Weekly: BTC −10% for January, ETH −17%, and noise around Binance

This week was about risk-off mode, when the market doesn’t think for long and just hits the button to exit risk. Crypto fell in waves, derivatives amplified every move with liquidations, institutional money flowed out through ETFs, and at the same time topics came up that always hit investor trust and nerves: macro, regulation, data security, and AI.

What people are discussing the most right now: BTC closed January with a 10% correction – this is the fourth month of declines in a row and the worst streak since 2018. ETH fell 17% over the same period. This adds tension, because the market is starting to see the move not as a temporary wave, but as a prolonged risk regime.

Market: why everything looked too sharp

In weeks like this, the main driver isn’t analysis, but mechanics. When there’s a lot of leverage in the market, a drop triggers a domino effect: the price dips, positions get liquidated, liquidations create additional selling, and the move accelerates. Because of this, even a normal correction can look like a crash.

Bitcoin: the week’s capitulation – causes and impact

On the night of January 26, 2026, Bitcoin fell below $87,000, and after the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep the rate unchanged it dropped below $85,000 – the market read this as a signal that macro uncertainty is dragging on and risk will be cut further. The sell-off wasn’t only in crypto: Microsoft minus 12%, gold above $5,600 – classic risk-off, when risky assets are sold and defensive ones absorb liquidity.

On the night of January 30, BTC fell below $82,000 amid U.S.–Iran tensions and the risk of a shutdown. The Fear & Greed Index dropped to 16, a wave of liquidations began: $1.7 billion in futures and almost 274,000 traders got hit, DVOL jumped from 37 to 45. At the time of preparing this material, BTC was around $78,454, and realized losses were estimated at about $4.5 billion – a typical capitulation, when people exit not because it’s profitable, but because they can’t take it anymore. BTC closed January with a 10% correction – the fourth month of declines in a row and the worst streak since 2018.

Ethereum: price decline amid outflows and technical signals

Ethereum followed Bitcoin. During the sell-off wave on January 29–30, the price dropped below $2,700, and at the time of preparing this material the price was around $2,370.

ETFs added extra pressure: over the same period, January 20–23, $612 million was withdrawn from Ethereum funds. Against this backdrop, fees on the Ethereum network fell to their lowest levels since 2017. And the paradox of the week is this: the price is falling, nerves are boiling, but technical development doesn’t stop. In particular, a new standard for AI agents, ERC-8004, was mentioned.

Why there is still no real altseason

Before, the scenario was clear: Bitcoin rises, then money flows into alts, and almost everything goes up. Now it works worse, and the reason isn’t mysticism, but the market structure.

There are significantly more tokens: people talked about growth from roughly 6 million to 30 million. Liquidity is diluted. Many projects launch with low initial supply and a high fully diluted valuation, so for the market it looks like there’s less room for honest growth. Plus, capital migrates into niche categories like memecoins and prediction markets, rather than into a broad basket of alts.

What stood out among alts

This week they separately mentioned the HYPE token, which rose by more than 50% in three days, the price reached around $34, and the market cap for the first time since December 2025 exceeded $10 billion. Among the reasons cited were the end of the sell-off, the launch of treasuries based on the token, and the implementation of HIP-3.

Another interesting story of the week was TheDAO. It was said that the organization still controls over 75,000 ETH, and these funds are planned to be used for staking and supporting ecosystem initiatives, particularly in the area of security.

Mining and cold weather in the U.S.: hashrate decline

Weather also got into the market. Due to severe cold in the U.S., mining companies temporarily shut down parts of their data centers to avoid overloading the power grid. Against this backdrop, the hashrate of some participants fell very noticeably. In particular, it was mentioned that the hashrate of the FoundryUSA pool dropped by almost 200 EH/s, about 60%, starting from January 23, and an estimated up to 1.3 million units could have been turned off. On the network level, this was reflected in a hashrate drop to the lowest levels since July 2025.

Regulation: what moved this week

On the regulatory side, the week was busy and diverse.

In Japan, they discussed a scenario under which crypto ETFs could become a reality closer to 2028, and the market is already looking at this as a long-term vector.

In Poland, the Sejm sent the cryptoassets bill to the president for signature again. The president has 21 days to sign it or veto it again.

In South Korea, the Democratic Party planned to submit a bill on digital assets by February 17 as a framework document for further institutionalization of the market.

In the U.S., clarifications appeared regarding tokenized securities, as well as signals about attempts to align the approach to crypto market rules among key regulators.

AI: investigations, abuse, and data leak risks

AI created more noise again. The European Commission launched an investigation into X after the Grok story, when the text-prompt image editing feature began to be widely used to create sexually suggestive content without the owner’s knowledge.

At the same time, there were mentions that U.S. authorities may use AI to speed up rulemaking processes in transport. And researchers separately pointed to the risks of data leakage when using the AI agent Clawdbot.

Activities and wrap-up: airdrops, nodes, investments

In terms of activities, they mentioned guides on HyEna, Variational, and Konnex, and on the technical side – Tempo Node Setup. They also summarized key January investments in blockchain, cryptoassets, and AI and reminded about the events calendar.

Kursoff opinion

This week showed two things without embellishment. First: in risk-off, the winner isn’t the one trying to guess the bottom, but the one who controls risk and doesn’t let leverage decide for them. Second: information noise and data security topics always bring us back to basics. In 2026, losing access due to carelessness is sometimes easier than surviving a price drop. That’s why discipline in positions and discipline in account protection are the same story, just in different places.