LATEST NEWS
Best crypto insights delivered straight to your inbox.
-
Bitcoin plunged to $85,767, wiping out over $60 million in leveraged long positions in 30 minutes, while altcoins like ETH, SOL, and XRP also dropped sharply ahead of the U.S. market open.
-
Gold hit an all-time high above $5,100 and silver surged past $110, pushing their combined market cap to $41 trillion, which is now 9 times bigger than Nvidia’s total valuation.
Live Reporting
Rothschild & Co Redburn upgraded Meta to a buy rating from neutral, citing its dominant ad platform and emerging AI initiatives as key drivers of future upside.
Analyst James Cordwell raised his price target to $900 per share, up from $740, suggesting the stock could gain 37% from current levels. Meta shares are up just 2% over the past year.
Cordwell said now is a “timely entry point” for investors, with FY26 guidance expected to fully reflect costs while underpricing upside from AI.
He called Meta’s ad infrastructure the “best demand machine in the world” and highlighted tools like Andromeda, GEM, and Lattice as areas with room to extend reach and improve predictive intelligence through hardware-enabled context windows.
Meta’s AI strategy also includes deeper bets on agentic AI and video generation, with Cordwell pointing to opportunities in serving subject-matter experts and disrupting the entertainment space.
He said Meta’s SME client base and strength in video make it “uniquely positioned” to lead in both.
The firm also credited Meta’s AI chief Alexandr Wang as “better qualified than appreciated,” and noted the Manus acquisition could pull Meta “back close to the frontier by mid-year,” aligning with the Nvidia Blackwell cycle.
Tin prices dropped over 6% in London after the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) slapped position limits and withdrawal restrictions on 16 clients across three trading groups for suspected undisclosed ownership control.
The exchange didn’t name the affected firms or clarify the full scope of the curbs, only citing failures to “disclose actual control relationships.”
The move triggered immediate pullbacks across metals markets. Tin futures on the LME fell 5.8% to $53,520 a ton at 8:16 a.m. local time, reversing a 1.2% intraday gain that had earlier pushed prices to a fresh all-time high.
Tin had surged 40% year-to-date and gained over 18% last week alone. On SHFE, tin settled 1% lower at 425,340 yuan ($61,133) after an earlier 7.7% spike to a record.
Copper was steady at $13,133 per ton on the LME after rising nearly 3% Friday, while aluminum climbed 0.5% and zinc added 1.1%. The crackdown comes as both base and precious metals have seen explosive rallies and elevated trading volumes since January, prompting tighter oversight from multiple exchanges.
Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Monday the government is acting “based on the framework” of its FX accord with the U.S., as traders speculated Tokyo and Washington may have coordinated rate checks to support the yen on Friday.
The memorandum, signed last September, outlines steps both countries can take to monitor or intervene in currency markets.
“We are watching market conditions very closely with a sense of urgency,” Katayama told reporters. The comment came as chatter intensified over joint FX action, including claims that both the New York Fed and Bank of Japan reached out to traders on Friday to check pricing around the USD/JPY pair.
Rate checks, often used as a warning signal to speculators, can be a precursor to direct market intervention. On Friday, the yen swung more than 3.5 yen against the dollar during U.S. hours.
The yen rallied over 1% Monday, trading at 153.97 per dollar by 1:20 p.m. Tokyo time. At last check, USD/JPY traded at 153.91, down 1.8 points or 1.16%, while EUR/JPY dropped 1.73 to 182.41.
Across other pairs, the dollar slipped against the Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, and Korean won, while gaining slightly versus the Argentine peso, Colombian peso, and Mexican peso. Major cross rates like EUR/USD and GBP/USD saw modest gains, while AUD/JPY and EUR/CHF declined.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. recorded $1.7 billion in outflows over five straight days, nearly erasing the prior week’s inflows, according to Sosovalue data.
BlackRock’s IBIT alone lost $101.62 million on Tuesday, the largest daily withdrawal among peers. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with a smaller $1.95 million outflow. Other issuers like Grayscale, Bitwise, and VanEck posted flat flows, with no net additions reported.
The cumulative total inflow across all spot Bitcoin ETFs stood at $56.49 billion, while total net assets hit $115.88 billion, representing 6.48% of Bitcoin’s total market cap. Trading activity remained high, with $3.36 billion in total value traded Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the brutal U.S. winter storm “Fernan” hammered the Bitcoin mining ecosystem. Foundry USA, the country’s largest mining pool, saw its hashrate collapse by roughly 60% since Friday as extreme weather forced miners offline.
Roughly 200 EH/s went down, slowing block times to 12 minutes. Foundry, which normally runs at 198 EH/s, makes up 23% of global pool hashrate.
Other major U.S.-based pools also throttled output to reduce stress on the power grid, as over 1 million residents lost electricity nationwide.
Gold’s market cap surged to a record $35 trillion, while silver hit $6 trillion, putting the two metals at nine times Nvidia’s market value.
Silver pushed to a fresh all‑time high of $110, extending a rally that’s been feeding on inflation hedging, geopolitical stress, and real-asset demand.
At the same time, U.S. natural gas prices spiked above $6 for the first time since late 2022, after a massive winter storm tore through the country.
February natural gas futures jumped 18%, or 95 cents, to $6.20 per million British thermal units at 8:15 a.m. London time, marking a new 52‑week high. The contract is now up roughly 68% year‑to‑date and back above levels last seen when European LNG demand surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The storm left over 822,000 customers without power late Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, while widespread outages triggered mass flight cancellations and added fresh pressure to already strained energy markets.
U.S. stock futures fell sharply Sunday night as traders braced for a packed week featuring over 90 earnings reports, including Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, alongside a major monetary policy decision from the Federal Reserve.
Dow futures slid 317 points (–0.6%), while S&P 500 futures dropped 0.8% and Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.1%. Even with 76% of companies beating earnings estimates so far, names like Intel and Netflix still sold off after their reports.
Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, said the team expects 14% earnings growth this cycle and continues to recommend Bitcoin, Ethereum, and sectors like energy, materials, and the Magnificent Seven tech stocks.
In Asia, the picture was mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 1.45%, with the Topix down 1.76%. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.64%, and the Kosdaq rose 2.28%. The Australian ASX 200 added 0.13%, and Hang Seng futures inched above their last close.
The yen strengthened 0.45% to trade near 155.01 per dollar as regional currencies remained steady.
Gold jumped past $5,000 an ounce for the first time ever on Monday, as spot prices hit $5,042 and February futures reached $5,036, climbing 1.2%. The surge came while Bitcoin dropped to $85,767, deepening losses as traders dumped risk assets.
The metal’s breakout followed rising geopolitical flashpoints stretching from Greenland and Venezuela to the Middle East, pushing investors into hard assets. HSBC said last week the latest gold and silver rally was driven by “geoeconomics issues related to Greenland.”
Silver surged 3% to $106.1, helped by both safe-haven flows and strong industrial demand. Analysts at Union Bancaire Privée said the buying is coming from both institutional and retail players, and they expect gold to end the year at $5,200.
Goldman Sachs raised its December 2026 forecast to $5,400, citing “sticky hedges” against fiscal instability and macro-policy risks. Western ETFs added 500 tonnes since 2025 started, while wealthy families, central banks, and options traders keep driving new demand.
Goldman estimates central banks are now buying 60 tonnes per month, triple the pre-2022 average, with emerging markets leading the charge.
Bitcoin plunged to $87,286, down 2.36%, after a brutal $60 million leveraged long wipeout in under 30 minutes, with liquidation volume now sitting at $87.18M.
The collapse wiped out short-term bullish sentiment just as U.S. stock futures prepare to open in under 7 hours.
Across altcoins, ETH dropped 4.38% to $2,835, with $133.63M in liquidations. SOL sank nearly 5% to $120.97, while XRP slipped 4.67%, and DOGE fell 3.64%.
BNB also dipped 2.95% to $863.48. Combined sell-offs across AI, Layer-1s, and gaming tokens added to the pressure, as on-chain categories from DePIN to DeFAI posted red across the board.
President Donald Trump raised stakes even higher, posting on Truth Social, “Canada is systematically destroying itself… the China deal is a disaster… I want to see Canada survive and thrive!”
In a follow-up, Trump added, “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad… I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone!”
What to know
Bitcoin slid below $86,000 with over $60 million in leveraged long positions liquidated.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Share this article
MORE … NEWS
DEEP CRYPTO
CRASH COURSE
- Which cryptocurrencies can make you money
- How to boost your security with a wallet (and which ones are actually worth using)
- Little-known investment strategies that the pros use
- How to get started investing in crypto (which exchanges to use, the best crypto to buy etc)