On February 5, the price of the leading cryptocurrency dropped to $70,119, marking its lowest point since October 2024. Ethereum followed suit, falling to $2,079.
15-minute chart of BTC/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.
15-minute chart of ETH/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.
As of February 5, 2026, 14:58 Update: The price of Bitcoin fell below $70,000 for the first time since November 2024, a 15-month low.
Source: CoinGecko.
The daily liquidation volume reached $953 million, with $792 million attributed to long positions.
Source: CoinGlass.
Vincent Liu, Chief Investment Officer at Kronos Research, linked the decline to a breach of critical support following an unsuccessful rebound. He noted that three factors intensified market pressure: a wave of long position liquidations, sell-offs in the US tech sector, and capital outflows from spot ETFs.
The negative trend also affected the stock market. Coinbase shares fell by 6.14%, while mining company BitMine's stock dropped by 9.17%. The Nasdaq Composite Index decreased by 1.51%.
Peter Chang, head of research at Presto Research, believes the current correction is a result of global macroeconomic processes rather than internal issues within the crypto industry. Investor sentiment is at its lowest since the last bear phase, with a popular sentiment indicator dropping to 12 points, indicating "extreme fear." Crypto Fear and Greed Index.
Source: Alternative.
Chang advised ignoring market noise and assessing the long-term potential for digital asset adoption.
Some market participants have linked the current situation to the aftermath of the incident on October 10, 2025, when a database failure at Binance led to transaction delays and incorrect price displays, resulting in a cascade liquidation of $19 billion. The exchange acknowledged technical issues and compensated affected users with over $283 million.
Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, noted that during the liquidity crisis in October, there was a lack of buying power, but liquidation mechanisms continued to operate as usual.
With all respect to Star, this story is candidly ridiculous.
— Haseeb ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) January 31, 2026
Star is trying to claim that the root cause of 10/10 was Binance creating an Ethena yield campaign, causing USDe to get overleveraged from traders looping it on Binance, which eventually unwound because of a small… https://t.co/IXlqLZI3DN pic.twitter.com/7YX529JAjN
This has impacted market makers, who will "need time to recover." Qureshi emphasized that unlike traditional finance, crypto exchanges lack built-in safeguards. Their liquidation mechanisms are solely designed to protect the platform from insolvency.
Unconfirmed rumors about a $9 billion Bitcoin sale by a client of Galaxy Digital have heightened tensions. The alleged reason for the transaction was concerns regarding quantum computing.
Hooo buddy. To translate what @novogratz is saying here (via $GLXY earnings call this AM): The $9B block trade Galaxy did last quarter was for someone 1) early/rich (clearly), 2) smart, 3) fairly concerned about $BTC Quantum Resistance https://t.co/kooKJyjB1s pic.twitter.com/iUsu1pvM17
— Kellan Grenier (@kellangrenier) February 3, 2026
Company researcher Alex Thorn dismissed these speculations.
Quantum is not why the whale sold
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) February 3, 2026
Novo didn’t connect the two. He said it was one reason people are claiming for BTC weakness, but he disagrees with that (this is clear if you read the full transcript)
He then clarified on Bloomberg that quantum isn’t the reason for BTC weakness https://t.co/pxvqOvsTZZ pic.twitter.com/JT5Qi0PXI4
On February 3, K33 Research analyst Vetle Lunde ruled out the possibility of Bitcoin dropping 80% from its peak.