Bitcoin open interest falls to $34 billion as investor demand dries up and traders’ concerns shift to worrying US macroeconomic data. Is TradFi exiting BTC? Key takeaways: BTC open interest falls to $34 billion, but stable BTC-denominated volume suggests leverage demand remains unchanged. Weak US jobs data and Bitcoin options skew indicate a bearish shift, even as gold and stocks show relative strength. Read more
Bitcoin has seen record realized losses in one of the cryptocurrency’s largest-ever capitulation events as short-term holders sold at steep losses amid its decline. Bitcoin has posted $2.3 billion in realized losses in what one analyst says is one of the largest capitulation events in history, rivaling its crash in 2021. Bitcoin’s (BTC) seven-day average realized net losses hit $2.3 billion, analyst IT Tech said in a note on CryptoQuant on Thursday, which it called “one of the largest capitulation events in BTC history, rivaling the 2021 crash, 2022 Luna/FTX collapse, and mid-2024 correction.” “This puts us in the top 3-5 loss events ever recorded,” IT Tech added. “Only a handful of moments in Bitcoin's history have seen this level of capitulation.” Read more
Al Green is running against Christian Menefee in the Democratic Party primary elections next month, with Texas one of the first states to vote. The pro-crypto political action committee (PAC) Protect Progress will reportedly spend $1.5 million opposing Texas representative Al Green in the upcoming Democratic Party primary over his past opposition to crypto. “As a member of the Financial Services Committee, Representative Al Green has decided to try and stop American innovation in its tracks,” Protect Progress, an affiliate of the major crypto PAC Fairshake, told The Hill on Thursday. Green, a Democrat who has represented Texas's 9th congressional district in the House since 2005, opposed the stablecoin regulating GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, two crypto-focused bills that the House passed last year. Read more
CFTC chair Mike Selig launched the Innovation Advisory Committee in January, nominating 12 members as charter members before expanding the final list to 35 on Thursday. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has added a slew of crypto executives, including those from Coinbase and Ripple, to its Innovation Advisory Committee, who will shape how the regulator crafts policy. CFTC chair Mike Selig said on Thursday that the 35 members of the committee will “ensure the CFTC’s decisions reflect market realities” and enable it to “develop clear rules of the road for the Golden Age of American Financial Markets.” The committee launched in January, replacing the Technology Advisory Committee, which drew on the advice of tech leaders to dissect how new technologies were impacting the derivatives markets more broadly. Read more
Coinbase’s fourth-quarter earnings missed Wall Street expectations, with the crypto exchange reporting its first net loss since the third quarter of 2023. Coinbase reported a net loss of $667 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, snapping the crypto exchange’s eight-quarter streak of profitability. In its Q4 earnings released on Thursday, Coinbase reported earnings per share of 66 cents, missing analyst expectations of 92 cents by 26 cents. The company said its net revenue fell 21.5% year-on-year to $1.78 billion, falling short of analyst expectations of $1.85 billion. Read more
Bitcoin appears trapped within a capitulation zone where long-term holders continue to sell, and bearish onchain metrics tease further downside. Will $40,000 mark the final price bottom? Bitcoin (BTC) sellers resumed their activity on Thursday as the Bitcoin price turned away from its intraday high of $68,300. Analysts said that Bitcoin remained in capitulation, which could push the price lower, potentially reaching a bottom during the last quarter of 2026. Key takeaways: Multiple onchain indicators suggest Bitcoin is in deep capitulation as downside risks remain. Read more
Traditional risk-weightings and models cannot account for crypto's high volatility or market behavior, according to a Federal Reserve paper. New analysis published Wednesday by the Federal Reserve proposes that crypto be categorized as a distinct asset class for initial margin requirements used in “uncleared” derivatives markets, including over-the-counter trades and other transactions that do not pass through a centralized clearinghouse. The working paper said that is because crypto is more volatile than traditional asset classes and does not fit into the risk categories outlined in the Standardized Initial Margin Model (SIMM) that classifies asset classes. These include interest rates, equities, foreign exchange and commodities, according to authors Anna Amirdjanova, David Lynch and Anni Zheng. Read more
The dollar-backed token, USDCBL, will serve as collateral for onchain perps, with cash and Treasury reserves generating yield retained within the protocol. The Decibel Foundation said it will introduce a protocol-native stablecoin, USDCBL, issued by Bridge, ahead of the February mainnet launch of its Aptos-based decentralized derivatives exchange. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday, the US dollar-denominated token will serve as collateral for onchain perpetual futures trading, allowing the platform to internalize reserve-related economics rather than rely on third-party stablecoin issuers. Decibel, incubated by Aptos Labs, plans to launch in this month with a fully onchain perpetual futures venue using a single cross-margin account. The exchange said its December testnet attracted more than 650,000 unique accounts and exceeding 1 million daily trades, though those figures have not been independently verified. Read more