On February 2, 2026, the OKX CEO criticized Binance for its handling of USDe and linked it to the crypto market crash on October 10, 2025. He argued that treating USDe like a stablecoin while offering yields up to 12 percent APY encouraged leverage loops that magnified systemic risk. When volatility hit and USDe lost its peg, cascading liquidations followed across major tokens, with some briefly trading near zero.

On February 1, 2026 Vitalik Buterin argued that creator coins falter because they chase incentives instead of solving discovery, noting that token rewards inflate noise rather than surface talent. He praised curation-led models such as Substack and advocated for small DAOs that prioritize deliberate selection over speculation.

On February 1, 2026, Bitcoin dropped below $80,000 amid accelerating derivatives liquidations. According to market data, more than $500 million in long positions were wiped out within an hour and nearly $3.5 billion over three days, while reports indicate a well-known early holder lost over $120 million during yesterday’s sell-off.

On February 1, 2026, Tether expanded its tokenized gold product by minting 192,657 XAUT, a tranche valued at nearly $1 billion at prevailing gold prices. Each token corresponds to one troy ounce held in secured vaults, primarily in Switzerland. The issuance highlights growing on-chain demand for real-world assets and differs from fiat-pegged stablecoins due to commodity price exposure.

On January 31, 2026, gold and silver flipped from a powerful advance into a sharp retreat. The decline is framed as a positioning and liquidity event, where crowded trades and margin dynamics outweigh unchanged macro narratives. Without a shift in core fundamentals, the focus turns to whether selling pressure eases, volatility cools, and silver stops leading gold lower.

On January 31, 2026, Bitcoin and Ethereum extended their declines as a sharp wave of derivatives liquidations swept the crypto market, with total liquidations over 24 hours reaching about $1.59 billion and long positions making up the bulk. Bitcoin fell under $80,000 at one stage, briefly dropping below MicroStrategy's reported average cost basis near $76,037 before partially rebounding, while Ethereum slid under $2,500 amid similar leverage-driven pressures. The pullback is being framed as a leverage and market-structure event rather than a shift in underlying fundamentals.

On January 31, 2026, Step Finance reported that several treasury and fee wallets on Solana had been compromised after around 261,854 SOL, valued at roughly $30 million, were unstaked and transferred. The team said the affected addresses are under investigation and indicated that only treasury-related wallets appear impacted so far, with no confirmed effect on user funds or core protocol operations. The incident is drawing wider attention to operational security standards for DeFi protocol treasuries.

On January 5, 2026, Santiment published data ranking the most actively developed projects in the Ethereum ecosystem over the previous 30 days. The list is led by MetaMask USD, followed by Starknet, Chainlink, Radworks, Safe, Ethereum, Decentraland, Worldcoin, Status, and Cartesi, highlighting a focus on infrastructure, scaling, and governance rather than short-term price moves.

On January 30, 2026, Binance released its analysis of the October 10 crypto market crash, attributing the steep sell-off to a macroeconomic shock colliding with fragile market structure and heavy leverage. The exchange argued that risk-off sentiment, cascading derivatives liquidations, market maker withdrawals, and Ethereum network congestion drove the move, rather than any core platform failure or depeg events. Binance acknowledged limited internal frictions, including delayed internal transfers and irregular token index behavior, but maintained these did not trigger the broader downturn.