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Oracle (ORCL) Shares Fall Below $150

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Oracle (ORCL) Shares Fall Below $150

The start of February has been negative for technology stocks, weighed down by a wave of pessimism driven by several factors, including:

→ “AI spending fatigue.” Results from Microsoft and Alphabet highlighted massive capital expenditure (CapEx). Tens of billions of dollars are being poured into servers and chips, and the market appears increasingly concerned that these costs may not be justified by actual AI-related revenues.

→ The launch of new “agent-based” AI tools (such as those released by Anthropic in early February), which has fuelled fears that AI could begin to replace software itself rather than enhance it. This has put pressure across the software sector, including Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle.

For Oracle, the situation is further complicated by plans to finance a large-scale programme in 2026 worth $45–50bn, which the company intends to fund by: 1) taking on debt; 2) issuing additional shares.

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As a result:
→ analysts have downgraded their target prices for ORCL;
→ the share price has fallen below $150 for the first time since May 2025.

On 18 December, we noted that technical analysis of the ORCL share chart pointed to four reasons why a rebound towards the resistance area marked in blue was possible.

As the blue arrow shows, since then ORCL shares have:
→ shown signs of recovery;
→ however, a false bullish break above the psychological $200 level led to a resumption of the downtrend within the previously identified descending red channel.

The accelerating bearish momentum over the past three days may:
→ prompt weaker holders, gripped by panic, to sell ORCL shares;
→ attract “smart money”, which may view prices below $150 as appealing.

In addition, attention should be paid to the intersections of trend-channel lines from different timeframes. These may act as a cluster of support and slow the decline, giving the market a pause ahead of the quarterly earnings release scheduled for early March.

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Crypto World

$1M Lightning Payment Tests Bitcoin’s Institutional Rails

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$1M Lightning Payment Tests Bitcoin’s Institutional Rails

Institutional trading and lending desk Secure Digital Markets (SDM) said it sent a $1 million payment to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken over the Lightning Network on Jan. 28.

SDM claimed in a Thursday statement shared with Cointelegraph that it is the largest publicly reported Lightning transaction to date and a proof‑of‑concept for seven‑figure transfers between regulated counterparties.

The payment cleared in 0.43 seconds and was routed via Voltage’s managed Lightning infrastructure, which provides node management, pre‑provisioned liquidity, and uptime guarantees aimed at exchanges and trading desks. 

The previously publicized “record” single payment milestone was about 1.24 Bitcoin (BTC), roughly $140,000 at the time, highlighting the rarity of six‑figure Lightning payments, let alone a clean, seven‑figure transfer in one shot.

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$1 million in a single Lightning transaction. Source: SDM

Voltage CEO Graham Krizek called the transaction an “important moment for Lightning and for institutional Bitcoin payments,” saying that a $1 million Lightning transfer highlighted the “its ability to meet enterprise requirements.”

Related: Lightning Network could nab 5% of stablecoin flows by 2028: Voltage CEO

Lightning metrics remain small, but growing

The transfer comes against a backdrop of mixed Lightning metrics. Capacity on public Lightning channels fell from over 5,400 BTC in late 2023 to about 4,200 BTC by mid 2025, before rebounding to a new all-time high capacity of over 5,600 BTC by December. 

That’s still a small pool of capital relative to Bitcoin’s market value, and most documented usage has skewed toward smaller payments.

Bitfinex, for example, had long capped Lightning deposits at 0.04 BTC before recently lifting limits to 0.5 BTC per payment and 2 BTC per channel.

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In a statement shared with Cointelegraph, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and chief technology officer at Bitfinex, called the Lightning Network a “powerful solution for all Bitcoin users” that began as a retail payments experiment

He said that Bitfinex had seen Lightning handle higher volumes with predictable settlement, lower costs and reduced onchain congestion, “all of which matter for institutional use cases.”

Fidelity and Blockstream see institutional potential

Fidelity Digital Assets, which published a 2025 report on Lightning using Voltage data, argued that the Lightning Network not only enhanced Bitcoin’s utility but also bolstered its investment case.

Related: Tether leads $8M funding for Lightning startup focused on stablecoins

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Fidelity noted that average Lightning capacity had increased by 384% since 2020, adding that the network presented a “transformative opportunity for both new and existing financial institutions.”

Blockstream, a Bitcoin‑focused infrastructure company, pushed a similar narrative in its Q4 2025 quarterly update.

The company highlighted Core Lightning releases focused on latency reduction and Lightning Service Provider (LSP) support, and pitched its Greenlight platform as a way for apps, exchanges and services to offer trust‑minimized Lightning functionality with minimal infrastructure burden, with an explicit roadmap for enterprise‑focused Lightning deployments.

Big questions: Would Bitcoin survive a 10-year power outage?

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