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Bitcoin is under pressure: since the beginning of the year it has fallen by over 24% and is trading around 65,900 USD (in the text you have two values: 65,907 and 65,997 — it is worth standardizing). More and more data suggests that the market may be in the early stages of a bear market.
Capital is not flowing in — this is the first red alert
CryptoQuant shows that inflows of new investors have turned negative. This means that the sell-off is not being balanced by fresh capital. The analyst from 'IT Tech' notes that in a bull market, declines attract buyers, whereas at the beginning of a bear market, the opposite happens: capital flows out, and liquidity shrinks.

The DeFi market received a strong impulse: following the announcement of the integration of the BUIDL fund (BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund) with the UniswapX infrastructure, the price of the UNI token jumped locally by about 40%.
Behind the announcement is Securitize, which stated that it enables trading of BUIDL 'on-chain' via UniswapX. BUIDL — a tokenized fund based on U.S. Treasury bonds — is set to manage assets of around 2.2 billion USD and launched in 2024.
After the announcement, UNI jumped from about 3.2 USD to about 4.52 USD, then retraced to around 3.4 USD, giving back part of the euphoria.

Paxful — P2P platform — was ordered to pay a fine of 4 million USD after admitting to knowingly profiting from servicing clients linked to crime. The prosecution claims that the exchange advertised itself as a place without KYC, and the AML policy was practically 'on paper', with no real implementation and enforcement.
According to the DOJ, funds linked to fraud and the illegal sex services market were said to flow through the platform. Andrew Tysen Duva, Deputy Attorney General in the Criminal Division, stated outright that Paxful was attracting criminals by signaling a lack of AML controls.

Sam Bankman-Fried filed a motion for a new trial in federal court, citing Rule 33 of the federal criminal procedure. This is a mechanism that allows for a request for reconsideration of a case when new circumstances arise or when, in the court's opinion, the interests of justice require it.
The defense claims that the original proceedings were burdened with procedural errors and that the jury did not see the full picture of FTX's financial condition.
SBF maintains that the exchange was not 'unequivocally insolvent' in the way presented by the prosecution, and that some data was interpreted to reinforce the narrative of misappropriation of client funds.

Michael Saylor claims that Strategy is prepared even for a very deep bearish scenario on bitcoin — and that the company's credit risk remains under control.
If bitcoin falls by 90% over the next four years, we will refinance the debt. We will simply extend it
— said Saylor, suggesting that the company has room to roll over obligations even in the case of an extreme drop in the value of BTC.
Strategy has over $8 billion in debt today, largely in the form of convertible bonds, while simultaneously controlling 714,644 BTC worth approximately $49 billion (at current prices). Saylor emphasizes that the company wants to buy bitcoin quarterly and has no plans to sell.

Ether fell below 2000 USD, but simultaneously something is happening that usually doesn't fit the narrative of pure panic: investors are mass withdrawing ETH from exchanges. CryptoQuant data indicates that this is the largest outflow since October, which may suggest that the market is transitioning into accumulation mode.
In recent days, over 220,000 ETH has left exchanges net. Binance stood out particularly: on February 5, the platform recorded approximately 158,000 ETH in net outflows — the highest daily payout level from this exchange since August of last year.

Strategy bought another 1,142 BTC for about 90 million USD (an average of 78,815 USD per BTC) during the period from February 2 to 8, according to the 8-K report submitted to the SEC. The purchase was financed by selling Class A shares (MSTR) under the ATM program.
Last week, the company sold 616,715 shares, raising about 89.5 million USD. As of February 8, the issuance limit in the ATM program was still 7.97 billion USD.
This is another purchase in a short time: previously, Strategy bought 855 BTC for about 75 million USD (an average of 87,974 USD). In total, the company now has 714,644 BTC.

Block Inc., Jack Dorsey's fintech (Cash App, Square, and bitcoin projects), is preparing for a workforce reduction of up to 10% of the team. With employment below 11,000 people, this potentially means around 1,000 positions.
Decisions are to be made as part of the annual performance reviews, lasting until the end of February. This would be the third wave of cuts in about two years: in January 2024, the company laid off about 1,000 people, and in March 2025, it eliminated another 931 positions.
In the background, a broad trend is visible: companies on the border of fintech and crypto are cutting costs, as pressure on margins and a decline in market activity force a defensive mode. Block additionally focuses on automation and AI tools (including the Goose assistant) and reallocates resources towards projects with higher potential, including those related to bitcoin.

There has been a lot of noise around Robert Kiyosaki again – this time due to discrepancies in his public statements about bitcoin purchases. The author of 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' suggested that he stopped buying BTC at around 6,000 USD, but the community quickly reminded him of earlier posts where he bought... much higher.
A Community Note appeared on Na because in 2025 Kiyosaki was said to express the desire to buy BTC at levels above 100,000 USD, and later also repeated that he buys 'every day' during the consolidation around 90,000 USD.

Searches for the term "cryptocurrencies" on Google remain close to the annual minimum. This is a signal that retail interest has clearly weakened - and historically, such moments often occurred during periods when the market was on the defensive.
The global Google Trends index for the phrase "cryptocurrencies" is around 30/100 (where 100 is the peak popularity, last reached in August 2025). The lowest reading in the last 12 months is 24. In the USA, the picture is similar: after a peak of 100 in July, it was around 37 in January, and the annual minimum is 32 (during the April crash of 2025).

When gold hits record highs and bitcoin experiences one of its weakest periods in years, the narrative of 'digital gold' is once again taking a hit. Bradley Duke, managing director of Bitwise Europe, believes that the market is confusing concepts: gold and BTC serve different roles and rather complement each other in a portfolio than push each other out.

During the Digital Assets Forum in London, Duke argued that in market stress, gold usually acts as a 'safety cushion' because investors have a historical 'muscle memory' for it. Bitcoin, on the other hand – in his opinion – offers greater potential in rebound phases when capital flows back to riskier assets.

The difficulty of mining in the Bitcoin network has decreased by about 11.16% over the last 24 hours – the strongest such movement since the Chinese crackdown on mining in 2021. The effect: BTC mining has temporarily become noticeably easier, although miners' profitability still looks weak.

According to CoinWarz, the difficulty is currently 125.86 T (since block 935 429), and the average block time is about 9.47 min. The next difficulty adjustment (scheduled for February 20) is expected to bring an increase of about 5.63% to 132.96 T.

What caused such a strong drop? One possible catalyst was the winter storm in the USA, which hit the energy infrastructure and led to temporary power consumption restrictions for some mines. At one point, Foundry USA – the largest BTC pool – had briefly lost about 60% of its power, dropping from nearly 400 EH/s to about 198 EH/s.

Bitcoin briefly dropped to 60,000 USD, recording its lowest levels since September 2024. Over the course of a day, positions worth 2.67 billion USD disappeared from the market, of which 2.31 billion USD were leveraged long positions.
The CMC Fear and Greed Index dropped to 5 points, the lowest in the history of the indicator, signaling extreme risk aversion. The index is currently oscillating around 9.
According to analyst Rachael Lucas (BTC Markets), traders have stopped 'catching falling knives' and are focusing on capital preservation. This is also confirmed by outflows from American spot ETFs on BTC, which exceeded 800 million USD in two days.

Strategy's CEO, Phong Le, reassures investors in the face of bitcoin declines. During the earnings conference, he stated that only maintaining the price of BTC at $8,000 for 5-6 years would pose a real threat to the company's debt servicing.
In an extreme scenario of a 90% discount to $8,000, BTC reserves would equal net debt. At that point, the company would consider restructuring, issuing shares, or new debt.
Strategy reported a net loss of $12.6 billion for the quarter, primarily due to unrealized losses on BTC. CFO Andrew Kang emphasized, however, that this is an accounting effect resulting from market valuation.

Bitcoin lost nearly 30% over the week, dropping to around 60,000 USD. Among many hypotheses, a less obvious theory regarding the ETF market emerged.
Parker White (DeFi Development Corp.) drew attention to the record activity surrounding BlackRock's IBIT ETF. The fund recorded:
10.7 billion USD daily volume (the highest in history),
~900 million USD in options premium trading.
White speculates that one of the large funds may have been using leveraged options strategies on IBIT, funded by cheap capital in JPY. After previous losses and rising financing costs, the fund may have been forced to sharply reduce risk — which translated into a sell-off of BTC and other assets.

As the bear market deepens, the discussion about a potential bottom for bitcoin is becoming increasingly brutal. Some hope for a quick halt to the declines, while others reach for historical analogies from previous cycles.
After BTC dropped to around 60,000 USD, the largest cryptocurrency fell below its ATH from the previous bull market, which was a psychological breakthrough for many investors.
Analyst Damian Chmiel (Finance Magnates) admitted that the market has surpassed his previous technical scenarios. Based on Fibonacci levels, he has shifted the potential correction target to around 52,000 USD.

The cryptocurrency market remains in a phase of strong sell-off, and ether has become one of the main focal points of this correction. In just seven days, ETH lost nearly 30% of its value, recording one of the weakest performances among the top 10 projects.
The ETH/USD rate fell below $2,000 for the first time since May 2025, dropping to $1,740, marking a 9-month low. Although the price briefly bounced back to around $1,980, the market structure remains clearly bearish.
The price declines were accompanied by a sharp outflow of capital from the derivatives market. Over the week, open interest in ETH contracts decreased by more than $15 billion, and in the last 24 hours, positions worth over $414 million were liquidated (of which ~287 million USD were longs).

According to CryptoQuant, the current bear market is developing faster than the beginning of the bear market in 2022. Since BTC fell below the 365-day average in November 2025, the decline is expected to be significantly deeper in a comparable time frame.
Faster decline, extreme fear, and a possible "panic bounce"
Analysts indicate an acceleration of worsening momentum and the loss of important technical levels. Additionally, there is a fading of leverage and weaker spot demand — which often results in a mix of "crypto winter" in the short term.

Rumors about Binance's alleged insolvency spread on X after a viral post and screenshot of a 'legal document'. Binance publicly denied the matter, stating that the document is fabricated.
How FUD works in a nervous market
In moments of strong declines and fear, the market is susceptible to disinformation. It only takes one post, 'leak', or screenshot to trigger an avalanche of shares and calls for mass withdrawals.
In this situation, Binance indicated that the circulating document did not originate from the exchange and called for caution regarding forgeries. Co-founder He Yi also commented, suggesting that despite calls for a 'withdrawal test', the platform remains operationally stable.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the government does not intend to sell the seized bitcoins. At the same time, he clearly cut off speculation that the state would pressure banks to buy BTC.
The U.S. holds BTC, but without a 'mandate for adoption'
During a congressional hearing, a question was raised about whether the administration could 'rescue Bitcoin' or create regulatory incentives that would push banks towards BTC (e.g., through reserves). Bessent responded that he does not have such authority.