Hey folks,
Welcome back to your weekly snapshot of crypto insights, where we cover major trends, market moves, policy shifts, and must-know developments from the crypto space.
Markets opened the week on shaky footing, with Bitcoin and Ethereum facing sharp volatility amid deteriorating risk sentiment, geopolitical tensions, and a strengthening US dollar. Crypto market saw heavy liquidations and significant drawdowns, even as a few standout tokens showed resilience.
Against this backdrop, major macro developments from US monetary policy shifts and India’s unchanged crypto tax stance to rapid moves in prediction markets and digital identity are shaping sentiment and signaling where the industry may head next. Here's your quick dive into the week that was and the future that's unfolding.
BTC began the week attempting to stabilize, with dip buying pushing price toward $88K–$89K as a softer US dollar and a short-term leverage reset briefly improved market structure. However, repeated failures above $90K highlighted weak follow-through demand. As risk sentiment deteriorated and U.S. shutdown concerns resurfaced, BTC was trading around $85K. The decisive move below $80K had its own catalysts: escalating US-Iran geopolitical tensions triggered risk-off flows, a sharp US dollar rally pressured all dollar-denominated assets, and already-thin liquidity magnified downside moves. Price sold off aggressively into the $75K–$77K zone, erasing roughly $800 billion in market value from the October peak and forcing over $2.5 billion in long liquidations. Near-term focus is on holding $75K, while $80K remains key for confidence to rebuild.
ETH also bore the brunt of the selloff, reversing sharply this week after repeated failures near the $3,000 level and falling 23.5% over the past seven days. A breakdown of key supports triggered accelerated selling in a thin-liquidity, risk-off environment. The decline extended toward the $2,200–$2,300 zone, with limited rebound strength suggesting that near-term market structure remains fragile.
US President Donald Trump announced that he has nominated Kevin Warsh as the next Chair of the Federal Reserve, intensifying his ongoing criticism of current Chair Jerome Powell and the Fed’s interest-rate policies. Kevin is known for opposing loose monetary policy. He has been skeptical of crypto as money, previously citing Bitcoin’s volatility, though he later acknowledged its role as a portfolio asset and said it does not threaten the dollar.
India’s Union Budget 2026–27 has kept the crypto tax regime unchanged, retaining the 30% tax on crypto gains and 1% TDS on transactions, while introducing a stricter penalty framework to tighten compliance. Under amendments proposed in the Finance Bill, 2026, a user will face a ₹200 per day penalty for non-filing of crypto transaction statements and a flat ₹50,000 fine for incorrect or unrectified disclosures. These provisions take effect from April 1, 2026.
Speaking about prediction markets, Coinbase has launched prediction markets across all 50 US states in partnership with Kalshi, allowing users to trade on outcomes of real-world events spanning sports, politics, and culture. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong described prediction markets as powerful tools for truth-seeking, arguing that incentives produce more reliable information than opinion-driven narratives.
Lastly, Nubank, Latin America’s largest digital bank with about 127 million active customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a U.S. national bank, a step that could enable it to offer crypto custody and broader banking services in the United States. Once fully approved under a federal banking framework, the bank could roll out deposit accounts, credit cards, lending, and digital asset custody.
In the altcoin space, HYPE, CC, and STABLE showed notable resilience, posting significant weekly gains. Worldcoin (WLD) briefly surged nearly 25% following a Forbes report that OpenAI may explore biometric verification solutions using Worldcoin’s technology, though the token has since given back those gains.
Weekly price movement:
BTC $76,665 ⏬ 12.82% (1W)
ETH $2,244 ⏬ 22.95% (1W)
HYPE $31.03 ⏫ 39.85% (1W)
CC $0.18 ⏫ 22.71% (1W)
STABLE $0.02 ⏫ 25.88% (1W)
(All data here as of 2:00 p.m., 2 February 2026)
Before we conclude, here’s a quick look at some important news from around the crypto world.
Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDT, is making its move into the US domestic market with the launch of USAT, a dollar-backed token issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. The launch marks Tether’s first product specifically designed to operate within the US federal stablecoin framework established under the GENIUS Act. Tether’s new stablecoin, USAT, could pose the first serious challenge to Circle’s USDC in the US market, according to CoinDesk.
Ethereum, the smart contract blockchain, now handles more daily activity than its cheaper side chains, called Layer-2 networks. But this comeback has a catch, not all of that Ethereum activity appears to reflect genuine user demand. The number of daily active addresses on Ethereum climbed toward the 1 million mark earlier this month, briefly peaking above 1.3 million on Jan. 16 before settling closer to 950,000, according to data source Token Terminal, according to CoinDesk.
That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking around.
See you later, folks! 👋