. 8 investment strategy newsletter, adding:

“Overall, it means I continue to want to own high-quality scarce assets, with a tendency to rebalance away from extremely euphoric areas and toward under-owned areas.” 

Federal Reserve M2, a measure of the money supply, continues to expand with time. Source: FRED

The comments followed US President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to be the next Federal Reserve Chairman, which caused a furor among market traders, who perceived Warsh as more hawkish on interest rates than other potential Fed picks.

Interest rate policy can influence crypto prices. Expanding credit by increasing the money supply is typically seen as bullish for assets, and a contraction of the money supply through higher interest rates typically leads to economic slowdown and lower prices.

Related: Bitcoin investor sentiment cools amid US shutdown fears, Fed policy jitters

No rate cut expected at next FOMC meeting

Some 19.9% of traders expect an interest rate cut at the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in March, down from Saturday, when CME Fedwatch showed 23% of respondents forecast a rate cut. 

Target rate probabilities ahead of the March FOMC meeting. Source: CME Group

Current Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has repeatedly issued mixed forward guidance about interest rate policy despite slashing rates several times in 2025. 

“In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside, a challenging situation. There is no risk-free path for policy,” Powell said following the December FOMC meeting.

Powell’s term as Federal Reserve chairman expires in May 2025, and Warsh has yet to be confirmed as the next chairman by the US Senate, fueling investor uncertainty about the direction of interest rate policies in 2026.

Magazine: TradFi fans ignored Lyn Alden’s BTC tip — Now she says it’ll hit 7 figures: X Hall of Flame

Prominent crypto venture capitalists are clashing online about whether non-financial use cases in crypto, Web3, and blockchain have failed due to a lack of investor demand and product-market fit or if the best days for non-financial applications still lay ahead.

The debate started on Friday when Chris Dixon, a managing partner at venture capital firm a16z crypto, published an article arguing that years of “scams, extractive behavior and regulatory attacks” were the reason that non-financial use cases in crypto have not taken off.

These use cases include decentralized social media, digital identity management, decentralized media streaming platforms, digital rights platforms, Web3 video games and more.

Over $60.7 million in fees were paid over the last 24 hours to crypto exchanges and decentralized finance applications. Source: DeFiLlama

“Non-financial use cases for crypto have failed because no one wants them,” Haseeb Quereshi, a managing partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, said in a response on Sunday. He added:

“Let's just admit it. They were bad products. They failed the market test. It was not Gensler or Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) or Terra that caused these things to fail; it was that no one wanted any of it. Pretending otherwise is coping.”

Dixon said that as a16z crypto’s funds are managed with at least a 10-year time horizon, “building new industries takes time.”

The top 10 crypto applications by fee generation and revenue are all financial use cases. Source: DeFiLlama

“You don't have the luxury of ‘waiting to be right’ in VC,” Nic Carter, the founding partner of venture firm Castle Island Ventures, said in a reply to Quereshi. “You need to be right about a market during the 2-3 year fund deployment period,” he said. 

The debate follows a surge of VC investment into crypto projects in 2025, which mostly flowed to tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), physical or traditional financial assets represented onchain by digital tokens.

Related: Web3 revenue shifts from blockchains to wallets and DeFi apps

Different approaches to portfolio building

Dragonfly’s portfolio is built around financial use cases and blockchain infrastructure that helps move value and risk through the onchain financial system.

Some of the firm’s investments include the Agora stablecoin and payments platform, payments infrastructure provider Rain, synthetic dollar issuer Ethena, and the Monad layer-1 blockchain network.

As for a16z, the firm’s crypto portfolio includes many financial use cases like Coinbase and decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap, but also features a much wider range of Web3 sectors like community building, gaming and media streaming.

These projects include the community building club Friends With Benefits, digital identity provider World and Web3 gaming platform Yield Guild Games.

Magazine: Web3 games shuttered, Axie Infinity founder warns more will ‘die’: Web3 Gamer

Google worldwide search volume for “crypto” is hovering near one-year lows, reflecting weak investor sentiment amid a broad market downturn that reduced the total market capitalization of crypto from an all-time high of more than $4.2 trillion to about $2.4 trillion.

Worldwide search volume for “crypto” is 30 out of 100 at the time of this writing, with a reading of 100 indicating the highest level of search interest, which was last reached in August 2025 in parallel with the market capitalization high. The 12-month low is 24, according to Google Trends data. 

Google worldwide search volume for the term “crypto.” Source: Google Trends

Search volume in the US featured a similar pattern, with volume peaking at 100 in July and dropping to below 37 in January. However, US search figures diverged from worldwide volume data by surging back up to 56 in the first week of February. 

The yearly low for the US is 32, which was recorded during the April 2025 market crash fueled by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

Crypto market volume is down sharply, with total market volume dropping from a high of more than $153 billion on Jan. 14 to about $87.5 billion on Sunday, according to CoinMarketCap.

Google stats for US search volume for “crypto.” Source: Google Trends

Google search volume data is often used as a gauge of investor sentiment and corroborates other sentiment indicators like the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a market indicator used to measure crowd sentiment.

Related: Google search volume for 'Bitcoin' skyrockets amid BTC price swings

Investor sentiment craters as Fear & Greed Index hits record lows

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index hit a record low of 5 on Thursday, but inched up to 8 by Sunday, according to CoinMarketCap. Still, both levels signal “extreme fear” in the markets.

Crypto investor sentiment is now at the same levels it was following the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and its dollar-pegged stablecoin in 2022.

The CoinMarketCap Crypto Fear & Greed Index plunges to record lows. Source: CoinMarketCap

The collapse of Terra sent shockwaves through the crypto world, triggering a wave of cascading liquidations that accelerated the 2022 bear market.

Investors are currently searching for social signals that the crypto market has bottomed to time their entries, according to market sentiment analysis platform Santiment.

“Crowd sentiment is fiercely bearish. The ratio of positive to negative commentary has collapsed, with negative comments hitting their highest point since December 1st,” Santiment said in a report published Friday.

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

Top Stories of The Week

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

The Bitcoin network mining difficulty, a metric tracking the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the Bitcoin ledger, fell by about 11.16% in the last 24 hours, the worst drop in a single adjustment period since Chinas 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 about 9.47 minutes, slightly under the 10-minute target.

Difficulty is projected to rise in the next adjustment on February 20 by about 5.63% to 132.96 T, according to CoinWarz.

Vietnam to tax crypto like stocks with 0.1% trading levy: Report

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.

Vitalik Buterin sells $6.6M in ETH after flagging planned withdrawals

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold about 2,961 Ether worth $6.6 million over a three-day period, after previously announcing plans to withdraw some of his holdings.

Blockchain tracker Lookonchain said in a Thursday X post that the transactions were executed at an average price of about $2,228 per Ether.

Ethereums native cryptocurrency traded at around $2,130 at the time of writing, down by more than 5% over the past day, according to CoinMarketCap.

Arkham Intelligence data shows that the ETH sales were routed through CoW Protocol, with multiple small swaps rather than a single block trade. Such transactions are commonly used to reduce market impact.

Telegram’s Durov slams Spain’s online age verification proposal

Pavel Durov, co-founder of the Telegram messaging platform, sounded an alarm about the Spanish governments plan to usher in online age verification and restrict social media platforms for individuals under the age of 16.

The proposed law will lead to increased government-led censorship of online content, breaches of privacy through de-anonymizing users, and mass-surveillance, Durov said on Wednesday.

Pedro Snchezs government is pushing dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms. Announced just yesterday, these measures could turn Spain into a surveillance state under the guise of protection.

Strategy records $12.4B loss in Q4, shares dip 17% as Bitcoin tumbles

The Bitcoin buying company Strategy reported a net loss of $12.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven down by Bitcoins 22% fall over the quarter.

Bitcoin reached a peak high of $126,000 in early October, but tumbled over the quarter ending Dec. 31 to under $88,500. Bitcoin is down 30% so far this year to $64,500, below Strategys average cost per BTC of $76,052.

Strategy (MSTR) said on Thursday that, despite the loss, its Q4 revenues rose 1.9% year-on-year to $123 million, driven in part by its business intelligence arm. However, the recent Bitcoin sell-off saw its shares close 17% lower on Thursday to $107.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $69,184 Ether (ETH) at $2,085 and XRP at $1.41. The total market cap is at $2.37 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are MemeCore (M) at 43.53%, MYX Finance (MYX) at 32.17% and Decred (DCR) at 31.86%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Monero (XMR) at 29.01%, World Liberty Financial (WLFI) at 23.53%, and Pump.fun (PUMP) at 21.88%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraphs market analysis.

Top Prediction of The Week

Coinbase premium hits yearly low, hinting at institutional selling

The Coinbase Premium Gap, which tracks the price difference between Bitcoin on Coinbase and Binance, has fallen to its lowest level in over a year.

An analyst said the move may point to weaker relative demand on Coinbase-linked venues, which are commonly associated with institutional trading.

The Coinbase Premium is the price difference between Coinbases BTC/USD pair and Binances BTC/USDT pair.

When it turns negative to this extent, it means that the price of Bitcoin on Coinbase Advanced Trade (formerly known as Coinbase Pro) a platform mainly used by professionals, institutions and high-net-worth individual accounts is lower than on Binance, a platform accessible to everyone and widely used by retail investors, CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said on Thursday. 

Top FUD of The Week

Bitcoin Core dev Gloria Zhao quits maintainer role after six-year stint

Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao has stepped down as a maintainer and revoked her Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signing key, ending about six years as one of the projects gatekeepers.

On Thursday, Zhao submitted her last pull request to the Bitcoin GitHub repository, removing her key from the trusted keys and withdrawing herself as one of the few maintainers able to update Bitcoins software.

Read also

Features Bitcoin OG Willy Woo has sold most of his Bitcoin: Heres why

Features 5 years of the Top 10 Cryptos experiment and the lessons learned

Becoming the first known female maintainer in 2022, she focused on mempool policy and transaction relay: the rules and peertopeer logic that decide which transactions get into nodes waiting rooms and how quickly they propagate across the network.

Cathie Woods ARK dumps $17M in Coinbase stock as shares fall 37% YTD

ARK Invest, the asset manager led by prominent Bitcoin bull Cathie Wood, has shifted from buying to selling Coinbase stock, as the shares dipped 13% and hit multi-month lows.

On Thursday, ARK offloaded 119,236 Coinbase (COIN) shares, valued at roughly $17.4 million, according to a trade filing seen by Cointelegraph.

The sale comes just a day after a modest 3,510-share ($630,000) purchase on Tuesday, following a series of buys at higher prices earlier in 2026.

This marks ARKs first Coinbase sale of 2026 and its first since August 2025, signaling a shift in trading strategy. The cryptocurrency exchanges stock is down around 37% year-to-date, according to Nasdaq data.

Kyle Samani leaves Multicoin in bittersweet moment to explore new tech

Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani said he is stepping down as managing partner of the crypto investment firm after 10 years in the industry. 

Read also

Features If you want to be great, make enemies: Solana economist Max Resnick

Features Pakistan will deploy Bitcoin reserve in DeFi for yield, says Bilal Bin Saqib

Samani called it a bittersweet moment in a post on Wednesday, adding, I am excited to take some time off and explore new areas of technology, which he later revealed would include AI and robotics.

He added that he is more confident than ever that crypto is going to fundamentally rewire the circuitry of finance.

The Clarity Act will unlock a tidal wave of new entrants and spur adoption unlike anything weve seen, Samani said, adding that he is particularly bullish on Solana and intends to continue making personal investments in the space and supporting Multicoin portfolio companies.

Top Magazine Stories of The Week

Bitcoins biggest bull catalyst would be Saylors liquidation: Santiment founder

Santiment founder Makim Balashevich reveals the most bullish scenario that could play out for Bitcoin in 2026.

Big questions: Should you sell your Bitcoin for nickels for a 43% profit?

Viral posts claim that melting down American nickels is a guaranteed path to profit. We put that theory to the test.

South Korea gets rich from crypto North Korea gets weapons

Crypto drives retail markets and electoral politics in South Korea. In North Korea, it props up a communist dictatorship.

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Bitcoin (BTC) gained up to 3% Sunday, but some traders refused to believe that the BTC price crash was over.

Key points:

Bitcoin price comparisons warn that new macro lows are due if the 2022 bear market continues to repeat.

Moving averages and the cost basis of the US spot Bitcoin ETFs are in focus.

Analysis says that a carbon copy of 2022 is not a certainty.

Bitcoin capitulation “hasn’t happened yet”

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD crossing $71,000, now up 20% versus Friday’s 15-month lows.

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

As the weekly close neared, Bitcoin added characteristic volatility, while market participants remained highly skeptical that the rebound would last.

Uploading a chart to X which compared current BTC price action to the 2022 bear market, independent analyst Filbfilb had no good news for bulls.

“Im not going to try to dress it up any way other than how it looks,” he commented alongside a chart showing spot price versus the 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) at $95,300.

BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Filbfilb/X

Analyst Tony Severino held similar ideas, contributing multiple price indicators and concluding that new lows were all but guaranteed.

Four more for your foresight https://t.co/psM23MQiI2 pic.twitter.com/Qu0Pt5QeUz

— Tony Severino, CMT (@TonySeverinoCMT) February 8, 2026

“$BTC final capitulation hasn't happened yet,” trader BitBull agreed, like Filbfilb referencing 2022. 

“A real bottom will form below $50,000 level where most of the ETF buyers will be underwater.”

US spot Bitcoin ETF data. Source: Checkonchain

The US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) currently have an average buy-in cost of $82,000, per data from monitoring resource Checkonchain.

BTC price deja vu continues

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on a key bear market feature for Bitcoin based on two other trend lines: the 200-week simple (SMA) and exponential moving averages. 

Together, they form a “cloud” of support between $58,000 and $68,000.

In one of his latest market takes at the weekend, Caleb Franzen, creator of analytics resource Cubic Analytics, argued that here too, the ghost of 2022 was in play.

“In May 2022, Bitcoin retested its 200-week MA cloud. Bulls said ‘that's it, we've retested the long-term moving average & can continue higher now.’ Price immediately rebounded on that zone, produced a long wick, & closed above the midpoint of the weekly range,” he summarized.

“But then that rally faded... Price came back into the 200W MA cloud a few weeks later, failed to rebound, then sliced through the cloud in June 2022. What are we seeing right now? The first retest of the 200W MA cloud with a long wick.”

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

Franzen note that the market may not replicate the previous bear market “perfectly.”

“The reality is that no one knows what happens next,” he acknowledged.

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.

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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).

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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.

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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.