Crypto

Your look at what's coming in the week starting Feb. 9.

South Korea’s financial watchdog detailed planned investigations into high-risk trading tactics as it prepares the next phase of crypto regulation, Yonhap News Agency reported. South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said it will step up scrutiny of suspected cryptocurrency price manipulation in 2026, outlining a slate of planned investigations that target high-risk trading tactics, including “whale” activity and schemes that exploit disruptions at local exchanges, local outlet Yonhap reported Monday. According to Yonhap News Agency, FSS Governor Lee Chang-jin said that the agency will target high-risk trading practices that undermine market order, including coordinated manipulation and schemes exploiting disruptions in exchange infrastructure.  The FSS said the probes will focus on tactics that involve large-scale trading by whales, artificial price swings during exchange deposit or withdrawal suspensions and coordinated trading mechanisms using APIs or social media to spread false information.  Re...

Bitcoin price forecasts still favor lower macro lows as traders brace for US inflation data and renewed Japan-driven currency volatility. Bitcoin (BTC) starts the second week of February still on the defensive after last week’s sharp drawdown, with traders increasingly eyeing a deeper retracement toward $60,000 — and even $50,000 — before a durable macro bottom forms. Market forecasts agree that Bitcoin price action has not yet put in a reliable long-term bottom. CPI week comes as markets lose faith in Fed rate cuts in March. Read more

In an interview with CoinDesk, S.Y. Lee pointed to Worldcoin’s extended lockups as precedent for longer runways.

A busy week lies ahead on the United States economic calendar, with labor market and inflation reports due while macroeconomic uncertainty remains elevated.

The Wall Street investment bank estimates the crypto firm holds at least 148 tonnes of physical gold holdings, joining top 30 global holders of bullion.

Ripple’s XRP is no longer trading within a corrective or range-bound environment. The recent price action reflects a clear liquidity-driven unwind, where prior reaction zones have failed to hold, and the asset is now probing deeper demand with limited structural support overhead. Ripple Price Analysis: The Daily Chart On the daily timeframe, XRP has breached […]

Ethereum remains under heavy bearish pressure, with recent price action confirming a continuation of the broader downtrend. The market is currently reacting to a major sell-side expansion, and both technical structure and on-chain liquidity dynamics suggest that the asset is still navigating a critical phase where downside targets remain relevant, even if short-term relief bounces […]

The Financial Supervisory Service said it plans to build tools that automatically extract suspicious trading patterns by the second and minute.

The key point is that most of the potentially exposed bitcoin isn’t sitting in a handful of giant, juicy targets. It’s scattered across more than 32,000 separate wallets.

The banking regulator will revise transparency policies to settle Coinbase's "Operation Choke Point 2.0" lawsuit.

Authorities in France launched the manhunt after a magistrate and her mother were abducted overnight and found injured.

Analysts maintain a cautious stance even after Bitcoin’s 12% relief rally clawed back recent losses amid a surging Coinbase Premium.

Most quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin sits in wallets holding under 100 Bitcoin, with CoinShares claiming it could take a millennium to compromise each one. Digital asset manager CoinShares has brushed aside concerns that quantum computers could soon shake up the Bitcoin market, arguing that only a fraction of coins are held in wallets worth attacking. In a post on Friday, CoinShares Bitcoin research lead Christopher Bendiksen argued that just 10,230 Bitcoin (BTC) of 1.63 million Bitcoin sit in wallet addresses with publicly visible cryptographic keys that are vulnerable to a quantum computing attack. A little over 7,000 Bitcoin are held in wallets with between 100 and 1,000 BTC, while roughly 3,230 Bitcoin are held in wallets with 1,000 to 10,000 BTC, equating to $719.1 million at current market prices, which Bendiksen said could even resemble a routine trade. Read more

Japanese mandate sparks surge in equities and safe havens.

New research says today’s quantum computers are far too weak to threaten Bitcoin’s cryptography, leaving the network years to prepare.

US-headquartered companies captured 55% of Q4 crypto VC capital.

Whether the Federal Reserve is engaging in quantitative easing is purely semantic, according to Alden, who says all roads lead to debasement. The US Federal Reserve is entering into a “gradual” era of money printing that will stimulate asset prices “mildly” but will not be as dramatic as the “big print” that many in the Bitcoin (BTC) community anticipated, according to economist and Bitcoin advocate Lyn Alden. “My base case is roughly in line with what the Fed expects: to grow its balance sheet approximately at the same proportional pace as total bank assets or nominal gross-domestic product (GDP),” Alden said in her Feb. 8 investment strategy newsletter, adding: The comments followed US President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to be the next Federal Reserve Chairman, which caused a furor among market traders, who perceived Warsh as more hawkish on interest rates than other potential Fed picks. Interest rate policy can influence crypto prices. Expanding credit by increasing the money supply is typic...

Chris Dixon, a managing partner at a16z crypto, said that non-financial use cases in crypto will flourish when regulations become clear. Prominent crypto venture capitalists are clashing online about whether non-financial use cases in crypto, Web3, and blockchain have failed due to a lack of investor demand and product-market fit or if the best days for non-financial applications still lay ahead. The debate started on Friday when Chris Dixon, a managing partner at venture capital firm a16z crypto, published an article arguing that years of “scams, extractive behavior and regulatory attacks” were the reason that non-financial use cases in crypto have not taken off. These use cases include decentralized social media, digital identity management, decentralized media streaming platforms, digital rights platforms, Web3 video games and more. Read more

Bitcoin’s next big options gravity well sits on Mar. 27 (260327), and the reason is simple: this is where the market has parked a thick stack of conditional bets that will need to be unwound, rolled forward, or paid out as the clock runs down. The Mar. 27 expiry carries about $8.65B in notional OI […] The post Bitcoin bears could sleepwalk into a $8.65 billion trap as options max pain expiry nears $90,000 appeared first on CryptoSlate.