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BTC under pressure as U.S. tech sector stumbles

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BTC under pressure as U.S. tech sector stumbles

Bitcoin fell back below $74,000 in the early innings of the U.S. session, with the bounce from Tuesday’s lows quickly fading away as weakness in tech stocks weighed on crypto.

The Nasdaq 100 was 1% lower following the previous day’s 1.5% decline. The software sector continued its tumble, with the thematic iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) declining another 4%, now down 17% in a little over a week, amid fears that AI will be severely disruptive.

Crypto miners, increasingly tied to the buildout of AI infrastructure, mirrored the slide, with Cipher Mining (CIFR), IREN, and Hut 8 (HUT) falling by more than 10%. The declines stemmed from chipmaker AMD, which fell 14% after its 2026 outlook missed analysts’ expectations.

Gold was also caught in the selling, with the yellow metal quickly reversing an overnight surge to $5,113 per ounce and sliding back below $5,000.

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U.S. economic data is mixed

The ISM Services PMI for January held steady at 53.8, matching December’s revised reading and beating expectations by a hair, pointing to continued expansion in the services sector.

However, private job growth slowed sharply, with just 22,000 jobs added according to an ADP report, well below forecasts for 48,000 and December’s already weak 37,000. The government’s January job report would normally have been released this Friday, but the short government shutdown has delayed it until next week.

“Manufacturing has lost jobs every month since March 2024 (Main Street recession) but this month professional and business services and large employers joined the weakness,” said Lekker Capital CIO Quinn Thompson, who believes markets are underestimating the amount of Fed stimulus that may be coming in 2026.

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Foundation NFT Marketplace Shuts Down Permanently After Failed Sale

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Foundation NFT Marketplace Shuts Down Permanently After Failed Sale

The curated art platform says its infrastructure has already been spun down with no plans to come back online.

Foundation, the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, is shutting down for good after a failed acquisition by digital art display company BlackDove.

Founder Kayvon Tehranian announced the closure in a post on X, explaining that a deal to sell the platform to a buyer “who intended to continue its operations” fell through, and the company does not believe another buyer is worth pursuing.

“Our goal in pursuing a sale was always to see Foundation live on,” Tehranian wrote. “That’s no longer possible. As part of our wind-down process, our infrastructure has already been spun down, and we’re not in a position to bring the platform back online.”

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The announcement marks the final chapter in a drawn-out unraveling that began in January, when Tehranian transferred ownership of Foundation to BlackDove. At the time, he framed the move as a transition to a leadership committed to the platform’s long-term future, noting that Foundation had facilitated roughly $230 million in primary sales since its launch and had hosted landmark auctions for artists like Jen Stark, James Jean, and Edward Snowden.

But BlackDove’s involvement was short-lived. The company later said full due diligence was only completed after the operational handover, and BlackDove ultimately concluded that building its own proprietary marketplace was a more viable path.

Foundation’s closure adds to a growing list of NFT platform shutdowns that have accelerated since 2024. MakersPlace, KnownOrigin, RTFKT, Nifty Gateway, and X2Y2 have all wound down operations as monthly NFT trading volumes collapsed from $2.9 billion at the 2021 peak to just $23.8 million by early 2025. Surviving platforms like OpenSea have pivoted aggressively toward fungible token trading to stay afloat.

The shutdown also raises familiar questions about the permanence of NFT media hosted on centralized infrastructure, an issue The Defiant raised as early as 2021. Tehranian said Foundation plans to continue pinning IPFS-hosted media and metadata for another year, but urged the community to take responsibility for personally pinning assets they care about. Users with NFTs listed on Foundation’s marketplace smart contract will need to unlist and retrieve them.

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This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

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Trump Announces Israel and Lebanon Ceasefire, But Oil Crisis Deepens

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War Powers Resolution Vote Outcome

The US House of Representatives rejected a War Powers Resolution on Iran by a 213-214 vote today, preserving President Donald Trump’s authority to continue military operations.

The narrow defeat came as Trump simultaneously announced a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, positioning himself as a peacemaker even as Congress debated constraints on his war powers.

War Powers Vote Falls One Short

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) introduced H.Con.Res. 40 to force the withdrawal of US Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran without explicit congressional authorization. The measure failed along largely partisan lines.

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution, siding with Republicans. Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a frequent critic of expansive executive war powers, crossed party lines to support it. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) voted “present.”

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War Powers Resolution Vote Outcome
War Powers Resolution Vote Outcome. Source: BeInCrypto

The Senate rejected a similar resolution 47-52 a day earlier. Democrats have now forced at least four such votes in both chambers since the Iran conflict began in late February, all failing along partisan lines.

Trump Announces Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire

Hours before the vote, Trump announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire starting at 5 p.m. EST.

The deal followed the first direct talks between the two countries in 34 years, held in Washington with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump said he would invite both leaders to the White House for what he called the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983.

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the truce, urging “a path to permanent peace” and full respect of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Energy Crisis Deepens Alongside Conflict

The International Energy Agency warned that Europe holds just six weeks of jet fuel supply as the Iran conflict disrupts global energy flows.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described the situation as the largest energy crisis the agency has ever tracked.

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Dutch airline KLM has already cancelled 80 flights over the next month due to rising fuel costs. Jet fuel prices across Europe have surged by over 100% since the war began.

Gulf and European officials now estimate the U.S. may need six months to reach a deal with Iran, suggesting the energy shock could extend well into summer.

Whether the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire eases broader regional tensions or simply shifts attention remains the open question for markets.

The post Trump Announces Israel and Lebanon Ceasefire, But Oil Crisis Deepens appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Bitcoin Traders Target $78K But Rally May End There

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Bitcoin Traders Target $78K But Rally May End There

Market analysts said Bitcoin’s (BTC) latest rally to $76,000 was a “clear momentum shift,” confirming a short-term uptrend for BTC price. 

Bitcoin’s short-term holder (STH) supply in profit, a measure of the share of recently acquired coins currently held at an unrealized gain, suggests that BTC/USD has not exhausted its bear market rally, data from Glassnode shows.

Local tops in bear market rallies have historically formed when this metric approaches its statistical mean of 54.2%, a threshold where the concentration of profitable STHs becomes sufficient to trigger meaningful distribution.

Currently at 43.2%, the STH supply in profit remains “meaningfully below that threshold, suggesting the present rally has not yet reached the zone of typical exhaustion,” Glassnode said in its latest Week Onchain newsletter, adding:

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“This leaves slight room for further upside toward the True Market Mean, while also providing a quantitative level to monitor as price advances.”

Bitcoin: Short-term holder supply in profit. Source: Glassnode

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has remained in “deep under extension territory” relative to its 50-week simple moving average (SMA), currently at $96,800, analyst McKenna said in a recent post on X.

Related: Bitcoin traders cash out 63K BTC profit as price rallied above $76K: Will the market rebound?

When markets deviate either to the upside or downside, they usually revert back to their mean.

Combined with “clear momentum shifts and bullish trending signals firing then I would be inclined to be directionally bullish here, the analyst said, adding:

“BTC breaking above $74K and holding this level on a HTF is the final trigger I want to see to be confident in mid to high 80s over the coming weeks.”

BTC/USD price vs. 50-weekly SMA. Source: X/McKenna

Fellow analyst Bitcoin Archive focused on the falling US dollar index, saying that it provides a “massive tailwind for the next leg up” for Bitcoin. 

US dollar index. Source: X/Bitcoin Archive

As Cointelegraph reported, several metrics support Bitcoin’s potential to rise higher, including increasing network activity and a strengthening technical setup. 

Onchain data reveals key Bitcoin price levels to watch

Bitcoin’s 41% drawdown from its $126,000 all-time high has seen the BTC/USD pair drop below key pricing levels, including the active realized price at $85,100, the STH cost basis at $80,950 and the true market mean currently at $78,140.

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At $74,000, Bitcoin is 5.2% below the true market mean, a metric tracking the cost basis of active BTC supply. 

While the price is yet to “test and stabilize above this key threshold, the probability of a spike toward and potentially above it remains considerable in the mid-term,” Glassnode added.

Bitcoin risk indicator. Source: Glassnode

The importance of this resistance level is reinforced by cost basis distribution. The heatmap below shows that over 200,000 BTC were acquired for around $78,000.

Bitcoin cost basis distribution heatmap. Source: Glassnode

On the downside, the first major support is at $72,000, where the 20-day and 50-day exponential moving averages (EMAs) appear to converge. It is also where investors bought approximately 220,000 BTC.

Lower than that, the $65,000-$70,000 demand zone is a key area to watch. This price band has historically served as a vital support level, as seen between October and November 2024, providing a launching pad for the October 2024-January 2025 rally.

As Cointelegraph reported, a drop below the $70,000 would suggest the bears are back in control, increasing the prospects of a drop toward $60,000.

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