President Donald Trump said the Justice Department will keep pursuing a criminal inquiry tied to the Federal Reserve's $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. In January, Jerome Powell said he was under criminal investigation, as the multi‑year project's costs and disclosures face scrutiny ahead of key leadership decisions.

According to data released on February 3, 2026, South Korea's January headline and core inflation each slowed to 2%, aligning with the Bank of Korea's target. The central bank kept its policy rate at 2.5% while economists noted lingering foreign-exchange volatility and price pressures from food and housing.

Wrench attacks against crypto users rose sharply in 2025, with 72 verified cases and $40.9 million in losses. The count climbed about 75% from 2024, while Europe saw around 40% of global cases and France recorded 19. Examples included kidnappings and coercion to obtain private keys or ransom.

On February 3, 2026, Bitcoin market sentiment slid into extreme fear, with the Fear & Greed Index at 14. The article cites a 13% decline over 30 days, a weekend dip to $74,500 followed by a rebound to $78,500, and about $2.2 billion in 24‑hour liquidations, while traders watch $69,000 downside and resistance near $80,600 and $91,350.

Updated on February 3, 2026, the White House brought together crypto firms and Wall Street banks to negotiate whether stablecoins should carry yields, with an objective to reach a deal before the beginning of March, according to people familiar with the private talks. Banking groups said they are prepared to collaborate, while industry advocate Cody Carbone described the meeting as meaningful progress despite no immediate agreement.

According to OpenAI, Elon Musk's xAI deleted internal messages ahead of its antitrust lawsuit, a claim set out in a Monday filing in U.S. federal court. X and xAI brought the case in August seeking billions of dollars, and in November a Fort Worth judge allowed it to proceed.

On February 2, 2026, Jupiter announced Polymarket's launch on Solana via its platform, aiming for faster and lower-cost prediction market trading. A prior Jupiter beta with Kalshi saw a single test market exceed $120,000 in volume, while reports said the exchange had 8.4 million active users in Q3 last year.

On February 2 2026, CrossCurve disclosed that its cross-chain bridge smart contracts had been exploited, causing about $3 million in losses across several blockchain networks. A message verification flaw reportedly enabled attackers to spoof cross-chain messages and unlock tokens without proper authorization. The project has urged users to stop interacting with its contracts and its CEO has offered a bounty of up to 10% if the stolen funds are returned within 72 hours.

On February 1, 2026, Base said its Ethereum Layer‑2 saw intermittent slowdowns in transaction processing, while block production continued. Base engineers linked the behavior to traffic spikes and internal bottlenecks rather than a full outage. A 19‑minute interruption late last year and a separate January 14 incident on Sui have heightened reliability concerns.