Trend Research, led by Jack Yi, built a heavily leveraged Ethereum position on Aave that at its peak involved roughly $958 million in borrowed stablecoins against about 601,000 ETH. As Ethereum's price slid in early February, the fund began selling ETH and repaying debt, including a 10,000 ETH transfer to Binance on Feb. 4 to cut risk. The remaining 488,172 ETH is now valued near $1.05 billion, with on-chain data indicating unrealized losses of around $862 million since the end of January and multiple liquidation thresholds that could impact broader market liquidity.

On Feb. 3, Bitcoin briefly dropped about 8%, undercutting the $73,000 level before rebounding toward $74,500 and trimming the intraday decline to 5.8%. The move coincided with macro risk-off sentiment tied to Kevin Warsh's Fed chair nomination and disappointing Microsoft Azure growth, while more than $2.5 billion in liquidations and thin weekend liquidity amplified the selloff. Bitcoin is now trading around key support between roughly $72,700 and $73,500, with resistance clustered from about $74,500 up to the $80,620 zone.

In 2025 Q3, the IMF reports the renminbi at 1.93% of global FX reserves, about $251 billion within a $13 trillion pool, while the dollar holds 56.92%. Amid capital controls, Chinese traders and exporters increasingly use USDT and Bitcoin, and stablecoins in circulation exceed $305 billion, according to Artemis.

In December 2025, the Producer Price Index rose 0.5% month-over-month and 3.0% year-over-year, with core PPI climbing to 3.3%, the highest since July 2025. Bitcoin slid under $82,400 as Fed funds futures shifted to just 52 basis points of expected cuts across 2026, with the first move seen in June. Persistent services inflation and elevated real yields around 1.90% now frame key scenarios for rates and Bitcoin ahead of the Feb. 20 PCE release.

Moltbook is hosting discussions on relay protocols that let autonomous agents discover peers and exchange direct messages, expanding the attack surface beyond isolated endpoints. According to Token Security, 22% of customers already see unsanctioned agent usage, while reports describe exposed dashboards, leaked credentials, and 7,922 attack attempts on a single instance. Some agents are offering Bitcoin bounties and calling it "sound money."

Coin Metrics data show top-10 altcoins now control roughly 82% of non-Bitcoin market cap, narrowing breadth since 2021. Wintermute reported average altcoin rallies lasted about 19 days in 2025 versus 61 in 2024, while CCData said December 2025 volumes fell 26.4% to $5.79 trillion. In this setup, recoveries tend to favor majors over small caps.

In 2025, DTCC began building infrastructure for extended US trading hours toward a 24×5 model, while Nasdaq proposed 23‑hour sessions and ICE developed a tokenized securities platform designed for continuous operation. At the same time, Binance and Hyperliquid listed 24/7 silver and equity‑linked perpetual contracts, with Hyperliquid's silver market recording over $4.5 billion in January volume and open interest near $152.4 million. These instruments provide round‑the‑clock, leveraged synthetic exposure to real‑world assets, highlighting that crypto derivatives already deliver the continuous price access traditional venues are still engineering.

On Jan. 26, CoinGlass data showed its Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index turning sharply negative, signaling that BTC began trading at a growing discount on Coinbase versus Binance. The divergence has emerged alongside more than $1.3 billion in recent US spot Bitcoin ETF outflows, shifting USDT/USD mechanics and tighter derivatives and arbitrage conditions.

Tokenized US Treasuries exceeded $10 billion in value this week, highlighting their shift from pilot projects to core on-chain infrastructure. As of Jan. 22, Circle's USYC slightly surpassed BlackRock's BUIDL in assets under management, helped by earlier exchange collateral integration, accumulating yield mechanics, and lower minimum investment thresholds. These structural features are driving net inflows toward USYC as institutions seek scalable, yield-bearing collateral within existing crypto workflows.