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Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Plunge to $64K Rattles Risk Assets as Tech Slump Ripples Through Asia

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Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Plunge to $64K Rattles Risk Assets as Tech Slump Ripples Through Asia

Bitcoin tumbled more than 10% toward $64,000, extending a brutal week for crypto as selling pressure spread across risk assets and shook markets from New York to Asia.

The drop dragged Bitcoin to its weakest level since late 2024, reversing momentum that had built after Donald Trump’s election win, when he signalled a more supportive stance on crypto during the campaign trail.

Crypto losses came as investors dumped tech stocks and even safe-haven trades turned jumpier. Volatility in precious metals also picked up, as leveraged bets and speculative flows amplified price swings.

Market snapshot

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  • Bitcoin: $64,798, down 9.2%
  • Ether: $1,900, down 9.7%
  • XRP: $1.27, down 12.4%
  • Total crypto market cap: $2.29 trillion, down 8.2%

ETF Outflows Mount As Crypto Selloff Deepens Into February

CoinGecko data showed the global crypto market has lost about $2 trillion in value since its October peak, with roughly $800B erased over the past month. Bitcoin was down about 17% for the week and roughly 28% for the year so far, while Ether was headed for a 19% weekly slide and a 38% drop year-to-date.

Traders also kept an eye on the plumbing of the rally that powered crypto higher last year, especially flows into exchange-traded funds.

Analysts from Deutsche Bank said in a note that US spot Bitcoin ETFs witnessed outflows of more than $3B in January, following outflows of about $2B and $7B in December and November, respectively.

Akshat Siddhant, lead quant analyst at Mudrex, said currently bears remain in control of the crypto market.

“The recent decline was driven by softer US labour data and growing concerns around heavy capital spending in the AI sector, which weighed on broader risk sentiment,” he said.

“Continued ETF outflows and short-term holders moving nearly 60,000 BTC to exchanges have added to near-term selling pressure. That said, for long-term investors, this phase offers a favourable accumulation opportunity through disciplined, staggered buying.”

Matt Howells Barby, VP at Kraken, said Bitcoin’s recent tumble doesn’t rule out further short-term downside.

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“Price is now entering a well-defined support zone between $54,000 and $69,000, but the weekly RSI has dipped below 30 for the first time since mid-2022 — a signal that has historically preceded major bottoms forming within a three-to-six-month window,” he said.

“In our view, a base is most likely to form in the $54,000–$60,000 range, particularly as the low-$50,000s align with the 200-day moving average.”

Risk Appetite Fades As Labour Data And Tech Losses Combine

In Asia, the risk-off mood hit equities early. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell about 1%, led by a 5% dive in South Korea’s Kospi that triggered a brief trading halt shortly after the open, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 also slipped.

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US stock futures pointed lower too, after Wall Street ended sharply down overnight as tech heavyweights fell and investors questioned whether massive AI spending would translate into near-term profits.

Alphabet added to the anxiety after saying it could lift 2026 capital spending as high as $185B, part of an AI arms race that has investors watching cash burn as closely as revenue growth.

Fresh labour market signals also fed the unease, with a report showing US layoffs announced by employers surged in January to the highest level for the month in 17 years, reinforcing a broader pullback in risk appetite.

The post Asia Market Open: Bitcoin Plunge to $64K Rattles Risk Assets as Tech Slump Ripples Through Asia appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Crypto World

Lido DAO Mulls $20M LDO Buyback to Boost Token Price

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Lido DAO Mulls $20M LDO Buyback to Boost Token Price

Lido’s decentralized autonomous organization is considering a one-off $20 million buyback of its governance token to address so-called price dislocation, which is at “historically depressed levels” relative to Ether, according to the DAO. 

The proposal, submitted Friday, seeks permission to swap 10,000 Lido Staked Ether (stETH) tokens, currently worth $20 million from the DAO’s treasury for Lido DAO (LDO), arguing that LDO is undervalued.

“This is not a routine fluctuation. It represents one of the most significant dislocations between LDO’s market price and its underlying protocol fundamentals in the token’s history.”

A token buyback of this size could boost the price of the token, which has fallen roughly 96% from its all-time high. In November, a Lido DAO member pitched an automated buyback mechanism for LDO to improve the token’s price. However, that proposal hasn’t been implemented.

LDO’s change in price relative to ETH since 2024. Source: Lido DAO

Lido DAO pointed out that LDO is trading at a steep discount to Ether (ETH) at a ratio of 0.00016, roughly 63% below its two-year median.

This is despite the protocol holding the top spot of the Ethereum liquid staking market, with a 23.2% share of staked Ether, according to Dune Analytics data. The protocol’s dominance has even been flagged as a centralization risk to the network in previous years.

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Share of Ethereum network validators. Source: Dune Analytics

Related: Ethereum builders propose ‘economic zone’ to tackle L2 fragmentation 

LDO is currently trading at $0.30, down 95.9% from its $7.30 high set in August 2021, according to CoinGecko data. LDO’s $255 million market cap makes it the 141st largest token by value at the time of writing.

“That dislocation is not justified by a proportional deterioration in protocol performance,” Lido DAO said. 

Lido DAO proposes buying stETH in batches

Lido DAO proposed buying up to 10,000 stETH in smaller batches of 1,000 to buy LDO. 

Lido DAO said it would use limit orders or adopt a dollar-cost averaging strategy to avoid market volatility. 

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