Gate Research Institute: BTC has fallen approximately 40% since its peak in October last year | Tether's high valuation questioned by investors

Summary

• Bitcoin prices are accelerating downward, with no clear signs of bottoming out in the short term. Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum’s current decline has a relatively gentler slope. The price has now fallen back to a key support zone around $2,000.
• “I Ride a Horse” benefits from network effects, rising 26.54% within 24 hours; the official account of World Mobile Chain issued a statement linking WMTX’s market performance directly to the DePIN sector, with WMTX up 15.79% in 24 hours.
• Ripple has integrated the decentralized derivatives protocol Hyperliquid into its institutional-grade prime brokerage platform Ripple Prime; Bitnomial launched its first compliant Tezos (XTZ) futures product; on-chain signals show “bottom signals” reappearing, with Bitcoin profit-loss supply convergence possibly pointing to around $60,000.
• Key support levels for BTC are $69,000 and $58,000; Vitalik Buterin reflects that the L2 expansion roadmap for Ethereum is no longer applicable.
• Last week, 12 crypto-related projects announced funding rounds or mergers and acquisitions, covering prediction markets, compliance solutions, DeFi, infrastructure, and more.
• HYPE, BERA, and ENA will unlock approximately $350 million, $27.6 million, and $23 million worth of tokens respectively over the next 7 days.

Market Analysis

Market Commentary

• BTC — Bitcoin’s price is accelerating downward. On the 1-hour chart, after breaking below the recent low of $73,000, there are no clear signs of stabilization in the short term. The trend continues to retrace gains since 2025 and dips toward the key level around November 2024 at approximately $70,000. Data from CoinGlass shows that recent Bitcoin liquidations have totaled $2.56 billion, with leverage positions still being cleared. Meanwhile, policy uncertainties further suppress market sentiment: a White House meeting aimed at breaking months-long legislative deadlock between banks and crypto firms failed to make progress, with stablecoin reward mechanisms being a major point of contention.
• ETH — Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum’s decline has been relatively milder, with the price now near a critical support zone around $2,000. This zone coincides with previous major annual lows and historical demand areas, which have long been strong accumulation zones for buyers. If the $2,000 support fails, Ethereum could further decline toward the $1,800 level around May 2025. Sentiment indicators show Ethereum’s premium index is currently in deep negative territory, approaching levels seen at last year’s market lows, indicating overall market sentiment is quite bearish, with institutional and long-term spot demand weakening. Historical experience suggests that when the premium remains negative, downside risks and range-bound trading tend to dominate, and the market is more likely to stay in a bearish state.
• Altcoins — Altcoins generally declined this week, with market sentiment falling back into “extreme fear” territory. The crypto fear index dropped sharply to 11, well below last week’s average of 38. This indicates a significant contraction in risk appetite among market participants, with overall trading sentiment turning defensive and operations becoming extremely cautious.
• Stablecoins — The total market cap of stablecoins is currently $305.959 billion, down $2.268 billion (0.74%) over the past week.
• Gas Fees — Ethereum network gas fees mostly stayed below 1 Gwei over the past week, with the highest hourly peak on January 31 at 1.72 Gwei. As of February 5, the average gas fee for the day was 0.333 Gwei.

Hot Tokens

In the past 24 hours, the market showed synchronized retracement, with BTC down about 5.5%, and major assets like ETH and SOL falling between 5% and 8%. Small and mid-cap assets and high-beta tokens experienced deeper declines, indicating ongoing deleveraging and position compression. Overall, the market is in a passive adjustment dominated by sentiment and liquidity. Despite this, some tokens still attracted capital, which will be analyzed below.

I Ride a Horse I Ride a Horse (+26.54%, Circulating Market Cap $45.151 million)

According to Gate data, the current price of “I Ride a Horse” token is $0.044304, up 26.54% in 24 hours. It is a meme coin originating from Chinese internet meme culture on BNB Chain, emphasizing emotional consensus and cultural self-deprecation.

Benefiting from network effects, “I Ride a Horse” has high trading activity. Multi-cycle technical indicators show strong momentum, with RSI at 62.07, not overbought, and MACD confirming an upward trend. As one of the hottest Chinese meme coins on BNB Chain since January 2026, technicals support continued buying, and retail enthusiasm creates positive feedback.

WMTX World Mobile Chain (+15.79%, Circulating Market Cap $59.029 million)

Data from Gate shows WMTX is priced at $0.09317, up 15.79% in 24 hours. The World Mobile ecosystem serves as the foundational layer for global mobile networks, using blockchain and decentralized infrastructure to provide affordable connectivity in underserved regions. The token is used for network incentives, node operation, and governance, promoting the deployment of decentralized telecom networks that “connect the unconnected.”

On February 4, the official World Mobile Chain account announced that WMTX was the most traded DePIN token in the past 24 hours, leading the second by about 8 times. This statement directly links WMTX’s market performance to the DePIN sector, emphasizing its trading volume leadership to enhance its utility and market recognition among users, fueling FOMO especially in a weak overall market, and driving concentrated buying.

SYN Synapse (+2.09%, Circulating Market Cap $17.181 million)

Gate data shows SYN is priced at $0.07845, up over 2.09% in 24 hours. Synapse is a cross-chain interoperability protocol dedicated to enabling fast, low-cost asset and data transfers between different blockchains. Its unified cross-chain liquidity and messaging mechanisms make it a key infrastructure for multi-chain DeFi applications.

The rise in SYN is mainly driven by fundamental catalysts: Synapse SDK has become a core component of the Filecoin Onchain Cloud mainnet launched in January, helping developers easily integrate verifiable storage and payment functions into decentralized applications (Filecoin). This is the result of months of development updates and testnet activity, marking a significant milestone from planning to real-world application, creating new demand for SYN.

Key Data Highlights

Ripple Prime Supports On-Chain Derivatives Trading for the First Time

On February 4, Ripple integrated the decentralized derivatives protocol Hyperliquid into its institutional-grade prime brokerage platform Ripple Prime, marking the platform’s first direct support for DeFi. Clients can manage Hyperliquid’s on-chain derivatives positions alongside risk exposures from centralized crypto markets, forex, and fixed income within a unified framework. Ripple states that institutional clients accessing Hyperliquid will still face Ripple Prime as the counterparty, with all positions managed under a unified risk and margin system.

This move introduces the “prime broker” model. In traditional finance, large institutional investors do not open accounts and manage margins separately on each exchange but access multiple liquidity venues through a prime broker (like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley), enjoying cross-asset, cross-market risk management and capital efficiency. Ripple Prime aims to serve this role in blockchain. It reflects increasing institutional participation in DeFi. Ripple Prime plans to support both centralized and decentralized liquidity venues, providing a seamless, unified multi-market trading and risk management experience.

Bitnomial Launches First Regulated Tezos (XTZ) Futures Product

On February 4, Chicago derivatives exchange Bitnomial announced the launch of its first regulated Tezos (XTZ) futures contract, now available to institutional investors, with retail traders able to participate via its platform Botanical. Tezos was proposed in 2014, raised about $232 million in its 2017 ICO, and was one of the largest ICOs ever. Known for its “self-upgradable” governance and early PoS consensus, Tezos aims for on-chain governance and upgradeability.

Bitnomial also plans to launch perpetual contracts and options for XTZ. Co-founder Arthur Breitman states that regulated futures help improve price discovery and risk hedging, encouraging institutional participation. Bitnomial has previously launched compliant derivatives for assets like XRP, Solana, and Aptos. Overall, this signifies further acceptance of certain crypto assets within traditional finance. As an early PoS and on-chain governance project, Tezos’ compliant futures provide institutions with risk management and price discovery tools.

On-Chain “Bottom Signal” Reappears, Bitcoin Profit-Loss Supply Convergence May Point to ~$60,000

A multi-cycle validated on-chain indicator has again attracted market attention: data shows that when the supply of Bitcoin in profit converges with the supply in loss, it often marks a market bottom in a bear cycle. According to Glassnode, about 11.1 million BTC are in profit, and 8.9 million BTC are in loss. Historically, when these two metrics approach parity, Bitcoin has often completed cyclical bottoms. Based on current cost basis, further convergence of profit-loss supply could imply spot prices near $60,000. This signal has appeared in 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2022, closely aligning with major market lows.

Analysis indicates that as prices fluctuate around the overall cost basis, Bitcoin shifts between “profit supply” and “loss supply,” reflecting investor pressure and sentiment clearing. If history repeats, this indicator could be a key reference for whether the current bear market is nearing its end. Other on-chain metrics like STH-NUPL (short-term holder unrealized profit/loss) and long-term holder profit-taking behaviors also influence market phases. For example, in the 2025 cycle, long-term holders reducing positions at highs could lead to a top and pullback, while currently, the focus is on clearing loss supply and bottom formation.

Focus This Week

BTC Has Fallen About 40% Since October 2025 Highs, Key Supports at $69,000 and $58,000

K33’s report this week states that BTC has declined about 40% since its October 2025 high (~$126,000), with last week’s single-week drop of 11%. Price behavior resembles bear markets in 2018 and 2022. However, Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, notes that this cycle is unlikely to repeat the 80% peak-to-trough declines of past cycles, mainly due to accelerated institutional adoption, ongoing inflows into regulated products (like ETFs), easing interest rate environment, and the absence of forced deleveraging events like GBTC, Luna, or FTX in 2022.

Current market signals are mixed: long-term holders are reducing positions, new capital is cautious, and four-year cycle psychology may be self-reinforcing. If support at $74,000 breaks, downside risks include testing $69,000 (the 2021 peak) or the 200-week moving average around $58,000.

Vitalik’s Latest Reflection: The L2 Expansion Roadmap for Ethereum Is No Longer Suitable

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revisited the role of L2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem, stating that the original Rollup-Centric roadmap is no longer applicable. This is because L1’s gas limits have significantly increased and costs decreased, enabling high throughput directly on L1. Many L2s have yet to reach phase 2 and are more like independent chains rather than true Ethereum expanders. Relying solely on multi-sig bridges to connect L1 means L2s are just alternative sidechains, not inheriting Ethereum’s security.

Vitalik suggests L2 should shift focus from pure scalability to unique value propositions: privacy, non-EVM VMs, social/identity/AI applications, ultra-high TPS, low-latency ordering, built-in oracles, etc. He emphasizes that L2 should at least reach phase 1 interoperability and is optimistic about L1 introducing native rollup precompiles and ZK-EVM auto-upgrade mechanisms to enhance security and composability.

Tether’s High Valuation Faces Investor Skepticism; Q4 Business Remains Strong

In response to doubts about its $500 billion valuation, Tether has scaled back its planned $15–20 billion fundraising to as low as about $5 billion. CEO Paolo Ardoino states that the high fundraising target was a misunderstanding, representing only the maximum sellable amount, and that not raising funds is also fine.

Meanwhile, Tether’s Q4 performance was robust. USDT market cap reached $187.3 billion, up $12.4 billion in Q4; user base grew by over 30 million for the eighth consecutive quarter, totaling 534.5 million. Reserves stand at $192.9 billion, including $141.6 billion in U.S. Treasuries, about 96,000 BTC, and 127.5 tons of gold.

Funding Weekly Report

According to RootData, from January 30 to February 5, 2026, 12 crypto projects announced funding rounds or M&A deals across prediction markets, compliance solutions, DeFi, infrastructure, and more. Highlights include:

Jupiter

Announced on February 2, a $35 million strategic funding round led by ParaFi Capital.

Jupiter is a leading DEX aggregator and DeFi app in the Solana ecosystem, integrating multiple DEXs via smart routing to offer token swaps, DCA, limit orders, perpetual contracts, lending, and more. This is Jupiter’s first external institutional funding, with the purchase of JUP tokens at market price, settled in JupUSD, with a long lock-up period, aiming to accelerate on-chain financial infrastructure.

TRM Labs

Announced on February 4, a $70 million Series C led by Blockchain Capital.

TRM Labs provides blockchain intelligence and analytics to help law enforcement, national security, financial institutions, and crypto firms detect and investigate fraud, financial crimes, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other illegal activities. Funds will expand AI solutions (e.g., AI agents for large-scale evidence collection), develop product suites, grow global teams, and build tools to combat AI-enabled cybercrime, national security threats, and complex digital asset risks.

Opinion

Announced on February 4, a $20 million Pre-A round led by Hack VC.

Opinion is a prediction market platform on BSC, emphasizing fully on-chain settlement; with over $130 million in open positions across macro, geopolitical, pre-token generation events, cultural, and crypto sectors. The funding aims to deepen regional presence and accelerate global expansion, especially ahead of major events like the World Cup and elections.

Next Week’s Focus

Token Unlocks

According to Tokenomist, over the next 7 days (2026.2.6 - 2026.2.12), several major tokens will undergo large unlocks. The top three are:

• HYPE will unlock approximately $350 million worth of tokens, representing 4.1% of total supply.
• BERA will unlock approximately $27.6 million worth of tokens, representing 43.0% of total supply.
• ENA will unlock approximately $23 million worth of tokens, representing 2.2% of total supply.

**Sources** - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT](https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT) - Farside Investors, [https://farside.co.uk/btc/](https://farside.co.uk/btc/) - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT](https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT) - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data](https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data) - DeFiLlama, [https://defillama.com/stablecoins](https://defillama.com/stablecoins) - Etherscan, [https://etherscan.io/gastracker](https://etherscan.io/gastracker) - Coingecoko, [https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap](https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap) - Rootdata, [https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising](https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising) - Tokenomist, [https://tokenomist.ai/](https://tokenomist.ai/) - K33, [https://k33.com/research/articles/heavy-metal-heavier-digital-metal](https://k33.com/research/articles/heavy-metal-heavier-digital-metal) - X, [https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2018711006394843585?s=20](https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2018711006394843585?s=20) - Tether, [https://tether.io/news/usdt-q4-2025-market-report/](https://tether.io/news/usdt-q4-2025-market-report/) - CoinDesk, [https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/02/04/this-onchain-metric-has-identified-the-bitcoin-bottom-every-cycle](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/02/04/this-onchain-metric-has-identified-the-bitcoin-bottom-every-cycle) - The Block, [https://www.theblock.co/post/388456294/zcasripple-prime-hyperliquid-defi?utm_soundarce=twion-says-sttec-has-closr&utm_med-bium=sook-on-yeciars-long-probe](https://www.theblock.co/post/388456294/zcasripple-prime-hyperliquid-defi?utm_soundarce=twion-says-sttec-has-closr&utm_med-bium=sook-on-yeciars-long-probe) - The Block, [https://www.theblock.co/post/388345/bitnomial-lists-first-us-futures-for-tezos](https://www.theblock.co/post/388345/bitnomial-lists-first-us-futures-for-tezos)
[Gate 研究院](https://www.gate.com/learn/category/research) is a comprehensive blockchain and crypto research platform providing in-depth content including technical analysis, hot topics, market reviews, industry research, trend forecasts, and macroeconomic policy analysis.

Disclaimer Crypto market investments involve high risk. Users are advised to conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of assets and products before making any investment decisions. Gate is not responsible for any losses or damages resulting from such investment decisions.