Crypto Prices Fall Sharply 2026

Market Performance

The crypto markets had a week. They kept losing value because people wanted to sell. Bitcoin went down to a low price, below $70,000, which is the lowest it has been since November 2024.. Then it went back up to around $71,000. Ethereum went down too to around $2,068, which’s about 2% less than before. XRP had a drop going down more than 7% to around $1.40.

The people who watch the markets think this is happening because of problems with the economy. They are worried about what the U.S. Federal Reserve will do after hearing about Kevin Warsh. They are also worried because the stock market is not doing well. Crypto markets, like Bitcoin and Ethereum are having a time because of these problems. Over the week a lot of people who had borrowed money to buy Bitcoin lost everything. They had around two and a half billion dollars in Bitcoin. It all got taken away. Now the total value of all cryptocurrencies is down, by twenty percent since the start of the year. Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP are all doing badly. Bitcoin had a week Ethereum had a bad week and XRP had a bad week too.

Bitcoin (BTC):

Bitcoin went down by about 3 to 4 percent on February 5 to around 70,000 dollars. This is the Bitcoin has been since November 2024. Bitcoin is down by 8 percent over the last week and nearly 20 percent so far in 2026. When we look at the interest data, for Bitcoin it shows that a lot of people are selling Bitcoin. This is because they are trying to get out of trades that are losing them money. In the few days people lost a lot of money on Bitcoin, around 2.56 billion dollars.

Ethereum (ETH):

Ethereum went down by 2 percent on February 5. It was trading between 2090 dollars and 2100 dollars. Ethereum reached a low that it had not seen in a long time. Ethereum has now lost 30 percent of its value since the start of 2026. This shows that the Ethereum market is still very weak, like the rest of the altcoin market. Ethereum is really struggling now.

XRP:

The price of XRP went down a lot on February 5. It fell 7 percent to around $1.37. This is a drop from the price of near $1.50 that it was at before. The XRP token was doing well in early January. It had gotten close to $2.40 at one point.. Since then the price of XRP has gone back down. This is because people are not sure what the rules are going to be, for XRP and the rest of the market is not doing well either.

Regulatory Developments – United States:

The people who make laws in the United States and the people who regulate things started doing stuff at the beginning of 2026. On January 13 the Senate made a proposal for a law about how markets work. This law is supposed to help figure out when digital tokensre like stocks or regular goods that people buy and sell. The idea is that the CFTC, which is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would be in charge of watching over the crypto markets of the SEC, which is the Securities and Exchange Commission. The proposal also wants to limit kinds of stablecoin products that pay interest because traditional banks are worried about them. The U.S. Lawmakers and regulators are trying to make things clearer for tokens and the CFTC would have a big role, in overseeing crypto markets. The Securities and Exchange Commission made some changes to the rules for crypto Exchange Traded Funds. They did this in 2025. Now it is easier for these funds to be listed. If a crypto fund meets conditions like having a market that is regulated it can start without a lot of extra checks. People who watch the market think that the first funds that follow these rules will be available, in early October 2025. These will include funds that are based on Solana and XRP which’re types of crypto. The new rules will make it possible for these Solana and XRP products to be sold to people.

Europe:

The European Union has a set of rules for crypto assets, which is called the Markets in Crypto-Assets framework. This framework is now in effect. It means that the people who issue stablecoins have to get a license. The European Union is also keeping an eye on the crypto sector. They have made rules to stop money laundering when it comes to crypto. This week there were no changes to the rules people are just making sure everyone follows the existing Markets, in Crypto-Assets rules.

Asia-Pacific:

China is still not allowing people to trade crypto. This ban has been in place for a time. Some people think that groups connected to China were involved in around $82 billion of crypto transactions that were not legal in 2025.

Hong Kong said it will start giving out licenses for stablecoins in March 2026.. Only a few people will get these licenses at first.

Japan is making changes. The country wants to make it legal to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum funds by 2028. Japan also wants to lower the tax rate on crypto from around 55% to 20%. This will be a help, to people who trade crypto in Japan. China and its crypto ban are still being watched by people. Japan and Hong Kong are also being watched to see what they will do with crypto next. In places South Korea is making a Digital Asset Basic Act. Taiwan is working on crypto laws. Thinking about a stablecoin that is backed by the New Taiwan dollar. Singapore is being careful. The people who regulate things there are saying again that crypto assets are not an idea, for regular investors who buy and sell things.

Crypto Scams & Fraud:

Crypto fraud just keeps getting worse.
In 2025 people stole a lot of money from Crypto. About $17 billion.
That is a lot more than the $12 billion they stole the year
Some people do scams where they pretend to be people or use social media to trick others.
These scams went up by an amount. Over 1,400%. From the year before.
Now people are using computers to help them scam others.
This is happening way more often than the old ways of scamming.
People who invest in Crypto need to be careful.
They have to watch out for emails and messages that try to trick them.
Some scams even use people to make them seem real.
There are also romance scams where people pretend to like you to get your money.
These are called “pig butchering” scams.

The police are trying to stop all these scams. They are working hard all around the world to catch the people who are doing them. Crypto fraud is a problem and the police are doing something, about it. The United States prosecutors went after a big time cyber fraud guy from Cambodia in October 2025. They took away a lot of Bitcoin. About 127,271 Bitcoin. That is worth, around $15 billion. This was the time the United States government ever took away cryptocurrency. With more people trying to stop money laundering everywhere bad people are still finding ways to do bad things. They are using tools that are cheaper and better. Cyber fraud is still a problem because of this. The criminals are always. Using Bitcoin for cyber fraud.

Institutional Activity:

The way people feel about Bitcoin is still over the place because the market is not doing well. Lots of money was taken out of Bitcoin funds in the United States with more than $3 billion leaving Bitcoin ETFs in January. This means the total amount of money that Bitcoin ETFs are managing is now below $100 billion it is around $97 billion, which’s the first time this has happened since spring 2025.. Some institutions are still doing things with Bitcoin. We can see that BlackRock moved $170 million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime on February 4 which makes people think they might be getting their investments in order. Bitcoin is still being used by institutions, like BlackRock. They are moving Bitcoin and Ethereum around which is interesting to see. Around the time GameStop made a big move with its Bitcoin. It took all of its Bitcoin, which’s about 4,710 Bitcoin and moved it to Coinbase. This Bitcoin is worth around $420 to $450 million. GameStop said it did this to mix up its investments. This shows that big companies like GameStop are still doing things with Bitcoin even though the price is going down. They are still active, with Bitcoin.

ETFs & Funds:

The United States has Bitcoin investment products that people can buy and sell.. There are other Bitcoin products that people are starting to use. For example people can. Sell XRP ETFs. These XRP ETFs started in 2025 and by mid January 2026 people had put about 1.3 billion dollars into them.

To compare the United States Bitcoin ETFs had about 168 billion dollars in them in October 2025. But by the time January 2026 came around that number had gone down to about 97 billion dollars.

In places like Asia people are also buying and selling Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. For instance Hong Kong started selling Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in April 2024. These Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, in Hong Kong are still being traded,. They do not have as much money in them only about 0.5 billion dollars. Japanese financial institutions like Nomura and SBI are getting ready to offer crypto-ETFs before the rules change in 2028. They think this will happen soon so they want to be ready, with their -ETF offerings. Nomura and SBI are two of the financial institutions that are doing this. They are preparing for the rules that will come in 2028. Japanese financial institutions are really getting into crypto-ETFs.

Corporate Treasuries:

Some big companies are still going to stick with their plans for crypto in the run even if they lose money now. MicroStrategy is still holding onto its Bitcoin and the person in charge Michael Saylor says they do not plan to sell it. Fidelity and other big companies that manage money are keeping an eye on blockchain. Trying to figure out how to store and take care of these assets. They are also trying to build things to help with crypto. A lot of companies are looking into crypto products that can make them money and ways to make financial things work on the blockchain even when the market is not doing well. Crypto is still something that these companiesre interested, in.

Geographic Highlights:

In the United States people are talking about changing the rules. What is happening with Exchange Traded Funds. This is because big investors are putting their money in and taking it out at times. The European Union is making sure that everyone follows the MiCA rules especially when it comes to stablecoins and stopping money laundering. In Asia Hong Kong has plans to license stablecoins and Japan is changing the rules for Exchange Traded Funds and taxes. China is being very strict which is causing some people to do things that are not allowed. In Southeast Asia countries like Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan are each doing their thing when it comes to rules and new products, for Exchange Traded Funds.

Key Takeaways:

The crypto markets had a bad time in early February 2026. Bitcoin was near seventy thousand dollars. Ethereum was around twenty one hundred dollars.. Xrp was close to one dollar and forty cents. This is because people are feeling really unsure about what’s going to happen.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the economy.

Regulatory momentum is building around the world. The United States is making proposals to change the way the markets work. They are also talking about changing the rules for ETFs. Other places like Hong Kong and Japan and the European Union are also changing their policies.

Crypto markets are still having a problem with scams. People lost a lot of money in 2025. This happened even though the authorities are doing more to stop these scams. Crypto markets and crypto scams are a concern, for everyone. Crypto markets need to be safer for people to use. Institutional investors are cautious but still active, as evidenced by large ETF flows and significant on-chain movements by major firms, while XRP has seen notable institutional demand following improved legal clarity.

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