Bitcoin fell below $71,000 and was trading near $70,500, while an analyst’s power-law model indicated a fair value of about $122,762, implying a 41% discount. The study highlighted rising leveraged positioning, elevated implied volatility above 43, and over $2.3 billion in futures and options open interest as signs of stress in derivatives markets.

On February 4, the Financial Times reported that Tether has lowered its fundraising ambition to at least $5 billion after initial discussions around a $15–$20 billion raise tied to a roughly $500 billion valuation drew investor resistance. CEO Paolo Ardoino said the higher number was only a maximum amount the company might sell and stressed that Tether, which issues about $185 billion worth of USDT and reportedly earned around $10 billion in profit last year, does not urgently need outside capital.

A dataset containing 149 million stolen credentials, including access details for about 420,000 Binance accounts, was reported circulating among cybercriminals this week. Security researchers say the information comes from infostealing malware that harvests passwords, private keys, API keys and session tokens from infected devices. Recent data also indicates multi‑billion‑dollar crypto losses and rising attacks on exchanges and large organizations.

On Monday, Bitcoin dropped below $75,000 to its weakest level since April 2025 amid a sharp, cross-asset sell-off. According to market data, natural gas plunged 15.5% in a single day, while silver fell 8% and gold slid 5.5%, with Bitcoin down about 13% over the past week and roughly 40% from its October 2025 peak. The downturn has wiped out hundreds of billions from crypto valuations in two weeks, as analysts point to liquidity and leverage rather than a single macro catalyst.

The U.S. Department of Justice has finalized the forfeiture of more than $400 million in cryptocurrencies, cash, and real estate connected to the Helix Bitcoin Mixer, concluding litigation against its operator Larry Dean Harmon in January 2026. Helix, active from 2014 to 2017, processed over 354,468 Bitcoin allegedly tied to criminal activity, while Harmon was charged in 2020 and later sentenced in 2024 to prison time, supervised release, and asset forfeiture. The case unfolds amid broader U.S. regulatory action on crypto mixers and a policy shift on criminal enforcement for certain regulatory violations involving exchanges and developers.

The U.S. SEC and CFTC have jointly relaunched Project Crypto to better coordinate how digital assets are regulated and supervised. In a January 29 statement, the agencies outlined plans to harmonize rules, update surveillance tools, and create clearer compliance pathways for crypto businesses. The initiative aims to support innovation in on-chain trading, clearing, settlement, and custody while maintaining investor protection and U.S. financial market leadership.

On January 30, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz challenged viral projections that XRP could soon reach $50 or $100, using an expected value framework to argue they are inconsistent with current trading behavior. He explained that if many rational investors truly saw a strong chance of triple-digit prices within a few years, XRP would not be trading far below $10 as it is now. While XRP hovers near $1.75 after significant declines over the past week and year, analysts point to both extended consolidation and ongoing ETF inflows and accumulation by large holders.

Since the start of 2026, XRP has fallen about 4% to trade near $1.90, while on-chain data shows a net increase of 42 wallets holding at least one million tokens. Despite the token sitting roughly 25% below its 200-day moving average and about 40% under its price a year ago, projections for 2026 outline base, bull, and bear scenarios between $1.60 and $2.70.

Open-source AI assistant ClawdBot founder Peter Steinberger said he has never issued a token and called projects tying him to a coin scams, after his GitHub and X accounts were squatted during a forced rename. On January 25, researcher Stitchdegen said the Solana meme coin CLAWD is not official; on January 27, developer Ozmen warned similar scams often target open-source projects.