Crypto World
Japan’s record 56,000 Nikkei surge sends bitcoin to $72,000, gold past $5,000
Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged to a record on Monday, breaching the 57,000 level with a 3.4% gain following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s decisive “supermajority” victory in the Sunday general election, according to Nikkei Asia.
This political mandate signaled a green light for Takaichi’s aggressive expansionary fiscal agenda, which includes a massive $135 billion stimulus package aimed at revitalizing the economy through infrastructure spending and tax cuts.
The “Takaichi Trade” sparked a global ripple effect, driving gold prices past the $5,000 per ounce milestone and pushing bitcoin to a brief peak of $72,000, before settling back above $70,000 during Asia morning trading hours. U.S. stock market futures opened higher.
The market euphoria was further bolstered by international support, with both President Donald Trump and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent congratulating the Prime Minister.
Trump is eyeing 100,000 on the Dow Jones (DJI) by the end of his term, a 100% increase from current levels. The DJI on Friday breached 50,000 for the first time.
Coinbase’s TV spot at the Super Bowl divided opinion online, but the crypto exchange says conversations about it were the point.
Four years after its viral QR code advertisement, crypto exchange Coinbase has returned to the Super Bowl, this time betting on a Backstreet Boys karaoke-inspired ad.
Coinbase’s one-minute TV spot during the most-watched sporting event in the US was mostly text animation that flashed the lyrics to the Backstreet Boys’ 1997 hit “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
Coinbase marketing chief Catherine Ferdon said in a statement that the ad aimed to “bring people together for a shared experience that highlights how the crypto community has grown.”
It’s Coinbase’s first ad spot at the Super Bowl since 2022, when it debuted with a 60-second commercial featuring a color-changing QR code that bounced around the screen similar to a DVD screensaver.
The QR code ad directed to a link offering $15 in Bitcoin (BTC) for those who signed up to Coinbase, which was so popular that it crashed the website and reportedly saw 20 million hits in one minute.
Latest ad divides, but that means it worked, says Coinbase
Coinbase’s latest Super Bowl ad garnered divided opinions online, with some X users saying the commercial elicited jeers as crypto has lost its lustre amid a market crash and its ties to the Trump administration, while others praised it for being simple and memorable.
“If you’re talking about it, it worked,” Coinbase posted to X in response to a user who said the company’s ad was “terrible.”
Others online also piled onto the ad, with one X user posting “the room I’m in ERUPTED in boos when we found out it was a Coinbase ad,” while Axios reporter Andrew Solender said a room he was in “burst into groans and shouts of ‘fuck you’” after the ad aired.
Related: UK bans Coinbase ads that ‘trivialized’ crypto risks: Report
Ethereum Foundation engineer Chase Wright said that “half of the people at the party I was at were singing along and laughed when it was Coinbase,” while another X user said it was “lowkey genius,” as those who watched it “will 100% remember Coinbase if they ever want to buy crypto.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong defended the ad on X, arguing that “most people half-watch commercials (buzzed, in a loud room, with lots of people). It takes something unique to break through.”
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Japan’s “Takaichi trade” is shifting global capital flows and tightening liquidity, adding short-term downside pressure to Bitcoin as U.S. stocks weaken.
Summary
- Japan’s election win has boosted stocks and weakened the yen.
- Portfolio rebalancing is reducing liquidity in U.S. markets.
- Equity weakness is spilling into Bitcoin trading.
Bitcoin is facing fresh near-term pressure as political shifts in Japan reshape global capital flows and reinforce a cautious tone across risk markets.
In a Feb. 9 analysis, CryptoQuant contributor XWIN Research Japan said the landslide victory of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Feb. 8 lower house election has accelerated what traders now call the “Takaichi trade,” a mix of aggressive fiscal policy, tolerance for yen weakness, and support for loose monetary conditions.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition secured a two-thirds supermajority, giving the new administration broad room to push stimulus and regulatory reforms.
Markets responded quickly. The Nikkei 225 climbed to fresh record highs above 57,000 on Feb. 9, while the yen weakened toward 157 per dollar before stabilizing on intervention talk. Japanese government bonds also came under pressure as investors adjusted to higher spending expectations.
At the same time, U.S. equities slipped into correction territory. Over the past seven days, the Nasdaq fell 5.59%, the S&P 500 declined 2.65%, and the Russell 2000 dropped 2.6%, reflecting tighter liquidity and a re-assessment of risk.
Portfolio rebalancing tightens conditions for risk assets
According to XWIN Research Japan, the current shift is less about capital fleeing the United States and more about global portfolio rebalancing.
“Japanese government bonds, long sidelined by ultra-low yields, are regaining appeal,” the report said, as fiscal expansion and reflation expectations lift returns.
As JGBs attract fresh capital, inflows into U.S. equity exchange-traded funds have slowed. This has reduced marginal liquidity in global stock markets and added pressure to already fragile sentiment.
Analyst GugaOnChain said the adjustment is unfolding across multiple asset classes at once. Money is rotating toward domestic Japanese assets, exporters, and selected commodities, while exposure to U.S. growth stocks is being trimmed.
Dollar strength has added another layer of stress. Yen weakness, persistent U.S.–Japan rate gaps, and defensive demand for dollars have tightened financial conditions, making leveraged trades more expensive to maintain.
In this setting, risk assets tend to move together. When U.S. equities weaken, portfolio managers often cut crypto exposure at the same time to control overall volatility.
Equity-led de-risking spills into Bitcoin markets
XWIN Research Japan said Bitcoin’s recent weakness fits this pattern.
In risk-off phases, Bitcoin (BTC) has tended to track U.S. equities, allowing stock market selling to spill into crypto. The current decline, the firm argued, is driven by cross-asset risk management rather than deterioration in on-chain activity.
CryptoQuant’s cross-asset indicators show that simultaneous equity corrections raise the probability of Bitcoin downside even when long-term holders are not selling. Recent price moves reflect futures unwinds and position reductions, not broad capitulation.
This dynamic has been visible in derivatives markets, where open interest has fallen and leverage has been cut over the past two weeks. Traders appear more focused on preserving capital than on chasing rebounds.
From a medium- to long-term perspective, the outlook diverges.
After the Feb. 8 election delivered a supermajority, the Takaichi administration has now gained the political space to advance structural reforms. Officials have positioned Web3 as a developing industry, and stablecoin laws and tax adjustments are expected later in 2026.
These actions could eventually attract institutional participation and strengthen Japan’s standing as a regulated hub for digital assets.
But for the time being, Bitcoin is still vulnerable to global risk cycles. As long as U.S. stocks are still under pressure and capital flows adjust to Japan’s fiscal pivot, short-term downside risks are likely to persist even if longer-term fundamentals hold.
Ethereum domain name service provider ENS has canceled plans to launch a layer-2 as part of its ENSv2 upgrade, opting instead to launch a revamped protocol directly on Ethereum.
In a blog post on Friday, ENS lead developer nick.eth explained that the decision was partly due to a “99% reduction in ENS registration gas costs over the past year” amid a number of important upgrades to the Ethereum network.
“Put simply: Ethereum L1 is scaling, and it’s scaling faster than almost anyone predicted two years ago. The recent Fusaka upgrade raised the gas limit to 60 million, a 2x increase from the beginning of 2025,” nick.eth said, adding:
“Now Ethereum core developers are targeting 200 million gas limit targets in 2026, a 3x increase from today, and that’s before any ZK upgrades land.”
The Fusaka upgrade, one of the most recent Ethereum upgrades that went live in early December, has helped Ethereum drive down gas fees due to its significant scaling capabilities for both the L1 and the ecosystem of L2s.
ENS initially announced its L2 Namechain in November 2024, stating that it would make it easier and cheaper for users to register domain names through rollups.
Nick.eth emphasized that the context has changed dramatically and that it is now viable to build directly on L1 rather than opt for a full-fledged L2 to reduce costs.
“Huge L1 scalability was not part of the Ethereum roadmap, and the message was clear that L2s were the way forward. We needed to meet our users where the ecosystem was heading, and that meant building Namechain,” he said.
Related: Arbitrum, Optimism and Base weigh in after Vitalik questions L2 scaling model
With plans for Namechain now gone, the ENS lead developer noted that the project is still working on significant performance and utility improvements via ENSv2, while the protocol will remain highly interoperable with L2s.
“The vast majority of our engineering effort has gone into ENSv2 itself: the new registry architecture, the improved ownership model, better handling of name expiration, and the flexibility that comes from giving each name its own registry,” he said, adding:
“Deciding to stay on L1 doesn’t mean we’re closing the door on L2s entirely. The flexibility of the ENSv2 architecture makes L2 names more interoperable. Our new registration flow abstracts the complexity crosschain transactions.”
Magazine: Ethereum’s Fusaka fork explained for dummies: What the hell is PeerDAS?
Two routine copy-and-paste actions erased $62 million in crypto over December and January, exposing how basic wallet habits are becoming one of Ethereum’s biggest security risks.
Summary
- Two victims lost $62M after copying fake wallet addresses.
- Signature phishing also jumped sharply in January.
- Low fees have made large-scale scam campaigns cheaper to run.
ScamSniffer said in a post on X on Feb. 8 that one victim lost about $50 million in December 2025 after sending funds to a fake address copied from transaction history. In January 2026, another user lost roughly $12.25 million, equal to about 4,556 ETH at the time, through the same mistake.
“Two victims. $62M gone,” the firm wrote.
Both incidents followed the same pattern. Funds were sent to look-alike addresses that had been quietly planted inside the victims’ recent activity records.
How address poisoning became easier to deploy
Address poisoning works by exploiting how most users interact with their wallets.
Attackers monitor transactions, generate vanity addresses that resemble real ones, and send tiny “dust” transfers to potential targets. These near-zero transactions place the fake addresses into transaction histories.
Later, when users copy an address from past activity instead of verifying the full string, money is sent directly to the scammer.
Security firms say this tactic has expanded rapidly since Ethereum’s (ETH) Fusaka upgrade in late 2025 lowered transaction fees. What was once expensive to run at scale has become cheap and efficient.
Millions of dust transactions are now being sent daily, according to blockchain security researchers. Many are designed only to prepare future thefts.
This activity has also distorted network data. Rising transaction counts and active wallet numbers increasingly include spam rather than genuine usage, making it harder to separate real demand from noise.
Several recent investigations have linked address poisoning campaigns to organized groups that recycle the same infrastructure across thousands of wallets.
Signature phishing adds pressure as losses climb
Alongside address poisoning, ScamSniffer recorded a sharp rise in signature-based phishing in January.
The firm reported $6.27 million in losses across 4,741 victims during the month, up 207% from December in value terms. Two wallets were responsible for about 65% of the total damage.
The largest cases included $3.02 million stolen from SLVon and XAUt tokens through malicious permit and increaseAllowance approvals, and $1.08 million taken from aEthLBTC using similar techniques.
These attacks rely on deceptive transaction prompts that appear routine. Once users sign them, scammers gain long-term access to tokens and can drain funds without further approval.
Security analysts say these schemes succeed because they target habits formed during everyday trading, not technical weaknesses in protocols.
“Most victims are not careless,” one researcher said privately. “They are doing what they’ve done hundreds of times before.”
ScamSniffer and other firms have urged users to avoid copying addresses from transaction history, verify full wallet strings manually, and use saved contacts for frequent transfers.
As transaction costs stay low and automation improves, analysts expect address poisoning and signature phishing to remain persistent threats. Until better tools and habits take hold, basic operational mistakes are likely to keep producing outsized losses.
The Bitcoin Sharpe ratio, which measures risk/reward potential, is in negative territory that is often associated with the end of bear markets, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost.
“The Sharpe ratio has just entered a particularly interesting zone, one that has historically aligned with the final phases of bear markets,” said the analyst on X on Saturday.
They added, however, that it is not a signal that the bear market is over, “but rather that we are approaching a point where the risk-to-reward profile is becoming extreme.”
The Sharpe ratio has fallen to -10, its lowest level since March 2023, according to CryptoQuant.
The ratio measures Bitcoin (BTC) performance relative to the risk taken, indicating how much return an investor can expect for each unit of risk.
Negative ratio signals market turning point
The ratio was lower in late 2022 to early 2023, and late 2018 to early 2019 — both periods marking the depths of the bear market cycle. The metric fell to zero in November 2025 when BTC prices hit a local low of $82,000.
The analyst said that in practical terms, “the risk associated with investing in BTC remains high relative to the returns recently observed.”
“The ratio is still deteriorating, showing that BTC’s performance is not yet attractive compared to the risk being taken,” they added.
Related: Bitcoin bear market not over? Trader sees BTC price ‘real bottom’ at $50K
However, a negative Sharpe ratio usually signals market turning points, they said.
“But this type of dynamic is precisely what tends to appear near market turning zones. We are gradually approaching an area where this trend has historically reversed.”
True reversal could be months away
The analyst cautioned that this phase “may last several more months, and BTC could continue correcting before a true reversal takes place.”
Analysts at 10x Research also expressed caution in a market update on Monday, stating:
“While sentiment and technical indicators are approaching extreme levels, the broader downtrend remains intact. In the absence of a clear catalyst, there is little urgency to step in.”
BTC tanked to $60,000 on Friday but recovered to $71,000 by Monday. However, it remains down 44% from its October peak of $126,000, and sentiment remains firmly in bear market territory, analysts say.
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Bitcoin faces a theoretical security risk from future quantum computers, but the threat is manageable and not imminent, according to a new research note from digital asset manager CoinShares.
Summary
- CoinShares says quantum computing poses a real but distant risk to Bitcoin, not an immediate security threat.
- Only a small share of Bitcoin’s supply, mainly in older addresses, is theoretically vulnerable to quantum attacks.
- Bitcoin can adopt quantum-resistant upgrades over time, giving the network ample room to adapt.
The firm said concerns that quantum computing could break Bitcoin’s (BTC) cryptography are often overstated, noting that the technology required to carry out such an attack remains far beyond current capabilities.
Even in the most aggressive scenarios, CoinShares estimates that a practical quantum threat to Bitcoin is likely at least a decade away.
Why quantum threat to Bitcoin matters
Bitcoin’s security relies on cryptographic tools that protect private keys and validate transactions. In theory, powerful quantum computers running algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm could one day derive private keys from public keys, allowing attackers to steal funds from certain types of Bitcoin addresses.
However, CoinShares said only a limited subset of Bitcoin is exposed. Roughly 8% of the total supply sits in older “legacy” addresses where public keys are already visible on the blockchain. Even within that group, far fewer coins would be immediately vulnerable in a way that could destabilize the network.
Bitcoin’s core hashing function, SHA-256, is also considered resilient. Quantum computers could speed up brute-force attacks, but not enough to break Bitcoin’s mining or transaction security under realistic assumptions, the report said.
Why the risk is considered manageable
CoinShares emphasized that Bitcoin is not static and has successfully upgraded its cryptography before. The network could transition to quantum-resistant signature schemes through future software upgrades if the threat becomes more concrete.
In addition, holders of older Bitcoin addresses can already protect themselves by moving funds to newer address formats that do not expose public keys until a transaction is spent.
The firm warned against rushing into drastic changes, such as premature hard forks or untested cryptographic schemes, arguing that unnecessary action could introduce bugs or weaken decentralization.
What it means for investors
For investors, CoinShares’ conclusion is straightforward: quantum computing is a long-term engineering challenge, not an existential crisis for Bitcoin today.
The report suggests the market has ample time to prepare, monitor technological progress, and implement safeguards well before quantum computers pose a realistic threat to Bitcoin’s security.
Crypto.com chief Kris Marszalek has unveiled ai.com, a public beta platform that lets users craft personalized AI agents to handle everyday tasks on their behalf. The rollout followed a high-profile commercial push during Super Bowl 60 on NBC, a broadcast expected to attract well over 100 million viewers. In the immediate term, users can register an ai.com username and then join a queue to have their private, autonomous agents spun up. Marszalek frames the project as a step toward a decentralized network of self-improving AI agents that perform real‑world tasks for the benefit of humanity, a bold ambition that blends AI and crypto sensibilities around ownership, interoperability, and automation.
The launch arrives amid a broader surge of activity around AI agents in the enterprise and consumer tech space. OpenAI’s recent enterprise platform Frontier signals a trend toward more capable, business‑oriented agents, while independent projects such as AI agent OpenClaw have captured public attention with novel task automation concepts. Marszalek notes that the ai.com initiative began with the purchase of a domain described as the largest publicly disclosed domain sale in history, a move that mirrors his earlier strategy with Crypto.com’s expansive brand-building and customer acquisition. Since acquiring the ai.com domain in April, Marszalek has assembled a team to build and scale the product as beta users begin to interact with the platform.
Public commentary from observers in crypto and AI circles highlights the playbook behind ai.com: a recognizable, high-traffic destination paired with a mass-market advertising push to accelerate adoption. Pseudonymous crypto and AI researcher 0xSammy remarked that the combination of a memorable URL, mass exposure, and a Super Bowl ad could yield a landmark moment for the project—echoing how Marszalek previously propelled Crypto.com to hundreds of millions of users through branding and aggressive marketing. In the weeks after the early traffic surge, the ai.com site briefly crashed under demand before stabilizing, a familiar pattern for bets positioned at the intersection of consumer AI tools and crypto-backed branding.
Beyond the marketing theatrics, the ai.com team emphasizes practical use cases for its agents: email management, scheduling, subscription management, shopping automation, and trip planning are listed as baseline tasks for agents to handle on behalf of users. Marszalek argues that the goal is not merely to create virtual assistants but to foster a decentralized, self‑improving network of agents that learn from interactions and improve over time. Framing the effort as a “decentralized network of autonomous agents” aligns with a broader narrative in crypto and decentralized technology—where control, consent, and user empowerment sit at the core of product design.
Industry context matters. The AI space is rapidly expanding beyond chatbots into agent-enabled workflows that can operate with minimal human oversight. OpenAI’s enterprise agent push and related announcements signal a race to define how artificial agents will work in business environments, while independent developers and researchers push alternatives that emphasize open architectures and user sovereignty. The converging tempo of marketing, domain strategy, and user onboarding indicates that ai.com is more than a branding exercise; it is a test case for how mass adoption of autonomous AI agents might unfold in the near term, including the balance between convenience, privacy, and security in a consumer-facing product.
Key takeaways
- ai.com entered public beta with a username-registration step and a waiting queue to spin up personalized AI agents, signaling a staged rollout rather than an instant, full-scale launch.
- The Super Bowl 60 ad blitz on NBC anchored the beta reveal, joining a broader wave of tech firms marketing AI and automation capabilities to a national audience.
- Marszalek publicly tied ai.com to a historic domain purchase in April, described as the largest publicly disclosed domain sale, and built a dedicated team to bring the product to market.
- Early traffic spikes caused brief outages, illustrating the scale challenges inherent in consumer AI services and the need for robust, scalable infrastructure.
- Competitor and peer activity—OpenAI’s Frontier, OpenClaw, and other AI-agent initiatives—frames ai.com within a crowded field where branding, product experience, and real‑world utility will matter for adoption.
Market context: The emergence of ai.com sits at the crossroads of AI agents and consumer branding, a moment when mass advertising campaigns and domain-strategy playbooks intersect with real-world task automation. As enterprises test agent-enabled workflows and consumers experiment with personal assistants, the broader crypto and fintech ecosystems watch for how user ownership, gating mechanisms, and decentralized governance concepts might influence future products and monetization models.
Why it matters
The ai.com initiative matters because it tests a central hypothesis in both AI and crypto communities: that autonomous agents, built on user-owned infrastructure, can perform meaningful tasks without constant oversight. If successful, the platform could demonstrate a scalable model for consumer-grade autonomous agents that learn from cumulative interactions and improve their competence over time. This aligns with a cryptoeconomic impulse to empower users with ownership, opt-in data control, and transparent monetization pathways—principles that many crypto projects champion when designing incentive layers and decentralized governance around software products.
Furthermore, the Super Bowl moment underscores how mainstream media exposure can accelerate a niche technology narrative. The ad slots purchased by Google, Anthropic, Amazon, Meta, and others during Super Bowl 60 highlight a broader industry belief that AI agents are transitioning from experimental demos to everyday tools. For crypto developers and investors, ai.com’s approach—combining a high-profile brand event with a domain-centric branding strategy—offers a blueprint for how to attract attention while testing practical use cases that require careful attention to privacy, security, and user consent as adoption grows.
From a technical perspective, the emphasis on a private, personalized agent that can handle routine tasks raises questions about data handling, model updates, and cross-platform interoperability. The platform’s success will hinge on how well it can balance convenience with safeguards and how it integrates with existing identity and consent frameworks. In a landscape where AI agents are increasingly central to everyday productivity, ai.com contributes to a broader conversation about responsible deployment, user empowerment, and the role of branding in shaping user expectations around AI-enabled automation.
What to watch next
- Progress of the onboarding queue: how long users wait to spin up their agents and what features arrive during the beta phase.
- Product updates and feature roadmaps, including any GA (general availability) milestones or new agent capabilities.
- Official communications detailing the domain sale narrative, including any responsible, verifiable disclosures about the acquisition and team expansion.
- Competitor moves in the AI-agent space, such as new Frontier integrations or OpenClaw enhancements, that could shape ai.com’s feature set or positioning.
- Security and privacy demonstrations or audits that reassure users about the handling of personal data within autonomous agents.
Sources & verification
- ai.com official launch materials and beta signup page to confirm the registration flow and queue process.
- Public reports about the Super Bowl 60 ad placements on NBC and coverage of the associated marketing wave from the event.
- Statements surrounding the April domain acquisition and the claim of it being the largest publicly disclosed sale in history.
- Industry context references to OpenAI’s Frontier and the OpenClaw project as related AI-agent developments for benchmarking the competitive landscape.
ai.com launches beta for autonomous AI agents after Super Bowl blitz
The ai.com rollout marks a deliberate bet on mass branding combined with a high-concept ai product. By inviting users to register a unique ai.com handle and then placing them in a queue to activate their private agents, Marszalek’s team is testing not only the tech but the market’s appetite for decentralized, autonomous tools that can operate with limited human intervention. The beta approach allows the team to gather feedback on onboarding, agent reliability, and task execution while mitigating churn that could arise from a rushed, full-scale launch.
In parallel with this branding push, the broader AI space has seen a series of competing efforts around agent enablement and enterprise utility. OpenAI’s Frontier represents the industry push toward enterprise-grade AI agents designed for business workflows, while independent developments like OpenClaw reflect ongoing experimentation in agent autonomy and control. The convergence of these efforts with ai.com’s branding strategy suggests a deliberate attempt to translate complex AI capabilities into everyday productivity tasks—an objective that resonates with crypto enthusiasts who prize user sovereignty and tangible utility in technology platforms.
The domain sale narrative—described as the largest publicly disclosed domain sale in history—adds a layer of drama to the project’s genesis. While the exact price remains undisclosed, the move is a reminder that branding assets can be strategic levers in technology markets, shaping user perceptions and investor interest as much as the underlying product features. The early traffic surge and temporary outage experienced by ai.com illustrate the growing pains common to new, consumer-facing AI services. Yet the recovery and continued traffic point to a robust demand signal that could sustain future iterations of the product and potential ecosystem partnerships.
As Marszalek’s vision emphasizes decentralization and autonomous learning, the ai.com initiative also invites readers to consider the implications for governance and data rights. In a landscape where AI agents gather, interpret, and act on personal information, reassuring users about consent mechanisms and transparent data practices will be essential to long-term credibility. If ai.com can credibly deliver reliable, privacy-conscious agents that help users manage emails, calendars, subscriptions, shopping, and travel, it could become a meaningful data-privacy and productivity narrative within the crypto-technology space—a space that increasingly values both innovation and responsible design.
Jack Dorsey’s financial technology company Block Inc. is preparing to cut up to 10% of its workforce as part of a broader effort to streamline operations and improve efficiency, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Summary
- Block plans to cut up to 10% of its workforce as part of an efficiency drive, Bloomberg reported.
- The move could impact around 1,000 employees following internal performance reviews.
- Cost controls come ahead of Block’s upcoming earnings report amid slowing growth.
Block puts workforce cuts under review
The potential reductions could impact roughly 1,000 employees, based on Block’s headcount of just under 11,000 as of late 2025.
Employees were informed internally that roles are being reviewed as part of annual performance evaluations, with decisions expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.
The move marks the latest step in a multi-year restructuring effort at Block, which operates businesses including Square, Cash App, and Bitcoin-focused initiatives. The company has been working to simplify its organizational structure, integrate teams more closely, and focus resources on higher-growth and more profitable areas.
Block has also been increasing its emphasis on automation and internal productivity tools, including an in-house artificial intelligence assistant known as Goose, as it looks to operate more efficiently at scale.
The company has previously said it wants to balance growth investments with tighter cost controls.
The planned workforce reduction comes as Block navigates a challenging operating environment. Growth in its Square merchant business has slowed amid pressure on small businesses, while competition across digital payments and financial services remains intense.
Block is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings later this month, with investors closely watching margins and cost discipline. The company has outlined long-term targets calling for sustained gross profit growth through the second half of the decade.
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has officially launched his new website ai.com to the public, allowing users to create personal AI agents that can perform everyday tasks on their behalf.Brayden Lindrea
The ai.com commercial aired during Super Bowl 60 on NBC on Monday, a sporting event that draws in over 100 million viewers a year, promoting the beta launch of the AI platform.
For now, users can register their ai.com username handles but must then wait in a queue to have their private, personalized AI agents spun up.

Marszalek said the AI agents can perform everything from managing emails and scheduling meetings to canceling subscriptions, completing shopping tasks, and planning trips.
Marszalek said his mission with ai.com is to accelerate artificial general intelligence “by building a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”
ChatGPT creator OpenAI launched an enterprise-focused AI agent platform, Frontier, last week, while software engineer Peter Steinberger released AI agent OpenClaw in November 2025, which gained popularity in January.
Marszalek said he bought the AI-themed domain in April fion — said to be the largest publicly disclosed domain sale in history — and has since built a team to bring the product to market.
Pseudonymous crypto and AI researcher 0xSammy said the move resembles how Marszalek scaled Crypto.com to over 150 million customers by buying a popular domain and investing heavily in marketing:
“One of the most recognisable URLs on the internet + 128M eyeballs + a Super Bowl ad = the biggest single-day domain launch in history?”

Marszalek said ai.com saw “insane traffic” in the first few hours of launching, which briefly caused the website to crash before coming back online.

Source: AI.com
Tech heavyweights also ran AI ads
Google ran a 60-second Gemini AI advertisement during Super Bowl 60, while Anthropic also ran a commercial promoting its Claude chatbot.
Related: Crypto PACs secure massive war chests ahead of US midterms
Amazon also ran a commercial showcasing its Alexa AI product, while Meta advertised Oakley-branded AI glasses.
These tech companies reportedly paid around $8 million to run 30-second advertisements during the Super Bowl.
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Trend Research, an investment firm led by Jack Yi, founder of Liquid Capital, has sold its entire Ethereum (ETH) position, reportedly locking in losses of nearly $750 million.
The large-scale sell-off comes as Ethereum continues its broader downturn, with the altcoin down more than 30% in the past month. The price performance has reignited debate over whether ETH is approaching a market bottom.
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Trend Research Sells Ethereum Amid Market Volatility
BeInCrypto recently reported that Trend Research began transferring Ethereum to Binance at the beginning of the month. On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain confirmed that the firm completed the sell-off yesterday.
In total, Trend Research moved 651,757 ETH, worth approximately $1.34 billion, to Binance at an average price of $2,055. The transactions reduced the firm’s ETH holdings to just 0.0344 ETH, valued at around $72.
Data from Arkham Intelligence corroborates the near-complete exit, showing residual balances of roughly $10,000 in USDC and minor amounts of other tokens.
“The total loss is ~$747 million,” Lookonchain wrote.
The exit followed a leveraged strategy built on the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Aave. An analyst explained that Trend Research initially purchased ETH on centralized exchanges and deposited it as collateral on Aave.
The firm then borrowed stablecoins against the collateral and repeatedly reinvested the borrowed funds into additional ETH purchases, creating a recursive leveraged position that significantly increased both exposure and liquidation risk.
As ETH’s price continued to decline, the position moved closer to the liquidation threshold. Rather than risk forced liquidation, Trend Research chose to unwind the entire position voluntarily.
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While Trend Research pivoted to selling, BitMine has taken the opposite approach. Despite mounting unrealized losses, the firm has continued to increase its exposure, recently purchasing $42 million worth of Ethereum.
What an Ethereum Market Bottom Could Mean for Bitmine and Trend Research
The opposing strategies come amid a period of heightened market volatility for Ethereum. BeInCrypto Markets data shows that the second-largest cryptocurrency has declined 32.4% over the past month.
On February 5, ETH also slipped below $2,000 before recovering. At press time, Ethereum was trading at $ 2,094.16, up around 0.98% over the past 24 hours.
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Amid the downturn, some analysts have suggested that Ethereum may be approaching a market bottom. One analyst described Trend Research’s exit as the “largest capitulation signal.”
“Such forced exits often happen near major lows,” Axel stated.
Joao Wedson, founder of Alphactal, also noted that Ethereum’s price bottom is likely to occur months before Bitcoin’s, citing the faster liquidity cycle typically observed in altcoins.
According to Wedson, some chart indicators suggest that Q2 2026 could mark a potential price bottom for ETH.
“Some charts already indicate that Q2 2026 could mark a potential price bottom for ETH. Capitulation has arrived, and realized losses are set to increase sharply,” Wedson added.
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While no bottom has been confirmed yet, the possibility could carry broader implications for institutional sentiment, particularly as some firms choose to de-risk while others continue to accumulate amid ongoing market weakness.
If Ethereum is indeed approaching a market bottom, BitMine’s continued accumulation could prove well-timed, positioning the firm to benefit from a future recovery.
However, if downside pressure persists, Trend Research’s decision to fully unwind its position may ultimately be viewed as a prudent move to limit the risks associated with leveraged strategies.
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