Weekly: Epstein and crypto, a major market crash, and Elon Musk’s mega company

This was one of those weeks when you check the market and, within 30 seconds, you already know: the calm is over. It started like a normal dip, but very quickly turned into a hard sell-off where supports don’t hold and liquidations fly one after another.

Alongside the price drop, the other side of crypto came to the front: scandals, regulators, big money, AI, and deals that sound like science fiction. 

Bitcoin: broke levels and showed what panic looks like

BTC pushed through levels like a staircase. First it broke 75,000, then went below 70,000, and on the night of February 6 it touched 60,000. What matters isn’t even the number itself, but how it got there: fast, with the feeling the market remembered for a second what panic looks like.

On that move, liquidations for the day went above $2.6 billion, and longs took the biggest hit, more than $2 billion. The fear index dropped to 9 points.

ETFs: the average entry price is above the market, and money is flowing out

Against the backdrop of the drop, more than $2.8 billion was withdrawn from funds. The average entry price for investors in spot Bitcoin ETFs is estimated at around 87,800, while AUM fell by about 31.5% from the peak that was cited around $165 billion.

Miners: when the price is below cost, it’s already a signal

There’s a simple psychological trigger: if the price falls below the estimated cost of mining, the market starts talking about miner capitulation. Here they mentioned a reference point around 87,000 per coin and that below 70,000 mining may not cover average costs. Even if the numbers are debatable, the mood is clear: in moments like this, people look for who won’t make it next.

Altcoins: a sell-off wave swept through the top 10

Alts had no place to hide this week. In the top 10, average drawdowns were around minus 10% or more, and it’s one of those moments when the market seems to say: first we flush out excess leverage, then we finish off belief in a quick recovery.

ETH and SOL: didn’t sit it out either

Ethereum was down more than 8% at the start of the week and slid toward the 2,200 area, and on the morning of February 6 it broke below 1,900, then partially bounced back. Solana dropped below 100, and then traded around 88 with a weekly decline of about 16.6%.

Regulation: China stays tough, Hong Kong licenses stablecoins

The contrast in regulatory news is interesting. China confirmed its current ban on cryptoasset operations and tightened the framework for tokenization and stablecoins. Hong Kong, on the contrary, is moving toward legalization: it plans to issue the first licenses to stablecoin issuers as early as March 2026, but only for a very small number of applicants.

Big stories: TRX, Epstein, X, and Grok

While the market was falling, the feed was full of stories adding fuel to the overall tension.

First: a blogger who calls herself Justin Sun’s ex-girlfriend claimed possible manipulation of TRX at an early stage and the use of accounts on Binance.

Second: a new batch of declassified materials appeared in the Epstein case, mentioning an interest in bitcoin and contacts with the venture environment. These stories always trigger the same reaction: the market doesn’t like a toxic backdrop, even if it’s not directly about price.

Third: in France, searches were carried out at X offices as part of an investigation linked to Grok.

Security: stolen billions are no longer exotic

A separate painful theme of the week: in reports for 2025, the figure of $4.04 billion in stolen funds from crypto projects appeared, which is 2.1 times more than in 2024. And one more emphasis: the Bybit incident at $1.46 billion, that is more than 36% of total losses. When one event makes up a third of annual statistics, it’s no longer just news, it’s systemic risk.

AI: coding models, Musk’s structure, and record budgets

While crypto was flushing leverage, the AI feed looked like a parallel universe:

• Anthropic and OpenAI unveiled new coding models, mentioning Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.3 Codex
• Musk announced the merger of SpaceX and xAI into a structure valued at 1.25 trillion
• Google set 175–185 billion in capital expenditures for 2026 with a focus on AI infrastructure
• talks about a major OpenAI and Nvidia deal for 100 billion have effectively stalled

Kursoff’s view

In weeks like this, the market doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It just checks how disciplined you are.

Trading isn’t about winning back a drawdown with one brave entry. It’s about not breaking across a series of sharp moves. Fewer bets, less leverage, and a cooler head.