Cryptopolitan

Elon Musk says Apple went after Tesla workers hard when the iPhone maker was trying to build its own electric car, offering them twice their salary without even doing interviews first.

The Tesla chief made the comments during a recent three-hour conversation with Stripe’s John Collison and podcast host Dwarkesh Patel. The wide-ranging talk covered everything from computers for space to artificial intelligence and Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency.

Engineers unplugged phones to avoid recruiters

When the discussion turned to building teams and hiring people, Musk brought up how other companies tried to steal Tesla employees during the carmaker’s best times. He pointed to Apple as one of the worst offenders when it ran its electric car program.

“When Apple had their electric car program, they were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls,” Musk said. “Engineers just unplugged their phones.”

He explained that Apple recruiters would make opening offers worth double what Tesla paid, and they did this before even sitting down with workers for interviews. The constant phone calls got so bad that Tesla engineers started disconnecting their phones just to avoid hearing from Apple one more time.

Musk called this the “Tesla pixie dust” problem. Other companies thought that if they hired someone from Tesla, success would automatically follow. But Tesla’s spot in Silicon Valley made things worse because workers could jump to a new job without having to move their families.

Apple worked on building a car for years through something called Project Titan, but the company never actually made one. Still, it clearly put a lot of money and effort into trying to bring Tesla people over to its side.

Musk admitted he had made the same mistake when hiring for his own businesses. “I’ve fallen prey to the pixie dust thing as well, where it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ll hire someone from Google or Apple, and they’ll be immediately successful,’ but that’s not how it works,” he said. “People are people. There’s no magical pixie dust.”

Plans to move AI operations to space

The talk also covered Musk’s plans for something he calls a “TeraFab.” He wants Tesla to build this because he thinks there are not enough computer chips being made to reach his goals. He even joked about his hands-on way of doing things, saying he would “smoke a cigar inside the fab” instead of following normal clean room rules.

Looking at where artificial intelligence is headed, Musk thinks the main problem is changing. It used to be about software, but now it’s about hardware and power. He said that in the next year, “people are going to hit the wall big time on power generation.” There will be more chips than the world can actually turn on and use.

His answer? Move AI to space. “In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space,” Musk predicted. He pointed to cheap solar power and no air getting in the way as reasons this makes sense.

Musk also talked about his current problems with hiring at SpaceX’s Starbase location in Texas. He called it the “significant other problem.” It’s hard to get married engineers to move to remote places where their spouses cannot find good jobs nearby.

Even with these challenges, Musk stays focused on making more hardware faster. “Whichever company can scale hardware the fastest will be the leader,” he said.

Despite the past friction over worker poaching, Musk ended on a positive note about technology’s future. “It’s better to be on the side of optimism and be wrong than on the side of pessimism and be right for quality of life,” he remarked.

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The world of digital assets is going through a clear shift. Large investors, often called whales, are quietly moving funds into new areas as they look ahead to 2026. Market conditions have changed, and attention is turning toward what could become the next major opportunity.

This steady rotation suggests that a new type of leader is starting to emerge within decentralized finance. While many older coins continue to trade sideways, one protocol is beginning to draw growing interest. For market watchers, this kind of movement often signals the early stages of the next dominant players in a new cycle.

Mutuum Finance (MUTM) and the V1 Protocol Launch 

Mutuum Finance is a new crypto project that simplifies lending and borrowing. It is based on an intelligent dual market. The initial section is a pooling market that enables a user to generate interest in a short time. The second section permits face-to-face transactions between two individuals. The project has now hit a major milestone in its launch of its V1 protocol on the Sepolia testnet.

The importance of this launch is that it demonstrates the effectiveness of the tech. The lending pools can now be tested by users and the way the system copes with debt can be observed. The most interesting thing is the mtToken. 

These tokens are in the form of receipts when you lend money. They in fact increase in value as borrowers pay the interest. There is also an automated bot in the system that ensures all are safe. It ensures that there is adequate value to cover all the loans to protect the lenders.

The Presale Journey 

MUTM is in an extremely successful presale phase. Up to now the project has garnered more than $20.4 million. It has also accumulated an enormous base of over 19,000 holders. This demand is a sign to indicate that individuals have confidence in this project despite its existence before the big exchanges.

MUTM is currently at Phase 7, and it costs just $0.04. It has already increased by 300% after its presale launch at a very low price of only $0.01. The official launch price is set at $0.06. This implies that those who join it today are getting a better rate before the mass audience can purchase.

2026–2027 Price Prediction

The future of MUTM in the next two years is very exciting to the analysts. In their opinion, the token could be valued between $0.25 and $0.45 in a few months after mainnet launch. This would amount to a colossal 600% to 1, 200% rise over its present price.

This growth may be motivated by a number of factors. To begin with, the team plans to introduce its stablecoin. This would allow users to borrow money without selling their favorite coins. Second, they are switching to Layer-2 networks. This would enhance transactions to be so fast and cheap. According to the analysts, in case these plans materialize, then the token could even reach $1.00 in 2027.

Halborn and CetiK Audits

Belief comprises a massive portion of this project. Mutuum Finance is a newly completed deep security audit conducted by Halborn Security. They are considered to be one of the most reputable security companies on Earth. CertiK also got a high score of 90/100 in the protocol. This is evidence that the code is firm and secure to the large-scale investors.

Investors can now have a 50% discount on MUTM as opposed to the launch price of $0.06. As the whales come in and the V1 testnet is in operation, time to join this rate is swiftly expiring. The project is striving to be a market leader in the 2026 DeFi crypto market.

For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below:

Website: https://www.mutuum.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance

Bitcoin dropped harder than anyone expected, and no one actually knows what set it off. It lost 16% in a week, crashing to $70,008, and at one point touched $60,000. That’s a massive fall from the all-time high of $126,273 it hit in October.

Ether didn’t do much better. It fell 24% to $2,052, now 59% below its record. Friday gave both tokens a little bounce, but that didn’t save the week. This was one of the worst stretches for crypto in years.

The most frustrating part is how clueless everyone is. Even the most recognizable names in the space, like Anthony Pompliano, Michael Novogratz, and Anthony Scaramucci, had no real answer.

Pompliano said, “Bitcoin is crashing and investors are freaking out.” Novogratz simply said, “There was no smoking gun.” Scaramucci put it plainly: “If you ask five experts, you’ll get five explanations.”

Traders turn to other markets as bitcoin loses spotlight

Pompliano pointed to distractions, saying that traders are busy throwing cash into prediction markets, gold, silver, AI projects, and even meme stocks. He used to think bitcoin was where people came for upside. Now they’re all over the place.

“It used to be that bitcoin was the consensus view where asymmetry existed,” he said. “Now you have AI, prediction markets… many other areas where people can go and they can speculate.”

Another problem is Wall Street. Over the past year, banks have rolled out all kinds of ETFs and derivatives tied to crypto. These tools let people bet on the price of bitcoin without ever touching the real thing.

And that has hurt bitcoin’s status as a rare asset. Its supply is still limited to 21 million coins, but the financial industry has made it easier to gamble on price without actually buying any.

During Trump’s comeback to the White House, bitcoin soared like crazy. From Election Day to early October last year, it jumped around 80%. Cory Klippsten, the CEO of Swan Bitcoin, admitted, “I really didn’t think that we’d see a six at the beginning of the bitcoin price ever again.” But here we are. That confidence has vanished. Past crashes always had some event behind them.

In 2018, it was the ICO bubble. In 2022, it was the $40 billion collapse of TerraUSD and Luna, which wiped out companies and led to the disaster at FTX. This time? Nothing specific.

Interest rates, regulatory fight and Trump’s laws cloud the picture

Trump picked Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. Some think Warsh might be spooking the crypto crowd. He’s seen as someone who leans toward a stronger U.S. dollar policy and isn’t afraid of higher interest rates. That’s bad news for riskier assets. And the WSJ Dollar Index did climb 0.4% this week. Higher rates and a stronger dollar usually mean less demand for bitcoin.

But Warsh isn’t completely against bitcoin. He once called it a “policeman for policy.” He even said bitcoin’s price can tell governments when they’re screwing up or doing well. That complicates the theory.

Then there’s the law. Trump passed the GENIUS Act last year, which helped legalize stablecoins tied to real-world currencies. The next step was the Clarity Act, a bill to give crypto companies clear rules. But it hit a wall. A fight broke out between big banks and crypto exchanges. Now the whole thing is stuck, and without it, traditional firms are staying away. That missing regulation could’ve been the fuel the market needed. Instead, it’s just another dead end.

Investors lock in profits while others keep holding on

Some people like Novogratz think it’s just profit-taking.No mystery. Bitcoin and ether had big gains since Trump won, and some investors decided it was time to cash out. They didn’t wait around.

They dumped tokens and banked the money. There’s even a name for it. They call it crypto winter, and it happens when prices fall fast and confidence goes cold.

But this time, there hasn’t been a major collapse or fraud. That’s different from past crashes. Jasper De Maere, from Wintermute, said, “The infrastructure is stronger, stablecoin adoption continues to grow, and institutional interest hasn’t evaporated, it’s just sidelined.” He said the interest “can return quickly.”

Some of the biggest believers haven’t flinched. Michael Saylor, who leads Strategy, held a call with investors on Thursday. His firm took a $12 billion quarterly loss from the drop in bitcoin. But he wasn’t panicking. He told investors the plan is to stay patient. “Your time horizon needs to be, minimal, four years,” he said.

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Arweave has dismissed rumors that claim the network stopped producing blocks. While the reports made it sound like an exploit occurred or something went wrong, like an outage, the team claims it’s just a case of outdated data. 

According to a post on X from one of the team members, certain blockchain explorers, particularly ViewBlock, have been displaying stale block data for Arweave, making it look like the chain stopped producing blocks after #1,851,686 on February 6. 

Arweave is all good 

“Arweave has been producing blocks continuously / all transactions are processing normally, etc,” the team member clarified. 

They explained that Viewblock’s explorer had, for some reason, started pulling a local cache count instead of the actual network block height, but the team is reportedly in touch with them to get it resolved.

The team hopes the clarification will put an end to the widespread rumors and FUD that have been spreading quickly across the Internet. It did not help matters that many sites also reported it as a critical outage or halt without verifying further. 

According to Arscan, the block production has continued nonstop with the latest blocks produced today, February 7. 

The Arweave ecosystem has been good in the last year

According to a video post from Taylor Lamprecht, a prominent figure in the Arweave ecosystem, the Arweave ecosystem has had a great year filled with key achievements, and there are already plans in the pipeline for developments. 

Some of the ecosystem’s key achievements were that it processed more than two billion messages over the past year, reduced state lookups from 10 seconds to 100 milliseconds, and started running high-frequency order books on-chain at 200-240 messages per second. 

As for upcoming developments, the video was filled with teasers, including about how Hyperbeam has evolved into something larger. There were also announcements regarding ongoing work in the ecosystem. 

Lamprecht talked about the Out-of-Context Competition, which involves chatting with digital twins and posting the conversations on X to win $100 in AR weekly. There are reportedly three weeks left with category prizes of $300 and $500 for the grand winners. 

Other updates ranged from talk about DecentLand Labs, the first multisig Lin AO Mainnet, and eye of Arweave, which is a new transaction analytics chart, to the launch of the Bazaar Portal Beta, a fully decentralized CMS on Arweave powered by AO processes for community-owned content. 

Arweave’s AR token is down 6.51% in the past day and 18% on the week. While some of the negative price action may be linked to the recent network stall reports, it could also have something to the with the overall negative headwinds in the overall crypto market, which most recently led to extreme volatility in ETH price, triggering nearly $87M in liquidations in a matter of 20 minutes according to Solana Floor.

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As the market is correcting after a severe dip, investors are being cautious about where to invest their capital. The price of Ripple (XRP) is declining significantly. The asset is down by 13% over the last 24 hours, indicating the presence of many technical sell signals. In such a situation, the projects that have already achieved success in terms of technology are the best to invest in. Though the price of XRP is declining, other projects like Mutuum Finance (MUTM) are promising investments for the future.

XRP Undergoes Severe Bearish Pressure

Ripple is currently facing a difficult situation in the market. The asset has already lost the key support of $1.50. Moreover, the funding rate of the asset is declining to the lowest point since October. This is indicating severe bearish pressure on the asset. The short-term technical indicators of the asset are showing many technical sell signals, which are indicating that the asset is likely to reach the mark of $1.15.

Though the asset is receiving more traffic due to its stablecoin, the price is not reflecting the same. Therefore, for investors, this is a warning that the asset is highly volatile, which makes it a bad choice for investments.

Mutuum Finance – The Live-Tested Lending Protocol

Mutuum Finance is a decentralized finance lending protocol that functions on the Ethereum blockchain. V1 of the Mutuum Finance protocol is already live on the Sepolia testnet, open to the public for testing. This testnet ensures that investors understand lending and borrowing, and that everything is running well before the mainnet debut. This, in itself, represents one of the greatest advantages of this top crypto, giving it a huge boost in confidence before its eventual launch.

Capitalizing on the Final Presale Window

The investment opportunity presented by MUTM is further enhanced by its presale format. Currently in Phase 7 at a price of $0.04, the presale follows a model where the price of the token increases in subsequent phases. Phase 8, for example, will be priced at $0.045. The eventual price at launch will be $0.06, and it is expected that there will be significant price movement in the days immediately after. 

Analysis of the fundamental factors of the new crypto, including its testnet, fixed token supply, and eventual top-tier exchange listings, suggests that the price of MUTM can be expected to reach as high as $0.48 in the near future. This represents a potential increase of 1100% from its current price in the presale. An investment of $500 now can be expected to reach as high as $6,000 in the near future.

Generating Passive Income Through Protocol Revenue

Another advantage of Mutuum Finance, aside from its price potential, is its ability to offer its users passive income. A percentage of all fees generated in the lending protocol is used to purchase MUTM tokens, which are then distributed as dividends to users who have chosen to stake their mtTokens. If you have chosen to stake mtTokens that represent a $2,000 deposit, you can potentially earn 5-10% in MUTM rewards annually. This represents one of the greatest advantages of the new crypto, something that even the most established cryptos, such as XRP, are unable to offer.

Making a Strategic Investment Decision

The recent decline in the market differentiates between projects that are based on market sentiment and projects that have an intrinsic value creation model. Although XRP is facing a challenging technological environment, Mutuum Finance has a real product, a clear growth curve, and various opportunities for investors to make a profit.

With a successful testnet phase, the project demonstrates that development is progressing, and the economic model encourages long-term holding. For a crypto investment, if an investor wants a high-growth investment opportunity, then MUTM is one of the top cryptos in the market.

For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below:

Website: https://mutuum.com/ 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has urged African anti-corruption and oversight institutions to strengthen the use of digital technologies, including AI, blockchain, and data mining tools, to fight corruption and financial crimes more effectively.

EACC Chief Executive Officer Abdi Mohamud stated that emerging technologies are important for detecting, investigating, and preventing corruption-related offenses. He noted that digital platforms can reduce human discretion and improve traceability, making it harder for corrupt practices to go unnoticed.

EACC moves toward full digitization to fight corruption

The EACC has already automated 58% of its processes and is working toward full digitization of its operations. It is supported by a robust ICT infrastructure and a technology-driven strategic plan.

The Commission also employs internally developed digital systems to enhance controls in resource management and uses digital forensic tools to extract, analyze, and manage evidence from electronic devices.

Mohamud said wider application of AI could further improve the analysis of large datasets. This would enable faster detection of suspicious transactions and patterns linked to corruption and fraud, while reducing investigation timelines.

He praised Kenya’s Digital Super Highway initiative. It has expanded internet connectivity and e-government services, thereby providing greater transparency in public service delivery.

In the conference that brought together heads of state, inspectorates, and anti-corruption agencies from 24 African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Muhamud stated that financial crimes are evolving rapidly, particularly with the rise of crypto and complex digital transactions.

He stressed that enforcement agencies need to keep pace. He urged that enforcement agencies need to keep pace.

So far, in eastern Africa, only Kenya has provided a legal framework for crypto. As reported by Cryptopolitan, the Kenyan parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill, establishing, for the first time, clear legislation for the crypto industry. It provided a legal framework for innovation while addressing risks such as money laundering and fraud. 

Rwanda’s National Bank of Rwanda and the Capital Markets Authority introduced a draft legal framework for virtual assets and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in March 2025. However, it has yet to officially establish the legal framework. 

Across the continent, data from the Africa Fintech Summit shows inefficiencies in cross-border payments and foreign exchange systems cost Africa nearly $5 billion annually. While the technology to enable instant payments already exists, the report underscores that fragmented foreign exchange markets, shallow local currency pools, and a lack of crypto knowledge continue to drive up costs. 

Meanwhile, Kenya, through the EACC, will host the Centre for Anti-Corruption Studies and Research in Africa (CEREAC). It is scheduled for launch in June 2026 during the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Anti-Corruption Agencies of Africa (AAACA).

FRC targets cross-border money laundering networks

The Financial Reporting Centre has so far frozen the assets of 13 individuals linked to terrorism financing. This follows months of intelligence work conducted jointly by Interpol and US financial crime enforcement agencies revealed what investigators described as complex cross-border money laundering networks.

According to the updated domestic sanctions list published on the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC) website, the 13 individuals include 10 Kenyan nationals, 2 Tanzanians, and 1 Ugandan. 

The report says that one of them is an IS facilitator who transfers funds through crypto from several crypto wallets, including those linked to associates of Bilal Al Sudani, aka Sudani, the Deputy Commander of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) Al-Karrar office linked to Islamic State (IS) of Somalia.

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In early Q1 2026, the top cryptocurrency market is moving through a clear period of change. While prices across the market have pulled back, the mood among experienced investors is less about fear and more about repositioning. Capital is no longer chasing the highs of past rallies. Instead, attention is shifting toward ecosystems that offer utility rather than pure speculation.

As the largest assets in the space face notable declines, activity is quietly increasing around a specific protocol that is moving against the broader trend. This shift suggests the next crypto stage of the market will look very different from the last, with greater focus on projects that address real liquidity needs and practical use cases.

Bitcoin (BTC) 

Bitcoin (BTC) remains the clear market leader, but its growth profile has changed in recent months. It is trading around $67,000, roughly 20% below its recent cycle highs. With a market capitalization near $1.34 trillion, Bitcoin now faces heavy institutional profit-taking and slower ETF-driven momentum. While it remains one of the most secure networks, its size limits the kind of high-percentage gains seen in earlier years.

Technically, BTC continues to struggle below key resistance between $70,000 and $75,000. Until these levels are reclaimed, upside remains capped. In 2026, Bitcoin’s main challenge is scale. Moving the price now requires massive new capital. As a result, many investors are turning to smaller, cheaper altcoins for growth, while viewing Bitcoin more as a store of value than a high-return opportunity.

Mutuum Finance (MUTM)

As capital moves away from saturated giants, Mutuum Finance (MUTM) is emerging as a key option for investors looking for real utility. The project is being developed as a decentralized lending and borrowing hub that allows users to access liquidity while keeping ownership of their crypto.

The protocol is planned around a two-market structure to support different user needs. One model is a pooled system where users deposit assets into liquidity pools and earn APY based on demand. For example, depositing assets worth $1,500 at an 8% APY could generate passive income over time. These deposits are represented by mtTokens, which are designed to increase in value as interest is repaid.

Mutuum Finance is also developing a more flexible lending option intended for customized agreements between users. Across the system, risk is managed through Loan-to-Value (LTV) limits. With a 75% LTV, depositing $10,000 in collateral would allow access to up to $7,500 in liquidity. An automated liquidation mechanism is planned to monitor positions and help maintain platform stability if collateral values fall.

MUTM Presale Data

Mutuum Finance has been fuelled by an extremely successful and clear funding round. The project has already raised more than $20.4 million and now has over 19,000 individual holders in its community. The MUTM token is currently at Phase 7 of distribution and its price is at $0.04. 

This is a 300% increase compared to its first stage, Phase 1 price of $0.01, which is the 3x increase that early players already have achieved. Having a verified launch price of $0.06, the project is providing some kind of a clear run to value to the people joining the project before the actual listing.

The MUTM tokenomics are long-term sustainable. The overall amount of MUTM is 4 billion, and a precise amount of 45.5% is dedicated to the community presale. This is so that most of the project is owned by the people who support it in the initial stages. 

In order to make the community active, the project will include the 24-hour leaderboard which will reward the most active contributor of the day with a bonus of $500 in MUTM tokens. Joining is also extremely easy, since the site accepts direct credit cards, any person can join without the need to have a complicated exchange transfer.

Roadmap Milestones

Recent activation of the V1 protocol on the Sepolia testnet is the most important milestone in the Mutuum Finance roadmap. This action is where the conceptual design can be translated into a working system which any individual can test. 

The core lending flows are now in use, the minting of the mtTokens is being tried, and the automatic liquidation logic is being tested in a non-risky environment. This technical preparedness is one of the main causes why the Phase 7 of the presale is sold out so fast because it proves that the team is capable of doing what they promise to do even before the mainnet launch.

In the future, Mutuum Finance plans to launch a native over-collateralized stablecoin, which users can use as a stable medium of exchange and which depends on the interest received in the protocol. 

Then plans are also on Layer-2 optimization in order to minimize transaction costs and increase settlement speeds. A complete security audit with Halborn and high 90/100 rating of CertiK will strengthen trust in the project. With the Bitcoin and other established markets grappling with market saturation, the emphasis on verified security and functional utility has made Mutuum Finance a major player in the 2026 top crypto cycle.

For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below:

Website: https://www.mutuum.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance

Ethereum is currently experiencing a strong sell-off, and its price is testing a support level around $2,100. The price of Ethereum is also experiencing a drop in its Ethereum Coinbase Premium, which is now at its most negative since July 2022. This indicates that institutional investors based in the US are currently selling more Ether (ETH) than they are buying. This situation indicates that big money is exiting the market, and this can cause a drop in price. During this period, smart investors are looking for new crypto projects that have a solid foundation and a plan for growth, rather than sticking with established coins that are trying to stay afloat.

Ethereum Institutional Support Weakens

According to recent data, Ethereum is experiencing a worrying trend, and this does not look good for its price and its chances of recovering quickly. The drop in its Coinbase Premium to bear market levels indicates that big investors are now exiting, and this does not look good for its price.

With the rest of the crypto market also experiencing a drop, including a big drop in the price of Bitcoin, it is now very hard for the price of Ether (ETH) to rise. This is a situation where investors should look elsewhere for exciting and new investments, rather than sticking with established coins that are based on speculation and do not have new and exciting features. This is where Mutuum Finance emerges as the crypto to buy.

A New Approach with Mutuum Finance

With established coins experiencing a drop, investors now look elsewhere, and Mutuum Finance (MUTM) is a new and exciting project that offers investors a new approach and a new way of making money. Mutuum Finance is not just another coin, and this is a big difference between it and others. Mutuum Finance is a full lending system, and its V1 protocol has already been successfully launched on Sepolia’s testnet.

This ensures that anyone can test and see the functionality of the core features in a safe environment before the actual launch. The testnet includes peer-to-contract (P2C) shared pools for assets such as ETH, WBTC, LINK and USDT. This ensures that the product works and instills confidence in this new crypto.

Gaining Early Access and Advantage

Another feature that is appealing to investors is the ongoing presale. Currently, Mutuum Finance is in Phase 7, where tokens are being sold at $0.04. The presale phases are designed in such a manner that the price of the tokens will keep going up as each phase progresses. For example, Phase 8 will have tokens being sold at $0.045. However, the price at which the tokens will be sold during the launch is $0.06.

Due to the high demand from the community of over 18,900 holders and the fundamental strength of the protocol via its lending and over-collateralized borrowing, it is likely that the price of the tokens will surge significantly even at the point of listing. A possible price that can be achieved in the near future is $0.40, which represents a 900% increase from the current price in the presale. This will be achieved because of the working product, tokenomics, and the fact that it will be listed on top-tier exchanges.

Earning Passive Income Through Lending

The main idea behind Mutuum Finance is its lending feature. The feature ensures that users can earn some income. For example, in the P2C model, users can deposit their assets in a pool and earn some interest. If you deposit, for example, $1,000 worth of USDT into a pool, which earns 12% in interest annually, you can earn approximately $120 in one year without selling your original USDT.

The P2P system offers the facility of custom loans for different tokens. This dual approach ensures that all assets can be utilized for the creation of passive income, which is a practical application that is not available in other crypto sectors, e.g., meme coins. 

A Secure and Community-Focused Project

Security and community are the top priorities, and the smart contracts have undergone a rigorous audit by Halborn Security, a major milestone to ensure costly failures are avoided, giving the community confidence to invest in the project. Additionally, Mutuum Finance rewards its supporters.

The community stands to gain from a $500 MUTM reward from the daily leaderboard, where the top contributor will receive the reward, and a massive $100,000 giveaway, where the prize money will be shared among ten winners. The fixed token supply ensures the community is strong, a factor that is crucial for success in the volatile crypto market.

Positioning for a Brighter Future

The current state of the crypto market shows the limitations of projects based on mere speculations, but Mutuum Finance is offering a more attractive option with its live-testing protocol, clear presale, and opportunities for community members to earn from the token. Investors looking for a token with clear utility and massive growth prospects will find MUTM a strategic investment choice, and the window to invest in the early stages is still available, but closing soon as the next phase is just around the corner.

For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below:

Website: https://mutuum.com/ 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance

Market turmoil sent the digital currency favored by anti-establishment investors plunging to near $60,000 on Friday morning.

This is a 50% decline from the record high it hit in October of last year, and it reflects a sharp 30% decline since January.

After Donald Trump returned to the White House, advocates of the cryptocurrency had great expectations, but those hopes have not been fulfilled. Despite early industry excitement, the largest digital coin by market value is already trading far below its value on election night.

This volatility highlights a growing trend: the asset is no longer trading in isolation, but is moving in tandem with the broader instability.

Market analysts suggest that this downturn is fueled by the same fundamental driver that historically dictates Bitcoin’s valuation: a widespread retreat in investor enthusiasm, manifesting as a broad reduction in risk appetite across the global markets

Broader market forces drag down prices

Patterns observed in past downturns are reflected in the forces dragging the price downward. Values are nevertheless being dragged down by a general softening of investor demand, particularly in technology shares. Long-standing assertions that the digital asset is a hedge against price increases or that it signifies a move away from fiat currency have not stood up to examination.

What’s happening in equity markets deserves attention, as it provides the blueprint for the current crypto collapse.

The S&P 500, a key measure of American stocks, has lost nearly 3% from its peak of 7,000 earlier in 2025. While that figure seems modest, it hides deeper problems beneath the surface.

The Nasdaq Composite, weighted heavily toward technology companies, has fallen 6% from its high point in these opening weeks of the year. Sharon Bell, who studies stocks at Goldman Sachs, used the phrase “tech wreck” to describe current conditions.

The situation appears puzzling when considering the favorable backdrop for risky bets, particularly in America. The Federal Reserve appears ready to lower borrowing costs further. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is moving forward with plans to send tax rebates to citizens. The president himself recently predicted the market would double “in a relatively short period of time.”

The trouble stems not from artificial intelligence proving worthless, as some critics warned. Rather, the technology has shown itself to be remarkably effective, perhaps too much so. Companies focused on analytics and software took heavy losses this week after Anthropic, an AI firm, rolled out productivity applications that could eventually eliminate much of their business.

“Software, data‑services companies, publishers, financial information providers, alternative asset managers, and gaming stocks have all sold off sharply on rising fears of AI‑driven disruption,” Bell wrote in her analysis.

The software sector has declined 16% in 2025, she noted, while the Stoxx Europe 600 index, packed with commodity firms, utilities, industrial operations and financial institutions, has gained 4 percent.

Investment leadership shifts away from tech

The model of American dominance that shaped investment decisions for years is now faltering. President Trump’s unpredictable approach to international relations and economic matters has made investors outside the United States reconsider their heavy focus on American markets.

But this technology sector adjustment is beyond the president’s influence and cannot be reversed through political maneuvering. Unlike previous market drops over the past year, executive action cannot fix this problem.

Large investment firms have been saying for months that market leadership would eventually move away from companies building and powering artificial intelligence systems toward businesses that will actually benefit from the efficiency gains this technology delivers. Events this week suggest that transition has started sooner than anticipated.

According to Deutsche Bank’s report, the investment environment has changed. The market now distinguishes between obvious winners and obvious losers rather than artificial intelligence uplifting the entire technology sector evenly. Speculative tokens and faltering software stocks are being rejected in the digital asset arena as a result of this “brutal” filtration process.

Data compiled by Reid demonstrates the severity of losses in software companies. Duolingo has dropped 78% from its recent peak, PayPal has fallen 55%, and ServiceNow has declined 53% from their respective 52-week highs.

“Over the last few months, the market has clearly shifted from the ‘every tech stock is a winner’ mindset to something far more brutal: a true winners and losers landscape,” Jim Reid, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said this week. Technology now appears to be “eating itself,” he added.

The broad optimism Reid references has supported all manner of speculative investments over the past two years, including cryptocurrency, according to FT.

Given the more cautious market climate after this technology sector upheaval, the time has come for those funds to serve a better purpose in the financial system.

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The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is raising the alarm over an emerging scam trend in which suspects pose as police officers to defraud victims of substantial amounts of cash and crypto. 

According to reports, fraudsters have contacted victims by phone, claiming to be OPP members. In each case, the suspect used fake names, titles, and badge information to gain credibility. 

Victims were instructed to withdraw large sums of money and either send the funds through crypto platforms or hand over cash directly. These tactics resulted in major financial losses, including incidents in which victims paid between $6,000 and $13,000 to individuals falsely claiming to be officers.

Canada crypto scams on the rise

The OPP also warned against crypto job fraud. According to the agency, the criminals are using the names of real companies in Canada. Fraudsters offer freelance job opportunities to “boost” products, apps, or videos using downloaded software.

The #LanarkOPP is seeing an increase in crypto job frauds. Using the names of real companies in Canada, fraudsters offer freelance job opportunities to "boost" products, apps or videos using downloaded software.

After the victim installs the software and creates an account,… pic.twitter.com/Reju5dY0h0

— OPP East Region (@OPP_ER) February 6, 2026

“After the victim installs the software and creates an account, they receive ‘orders’ or ‘tasks’ to complete. Victims might receive a small payment or commission in order to convince them that the job is legitimate,” OPP wrote.

This report follows an Estevan Police Service report on Bitcoin scams. They received a call from a victim who was contacted by someone who sounded like their employer. The scammer directed the victim to deposit funds into a Bitcoin machine.

Fraud in Canada has grown over the years. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, as of September 30, 2025, 33,854 fraud reports had been processed, involving 23,113 victims. Losses totalled $544 million. Most people paid with crypto, which cost $23,815 CAD per transaction.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO)  issued a statement, publicly announcing the release of its Digital Asset Custody Framework. It outlines how dealer members operating crypto asset trading platforms (CTPs) should ensure robust protection of digital assets.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, additional requirements include firm governance policies that structure governance, ensuring compliance with key management operations, cybersecurity, incident response, and third-party risks. Also, mandatory insurance, independent audits, security compliance reports, and regular penetration testing are considered essential.

To underscore the importance of transparency, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) imposed an approximately $12 million penalty on local crypto exchange Cryptomus last October for failing to report over 1,000 suspicious transactions linked to darknet markets and wallets. 

These transactions were reportedly linked to fraud, ransomware payments, and sanctions evasion. It also fined offshore exchanges KuCoin and Binance earlier in the year for similar reasons.

Old people lose $700 million to an impersonation scam

According to Chainalysis, at least $14 billion in crypto was winding its way to criminals last year, versus $13 billion in 2024. However, it expects the figure for 2025 to increase to $17 billion once it identifies more illicit wallets in the coming months. This is already a record high, with the value of individual scam payments also surging by 253% year-on-year in 2025.

A big driver of these figures is the use of impersonation tactics, which grew 1,400% in volume YoY while related payments increased over 600%. 

Americans aged 60 and older reported losing $700 million to impersonation fraud last year, up from $122 million in 2020. Most of the increase was driven by high-dollar theft. Reports of scams involving more than $100,000 increased eight times over the last four years, while losses of less than $10,000 merely doubled.

Although anyone can be a victim of an impersonation scam, the Federal Trade Commission says the elderly have been disproportionately harmed. Many scams rely on crypto transfers, which offer the advantage of being irreversible and decentralized. 

One-third of older adults who reported losing $10,000 or more said they used crypto as a payment method. Most of those victims specifically mentioned Bitcoin ATMs—physical kiosks that allow customers to transfer money from credit or debit cards directly into crypto.

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a16z’s general partner, Chris Dixon, explained on X that the cryptocurrency industry should not be criticized for focusing on the financial industry because money and capital are basic forms of coordination. 

Dixon shared his view that the industry’s current focus on financial products is necessary for the total adoption of digital assets. 

Why haven’t non-financial blockchain applications become mainstream yet?

In a recent detailed statement, Chris Dixon, a general partner at a16z crypto explained that we are currently in the “financial era” of blockchains to counter critiques that “non-financial use cases” for cryptocurrencies are “dead” and that the “read-write-own” vision of the internet has failed.

Dixon argued in his post on X that blockchains introduce a new way to coordinate people, capital, and even AI agents at a global scale. He explained that money and capital are the most basic forms of coordination, so finance is the most natural place for the technology to start. 

Dixon pointed out that technology usually follows a specific “order of operations.” For example, in the 1960s and 70s, the internet was focused on basic technical foundations like packet switching and TCP/IP. It took decades of building this “plumbing” before the world saw the rise of social media, video streaming, or global online communities. 

In the case of the blockchain industry, before we see massive adoption in categories like gaming, social media, or decentralized AI, we need a stable layer of “on-ramps.” This includes things like reliable digital wallets, identity systems, and high liquidity. 

Financial applications such as stablecoins, payments, and decentralized finance (DeFi) are the tools that bring people into the ecosystem. Once hundreds of millions of people are “on-chain” for financial reasons, getting users for other types of apps becomes easier.

Recent market data shows that stablecoins have become one of the most successful products in the industry. For example, PayPal’s stablecoin (PYUSD) and Circle’s USDC have seen significant growth in transaction volume. 

a16z has focused on the “long game,” due to years of “rug pulls,” extractive scams, and aggressive regulatory battles that have made many people cynical about tokens. Dixon believes it is very difficult to build a community of owners when the environment is filled with fear and uncertainty.

Positive government policy will impact the future of blockchain 

According to Dixon, the lack of clear government policy has been a massive development hurdle for the last five years, as legitimate builders were often afraid to innovate, and bad actors would take advantage of the confusion. 

However, the positive reaction to the GENIUS Act and the passing of the CLARITY Act have made stablecoins be viewed as a legitimate and important part of financial technology. 

Under Trump’s administration, there has been an increased focus on a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a move toward more crypto-friendly leadership at the SEC. This change in policy is expected to provide the “risk-based guardrails” that Dixon says are necessary to protect consumers and encourage institutional investment.

Dixon pointed out that the first paper on neural networks, the basis for today’s AI, was published in 1943. Similarly, the commercial internet only became possible because of policy actions in the 1990s. 

The blockchain industry is currently in its “messy years,” but difficult periods of groundwork and policy-making will eventually lead to its “obvious years” of mainstream success.

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The current volatility the crypto industry is witnessing has people talking about crashes and dips, which has led to a debate about which state the market is currently in. 

Some believe the market has crashed with BTC shocking analysts every day with its behavior, while others think this is just another dip and people are overreacting, as usual. 

How terms trending across social media affect crypto

According to Santiment Feed, a market intelligence platform, there is a marked difference between how traders perceive a crypto dip versus a crash. 

“In the former, it’s usually a simple observation that prices have gone down enough to be noticed. In the latter, a full-on crash is when things get interesting,” the platform’s post on X read. 

They went further by pointing out that there is no true rule-of-thumb for what should differentiate a dip vs. a crash. However, according to social data, “when traders have decided that a crash has occurred (as they did yesterday), it’s a very reliable bottom indicator.” 

According to a chart provided by the platform, prior to February 5, when Bitcoin dropped as low as $60k, there had only been talks of a dip across social media. When it dipped to that level, traders panicked and finally sold Thursday bags at a loss, but as soon as that happened, prices immediately rebounded. 

Coincidentally, or not, the term “crash” spiked across social media around the same time the rebound happened. 

The post from Santiment also claims that the mainstream media are often quite late to the party but never fail to call attention to the crypto “crash”, helping to get many more eyeballs on it, never mind that $BTC has already shown signs of recovery, up 13% from yesterday’s bottom. 

“This simply perpetuates more panic for the latecomers, and allows key stakeholders an easy path to buy from panicked retail,” the post concluded. 

What is a true crypto crash?

The recent BTC performance has people talking about crashes and dips, but Santiment Feed’s post implies that what the industry endured, especially on February 5 when BTC touched $60k briefly, was just a dip rather than a crash, as the mainstream media would have the public believe. 

It is true that BTC has so far dropped about 50% from its all-time high of $126,000. However, this has been due to a multi-month bearish grind that accelerated sharply on February 5 when it dipped by over 10% in a single day. 

Many have compared the price action to the one triggered by the November 2022 FTX crash, even calling it Bitcoin’s worst single-day performance since the event. 

However, while the recent dip shocked many traders, if Santiment Feed’s post is to be considered, it qualifies less as a “crash” and just another “dip,” albeit a serious one. 

What would fit the profile of a crash would be the price action triggered by the FTX crash. From its peak in 2021, which was around $69,000, BTC dropped by over 70% to lows of around $16,000. 

This was part of a prolonged crypto winter triggered by leverage blowup, Luna/3AC’s earlier failures, and then FTX’s explosion. On the worst day, BTC dropped by about 14%, which is around the same rate it dropped on February 5, hence the comparisons. 

The media back then also screamed doom and gloom, almost celebrating what looked like the demise of BTC. However, they were more justified back then as things did look dire for the sector. 

This time is clearly different. BTC may have touched $60k, but it has since rebounded and seems to be stabilizing once more, leaving behind those who panicked and sold their holdings at a loss.

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China is building a humanoid robot industry from scratch at a speed that has Elon Musk worried and the United States scrambling to respond.

More than 140 Chinese companies now make humanoid robots, mostly in Shenzhen and Suzhou. Since late 2024, Beijing, Shenzhen, and other cities have put together investment funds worth over $26 billion, according to Morgan Stanley.

Local governments are giving out free land, slashing office rent, and paying about 10% of each robot’s price to get buyers to try them.

It’s the same playbook China used for electric vehicles. Government subsidies helped brands like BYD take market share from General Motors and Volkswagen in China, Europe, and beyond. Beijing has marked “embodied AI”, AI combined with physical robots, as tech it wants to own over the next five years.

“China is an ass-kicker, next level,” Musk said in January in Tesla’s Q4 earnings call. “To the best of our knowledge, we don’t see any significant [humanoid robot] competitors outside of China.”

$300 million in orders, 100,000 units expected

Chinese companies got orders worth more than $300 million for humanoid robots in the second half of 2025. Shenzhen-based UBTech is selling to Texas Instruments and Airbus. Morgan Stanley thinks up to 100,000 humanoids could ship in 2026, with China buying faster than the U.S.

Government agencies and state firms are early buyers. They’re putting robots in museums, at events, and on streets as robocops directing traffic. These deployments give companies data to make robots better while building a market.

UniX AI in Suzhou has about 100 employees and sells wheeled humanoids starting at $12,600. The company has hundreds deployed in Chinese hotels, doing tasks like adjusting bedsheets, picking up trash, and running laundry machines. Founder Fred Yang studied at University of Michigan and Yale. He said he can get 80% of parts from suppliers within an hour’s drive, which makes changes fast and cheap.

“Policy is one of the decisive reasons that embodied AI is doing so well in China,” Yang said in August, as quoted by WSJ. Some local governments give free land and office space for three years, then half price for three more.

Shenzhen has a “Robot Valley” with around 15 robotics firms. The city set up a $1.4 billion fund for AI and robotics and another $640 million fund for AI models. Beijing put together $14 billion in funds for the same thing.

EV bubble risk looms over robot boom

China’s approach worked for EVs, but it also created problems. Hundreds of brands fought for customers, prices crashed, and many companies lost money. The same could happen with robots. China’s government is writing technical standards to push out weak companies and speed up adoption. Financial regulators are watching robotics companies that want to go public to avoid a bubble.

The U.S. still leads in the AI models that run robot brains. Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Agility Robotics use tech from Nvidia and Google. But American firms have a problem: they need China’s supply chain. Tesla’s Optimus robot will use Chinese suppliers for parts like roller screws for joints and motors for hands when it ramps up production, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Although we’ve heard of American robot companies, they’re not in the market,” said Jonathan Beh from an industrial park in Singapore, looking at humanoid robots. “Chinese companies have great products, and they’re the only available option.”

The White House is working on an executive order to help American robotics, people familiar with the matter said. But China’s head start in manufacturing, plus government money, gives it an advantage that won’t be easy to beat.

This fits China’s bigger plan to lead in new tech, like its push to control AI chip manufacturing despite U.S. export controls and its spending on quantum computing over the past two years.

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Ethereum’s holder data shows OG whales are moving Ether to self-custody. Among the whales, two whale addresses have withdrawn a combined 29,079 ETH worth $60 million from OKX and Binance to accumulate today.

One of the whales withdrew a whopping 19,503 ETH, worth approximately $40 million, from OKX, while the other withdrew 9,576 ETH, worth approximately $19.78 million, from Binance.

Whales are accumulating $ETH.

0x46DB withdrew 19,503 $ETH($40M) from #OKX over the past 13 hours.

0x28eF withdrew 9,576 $ETH($19.78M) from #Binance over the past 8 hours.https://t.co/FQe95DLQZphttps://t.co/yVi2hnhq9l pic.twitter.com/u0cq8RHqTv

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 7, 2026

On Friday, another whale resumed operations after a full two-year hiatus. This new entity withdrew a staggering 10,000 ETH worth approximately $19.24 million from Binance. At the same time, another whale sprang back to life following one year of dormancy. This particular trader secured 1,892 ETH from Binance, worth around $3.75 million. 

Ether supply becomes more concentrated among whales 

According to on-chain data, the second-largest coin has shown signs of recovery from under the $2K level. Also, according to analysts, ETH’s MVRV ratio sits near 0.96, staying above the 0.80 level.

According to Glassnode data shared by Ali Charts, periods where the MVRV ratio dipped under 0.80 during deep drawdowns, followed by later price recoveries. Those were the times when the market value was lower than the actual value recorded on the blockchain.

Current data, on the other hand, show that the ratio is hovering near the neutral band, not in the very low area seen at previous cycle lows.

As a result, on-chain positioning indicates that the market has not reached the same level of valuation stress as during previous bottoming phases. Even though the price has dropped from its previous highs, the MVRV ratio is still higher than it was at earlier troughs on the chart. This means the measure has not yet entered the area previously associated with widespread selling.

Another analyst also hinted at a shift where the whales added, yet balances with the two mid-tier groups decreased.

In August 2025, wallets with balances between 100 to 1,000 ETH had 9.79 million ETH. Those with balances between 1,000 to 10,000 ETH had 14.51 million ETH.

At the same time, the 10,000-100,000 ETH group owned 17.18 million ETH, and those with 100,000+ owned 2.75 million ETH. By Wednesday, the 100-1,000 ETH group reduced its total amount owned to 8.32 million ETH. On the other hand, the 1,000-10,000 ETH group reduced its total amount owned to 12.26 million ETH. This drop implies the two groups have reduced their ETH balance by 3.72 million since August 18.

On the other hand, those holding wallets with between 10,000 and 100,000 ETH recorded an increase in the balances to 19.77 million ETH. In addition, the number of those with balances of 100,000+ ETH rose to 3.68 million ETH. This top group added 3.52 million ETH.

In the past, the level of OG crypto whales’ holding has been higher at times of low price action, with valuation metrics leveling off above capitulation levels.

Ethereum up 6% but volatility remains high

Ethereum has been one of the worst-performing assets in the present market crash. The coin has recovered now, changing hands for over $2K at press time. Ethereum may consolidate in a range between $1,900 and $2,200 as the market stabilizes. Analysts set a $2,300-$2,400 as a new price target.

Still, resistance levels are high above $2,200, and ETH will need to show increasing volumes into any trend that attempts to rise. Of course, should selling pressure resume, ETH may fall to $1,800 or $1,750, which is now established as a key support level.

A breakdown below $1,750 would likely encourage further panic selling and open up doors to potentially larger declines. Meanwhile, the coin is up 6% in the last 24 hours, now trading at $2,037.

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Apple’s latest iPhone lineup, which features a brightly orange colored premium model, has taken the Chinese market by storm and helped reverse the tech company’s prolonged sales downturn.

China is bulk-buying the iPhone 17 vivid orange variant, a design overhaul said to have made the devices more visually distinctive compared to the launch version released last autumn. Consumers have nicknamed the handset “Hermès orange,” a reference to the signature tone of Hermès handbags. 

“It’s eye-catching,” said David Qiu, who replaced an older iPhone with the new orange version. “It’s the newest colour.”

Even though Apple markets the shade internally as “cosmic orange,” the luxury bag color comparison has stuck with buyers and influencers. The model is being flashed around Chinese social media platforms through unboxing videos and lifestyle clips. Thousands of users have shared posts featuring the device since its release.

“It sounds simple, but it’s the external obvious changes to design, which include the introduction of a shout-out orange colour, that pulled out early upgraders,” said Nabila Popal, senior research director at IDC.

A model using the stage name Xiao Mei posted a video featuring the device as a fashion accessory. “I was instantly drawn to the colour because it felt very special. Who doesn’t like Hermès orange? The more I look at it, the more I love it,” she said.

Chinese iPhone sales reverse a multi-year Asian market slump

Between 2024 and early 2025, Apple’s China revenue fell for 18 consecutive months. The contraction came as home-based brands such as Huawei, Vivo, and Xiaomi pulled ahead in the competition with feature-rich flagship devices.

Moreover, Apple has been in the middle of the strained relations between Beijing and Washington. Some public-sector workers in China were actually directed to phase out iPhones. A year later, Chief Executive Tim Cook boasted of a turnaround during a recent earnings call, citing record iPhone sales in China in the fourth quarter. 

According to Cook, sales revenue from the country rose 38% year on year to $26 billion, accounting for nearly one-fifth of Apple’s total sales.

Apple has the standard iPhone 17 to thank for its impressive performance during the quarter. In previous editions, Chinese buyers upgrading immediately after launch chose the Pro and Pro Max versions. But in this cycle, the base iPhone 17 had a more noticeable leap over the iPhone 16 than in previous generations.

The handset was positioned just below the ceiling for a nationwide consumer subsidy scheme introduced by Beijing last year to boost spending. The government had allocated about $43 billion in 2025 to support purchases of electronics, home appliances, and vehicles. 

Under the program, smartphones priced under 6,000 yuan qualified for discounts of up to 15%, while Apple set the iPhone 17 price in China at 5,999 yuan. 

China has also introduced consumer subsidies for lower-priced smartphones to spur domestic spending. Buyers can receive subsidies of up to RMB500, or about $72, on devices priced below RMB6,000. Since Apple’s base iPhone 17 model falls within that range, it appeals to Chinese consumers who can’t afford the premium versions.

While advanced software features like AI are under regulatory review, hardware aesthetics seem enough to get the market looking Apple’s way.

“I’m not too sure how somebody like Oppo or Vivo or Xiaomi can break that kind of stranglehold,” said global tech firm Counterpoint researcher Gerrit Schneemann.

Apple’s record quarter results in China surprise analysts

Cook told analysts that Apple set a record for iPhone upgrades among Chinese customers. The company also recorded double-digit growth in users switching from rival operating systems to iOS. “Overall, a great quarter in China. We could not be happier with it,” Cook said on the earnings call.

Apple had ceded share in recent years as domestic brands offered competitive cameras, foldable screens, and locally tailored features. The rebound has provided relief for investors after a year of tariff uncertainty and setbacks in AI.

A strong global iPhone demand has lifted Apple’s shares about 7% over the past week, according to Google Finance data.

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan said Apple’s China revenue had contracted in eight of the previous nine quarters and had not delivered consistent growth since 2022.

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The crypto market received a major shock as the price of Bitcoin dropped by almost 15%. The price is now trading around the $60,000 mark. The major cause of the decline is the increased selling from Bitcoin miners, huge outflows from exchange-traded funds, and the huge liquidations that took place. While Bitcoin is still struggling to find its ground, many experts are now turning their focus to new and fundamentally strong projects that provide investors with more than just price speculation. In such a period, it is always better to invest in a cheap cryptocurrency that provides investors with the highest growth potential and a clear use case. 

Bitcoin’s Path to Recovery Faces Major Hurdles

The recent fall of the price of Bitcoin to the $60,000 level indicates that the cryptocurrency is facing major issues. The main cause of the decline is the selling of Bitcoin by miners, as it is now costing miners more to mine the cryptocurrency than the prevailing price in the market. The selling is increasing the supply of the cryptocurrency in the market. The second cause is the huge outflow from investment funds, which is reducing the demand for the cryptocurrency. 

This is the reason investors should look to invest in other projects that provide investors with the highest growth potential and a clear use case, rather than just investing in the highest-priced cryptocurrency. 

Introducing the Mutuum Finance Ecosystem

Mutuum Finance is a decentralized lending platform that is based on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform provides investors with the opportunity to earn interest by providing loans to other users or to borrow funds by providing cryptocurrency as collateral. The platform recently achieved an important milestone as it launched its V1 protocol on the Sepolia testnet.

This testnet version allows the public to test all the main features, such as deposits, loans, and liquidation, before the mainnet version is launched. This ensures that the technology is working and ready, which instills trust among users before the mainnet version is launched.

The Presale Phase and Projected Value Leap

One of the main reasons that experts are keeping an eye on this top crypto to buy is that it is in the presale phase, which has been successful so far. It is currently in Phase 7, and the token is priced at $0.04. It has been structured in such a way that it increases in value after every phase. Once it is launched, it will be priced at $0.06. 

However, it is anticipated that after it is listed on an exchange, it will jump to $0.32. This is expected due to the upcoming potential tier 1 exchange listings, the current presale holders being over 18,900, and the fact that the protocol is already live and working. Therefore, an investment of $1,000 will increase to $8,000 shortly after it is made tradable to the public.

Fixed Supply and Community Incentives

Unlike most cryptocurrencies, which have an unlimited token supply, Mutuum Finance has a fixed token supply of 4 billion. Almost half of this is being used for the presale, which will be purchased by investors. Additionally, it has been fueling the demand for the token through direct community rewards. This includes giving away $100,000 to ten winners in the presale. There is also a daily leaderboard that rewards the top contributor with $500. This ensures that people will be actively participating, which will fuel the demand for the cryptocurrency, making it the top crypto to buy.

A Strategic Choice for Market Uncertainty

Whereas the future of Bitcoin is still tied to the actions of the miners as well as the institutions, the future of Mutuum Finance is quite clear as far as growth is concerned. The success of the testnet launch is a clear indicator of the technical prowess of the project, while the presale is a final opportunity to get involved before the trading commences.

For the investor looking to get involved in a project that has immense short-term upside as well as fundamental strength for the long term, MUTM is a cheap crypto play in a volatile market.

For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below:

Website: https://mutuum.com/ 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance

The debate about the eligibility of cryptocurrencies for the American retirement system has once again been reignited after Bitcoin suffered a massive collapse in its price. The digital asset witnessed a 50% drop from its October peak, erasing about $2 trillion in market value.

That single act has once again reignited the debate over the fiduciary math of the American retirement system. As investors struggle to ascertain the drivers of the latest market crash, market participants and observers are asking if volatile assets have any business being in a $12.5 trillion 401(k) market designed for stability. This comes amid a previous Cryptopolitan report where United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order to allow crypto, private equity, and real estate investments in 401(k) plans.

Crypto eligibility for 401(k) questioned after market rout

The move was also defended by Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, who claimed that Bitcoin is just another digital asset. He claimed that despite the asset being risky, it is less volatile than some stocks. However, some market participants do not agree. Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at the Duke Financial Economics Center and co-host of the Coffee & Crypto podcast, said that investors are free to speculate on crypto on their own.

He added that 401(k)s exist to help people save to secure retirement, not to gamble on speculative assets with no intrinsic value. Riding on the executive order signed by Trump in August 2025, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Paul Atkins mentioned last week, before the latest brutal crypto selloff, that the time was right to open up the retirement market to crypto. However, it is expected that the recent market rout might just discourage fund managers from doing so.

Reiners mentioned that several large crypto firms, such as Coinbase, are already included in major indices, which means many 401(k) plans already have indirect exposure to crypto, which is enough. “Unless Congress changes the law, plan sponsors are unlikely to include crypto or ETFs as plan options because they don’t want to be sued by their employees. For any employers that were considering it, I’m sure recent events have them reconsidering,” Reiners said.

Analysts debate the future of pensions

One problem in putting people’s life savings into crypto is the fact that the industry is still relatively young and extremely volatile, and pension funds are for stable growth. Buying and holding can work for assets like the S&P 500, which sees huge volatility swings during Black Swan events such as the 2008 financial crisis or COVID-19 uncertainties. However, due to the size of the traditional markets, governments often step in to stop the bleeding, and regulations exist to protect people’s investments.

For digital assets, much of their activity is based on speculation, which means prices can see extreme swings over a weekend or a week. This leads to loss of billions with no regulatory oversight over the market moves. It makes it riskier for investors to put their life savings in it. In context, many firms were blindsided by the sudden crash in Bitcoin and crypto prices in the past few days. Block Trust IRA, an AI-powered retirement fund that added $70 million in IRA funds in the past year, was caught in the bloodbath.

According to analysts, there is a need to look into actual blockchain technology for retirement savings, instead of putting money into different tokens. Robert Crossley, the global head of industry and digital advisory at Franklin Templeton, believes that the retirement industry, which is moving slowly, would be revolutionized by on-chain wallets holding tokenized assets. “And by doing so, an individual’s digital wealth will be much more aligned with the rest of their lives,” Crossley said.

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Trading volumes of Russian crypto futures have reached record high levels amid the major correction on global markets for digital assets.

Some derivatives on Moscow Exchange, the country’s largest stock market, have seen growth exceeding 700% while Bitcoin lost 30% of its value in about a week.

Moscow Exchange registers record volumes of Bitcoin futures traded

Spot crypto markets experienced a significant correction in the past week or so, with major coins hitting lows unseen for well over a year, since October 2024.

The price of the cryptocurrency with the biggest market capitalization dropped by nearly a third between the last days of January and the first week of February 2026.

At its lowest point so far this year, Bitcoin (BTC) approached the $60,000 mark before bouncing back to around $68,000 at the time of writing, still a staggering contrast with the latest all-time high of over $125,000 from October 2025. The price of Ethereum, the second-largest coin, tumbled more than 40%.

Against this backdrop, Russia’s nascent market for crypto-based derivative products saw a major spike in activity, the business news outlet RBC noted in a report, drawing attention to the latest figures registered on the country’s leading platform for such instruments.

Trading volume for the Moscow Exchange Bitcoin Index futures, set to expire this month, jumped by 434%, from a little over 380.3 million rubles (over $4.9 million) on January 28 to 2.03 billion rubles (almost $30 million) on February 5.

Trades surged, too, from 8,400 to 42,800 (more than 400%). Both indicators are at record highs since the launch of this contract, the Russian portal’s Investments page emphasized.

Meanwhile, trading of the futures on the shares of BlackRock’s IBIT Trust ETF, which will expire in March, went up by 246%, from 590 million to 2.05 billion rubles, its highest volume to date.

The MOEX Ethereum Index futures, expiring this month, saw their trading volume reach 467.5 million rubles (over $6 million), an almost 730% increase from last Wednesday’s 56.4 million, with the number of trades growing from 3,000 to 22,300, the article detailed.

And the trading volume for the futures contract on the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA), with March expiry, increased by 178%, from 105 million rubles on January 28 to 291.5 million in Russian fiat, or close to $3.8 million, this past Thursday. Trades shot up by 400% plus, from 2,000 to 10,600.

Commenting on these figures, the Managing Director of Derivatives Markets at Moscow Exchange, Maria Patrikeeva, highlighted:

“The average daily trading volume of cryptocurrency futures in the first week of February increased to ₽4 billion, double the volume in January of this year, due to the high volatility of prices on the spot market.”

She further pointed out that the total volume of open positions in BTC and ETH derivatives reached 9.3 billion Russian rubles, with the exchange registering a movement towards new index contracts whose quotes correspond to the prices of the two leading cryptocurrencies.

Russia’s crypto derivatives market expands ahead of full regulation

The MOEX executive emphasized that the crypto-based instruments not only allow investors to participate in the price movement of the digital assets, but also give them a chance to hedge their positions.

Russian derivatives based on cryptocurrencies have traded since last spring, when the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) authorized financial firms to launch such products on the domestic market in late May 2025.

They have been exclusively offered to “highly qualified” investors, but this is likely to change this year. The latest regulatory concept released by the monetary authority in December aims to expand investor access, as part of comprehensive regulations to be adopted by July 1, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

The new for Russia category of instruments, including securities and other digital financial assets (DFAs) linked to the value of cryptocurrencies, are usually denominated in U.S. dollars, settled in Russian rubles, and must not involve the actual delivery of the underlying cryptocurrency.

MOEX was among the first traditional players to enter the promising market, followed by Russia’s second-largest stock exchange, the St. Petersburg Exchange (SPB). The CBR already indicated it will rely on such pillars of Russia’s existing financial infrastructure to facilitate crypto trading in the future.

Russian analysts approached by RBC gave their two cents on the latest market developments. According to Dmitry Vishnevsky from Cifra Broker, the increased activity on MOEX results mainly from BTC volatility on global markets.

Andrey Varnavsky, director of digital assets at Ingosstrakh Investments, believes, however, that the Russian futures volumes are largely driven by domestic demand. He is also convinced that turnover would be much higher if actual crypto assets were traded.

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China’s top market regulator has fined several firms for impersonating ChatGPT and DeepSeek services, as Beijing tightens oversight in the country’s artificial intelligence sector.

The State Administration for Market Regulation said Friday it punished several companies for unfair competition, falsely imitating and advertising AI services from other brands. 

According to the South China Morning Post, one of the fined companies is Shanghai Shangyun Internet Technology, which was found running a sham ChatGPT service through Tencent’s WeChat platform. The regulator fined the company 62,692.70 yuan, equivalent to about $9,034.

The agency claimed the service had been advertising itself as the “official Chinese version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT,” and charged users for AI conversations, a conduct that breached the country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

“The company was fully aware of the industry status and influence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. They deliberately created a false impression that they are providing the official service to mislead users into making purchases,” it said during a press briefing on Friday.

AI companies fined for imitating ChatGPT and DeepSeek

According to the AI Market Regulation government arm, a wave of DeepSeek mini-programmes and websites imitating the original platform appeared in early 2025. The watchdog penalized the services for trademark violations and for trying to deceive the public through falsified promotional language.

“This investigation served as a deterrent to illegal operators … and guided the AI market towards a standardised and orderly path of development,” the agency said.

Another firm, Hangzhou Boheng Culture Media, was fined 30,000 yuan for running an unauthorized website that allegedly offered “DeepSeek local deployment.” The regulator said the site copied fonts, icons, and layout from DeepSeek’s official platform and tricked users into paying for the service.

In the regulator’s campaign roundup, an engineer was slapped with a 360,000 yuan penalty for illegally accessing company servers that held confidential code and algorithm data. 

Furthermore, a Shanghai firm received a 200,000 yuan penalty for building AI phone-call software used by loan agencies to carry out scams. A Beijing-based company was also fined 5,000 yuan for “freeriding” on DeepSeek’s name to promote its own local deployment software.

Chinese race for top AI model heats up

China’s innovation regulators have been trying to balance out the growth of AI companies and fair competition in a market where developers are aggressively competing to topple American entities. 

Just over a year ago, DeepSeek became the talk of the globe after it launched a chatbot with lower user fees and development costs compared to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The launch took DeepSeek to the top of Apple Store downloads for almost a week.

Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI introduced an update, Kimi K2.5, at the end of last month. The company said the model features video generation and agent-style capabilities that outperform three leading US systems. 

In the same week, Alibaba debuted a new generative model capable of producing text, images, and video from user prompts. The company said its Qwen3-Max-Thinking system was ahead of US competitors ChatGPT and Grok in a benchmark known as “Humanity’s Last Exam.”

On January 19, Z.ai rolled out a free version of its GLM 4.7 model, but had to restrict new sign-ups for the coding tool after demand strained its computing capacity. Many Chinese-developed models are open-sourced, allowing users to modify code and build customized applications.

“The hope is countries apart from China will use these models to ensure large amounts of applications are built on these Chinese models,” said Alex Lu, founder of LSY Consulting. “That’s one way for Chinese companies to penetrate the market.”

Alibaba updated its Qwen app in early January so users can shop, order food, and pay within the chatbot interface through connections to platforms such as Taobao. On Friday, the online marketplace added bubble tea to its beverage list, which lifted the app from 10th place to the top spot in China’s Apple App Store, overtaking Tencent’s Yuanbao within hours.

The Qwen team said more than 10 million free orders worth 250 million yuan, or about $36 million, were placed within nine hours using vouchers capped at 25 yuan. The rush briefly overwhelmed shops, according to posts from store owners on WeChat.

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