Stocks, crypto, and metals tumble amid a broad market selloff fueled by AI disruption fears and shifts in investor sentiment.

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Optimism partners with Succinct to make ZK validity proofs canonical on the OP Stack, enabling faster withdrawals and capital efficiency.

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AI's rapid evolution is reshaping tech markets, pressuring software pricing and sparking volatility in traditional assets.

The post Jim Bianco: AI will surpass the internet in impact, SaaS pricing models are under pressure, and older generations may struggle with AI-driven business models | Bankless appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Warren's critique highlights potential erosion of regulatory integrity, raising concerns about political influence undermining crypto market trust.

The post Elizabeth Warren slams SEC’s Atkins over weak enforcement against Trump-linked crypto firms appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin hits $66K as Standard Chartered slashes price targets for BTC and ETH, warning of weaker institutional demand and macro pressure.

The post Bitcoin drops to $66K as Standard Chartered cuts year-end targets across digital assets appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Thailand Moves to Cement Bitcoin and Digital Assets in Regulated Derivatives Market

Thailand is taking a major step toward integrating digital assets into its regulated financial markets. 

The country’s Cabinet recently approved a proposal allowing digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and tokens, to be used as underlying assets in the derivatives and capital markets. The decision reflects a growing recognition that digital assets are evolving beyond speculative instruments into a legitimate asset class capable of reshaping capital markets.

Nirun Fuwattananukul, chief executive of Binance Thailand, described the move as a “watershed moment” for the country’s capital markets. “It sends a strong signal that Thailand is positioning itself as a forward-looking leader in Southeast Asia’s digital economy,” he told the Bangkok Post.

Under the plan, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will amend the Derivatives Trading Act to formally recognize digital assets as reference assets for derivatives contracts. 

This expansion allows licensed operators to offer contracts tied to crypto, like futures and options, under appropriate regulatory supervision.

“The expansion of permissible goods and variables is designed to support emerging asset classes such as digital assets,” said SEC Secretary-General Pornanong Budsaratragoon. “This will strengthen recognition of crypto as an asset class, enhance portfolio diversification, and improve risk management for investors.”

The SEC is developing detailed rules and licensing frameworks for derivatives brokers, exchanges, and clearinghouses to accommodate crypto-based products. It is also working with the Thailand Futures Exchange (TFEX) to finalize contract specifications that align with the risk characteristics and practical uses of digital assets in trading.

In addition to cryptocurrencies, the amendments reclassify carbon credits as “goods” rather than “variables,” allowing the launch of physically delivered carbon credit futures alongside cash-settled contracts. This initiative aligns with Thailand’s climate change and carbon neutrality objectives, as outlined in the draft Climate Change Act.

Thailand’s bitcoin ETF push

Thailand recently finalized a major regulatory framework aimed at positioning itself as a bitcoin hub in Asia. The country’s SEC said its rolling out rules for bitcoin and crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), futures trading, and tokenized investment products, creating a formal legal foundation for digital assets under existing derivatives law.

The SEC approved crypto ETFs in principle and is now setting operational guidelines covering custody, liquidity, and cooperation between asset managers and licensed exchanges. 

Investors could allocate up to 4–5% of diversified portfolios to digital assets, with domestic ETFs trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, allowing exposure without direct crypto ownership. 

Thailand approved its first spot bitcoin ETF in 2024 and plans to expand to other cryptocurrencies, including ether and diversified baskets.

This post Thailand Moves to Cement Bitcoin and Digital Assets in Regulated Derivatives Market first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy (MSTR) Accounted for 97.5% of Corporate Bitcoin Buying Last Month, Report Shows

The bitcoin corporate adoption world is increasingly dominated by a single player — Strategy — even as adoption among smaller firms continues to grow. 

According to BitcoinTreasuries.net’s January 2026 Corporate Adoption Report, Strategy accounted for more than 90% of net new corporate Bitcoin purchases last month, underscoring its outsized influence on the sector.

January saw Strategy acquire 40,150 BTC, ending the month with a staggering 712,647 BTC on its balance sheet. 

According to the report, these purchases represented 93% of gross public-company buying and 97.5% of net additions after sales, single-handedly restoring sector-wide accumulation to levels last observed in late summer. 

Public companies collectively now hold roughly 1.13 million BTC, with Strategy responsible for nearly two-thirds of that total, according to the report. 

Strategy’s management continues to tie its BTC accumulation to a long-term treasury strategy. In its Q4 2025 disclosure, the firm outlined a seven-year plan that projects roughly 2.5x growth in Bitcoin per share by 2032. 

Under an aggressive scenario assuming a 14% annual Bitcoin yield, Strategy targets 492,000 sats of BTC per share. Even more cautious forecasts imply steady growth in per-share exposure, positioning Strategy as both a large holder and a deliberate duration bet on BTC as a treasury reserve asset.

Earlier this week, Strategy said they bought 1142 bitcoin in the week prior. 

Digital credit is gaining traction

Beneath the headline accumulation story, a new funding layer is emerging. BitcoinTreasuries.net’s digital credit dashboard tracks preferred shares and hybrid instruments that straddle equity and debt. 

Strategy’s own STRC, STRD, STRF, and STRK dominate this space, alongside products from Strive, STRE, and Metaplanet. 

Yields range from roughly 4.9% on Metaplanet’s MERCURY to low-teen rates on Strategy’s STRC and Strive’s SATA.

A core cohort of repeat bitcoin buyers

The corporate Bitcoin market is no longer defined solely by headline names. Among 194 public companies holding Bitcoin, roughly one-third have been adding at least 1 BTC per day on average since adopting a treasury strategy, according to the report.

Twenty firms now accumulate 10 BTC per day or more. Treasury-focused companies continue to lead, collectively adding an average of 357 BTC per day over more than five years, outpacing newer entrants like Twenty One Capital and Bitcoin Strategy Treasury Company.

Mining companies also contribute significantly, holding around 124,833 BTC — about 11% of total public-company holdings — led by MARA, Riot, Hut 8, and CleanSpark. 

Yet, miners turned net sellers in January, with Riot and Bitdeer reducing their balances, leaving the sector with a net loss of 290.9 BTC.

New entrants, tighter concentration

Despite market volatility, new corporate BTC buyers keep emerging. Since October 2025, BitcoinTreasuries.net added 21 new treasuries across South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, and Canada, contributing roughly 880 BTC — about 3% of non-Strategy purchases — signaling growing adoption. 

At the same time, ownership concentration is rising: the largest balance-sheet buyers now control an increasing share of corporate BTC, even as more companies hold smaller amounts.

The “treasury trade” faces a stress test amid a market pullback. BTC dipped below $65,000 in early February, sending treasury-centric stocks down 30–35%. 

Total tracked corporate, ETF, government, and institutional holdings now exceed 4.08 million BTC, with public-company treasuries growing from 620,000 BTC to 1.15 million BTC since early 2025. 

This post Strategy (MSTR) Accounted for 97.5% of Corporate Bitcoin Buying Last Month, Report Shows first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Advances Toward Quantum Resistance with BIP 360 and New P2MR Output

BIP 360, a proposal aimed at preparing Bitcoin for future computing threats, has been updated and merged into the official Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) GitHub repository, marking a new step in efforts to strengthen the network against emerging cryptographic and quantum computing risks. 

The proposal introduces a new Bitcoin output type called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR), designed to support quantum-resistant script tree functionality while maintaining compatibility with existing Tapscript infrastructure, according to a note seen by Bitcoin Magazine.

Supporters of BIP 360 describe the proposal as an early move toward quantum-hardening Bitcoin at the protocol level.

A merge into the BIP repository does not signal endorsement or future activation. BIPs are merged as part of the open process for documenting or discussing potential upgrades.

Bitcoin at risk from Quantum computing in theory

Quantum computing has raised concerns across the cryptography and cybersecurity fields because sufficiently advanced machines may be able to break widely used cryptographic systems. In Bitcoin’s case, the threat centers on the possibility that computers could derive private keys from exposed public keys, which could lead to stolen funds.

While all Bitcoin addresses become vulnerable when spending reveals a public key, some output types carry greater exposure. 

Taproot addresses, along with Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) outputs and reused addresses, are considered more at risk because public keys are visible on-chain.

P2MR is conceptually similar to Taproot but removes a key weakness. Taproot includes a key-path spending method that can expose public keys. The proposed P2MR output type disables that key-path spend and commits only to the script path, reducing the surface area for potential attacks.

The BIP’s authors say the proposal is meant to serve as a foundation for later upgrades that could introduce post-quantum signature schemes into Bitcoin through follow-on soft forks. The note points to algorithms such as ML-DSA (Dilithium) and SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+) as possible candidates.

“Ultimately, the introduction of BIP 360 and P2MR is a first step in a larger set of quantum-resistance proposals that will be necessary to quantum-harden Bitcoin,” said co-author Hunter Beast, a Bitcoin developer and senior protocol engineer at MARA. 

Beast added that the team is also exploring proposals to address vulnerable coins that are unlikely to move, including long-dormant holdings.

The latest update adds Isabel Foxen Duke as a co-author alongside Beast and cryptographic researcher Ethan Heilman.

Duke, a technical communications specialist, said the goal was to make the proposal understandable beyond the developer community.

“Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, we aimed to ensure the BIP was written in a manner that was clear and understandable to the general public,” Duke said.

The proposal arrives as governments and major technology firms increase investment in post-quantum cryptography. 

The U.S. National Security Agency’s CNSA 2.0 framework calls for quantum-safe systems by 2030, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology plans to phase out elliptic curve cryptography in federal systems in the mid-2030s.

Supporters argue that BIP 360 aligns Bitcoin with a broader shift toward quantum-safe security standards, positioning the network to adapt as computing capabilities advance.

This post Bitcoin Advances Toward Quantum Resistance with BIP 360 and New P2MR Output first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s Next Stop Might Be $50,000, Not the Moon, Says Standard Chartered Analyst

itcoin is at risk of deeper losses as risk appetite fades and macro pressure builds, according to Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research Geoff Kendrick.

In a note reported on by Bloomberg, Kendrick said weaker U.S. economic momentum and reduced expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts have weighed on crypto markets. He added that falling digital-asset ETF holdings have removed a key source of demand.

Kendrick warned bitcoin could drop to $50,000 and Ethereum could fall toward $1,400 before stabilizing later in the year. BTC trades near $67,869 after reaching a 16-month low of $60,008 last week.

Standard Chartered cut its year-end bitcoin forecast by a third, lowering its 2026 target to $100,000 from $150,000. The bank cited deteriorating macro conditions and the risk of further investor capitulation.

Bitcoin has already suffered a major correction, falling as much as 50% from its October 2025 record high at its worst close on Feb. 5. Standard Chartered estimates only half of BTC supply remains in profit, a sharp decline though less severe than in prior bear cycles.

The bank pointed to an unsupportive interest-rate backdrop as a key headwind. 

Markets have pushed back expectations for Fed easing, with investors now looking for the first cut later in the year. Kendrick said uncertainty around future Fed leadership has added to caution.

ETF flows also remain a concern. Standard Chartered estimated bitcoin ETF holdings have dropped by almost 100,000 BTC from their October 2025 peak. With an average purchase price near $90,000, many ETF investors now hold unrealized losses, raising the chance of additional selling pressure.

Despite the near-term downgrade, the bank maintained a constructive longer-term outlook. Kendrick noted that on-chain usage data continues to improve and the current downturn has not triggered major platform failures, unlike the 2022 cycle that saw collapses such as Terra/Luna and FTX.

Standard Chartered continues downgrading Bitcoin

Back in December of last year, Standard Chartered halved its forecasts, seeing Bitcoin at $100,000 by end-2025 and $150,000 by end-2026, while keeping a $500,000 target pushed out to 2030. Bitcoin did not hit $100,000 by the end of 2025.

The bank cited fading corporate treasury demand and slowing ETF flows at the time. Geoffrey Kendrick said corporate accumulation has “run its course,” leaving ETF inflows as the main driver.

Bitcoin is currently trading near $67,000, per Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.

This post Bitcoin’s Next Stop Might Be $50,000, Not the Moon, Says Standard Chartered Analyst first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase ($COIN) in Limbo as CEO Continues Selling Shares, Analysts Issue Downgrades

Shares of the largest publicly traded U.S. crypto exchange, Coinbase, fell this week as the broader crypto market takes a hit in prices, and as the market grapples with news insider selling and analyst predictions. 

Monness Crespi & Hardt downgraded $COIN from “buy” to “neutral,” citing downside risk tied to weakening crypto market conditions. The firm set a price target of $120, implying more than 20% downside from recent trading levels.

The downgrade comes as the stock has struggled in early 2026 amid a broader pullback in digital assets. COIN opened Thursday around $153, down nearly 10% from intra-week highs, and is now off roughly 34% since the start of the year.

Coinbase’s decline reflects the cooling of crypto markets after last year’s rally. Bitcoin has fallen about 30% over the past month, while major altcoins have posted even steeper losses. The downturn has reduced trading volumes across the sector, squeezing one of Coinbase’s core revenue drivers.

Analysts are critical of Coinbase ($COIN)

Analysts across Wall Street have begun revising their forecasts. JPMorgan recently cut its Coinbase price target by 27%, pointing to lower spot trading volumes, declining crypto market capitalization, and weakening stablecoin activity, including softer USDC circulation.

“We view global crypto spot trading as highly fragmented, with dozens of smaller players threatening Coinbase’s market share,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note shared with Decrypt, warning that Coinbase could lose the “regulated monopoly” it has enjoyed as the only major publicly traded crypto exchange for several years.

Other firms have also adjusted their outlooks. 

Cantor Fitzgerald reduced its target price from $277 to $221 while maintaining an overweight rating. Citi trimmed its own target from $505 to $400 but kept a buy stance, reflecting longer-term optimism despite near-term headwinds.

The stock now holds a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy,” with 19 analysts rating the stock a buy, 12 assigning a hold, and one issuing a sell. The average price target across analysts stands near $332, suggesting many still see upside from current levels.

Brian Armstrong is dumping some of his shares

VanEck’s head of digital assets research Matthew Sigel reported that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has sold more than 1.5 million shares between April 2025 and January 2026, worth approximately $545 million based on Bloomberg pricing data. 

The largest single sale occurred on June 25, when Armstrong disposed of 336,265 shares at roughly $355 per share.

Armstrong responded publicly on X, defending his selling as a diversification move after more than a decade with most of his wealth tied to one company.

“It would be a little crazy after 13 years, to have 99.999% of your net worth in one stock,” Armstrong wrote at the time, adding that he remains “super long” on Coinbase and has used proceeds to start new companies.

H.C. Wainwright analyst Mike Colonnese recently warned Coinbase could miss on net revenue and adjusted EBITDA, driven by soft digital asset prices and unrealized crypto losses. He also flagged the possibility of a large headline earnings loss due to Coinbase’s crypto holdings and its stake in Circle.

“We would not be surprised to see shares trade lower on the optics of a large reported net loss,” Colonnese wrote, though he maintained a buy rating and said he would view post-earnings weakness as a buying opportunity.

All this is happening as the Bitcoin price extended its steep decline today after a multi-month-long slide that erased more than half of its value from its October peak, with the Bitcoin price now trading near $66,000 following a sharp sell-off that pushed prices toward $60,000.

Since roughly December 2025, the bitcoin price has followed a pretty straightforward downward trajectory, falling from levels above $100,000 into a volatile range that has kept traders focused on whether the market has reached a durable floor.

This post Coinbase ($COIN) in Limbo as CEO Continues Selling Shares, Analysts Issue Downgrades first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Cardano is aggressively expanding the types of tokens that can operate on its network and raise the ceiling for its decentralized finance ecosystem over the next 12 to 18 months.

On Feb. 12, the Charles Hoskinson-led blockchain announced it would integrate with LayerZero, a widely used cross-chain messaging system.

This move represents the single largest interoperability unlock in Cardano’s history as LayerZero connects over 160 blockchains and has facilitated more than $200 billion in cross-chain volume.

A pipeline into 400 tokens and $80 billion in omnichain assets

LayerZero’s core value proposition is its chain-agnostic messaging layer. This means that applications can send and receive messages between endpoints, regardless of the execution model on the underlying chains.

For Cardano, this enables direct access to major blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Sui, and more than 140 others, without changing its underlying model.

That model difference has been a practical hurdle. Cardano is built on an extended UTXO architecture, the same foundational approach as Bitcoin, which is designed for determinism, predictability, and security.

However, much of the broader crypto economy runs on account-based architectures, including Ethereum, Solana, and Base. Because much cross-chain tooling has been designed primarily for account-based systems, Cardano has often faced additional friction when accessing cross-chain liquidity.

LayerZero’s integration is positioned to address that tooling gap. It does not require Cardano to become account-based. Instead, it routes interoperability through messaging endpoints.

If Cardano becomes a supported endpoint, it becomes part of the same connectivity layer that many projects already use to coordinate cross-chain actions.

The most direct asset-level implication comes from the OFT standard.

OFTs are designed to exist natively across multiple blockchains while maintaining a single, unified supply through a burn-and-mint mechanism. A token is burned on one chain and minted on another, coordinated through the messaging layer.

This design reduces reliance on traditional token wrapping and on liquidity pools that sit between users and the assets they want to move.

The scale of that catalog is what makes the LayerZero integration meaningful in a Cardano context. More than 400 tokens, with a combined market capitalization of more than $80 billion, already use the OFT standard.

While Cardano does not automatically inherit the liquidity, it provides a technical pathway for those live assets to expand to Cardano.

Why Cardano is pushing interoperability now

Cardano has spent years leaning into a development style built around formal methods and a security-first posture.

It has also spent years contending with a practical drawback, it has not been as connected to the broader multichain economy as many other networks, and that has limited how much liquidity and application activity it can compete for.

The timing is important because Cardano’s DeFi starting point is modest enough that incremental changes can have visible effects.

DefiLlama data show Cardano with roughly $125 million in total value locked, about $37 million in stablecoin market capitalization, and around $2 million in 24-hour DEX volume. Those numbers are small relative to the largest DeFi venues, which is why interoperability is being viewed as a potential catalyst.

This is where LayerZero’s value to Cardano becomes concrete.

If Cardano becomes an endpoint for a system that already spans more than 160 blockchains, and if it becomes a viable deployment target for more than 400 OFT tokens with more than $80 billion in combined market capitalization, Cardano does not need to win a large share of global liquidity for its on-chain profile to change.

But the mechanism is not automatic. Cardano needs actual deployments and actual usage. It needs stablecoins that sit on Cardano long enough to support trading and lending.

It needs tokenized assets that become collateral, not just transitory flows. It needs applications that draw users who would otherwise stay on other networks.

So, supporters of the integration argue it would make categories of assets that have been difficult to use on Cardano more accessible, including stablecoins, Bitcoin-linked liquidity, tokenized real-world assets, and DeFi building blocks.

This includes lending assets, governance tokens, and liquid staking derivatives that already operate across many networks through LayerZero.

What it changes for builders and for users

For developers, the integration is positioned as a shift from building for a single network to building for a distribution layer.

This means Cardano developers can build omnichain applications using LayerZero’s OApp standard, the same framework used by projects including Ethena, PayPal, BitGo, Stargate, and many other protocols.

Moreover, it means a team can build on Cardano while still reaching users and liquidity across LayerZero-connected chains.

For context, a lending protocol on Cardano could source collateral from Ethereum, or a stablecoin product could launch on Cardano and distribute across other ecosystems from the start.

The key point is that Cardano’s developer experience and chain model do not need to change. What expands is the addressable market.

For users, the shift is framed more simply. The integration is supposed to remove barriers that have made certain assets and strategies easier on other chains than on Cardano.

Stablecoins from other ecosystems could be brought to Cardano without complex workflows and assets held on Hoskinson-led network could more easily move into the broader crypto economy.

LayerZero’s Stargate product is also part of the rollout story.

Stargate is the largest cross-chain bridge by volume its unified-liquidity model enables asset transfers without fragmentation or wrapped-token designs, emphasizing native asset movement between chains.

For Cardano users, this would mean a widely used transfer interface becomes directly available within its ecosystem.

What comes next, and how the market will judge it

The most important near-term milestone is implementation.

The integration involves deploying LayerZero Endpoint smart contracts on Cardano, with OFT-compatible token support to follow.

Cardano backers have also emphasized that the network is investing in critical infrastructure in parallel, including stablecoins, cross-chain connectivity, custody solutions, and institutional tooling.

The argument is that LayerZero is just one component of a broader effort to make Cardano a place where assets can arrive and stay.

That is the core test. Interoperability can make assets technically accessible. It does not automatically make them sticky.

The next few quarters will show whether OFT token issuers actually extend to Cardano, whether stablecoin balances grow from the current roughly $37 million base, and whether Cardano’s DeFi activity rises in a sustained way from roughly $125 million in TVL and about $2 million in daily DEX volume.

If those metrics move together, the LayerZero integration will look like more than plumbing. It will look like a distribution.

If they do not, Cardano will still have expanded its connectivity, but it will also have reinforced a familiar lesson in crypto markets: interoperability is increasingly necessary, but demand still has to be earned

The post New Cardano deal opens a path to $80 billion in omnichain assets, but liquidity still isn’t guaranteed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin can bottom soon because a 2026 recession, or a stock market crash, keeps looking like the outlier scenario

My core idea around the Bitcoin market has remained the same since last September, before we hit the all-time high in October.

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I laid it out clearly in my medium-term $49,000 Bitcoin bear thesis published on Nov. 24, 2025, and revisited it again on Jan. 30, 2026.

Across both pieces, the argument didn’t change:

Bitcoin still trades in cycles, the real “this is the low” moment tends to arrive when miner economics and institutional flows align, and the eventual bottom print usually feels mechanical rather than emotional.

Since then, the debate around 2026 has drifted into a familiar place, people (especially on social media) keep trying to tie Bitcoin’s next move to a looming global recession, or a stock market crash that forces everything to liquidate together.

I get why that story is attractive. It is clean, it is cinematic, it gives everyone a single thing to blame.

It also feels less and less like the base case.

If you look at the big macro forecasts, they invoke slowdown language, not breakage language.

The IMF has global growth projected at 3.3% for 2026. The World Bank sees global growth easing to 2.6% in 2026, and it frames the world as resilient even with trade tension noise. The OECD projects global GDP growth easing to 2.9% in 2026.

Then you have the crowd-sourced version of the same idea.

On Polymarket, the odds of a US recession by the end of 2026 have been sitting around the low 20s, a market that is basically telling you recession risk is real, yet it is not the central expectation.

Jobs are the first place that story really gets tested, because jobs are how regular people experience the economy. Here, the data turned into a genuine warning light, and also a reminder that slowdown and crash live in different lanes.

The BLS benchmark revision shows total nonfarm job growth in 2025 was cut to 181,000, down from 584,000. That kind of revision changes the texture of the whole macro debate, and it fits what many people felt through 2025, hiring slowed, job switches became harder, and a lot of white-collar momentum cooled.

The same BLS release shows unemployment at 4.3% in January 2026, and payrolls up 130,000 that month, with gains led by health care and social assistance. That is a cooling labor market, and also a labor market that keeps moving, which helps explain why stocks can stay levitated while people argue about recession around the dinner table.

That gap between how the system feels and how the indices trade is exactly why I keep separating Bitcoin’s cycle mechanics from the global doom narrative. A recession can still land in 2026, yet markets keep treating it as a minority outcome.

That macro framing matters for Bitcoin, because it means the next big drawdown does not need a global fire to start. It can be a local fire, leverage gets flushed, miners get forced into mechanical selling, ETF flows keep leaking, and the market prints the level where the buyer base changes character.

Bitcoin is already down into the high $60,000s, equities have kept making fresh highs, and the disconnect is the whole story. The chart looks like a typical cooling phase, the internals have felt like winter for weeks.

So, when I say a 2026 recession, or stock crash, feels like the outlier scenario, I mean the base case has shifted. The world looks like it can absorb friction, even if it stays politically messy.

That leaves Bitcoin with a simple setup, it can still print a cycle floor because of Bitcoin-specific mechanics.

Jobs are the macro stress test, and the test points to a grind

If you want one chart that explains why recession talk got louder, it is the annual jobs added or lost series since 2000.

The pandemic contraction sits like a crater, the rebound years tower above everything, and 2025 looks tiny by comparison. The revised BLS figure of just 181,000 jobs added in 2025 is a number that makes people pay attention.

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The practical point is the shape of the slowdown. January 2026 job growth was concentrated in essential services, health care and social assistance in particular, per the same BLS report.

Federal government payrolls also kept shrinking, with the report noting a sizable decline from its October 2024 peak. This is the kind of labor market that can feel rough on the ground while the headline unemployment rate stays relatively calm.

Weak hiring increases recession risk, it also increases the odds of policy easing and lower real yields as the year goes on. Polymarket’s end-2026 rate market has traders clustering in the low-to-mid threes on Polymarket, which matches the idea of a slower economy that eventually pulls rates down.

This is the crux for Bitcoin. Jobs can push policymakers toward easier conditions, and easier conditions can arrive without a global crash. A slow grind still creates stress inside crypto, because crypto runs on reflex, leverage, and plumbing.

Debt and corporate failures scream loud

There is one more corner of the macro picture that matters here, it just sits lower down the stack than GDP forecasts and stock charts.

Corporate failures have been climbing, and the count is high enough to change how the cycle feels even while the headline economy keeps walking forward. S&P data showed qualifying U.S. corporate bankruptcy filings hit 785 in 2025, the highest annual total since 2010, with December alone printing 72 filings.

The month to month read through is simple, refinancing got harder, interest expense stayed sticky, and the weakest balance sheets started to snap, one by one. Market Intelligence also showed the pace was already running hot by midyear, with first half 2025 filings at the highest level since 2010.

On the household side, the stress is even easier to picture, because it shows up at the checkout line. The NY Fed reported total household debt hit $18.8 trillion in Q4 2025, up $191 billion in the quarter, with credit card balances at $1.28 trillion.

Credit card distress has been rising too, the NY Fed charts show around 13% of credit card balances were 90+ days delinquent in Q4 2025, and the quarterly transition into 90+ day delinquency for credit cards sat around 7% of balances.

Younger borrowers are carrying the sharpest edge of that pressure, the NY Fed age breakdown shows 18–29 running around the 9–10% zone for serious delinquency transitions on credit cards, with 30–39 close behind.

This mix changes the tone of 2026. It looks like a late-cycle grind where cracks spread through weaker corners, and policymakers get pulled closer to the easing playbook as the year goes on.

That matters for Bitcoin because Bitcoin trades the path of liquidity, risk appetite, and forced selling, long before a recession label ever shows up on a calendar.

The macro read-through for 2026 looks like friction, not collapse

The reason I keep pushing back on the “everything must crash together” framing is that the world’s forward-looking plumbing keeps pointing to a muddle-through environment.

The IMF describes the global economy as steady, with technology investment and adaptability offsetting trade policy headwinds. The World Bank uses the word resilient, and it explicitly talks about easing financial conditions cushioning the slowdown. The OECD highlights fragilities, but it still sits in a forecast world where growth continues.

On the higher-frequency side, the J.P.Morgan Global Composite PMI for January printed 52.5, and S&P Global’s own read-through says that level has historically lined up with global GDP running around a 2.6% annualised pace. That is boring growth, it is also growth.

Trade is the other place people expect to see the world cracking first, and it is complicated there too. The UNCTAD trade update going into 2026 talks about pressure from fragmentation and regulation, but pressure is different to collapse. The Kiel Trade Indicator is useful here because it sits closer to real-time than most macro data, and it helps you separate shipping drama from actual demand conditions.

The Bitcoin security budget looks like winter already arrived

My original bear thesis leaned on miner economics for a reason. Miner economics is where Bitcoin’s real-world costs meet its market structure.

On Jan. 29, miners earned about $37.22 million in daily revenue. On the same date, total transaction fees paid per day were about $260,550.

That fee share works out to roughly 0.7%.

That number matters because it tells you how the chain is being secured in practice. Fees have been a rounding error, the system has been leaning on issuance, and issuance steps down on schedule. That forces the burden back onto price, and hash economics, when conditions get tighter.

You can feel it in the live fee market too. The mempool feed has had next-block median fee projections that look sleepy for long stretches, exactly the kind of environment where a sharp price leg can arrive without any “macro” headline attached.

This is why the $49,000 to $52,000 zone still makes sense to me as a cycle floor. It is the level where the market tends to stop debating narratives and starts transferring inventory, from forced sellers and impatient holders to allocators who have been waiting for a number they can size into.

The ETF era gave us a clean stress gauge, and the gauge has been flashing

The second pillar of my framework is flow elasticity, and the ETF pipe is the cleanest version of that idea.

In late January, flows looked like risk appetite was leaking out even while the price was trying to hold together.

On Farside, there were multiple heavy outflow prints, including roughly -$708.7 million on Jan. 21 and -$817.8 milion on Jan. 29, and the year-to-date total was negative by around -$1.095 billion at the time of my Jan. 30 check-in. Since then, total yearly flows have reached -$1.8 billion, with $1 billion leaving Fidelity's FBTC alone.

Those are the kinds of numbers that change the psychology of dips. In the friendly version of the ETF era, down days bring steady net buying, because allocators treat weakness like inventory. In the stressed version, the pipe becomes a drain, and the market has to find a clearing price that turns the drain back into a bid.

The important part is that this dynamic can play out while the rest of the world looks fine. Stocks can grind higher, growth forecasts can stay intact, and Bitcoin can still have a violent internal reset because its dominant marginal buyer and seller are now visible through a daily flow table.

Miners are running two businesses now, and that changes how drawdowns feel

The public-interest angle in this cycle is that miners have stopped being simple Bitcoin margin machines.

A lot of them now look like power and infrastructure operators, with a Bitcoin division attached.

That shift matters for two reasons.

First, it changes survival math. If you have a second revenue stream, you can keep the lights on through a low-fee environment, and you can keep financing capex even when hash economics feel tight.

Second, it changes behaviour under stress. A miner with a compute roadmap might sell Bitcoin more mechanically to fund buildouts, or protect liquidity for power contracts, or curtail in ways that make network conditions more elastic at the exact moment the market wants stability.

You can see the shape of this shift in public announcements. TeraWulf signed long-duration AI hosting agreements tied to large-scale capacity, with Google involved in the structure per the company’s release. DataCenterDynamics reported that Riot has been evaluating options to pivot capacity toward AI and HPC as well.

Zoom out and picture what that means on the ground. Teams negotiating power, managing shareholders, planning data halls, buying machines, and still competing in the harshest hash race on earth. That is a lot of moving parts, and moving parts create reflexive market behaviour when the price starts sliding.

This is why I believe the market feels like winter under the hood even when the chart has not delivered the full cathartic flush yet.

Why a $49k-style bottom still fits, even if 2026 stays economically boring

Put the pieces together and the path is pretty simple.

Macro looks resilient enough that a synchronized global risk event has slipped out of the centre lane. The Polymarket recession odds reflect that. The growth forecasters, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, sit in the same neighbourhood.

Bitcoin’s internals still look strained, fees as a share of miner revenue have been tiny, ETF flows have shown real risk-off windows, and the fee market has looked lethargic on mempool.

That combination builds tension.

Tension usually resolves with a fast move, two or three sharp legs lower, a moment where leverage gets rinsed, and a new buyer base steps in with conviction.

One more thing ties this together, the stress building in the real economy has started to show up in places that markets often ignore until they cannot.

The S&P bankruptcy counts and the NY Fed delinquency charts both point to the same reality, a lot of companies and households are running out of slack at the margin. That does not require a stock market crash to matter.

It tightens credit, it drags on discretionary spending, it raises the odds that rates drift lower over time, and it sets up the kind of policy response that tends to arrive after the strain becomes obvious in the data.

A final flush can still happen on Bitcoin specific mechanics, fees staying depressed, miner economics getting squeezed, ETF flow tables staying sloppy. The macro layer adds a second ingredient, a world where stress rises quietly, and the path toward easier conditions gets shorter.

If the market delivers the mechanical reset, the liquidity regime can turn friendlier on the other side of it, and that is the part of the story I care about most.

My $49,000 to $52,000 zone is still my base case for that kind of transfer. It is close enough to feel plausible from here, and it is psychologically clean enough to attract size, especially from allocators who have been waiting for sub-$50,000 to treat Bitcoin as inventory.

The macro wildcards still exist, and they always will. Geopolitics can always break the neat forecast world. The market for a China-Taiwan escalation has been actively traded on Polymarket, and those odds move fast when headlines hit.

My focus stays boring on purpose. Fees, ETF flows, miner behaviour.

If those stay weak while price keeps bleeding, the odds of a sharp print into the $40,000s stay alive, even if the world economy keeps trudging forward and stocks keep acting like nothing is wrong.

The post Bitcoin price looks to bottom out near $50,000 as recession fears retreat despite scary headlines appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ethereum's slide toward $2,000 has left its exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors holding more than $5 billion in paper losses, extending a marketwide crypto drawdown that has also hit Bitcoin.

According to CryptoSlate's data, the move has tracked a broader risk-off wave that has pushed the global crypto market value down by $2 trillion since October’s peak, with BTC and ETH both under pressure as volatility spread through other risk assets, including tech shares.

The difference for Ethereum is that a growing share of the exposure now sits inside products built for traditional portfolios, where performance is marked daily, and selling can be executed as quickly as any other listed security.

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Feb 7, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Quantifying Ethereum ETF holders losses

Over the past week, Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart has argued that the typical US spot Ethereum ETF holder is in a weaker position than Bitcoin ETF buyers.

In a post on X, he estimated the average cost basis for Ethereum ETF holders at around $3,500, and with ETH trading under $2,000, the drawdown for the average ETF holder is roughly 44%.

Applying that drawdown to about $12 billion of remaining net inflows yields paper losses of about $5.3 billion.

The magnitude reflects how the ETF era concentrates exposure.

Capital was gathered when prices were higher, and the performance of that cohort is now captured in a daily-marked vehicle held in brokerage accounts alongside equities and other liquid risk exposures.

Seyffart’s framing also highlights the relative gap versus Bitcoin's ETF cohort.

He described Ethereum ETF holders as in a worse position than their Bitcoin counterparts, based on the gap between the current Ether price and the group’s estimated average entry price.

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Feb 6, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

ETF flows show holders stayed put, even as broader fund data turned negative

Seyffart said the latest leg down pushed ETH ETF investors into a drawdown of more than 60% at the most recent bottom, broadly comparable to the percentage decline Ethereum experienced around its April 2025 low.

Tom Lee, BitMine’s chair, has emphasized how frequently Ethereum has experienced declines of that magnitude.

He said that since 2018, ETH has recorded a drawdown of 60% or worse seven times in eight years. He described the pattern as roughly annual and also pointed to 2025, when ETH declined by 64%.

That record does not soften current losses. It does, however, situate today’s price action within a recurring pattern that has characterized ETH's market history, sharp drawdowns followed by periods of recovery.

The central question for the ETF era is whether a broader base of holders, including investors who prefer regulated brokerage products, responds to those swings in the same way as prior cycles.

Daily flow data has become the most direct tool for measuring that behavior.

On Feb. 11, US spot Ethereum ETFs recorded a net outflow of $129.1 million, led by large outflows from Fidelity’s FETH and BlackRock’s ETHA. A day earlier, on Feb. 10, the complex posted a net inflow of $13.8 million from the same dataset.

The reversal highlighted uneven positioning, with capital moving in both directions rather than exiting in a single wave.

The broader flow picture still points to a cohort that has not fully unwound.

Seyffart’s estimate that net inflows declined from about $15 billion to below $12 billion suggests meaningful redemptions, but not a wholesale retreat relative to the price decline from the $3,500 area toward $2,000.

That relative stickiness matters because ETFs compress decision-making. Investors do not need to move coins or change custody.

Exposure can be reduced the same way an equity position is trimmed, and advisors can rebalance within standard portfolio processes. In a risk-off market, that convenience can accelerate selling. It can also support holding behavior among investors who are prepared to absorb volatility.

Break-even near $3,500 could shape the next cycle’s market structure

If Seyffart’s estimate is close to accurate, around $3,500 functions as an approximate break-even level for the average Ethereum ETF holder.

During recovery, a return to that level can shift the emphasis from losses to repair. For investors who established exposure through a regulated wrapper, approaching break-even can influence whether allocations are increased, maintained, or reduced.

However, this level may also generate selling pressure. Investors who have endured a drawdown to $2,000 may opt to exit once they have recovered their initial capital.

Such selling is driven by portfolio constraints rather than by technical analysis, and ETFs exacerbate this behavior by clustering buyers within similar cost-basis ranges.

That means two paths could define the next phase.

One is macro stabilization, in which risk appetite improves, and ETFs shift from uneven leakage to renewed inflows, a dynamic that can amplify upside because the wrapper is liquid and accessible.

The alternative scenario involves a retest of the $1,800 zone, accompanied by negative flows, which would challenge the resolve of the remaining cohort.

For ETF holders, the near-term question is more operational than predictive: how will the cohort behave if ETH climbs back toward its break-even zone, and whether that level draws renewed demand or becomes a point at which selling accelerates.

The post Ethereum price decline is testing Wall Street as ETF flows flip while a $1,800 retest looms appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Vitalik Buterin just published a research proposal that sidesteps the question everyone keeps asking: can blockchains run AI models?

Instead, the research claims Ethereum as the privacy-preserving settlement layer for metered AI and API usage. The post, co-authored with Davide Crapis on Ethereum Research, argues that the real opportunity isn't putting LLMs on-chain.

The real opportunity lies in building the infrastructure that enables agents and users to pay for thousands of API calls without compromising identity or creating surveillance trails through billing data.

The timing is critical because agentic AI is moving from demonstrations to enterprise roadmaps. Gartner forecasts that 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from under 5% in 2025.

That shift implies a world in which software autonomously generates massive volumes of API calls, making billing rails strategic infrastructure rather than back-office plumbing.

Current metering systems force a choice between Web2 identity billing, which relies on API keys and credit cards and leaks profiling data, and on-chain pay-per-call models that are too slow, too expensive, and link activity through transparent transaction graphs.

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The proposal introduces ZK API usage credits, a payment and anti-abuse primitive built on Rate-Limiting Nullifiers.

RLN is a zero-knowledge gadget designed to prevent spam in anonymous systems, and the research repurposes it for metered access to services.

The flow proceeds as follows: users deposit funds once into a smart contract, and their commitment is added to an on-chain Merkle tree.

Each API request includes a zero-knowledge proof demonstrating that the user is a valid depositor with sufficient credit for the requested index.

If a user attempts to reuse a ticket index, double-spending their allowance, RLN allows the system to recover their secret and slash their stake as an economic penalty.

The post includes concrete examples. A user deposits 100 USDC and makes 500 hosted LLM queries. Another deposits 10 USDC for 10,000 Ethereum RPC calls.

The architecture is explicitly designed for “many calls per deposit,” meaning that on-chain activity scales with the number of accounts and settlement frequency rather than raw inference volume.

Variable-cost support adds flexibility: users prepay a maximum cost per call, servers return signed refund tickets for unused amounts, and users privately accumulate refunds to unlock more calls without additional deposits.

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Feb 4, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Infrastructure is already there

The proposal arrives when the payment substrate for usage credits already exists at scale.

Stablecoins have a circulating market cap of approximately $307.6 billion, according to DefiLlama, indicating that the on-chain dollar layer is sufficiently liquid to support deposit-based billing for high-frequency services.

Ethereum's scaling stack has matured to the point where rollups process far more activity than layer-1, with L2Beat showing a roughly 100x scaling factor, with rollups handling thousands of operations per second compared to tens on the Ethereum mainnet.

Average Ethereum transaction fees recently measured around $0.21 on Feb. 7, suggesting that occasional on-chain metering and settlement flows are feasible without prohibitive cost.

The design explicitly avoids putting LLMs on-chain. Ethereum competes on neutral settlement, programmable escrow, and verifiable enforcement, not TPU cycles or inference speed.

The architecture treats inference as an off-chain service and the blockchain as the layer that makes payment, metering, and dispute resolution credible, without requiring users to trust individual providers or to reveal their identities.

If AI service providers accept deposits and rely on Ethereum or layer 2 smart contracts to adjudicate slashing, refunds, and disputes, Ethereum becomes the enforcement layer for AI commerce.

The model parallels how Ethereum became the settlement layer for stablecoins and DeFi, not by hosting the full application stack on-chain, but by providing a neutral substrate where economic agreements are enforced programmatically.

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Scenarios without hype

The on-chain footprint is bounded by settlement cadence, not raw call volume.

In a crypto-native wedge scenario targeting RPC and infrastructure APIs, suppose 250,000 power users or agents adopt usage credits.

If each performs two on-chain actions per month, a deposit or top-up plus a withdrawal, that generates roughly 500,000 transactions monthly attributable to the rail.

In an AI provider adoption scenario, imagine one million users employ privacy-preserving credits across hosted LLM services but still perform only one to three on-chain actions monthly.

That implies one million to three million transactions per month tied to AI commerce rails, likely concentrated on layer 2s where execution is cheaper.

Enterprise agent scenarios increase deposit sizes, raising the stakes for credible enforcement and making slashing mechanisms more consequential.

The metadata problem

The proposal tries to make payments unlinkable, but the research thread itself highlights a potential weakness.

A commenter argues that even if nullifiers are cryptographically unlinkable, servers can correlate users through inference-based metadata such as timing patterns, token counts, and cache hits.

The critique proposes bucketed pricing, with fixed input and output classes, to reduce leakage. That tension between cryptographic privacy and behavioral metadata is central to whether the design actually delivers on its anonymity goals.

Implementation reality presents another hurdle. The proposal uses RLN as a primitive, but the Privacy and Scaling Explorations project page notes that RLN is inactive or has been sunset.

Productionizing ZK API usage credits likely requires maintaining forks or implementing new solutions rather than relying on existing tooling.

RLNJS benchmarks report roughly 800 milliseconds for proof generation and 130 milliseconds for verification on an M2 Mac, providing an early sanity check on performance but leaving open questions about mobile constraints and production-grade circuits at scale.

The proposal also assumes that providers will integrate the deposit-and-proof flow, accept stablecoin settlements, and adopt Ethereum or layer 2 contracts for dispute resolution.

That's a coordination problem, not just a technical one. Web2 API providers have existing billing infrastructure and regulatory clarity around identity-linked transactions.

Convincing them to adopt a ZK-based alternative requires demonstrating either a compelling cost advantage or a differentiated market segment in which privacy-preserving billing unlocks revenue they could not otherwise capture.

What this means for Ethereum

If the design gains traction, Ethereum's value proposition shifts further toward serving as a neutral enforcement layer for digital commerce rather than a general-purpose computing platform.

The proposal treats blockchain as the settlement substrate where economic rules get enforced credibly, not the place where applications run.

Stablecoin velocity could rise as deposits flow into usage credit contracts, creating a new category of on-chain economic activity distinct from DeFi speculation or NFT trading.

Layer 2 utilization could increase as providers and users resolve disputes, process refunds, and handle slashing events on throughput-optimized chains.

The question is whether a parallel ecosystem emerges in which privacy-preserving billing becomes a prerequisite for certain user segments.

Enterprises concerned about data leakage through billing logs, developers building agent toolchains that require auditable metering without surveillance, and power users who value pseudonymous access to high-frequency services are all potential early adopters.

Ethereum's opportunity is to serve as the layer on which AI service markets settle, without requiring participants to trust individual platforms or to sacrifice privacy to billing infrastructure.

The proposal claims Ethereum can enforce payment agreements, adjudicate disputes, and enable metered access without identity linkage in ways that traditional systems structurally cannot.

Whether that claim holds depends on solving the metadata correlation problem, maintaining robust ZK implementations, and convincing providers that the market justifies the integration cost it unlocks.

The post Vitalik Buterin pitches Ethereum as the AI settlement layer, but one hidden leak could ruin it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The World Uncertainty Index, a GDP-weighted measure constructed from the frequency with which “uncertainty” appears in Economist Intelligence Unit country reports, reached 106,862.2 in the third quarter of 2025 and remained elevated at 94,947.1 in the fourth quarter.

The index isn't a volatility gauge. It's a text-based barometer of policy, geopolitical, and economic ambiguity that can remain elevated even when equity markets price in calm.

The methodology rescales word frequency and aggregates it across countries, meaning the current reading translates roughly to 10 or 11 mentions of “uncertain” or “uncertainty” in a typical 10,000-word quarterly report per country, illustratively high by historical comparison.

What makes the current environment unusual is the divergence between that record headline uncertainty and the subdued pricing of stress in traditional risk markets.

The VIX sits at 17.66 as of Feb. 11. The MOVE index, which tracks bond market volatility, reads 62.74. The St. Louis Fed's Financial Stress Index stands at -0.6558, below its long-term average and signaling below-normal stress as of the week ending Feb. 6.

Markets are pricing business as usual, while country analysts are writing about record ambiguity.
That disconnect matters for Bitcoin because the asset's behavior splits depending on whether uncertainty remains confined to headlines or bleeds into actual financial conditions.

Currently, the macroeconomic variables that tend to dominate Bitcoin when it trades as a risk asset remain restrictive. The dollar index sat at 96.762 as of press time. The 10-year Treasury yield is 4.22%, and the 10-year TIPS real yield is 1.87% as of Feb. 9.

A weak dollar and elevated real yields often signal choppy price action and heightened sensitivity to policy expectations, flows, and volatility demand.

Bitcoin's price has wobbled accordingly. BTC traded around $66,901.93 as of press time, down roughly 2.5% from the prior close.

Options markets have shown rising demand for downside protection, with Deribit's implied volatility counter, DVOL, rising from roughly 55.2 to roughly 58 over the past 48 hours.

That move signals that traders are paying up for hedges, consistent with rising macroeconomic unease, even if spot volatility has not yet spiked.

Spot Bitcoin ETF flows tell a similar story of regime uncertainty rather than conviction.

Farside Investors' data show that January recorded net outflows of over $1.6 billion, while February recorded net outflows of nearly $7 million as of Feb. 10, with the last three trading days reversing most of the capital flows.

The churn suggests institutional allocators are de-risking and re-risking in waves rather than holding a steady view, which is typical when macro clarity is low but immediate stress pricing remains muted.

The stablecoin market provides context for whether crypto's liquidity base is intact.

Total stablecoin supply stands at roughly $307.5 billion, essentially flat over the past 30 days with a decline of just 0.25%. That figure is important because it represents on-chain purchasing power that hasn't evaporated despite volatility in flows and sentiment.

The “dry powder” remains, awaiting a catalyst or a regime shift to deploy.

Two competing interpretations

Bitcoin's next move depends on which of two plausible interpretations of the record uncertainty prevails.

The first interpretation treats high WUI as a precursor to tighter financial conditions. If policy and geopolitical ambiguity eventually translate into higher risk premia, weaker growth expectations, or flight to quality, Bitcoin tends to behave like a high-beta risk asset.

In that regime, a strong dollar and elevated real yields squeeze non-yielding speculative assets, and Bitcoin's volatility rises with a downside skew.

Persistent ETF outflows would confirm that institutions are treating BTC as a liquidity sink to exit rather than a portfolio hedge.

The second interpretation treats high uncertainty as a signal of sovereign or policy credibility risk.

If ambiguity stems from capital controls, fiscal stress, sanctions spillover, or doubts about central bank independence, Bitcoin can benefit. Yet, historically, that bid is most evident when real yields fall, or liquidity conditions ease, rather than when the dollar is strengthening and nominal yields are rising.

The “non-sovereign hedge” narrative requires macro conditions that make holding cash or government bonds less attractive, which isn't the case today.

What makes the current setup unusual is that WUI has reached record levels without financial conditions easing or stress indicators spiking. Markets are pricing neither panic nor relief.

The result is a holding pattern in which Bitcoin trades within a range, options markets signal caution, and institutional flows oscillate without a clear trend.

Variables that decide the outcome

Real yields and the dollar are the simplest variables to watch.

A rollover in the 10-year TIPS yield, or a weakening in the broad dollar index, would signal that macro conditions are shifting toward the second regime, where uncertainty becomes a tailwind rather than a headwind for Bitcoin.

Historically, Bitcoin's strongest rallies have occurred when real yields fall, and liquidity expands, even if headline uncertainty remains high.

ETF flows are the second tell. If inflows stabilize and remain persistently positive after the late-January drawdown, this suggests that institutions are treating the current uncertainty as an opportunity to add exposure rather than as a signal to de-risk further.

Conversely, if outflows resume, it confirms that Bitcoin remains a risk-off sell for traditional allocators.

Options markets provide a third signal. If DVOL remains elevated and demand for downside hedges persists, it indicates that traders expect volatility to rise even if spot prices have not yet broken down.

That setup can precede either a sharp move lower or a volatility spike that clears the range, depending on which macro variables shift first.

The gap between record WUI and subdued VIX or MOVE is the clearest tell of all. If policy and geopolitical uncertainty are finally priced into traditional volatility measures, it would confirm that the current calm is breaking down and Bitcoin's “risk asset” reflexes are likely to predominate.

If WUI remains high but stress indicators remain low, it suggests that uncertainty is priced into narratives and forecasts but not into positioning. This setup favors a sharp Bitcoin move in either direction, depending on the next macroeconomic catalyst.

What's clear is that Bitcoin is trading within a regime in which the asset's two competing identities, high-beta risk asset versus non-sovereign hedge, are both plausible but require opposite macroeconomic conditions to be activated.

Record uncertainty doesn't resolve that tension. It amplifies it, and the asset's next move depends on whether uncertainty becomes stress or stays confined to country reports and analyst forecasts.

The post Can Bitcoin handle global economic uncertainty being worse than ever as it now doubles 2008 recession levels? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Top markets on Myriad this week include predictions on Bitcoin's next move, a multimillion-dollar Pokémon card sale, and more.

Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm ETHZilla is tokenizing equity in jet engines that it is leasing to a major air carrier.

Bitcoin-buying firms delivered on demand last year, but they struggled to keep up with market leader Strategy for a fourth straight month.

Multiple Israelis now face criminal charges for allegedly using insider information about Israel’s June 2025 attack on Iran to make prediction market wagers.

The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement have flagged crypto OTC desks as a growing risk to preventing illicit financial transactions.

The cryptocurrency market has suffered one of its most violent capitulation events in history.

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TLDR:

• Russia and US combined oil production could reach 22.6 million barrels daily, reshaping global markets 
• Moscow controls 44% of enriched uranium and 43% of palladium, critical for US industrial supply chains 
• Russia-China trade hit $245B in 2024, spurring Moscow to diversify away from yuan-heavy dependence 
• Russian reserves climbed to record $833B with over $400B in gold, providing negotiation leverage

Russia is reportedly planning to shift back toward US dollar settlement systems while exploring cooperation with the United States across multiple strategic sectors.

The discussions encompass fossil fuels, natural gas, offshore oil drilling, and critical raw materials. This development marks a potential reversal of Moscow’s decade-long effort to reduce dollar exposure.

The move could reshape global commodity markets and currency dynamics while altering geopolitical alliances between major powers.

Energy Cooperation Could Reshape Global Markets

According to analyst Bull Theory, shared on social media platform X, the cooperation framework would combine significant production capacity from both nations.

The United States currently produces 13.5 million barrels per day of oil, representing the highest output in American history.

Russia maintains production at 9.1 million barrels daily despite ongoing international sanctions. Combined influence over global oil supply would immediately shift pricing power and export leverage across international markets.

Natural gas represents another critical component of the potential partnership. Russia controls some of the world’s largest gas reserves, though many liquefied natural gas and pipeline projects remained frozen after the implementation.

Reopening investment channels and joint development initiatives would reintroduce substantial supply into global markets. This shift would directly affect European energy pricing and long-term gas market dynamics.

The timing carries particular weight given the current global energy transitions. Western nations have sought alternative suppliers since 2022, creating market volatility and price fluctuations.

Russian re-entry into Western-aligned energy frameworks could stabilize certain markets while disrupting others. Energy analysts note that infrastructure investments would require years to fully materialize.

Corporate participation represents a significant financial dimension. Western companies absorbed approximately $110 billion in losses when exiting Russian operations.

Re-entry opportunities in energy fields, gas infrastructure, mining projects, and Arctic drilling zones could enable American firms to resume resource extraction activities. This corporate angle extends beyond immediate profits to long-term strategic positioning.

Critical Minerals and Currency Realignment Take Center Stage

Russia controls substantial portions of strategic resources essential to modern manufacturing. The nation holds 44 percent of enriched uranium, 43 percent of palladium, 40 percent of industrial diamonds, 25 percent of titanium, and 20 percent of vanadium globally.

These materials form core components in semiconductors, defense systems, electric vehicle production, nuclear energy, and aerospace manufacturing. Partnership in this sector addresses American supply chain vulnerabilities while reducing Chinese dependency.

Moscow spent recent years building alternatives to Western settlement systems and reducing dollar reserves. Russia-China bilateral trade reached $245 billion by 2024, creating structural dependence on yuan liquidity and Chinese imports.

However, this pivot concentrated financial risk in Beijing-oriented frameworks. Reopening dollar settlement channels would diversify Russia’s financial positioning, balancing Eastern and Western exposure while re-anchoring portions of global trade.

Russia’s financial reserves recently climbed to a record $833 billion, with gold holdings exceeding $400 billion. This reserve strength provides Moscow with negotiating leverage for structuring long-term resource agreements.

The financial stability enables Russia to approach discussions from a position beyond immediate economic necessity.

The broader framework encompasses energy cooperation affecting global supply, mineral partnerships reshaping industrial resource access, corporate re-entry unlocking infrastructure projects, and currency realignment pulling Russia partially back into dollar systems.

Geopolitical leverage simultaneously shifts between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. If finalized, observers suggest this could represent one of the largest structural resets in global economic alignment since Cold War conclusion.

The post Russia Plans Return to US Dollar Settlement as Strategic Cooperation Talks Emerge appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Astar proposes capping total ASTR supply at 10 billion tokens through new emission decay mechanism. 
• Lower inflation rates address mismatch between current participation levels and token supply growth. 
• Emission decay creates predictable path for token issuance, ending unlimited supply expansion model. 
• Burndrop mechanisms may permanently reduce circulation below the proposed 10 billion token ceiling.

Tokenomics 3.0 represents Astar Network’s proposal to restructure ASTR supply mechanics through two fundamental changes.

The network plans to introduce lower inflation rates alongside a defined maximum supply of 10 billion tokens. Astar announced the proposal through its official channels, outlining how emission decay will establish a fixed cap on total token circulation.

The updates aim to address current network conditions where participation levels do not align with existing inflation rates. This proposal marks a structural shift in how ASTR issuance operates.

Emission Decay Establishes Fixed Supply Limit

The proposed emission decay mechanism will set a clear boundary for total ASTR supply. According to the network’s announcement, supply will converge toward 10 billion ASTR tokens.

This eliminates the previous model of unlimited supply expansion. The change introduces predictability into the token’s long-term economic structure.

Emission decay determines how issuance decreases progressively over time. The mechanism creates a mathematical path toward the defined supply cap.

Network participants will have clarity on future token availability. This structure differs from the current open-ended inflation model.

Supply-side mechanisms like Burndrop may reduce total circulation below the cap. These mechanisms permanently remove tokens from the available supply.

The combination of emission decay and burn functions could push actual supply lower. Therefore, 10 billion represents a ceiling rather than a guaranteed endpoint.

The proposal makes issuance rules more transparent for stakeholders. Token holders can calculate future supply expansion with greater accuracy.

This clarity supports informed decision-making across the ecosystem. Moreover, defined parameters reduce uncertainty in long-term planning.

Inflation Reduction Addresses Dilution Concerns

Astar’s proposal reduces maximum inflation to slow supply growth rates. The network identified that current participation does not support existing inflation levels.

When supply expands faster than network activity, dilution accelerates. Lower inflation rates help control this dynamic.

The adjustment aligns supply growth with actual network engagement. Tokenomics 3.0 aims to maintain balance between issuance and participation.

This approach protects existing token holders from excessive dilution. Controlled supply growth supports value retention over time.

Current network conditions necessitate this recalibration of inflation parameters. The proposal responds to observable gaps between supply expansion and user activity.

By narrowing this gap, the network seeks to stabilize its economic foundation. This creates conditions for sustainable development.

The changes strengthen supply discipline within the ecosystem. Astar positions these updates as protective measures for ASTR value.

The network emphasizes that controlled issuance supports long-term stability. These modifications work together to establish a more measured approach to token economics as the ecosystem continues to develop.

The post Astar Network Unveils Tokenomics 3.0: 10 Billion ASTR Supply Cap and Inflation Cuts appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Spot bitcoin ETFs and treasuries absorbed 1.2 times new supply in 2025, reshaping demand dynamics 
• Peak-to-trough bitcoin declines now limited to 50% versus historical 70-80% drawdowns in cycles 
• Digital asset treasuries hold 1.1 million BTC valued at $89.9 billion as corporate adoption grows 
• U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve holds 325,437 BTC representing 1.6% of total bitcoin supply today
  

Bitcoin continues its transformation from speculative asset to institutional holding. The digital currency has attracted major financial players through regulated exchange-traded funds and corporate strategies.

Data shows spot bitcoin ETFs and digital asset treasuries absorbed 1.2 times new supply in 2025. This shift reflects broader acceptance among investors.

ETF Growth and Corporate Treasury Adoption Reshape Market Dynamics

Spot bitcoin ETFs reached a milestone during 2025, altering the asset’s supply-demand profile. Morgan Stanley and Vanguard expanded platforms to include bitcoin products in the fourth quarter.

Vanguard’s decision proved noteworthy given its historical exclusion of commodities. These vehicles attracted capital from advisors, institutions, and retail investors.

Corporate adoption has moved beyond early adopters into mainstream finance. According to ARK Investment Management and 21Shares analysts, “the unifying theme for the current cycle is bitcoin’s transition from an optional new monetary technology to a strategic allocation.”

Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, has accumulated holdings representing 3.5% of total supply. Digital asset treasury companies hold more than 1.1 million BTC, valued at $89.9 billion. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 now include bitcoin-exposed companies like Coinbase and Block.

Sovereign interest materialized through the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The Trump Administration launched this reserve using seized bitcoin totaling 325,437 BTC.

This represents 1.6% of total supply valued at $25.6 billion. Texas led state-level adoption by adding bitcoin to reserves.

Regulatory developments have created clearer pathways for institutional participation. The proposed CLARITY Act would establish dual-oversight between CFTC and SEC.

This legislation provides a compliance roadmap with standardized maturity tests. The clarity reduces uncertainty that drove firms offshore.

Price Performance and Market Maturation Show Evolving Investor Behavior

Bitcoin’s relationship with gold has demonstrated patterns throughout market cycles. Gold prices surged 64.7% during 2025 while bitcoin declined 6.2%.

Historical data from 2016, 2019, and 2020 shows gold movements preceded bitcoin rallies. Spot bitcoin ETFs achieved in under two years what gold ETFs required over 15 years.

Market volatility metrics reveal a maturing asset with improved risk characteristics. Peak-to-trough declines in the current cycle have not exceeded 50%.

This compares favorably to prior cycles where drawdowns reached 70-80%. The February 2026 correction maintained this trend.

Long-term holding strategies have outperformed market timing. A hypothetical investor purchasing $1,000 at yearly peaks from 2020 through 2025 generated positive returns.

The report notes that “in 2026, bitcoin’s story is less about whether it will survive and more about its role in diversified portfolios.”

Even accounting for February corrections, this strategy produced a 29% return. Position sizing and holding periods matter more than entry timing.

Correlation analysis shows bitcoin maintains low relationships with traditional assets. Weekly returns from 2020 through 2026 show a 0.14 correlation with gold.

This low correlation enhances portfolio diversification benefits. Combined with reduced volatility, bitcoin presents a different risk-reward proposition.

The post Bitcoin Institutional Adoption Accelerates as ETFs and Corporate Treasuries Reshape Market appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• 18 large U.S. companies with $50M+ liabilities filed bankruptcy in just three weeks this month. 
• Credit card delinquencies jumped to 12.7% in Q4 2025, the highest level recorded since 2011. 
• U.S. household debt reached record $18.8 trillion with all categories at historic peak levels. 
• Younger consumers ages 18-39 face delinquency rates near 9.5%, straining discretionary spending.

U.S. corporate bankruptcies have surged to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. Recent data shows 18 large companies with liabilities exceeding $50 million filed for bankruptcy in just three weeks.

The pace of corporate failures has reached the fastest rate since the 2020 pandemic. Meanwhile, consumer credit stress has intensified sharply.

Serious credit card delinquencies climbed to 12.7% in Q4 2025, marking the highest level since 2011. These parallel trends point to mounting economic pressure across both business and household sectors.

Record Pace of Large Company Failures

Nine large U.S. companies declared bankruptcy last week alone, according to market analyst Bull Thery. This pushed the three-week average to six bankruptcies, matching crisis-era conditions.

The worst period this century occurred during the 2009 financial crisis, when the three-week average peaked at nine. Current bankruptcy rates are approaching those historic highs, raising concerns about corporate health.

The speed of these failures stands out compared to recent years. Between 2020 and 2024, large corporate bankruptcies remained relatively contained despite economic volatility.

The sudden acceleration suggests underlying stress has been building across multiple sectors. Companies are facing pressure from high borrowing costs and weakening consumer demand.

Corporate debt burdens accumulated during years of low interest rates now pose greater challenges. Many firms were locked in favorable terms before monetary tightening began.

However, those with variable-rate obligations or refinancing needs face sharply higher costs. The combination creates difficulty for companies already operating on thin margins.

This wave of bankruptcies could spread through supply chains and labor markets. When large companies fail, smaller suppliers often face payment delays or losses.

Job cuts typically follow, which then reduces consumer spending power. The cycle can accelerate if not interrupted by policy intervention.

Consumer Debt Reaches All-Time Highs Amid Rising Delinquencies

U.S. household debt hit a record $18.8 trillion, increasing by $191 billion in Q4 2025 alone. Since January 2020, total household debt has grown by $4.6 trillion.

Every major category now sits at historic peaks: mortgage debt reached $13.2 trillion, credit card balances hit $1.3 trillion, and both auto loans and student loans stand at $1.7 trillion each.

Credit card delinquency rates tell a troubling story about payment capacity. Serious delinquencies jumped 5.1 percentage points since Q3 2022.

This increase exceeds the rise seen during the 2008-2009 period. More consumers are falling behind on payments rather than catching up or stabilizing.

Late-stage delinquencies show particular weakness among younger demographics. Ages 18-29 are experiencing serious delinquency transitions around 9.5%, while ages 30-39 face rates near 8.6%.

These groups typically drive discretionary spending across retail, dining, and entertainment sectors. Their financial stress directly affects economic growth.

Credit card balances entering 90-plus days delinquent climbed to 7.1%, now the third highest level since 2011. This metric indicates consumers have exhausted options to catch up on payments.

The Federal Reserve may need to respond with rate cuts and liquidity support if conditions worsen. Policy tools typically deploy after economic damage becomes visible in the data.

The post U.S. Corporate Bankruptcies Surge to 2008 Crisis Levels as Consumer Debt Hits Record $18.8 Trillion appeared first on Blockonomi.

In recent years, millions of traders and crypto users have experienced what it feels like when personal data gets exposed. Exchange leaks, identity verification breaches, wallet tracking, and analytics tools have made privacy a growing concern in digital finance. Many blockchain networks record everything publicly, making transactions transparent but not always private. For users who value security, that model no longer feels enough.

This is where Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) enters the conversation. ZKP is a Layer-1 blockchain built around one clear principle: prove computation is correct without revealing the underlying data. Instead of exposing sensitive information, it validates results while protecting privacy. In a market where trust is often tested, Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) is gaining attention as the top crypto to buy today for those seeking a more secure blockchain foundation.

What is Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)?

Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) is a Layer-1 blockchain built to validate computation without revealing the underlying data. In simple terms, the network allows a result to be proven correct while keeping sensitive inputs private. This approach is central to zero-knowledge cryptography and is the foundation of the entire ZKP ecosystem.

The project was developed with a strong commitment to readiness. Before launching its presale, the team invested $100 million of self-funded capital into building the blockchain architecture, proof systems, and supporting infrastructure. This build-first model reduces risk and signals long-term focus.

Core features include:

• A privacy-focused Layer-1 blockchain
• Zero-knowledge validation of computation
• Architecture designed for secure AI workloads
• Integration with real hardware through Proof Pods

For newcomers exploring options in today’s market, ZKP stands apart because it already operates with infrastructure in place. This foundation strengthens its case as the top crypto buy today, especially for those looking beyond early hype and into practical execution.

Live Presale Auction: Stage 2 Momentum Builds

Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) is currently in a structured crypto presale auction that distributes coins in progressive stages. The presale has already raised $1.85 million, showing early traction. At present, Stage 2 is closing in 6 days, marking a critical point in the auction cycle.

Market observers and analysts have noted the pace of participation. Some experts project that if momentum continues, the ZKP presale auction could reach $1.7 billion, highlighting expectations around the project’s scale.

Below is the current auction snapshot:

The auction model allows price discovery across stages rather than through a fixed-price sale. This structured progression creates measurable entry points and encourages sustained participation. For those searching for the top crypto buy today, the combination of raised capital, staged structure, and projected growth gives ZKP a strong position within the current presale market.

Proof Pods: A Working Product Backed by $17M

Proof Pods represent the tangible layer of the Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) ecosystem. These physical devices are designed to generate verifiable computation for the network. Instead of relying solely on digital staking models, ZKP connects blockchain incentives to measurable hardware performance.

The project allocated $17 million specifically for Proof Pods creation, covering development, production, and logistics. This investment demonstrates that Proof Pods are not conceptual but operational components of the network’s design.

Key benefits of Proof Pods include:

• Real hardware participation in blockchain validation
• Generation of cryptographic proofs
• Decentralized distribution of computing power
• Accessibility for non-technical users

Proof Pods strengthen decentralization while tying network rewards to real activity. For presale participants, this working product provides tangible backing to the blockchain’s function.

When evaluating the top crypto buy today, projects with operational hardware and capital commitment often stand out. ZKP’s integration of Proof Pods shows that it is building a functioning ecosystem rather than relying purely on token demand.

Final Say

Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) combines three critical elements rarely seen together in early-stage blockchain projects: a fully developed Layer-1 architecture, a structured live presale auction, and a working hardware product in Proof Pods. With a $100 million self-funded development, $17 million allocated to hardware, and a presale that has already raised $1.85 million, ZKP demonstrates preparation and execution before scaling further.

As Stage 2 closes in 6 days and experts project the presale could reach $1.7 billion, the project continues to build measurable momentum. The staged auction structure provides transparency, while Proof Pods anchor the network in real-world computation.

For newcomers seeking the top crypto buy today, Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) presents a strong combination of privacy technology, financial commitment, and live participation mechanics. Rather than promising future development, ZKP enters the market with infrastructure already built and an ecosystem actively expanding.

Explore ZKP:

Website: https://zkp.com/

Buy: https://buy.zkp.com

Telegram: https://t.me/ZKPofficial

X: https://x.com/ZKPofficial

The post What is Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)? A $100M Self-Funded Layer-1 Powering Private AI and Driving Massive Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins is facing scrutiny from lawmakers as the agency moves to reshape its cryptocurrency regulatory framework.

Democrats are questioning potential links between industry actors and President Donald Trump amid a broader decline in enforcement actions.

SEC Scrutinized Over Tron Case

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Democratic members zeroed in on the SEC’s decision to pause its case against Tron founder Justin Sun. Representative Maxine Waters pointed to what she described as a sweeping rollback of prior crypto enforcement actions after Trump entered the White House and new SEC leadership took over last year.

Waters referenced the regulator’s 2023 lawsuit against Sun, in which he was accused of organizing the unregistered sale of crypto securities tied to the TRX and BTT tokens and manipulating trading volumes.

Later in February 2025, the SEC asked the federal court overseeing the case to issue a stay, which paused the proceedings. Since that decision, Sun has become a major financial supporter of Trump-linked crypto ventures, purchasing billions of WLFI tokens, making him the largest backer of World Liberty Financial.

Waters also highlighted a more recent claim by his alleged former girlfriend, who publicly suggested she possesses evidence of TRX manipulation.

Atkins declined to address specifics of the case, telling lawmakers he could not comment on individual enforcement matters. He added that he would be open to further discussion in a confidential setting “to the extent the rules allow me to do that.”

When asked whether the agency ever acts to protect investors in ways that could negatively affect Trump-affiliated businesses, he responded, “As far as what the Trump family does or not, I can’t speak to that.”

Trump’s Ties to Binance

Lawmakers also raised concerns about other high-profile litigation the SEC dropped last year, including cases against Binance, Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and Robinhood.

In May 2025, the financial watchdog ended its lawsuit against Binance, which it had sued in 2023 for offering unlicensed services and misrepresenting trading controls. Trump later also pardoned Zhao, while a stablecoin issued by WLF was used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for a $2 billion investment in Binance.

“Explain to me how this happens without any enforcement action,” Representative Stephen Lynch said. “The reputational damage that the SEC is suffering right now is unbelievable. And you’re in the seat, sir. It’s your responsibility. I’m just asking for an explanation.”

The SEC Chair defended the regulator, saying it has a “robust enforcement effort” and continues to bring cases. However, data from Cornerstone Research shows that its overall legal actions fell 30% in 2025, while crypto-related cases dropped 60%.

Atkins, who became the organization’s chair in April 2025 after Gary Gensler’s departure, is known for criticizing the previous aggressive approach and framing his leadership as a move away from litigation-heavy tactics.

The post SEC Head Defends Enforcement Changes Amid Justin Sun Case Questions appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Cardano’s ADA has been struggling lately, with its price nosediving to a five-year low at the start of February.

While bulls might be eager to see a decisive revival in the short term, the recent actions of the large investors suggest another move south could be on the way.

The Whales Know Something We Don’t?

The renowned analyst Ali Martinez revealed that Cardano whales have dumped approximately 190 million ADA in the past week. The USD equivalent of that stash is roughly $50 million (calculated at ongoing rates of $0.26 per coin).

Seven days ago, the total possessions of this cohort of investors were 13.57 billion ADA, whereas they currently hold around 13.38 billion tokens. The figure represents approximately 36.3% of the asset’s circulating supply.

There is a general assumption in the crypto space that whales are experienced investors who may have inside information about important upcoming events that could influence their buying or selling decisions. That said, their recent actions could spread panic across the community and prompt smaller players to cash out as well.

The purely economic impact is also worth noting. Large sell-offs increase the amount of ADA on the open market, which, combined with non-increasing demand, should lead to a price pullback.

ADA’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) is another bearish factor investors should be wary of. The indicator shows whether the asset is overbought or oversold based on recent price momentum. It ranges from 0 to 100 and helps traders identify when a trend may be about to end.

Readings above 70 signal that ADA has entered overbought territory and could be on the verge of a correction, while ratios below 30 favor a bullish scenario. As of this writing, the RSI stands at around 74.

History to Repeat Itself?

ADA is among the cryptocurrencies with vast communities, which consist of proponents and bullish analysts. Just a few days ago, X user Aman noted that the asset’s price has dropped to the demand zone of around $0.26, reminding that in the past this area has sparked major reversals.

Mentor shared a similar viewpoint, arguing that the last time ADA reached current levels, it later rose to nearly $1.40 in less than a month. “History is going to repeat itself soon,” they projected.

Over the last few months, ADA’s exchange netflows have been predominantly negative, which reinforces the optimistic predictions. The trend reflects investors moving coins from centralized platforms to self-custody, reducing the likelihood of short-term selling.

The post 190,000,000 ADA in 1 Week: Is Cardano on the Verge of a Further Dump? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Binance announced on Thursday that it has finished converting its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) from stablecoins into Bitcoin, purchasing a final tranche of 4,545 BTC and bringing total holdings to 15,000 BTC.

The exchange’s decision to shift its emergency insurance reserve into BTC rather than a dollar-pegged asset reversed its position from April 2024 and placed roughly $1 billion of user protection funds directly into the cryptocurrency with the largest market cap.

Conversion Completed Within 30-Day Window

Binance executed the rebalancing in several separate purchases between February 2 and February 12, according to on-chain data monitored by Lookonchain. The final transaction of 4,545 BTC, valued at $304.5 million, brought the total worth of the holding to just over $1 billion based on Bitcoin’s current price around $67,000.

The exchange first announced the conversion plan on January 30, saying the process would conclude within 30 days. However, the completion fell nearly halfway through that window, with the SAFU wallet address, which Binance made public, now holding 15,000 BTC.

The Secure Asset Fund for Users was created in 2018 as an insurance pool to cover user losses in extreme events such as exchange hacks. In April 2024, Binance converted the fund entirely into USDC, describing the move at the time as a stability measure. The completion now marks a full reversal of that approach.

Binance said it views Bitcoin as “the premier long-term reserve asset” and framed the decision as aligning SAFU with that position. The firm also stated it will rebalance the fund if its value falls below $800 million due to price declines.

Market Context

Back when the move was announced, it drew immediate comment from market observers, with crypto commentator Garrett describing the conversion on X as “a direct capital injection into the market” and “what responsible builders do.”

The announcement arrived as CryptoQuant data showed Binance accounted for roughly 41% of spot trading volume among the top 10 exchanges in 2025. The exchange also maintains similarly high shares in Bitcoin perpetual futures and stablecoin reserves.

Meanwhile, at the market, the OG cryptocurrency was trading around the $67,300 level at the time of this writing, up slightly by about 0.5% in the last 24 hours, but in the red over seven days after suffering a nearly 5% dip per CoinGecko data.

The situation is the same across longer timeframes, with BTC shedding just under 24% of its value over the past fortnight and nearly 30% in the last month to keep its price more than 46% below its all-time high above $126,000 reached in October 2025.

The post Binance Completes $1B SAFU Fund Shift to Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The major red wave that swept through the entire crypto market at the start of February has severely impacted Ethereum (ETH), whose price fell below $1,800 at one point. Over the past few days, the bulls have reclaimed some lost ground, but the asset currently trades just below the psychological $2,000 level.

The big question now is which scenario is more plausible during the first quarter of the year: a crash to $1,000 or a pump to $3,000. Here are the viewpoints of four of the most popular AI-powered chatbots.

What Comes Next?

ChatGPT estimated that a 50% jump to $3K sometime in Q1 is more likely, reminding that ETH has initiated such moves many times in the past. It claimed that a rebound to that level will not require an extreme catalyst but only “bullish momentum and market stability.”

The chatbot did not rule out a collapse to $1,000 but argued that such a drop could occur only in the event of a macro panic, a regulatory crackdown, or the meltdown of a leading crypto exchange.

Grok – the chatbot integrated within X – shared a similar opinion. It stated that a jump toward the upper target carries a higher probability, but added that neither extreme option is guaranteed.

“The balance tilts toward gradual recovery or stabilization in Q1 rather than a dramatic collapse – making a push toward $3K (or at least meaningful upside) more plausible than a plunge to $1K, especially if macro conditions improve or adoption catalysts hit,” it forecasted.

Google’s Gemini joined the theory, saying that a rally is statistically “more aligned with historical patterns and analyst consensus.” It argued that a drop to $1,000 is a low probability scenario unless a major black swan event occurs.

Perplexity is the only chatbot (from those we consulted) that leans toward the bearish option. It stated that the crypto market has not been in its best shape lately, projecting a downside move for ETH to $1,000 and even lower in the coming weeks.

The Crash Could be a Blessing?

Just a few days ago, the popular X user Ted asked his almost 300,000 followers whether they expect ETH to plummet to $1,000 in 2026. In his view, a plunge of that dimension would be “a great buying opportunity.”

Some commentators claimed that such a scenario is possible only in a macro crisis that could undermine the reputation of the entire cryptocurrency sector. Others welcomed the idea of a collapse to $1K, agreeing with Ted that this would provide a solid reason to increase their exposure.

Hosky.Watcher, for instance, suggested that big dips can be “chances and traps.” They advised investors to enter the ecosystem with spare cash but not to touch “emergency funds or mortgage money.”

“Keep your sense of humor and a risk plan,” the alert reads.

The post $1K Collapse or $3K Rally? 4 AIs Speculate What is More Likely for ETH in Q1 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum has remained volatile since October, while the sell-off intensified over the last month. Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee said investor frustration around the leading altcoin’s recent weakness overlooks a long and consistent historical pattern of sharp declines followed by equally rapid recoveries.

In fact, he believes that the bottom is near.

Ethereum Near the Bottom?

While speaking at a conference in Hong Kong this week, Lee said that since 2018, Ethereum has experienced drops of more than 50% on eight different drawdowns, including a steep 64% fall between January and March last year. In every one of those instances, ETH formed a “V-shaped bottom,” recovering fully and doing so at roughly the same pace as its decline. From his perspective, this track record indicates that the current drawdown does not represent any change in Ethereum’s outlook, and he expects another V-shaped bottom to emerge following the latest sell-off.

Lee also cited BitMine market analyst Tom DeMark’s assessment, who believes Ethereum may need to revisit the $1,890 level to form a “perfected bottom.” Lee added that, based on BitMine’s assessment, ETH appears to be very close to such a bottom, as he drew parallels to previous downturns in late 2018, late 2022, and April 2025.

While Lee refrained from pinpointing the exact low, he argued that the magnitude of the decline itself is more important, and that investors should be thinking in terms of opportunity rather than offloading their stash.

“If you have already seen a decline, you should be thinking about opportunities here instead of selling.”

BitMine Is Buying

His comments came as Ether prices fell to $1,760 on February 6, as it approached the 2025 low of almost $1,400. So far, ETH has continued to struggle to reclaim the $2,000 level after a more than 36% drop over the past 30 days. As weakness in the market continues, BitMine, the ETH-focused treasury firm chaired by Lee, purchased roughly $83 million worth of ETH this week.

It executed two large buys of 20,000 ETH each via institutional platforms BitGo and FalconX, even as its existing holdings remained significantly underwater.

Meanwhile, the drawdown has already led to large-scale portfolio adjustments. For instance, Trend Research, a trading firm led by Liquid Capital founder Jack Yi, fully exited its Ethereum positions and closed what was once Asia’s largest ETH long. The firm had built roughly $2.1 billion in leveraged ETH exposure but ultimately realized losses of about $869 million after unwinding its positions despite Yi reiterating a bullish long-term outlook just days earlier.

The post Tom Lee Says Ethereum Has Never Failed This Pattern and Expects Another V-Shaped Recovery appeared first on CryptoPotato.