Institutional investors accelerated short selling of U.S. equities, with hedge funds cutting single-stock exposure at the fastest rate since October and marking a second consecutive day of selling. Five of 11 sectors saw heavy liquidation, while the S&P 500 fell 1.19% over five days and the Dow gained 1.29%.

Bitcoin's price climbed back above $71,000 less than a day after dropping to $60,000, recovering over $10,000 from its recent multi-year low. XRP jumped about 19% to above $1.50 and ETH moved back over $2,000, while more than $350 million in short positions were liquidated in the last 12 hours and daily liquidations still exceed $2 billion.

Ripple Prime International has activated support for the Hyperliquid derivatives venue, allowing institutional clients to cross-margin XRP and other assets through its brokerage platform. Veteran trader Peter Brandt describes Bitcoin’s eight-day slide as a possible campaign-style sell-off targeting levels near $63,800, while on-chain activity tied to Vitalik Buterin shows about 2,961.5 ETH traded in three days as Ethereum falls toward the $2,100–$2,200 area.

Binance has announced that 20 spot trading pairs, including combinations for AI and DeFi tokens, will be removed from its platform on Feb. 6, 2026. The exchange will also close and delist RVVUSDT and YALAUSDT perpetual contracts on Feb. 10, 2026, while adding new equity perpetual contracts such as AMZNUSDT and MSTRUSDT with up to 10x leverage on Feb. 9, 2026. In addition, Binance has expanded its SAFU Fund by purchasing 3,600 BTC, bringing the fund's BTC holdings to 6,230 BTC.

BlackRock moved crypto to Coinbase Prime on February 6, 2026, depositing 4,248 BTC valued at $281 million and 5,734 ETH worth about $11 million. Earlier in the week, it sold $671 million in BTC as Bitcoin fell to around $60,000 and the market's total value dropped by up to $1.5 trillion since the year began.

IREN shares dropped about 18% and traded around $39.79 after reporting fiscal second‑quarter results on Thursday. In a Friday client note, Bernstein said the selloff reflected the absence of a new AI hyperscaler agreement, adding that bitcoin‑linked volatility is no longer central as the company pivots toward AI infrastructure.

According to a daily crypto news rundown released on a Thursday, XRP has dropped about 25% in 24 hours while roughly $1 trillion has been wiped from the wider digital asset market. The segment highlights deep paper losses at institutional treasuries, negative spot Bitcoin ETF flows, growing U.S. regulatory attention, and the emergence of AI-focused crypto standards like ERC‑8004 alongside new platforms such as Crypto.com's OG.com prediction market.

Pump.fun completed its acquisition of crypto trading service Vyper last week, integrating its automation tools into the company's Terminal platform while Vyper winds down most operations on February 10, 2026. The move follows Pump.fun's October 24 purchase of Padre and comes as total memecoin market value has fallen from over $100 billion in December 2024 to about $28 billion, with the platform's monthly revenue dropping from more than $137 million in January 2025 to roughly $31 million by January 2026. Despite the downturn, around 30,000 new tokens were launched on February 2, 2026, underscoring ongoing demand for trading automation and multi-chain tools.