Crypto News Today, February 4: Down Again, Thanks Crypto! BTC USD Fell to $72K Before The Snapping Back, ETH 25% Down in A Week

Polymarket has taken an unexpected turn in its aggressive expansion within the US after announcing plans to open a free grocery store in New York City on February 12, called “The Polymarket.” The crypto-native prediction market has not announced any token- or price-linked incentives, but the move comes amid increased scrutiny of prediction markets across the US.

That timing matters as regulation, not tech, now sets the pace for where crypto platforms can operate. This announcement comes with a $1M donation to the Food Bank for NYC, with many believing the firm is attempting to curry favour with regulators by addressing homelessness and hunger in New York.

The news broke during another red day across the crypto market, with the total crypto market cap dropping -2.5% overnight and slipping back below $2.7 trillion. This comes as the Bitcoin

price struggles to hold above $76,000 and appears increasingly likely to retest $75,000.

After months of planning, we’re excited to announce ‘The Polymarket’ is coming to New York City.

New York’s first free grocery store.

We signed the lease. And we donated $1 million to Food Bank For NYC — an organization that changes how our city responds to hunger. pic.twitter.com/BGMCWUMz8n

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) February 3, 2026

Read the full story here.

Is the “drought” over? It appears so. After days of discouraging outflows, it seems institutions are turning to crypto. This is an interesting development because, for years, crypto has largely been a retail affair. Now, Wall Street views top cryptos as strategic assets worth adding to their multi-billion-dollar portfolios.

While spot Bitcoin ETFs hog investor attention, interest is building in altcoins. Since regulated firms cannot simply buy crypto off exchanges, their route is through regulated channels like spot ETFs.

Yesterday, after days of bleeding, spot Ethereum ETFs saw inflows. Meanwhile, the Ethereum price hovered at the $2,300 level, technically bearish but fundamentally bullish. This state of price action comes after months of choppy trading and growing caution from institutions.

(Source: SosoValue)

The regulatory tug-of-war for crypto’s hottest sector just intensified. Nevada regulators ordered Coinbase to halt its prediction markets operations within the state. The Nevada Gaming Control Board ruled that, despite Coinbase’s federal strategy, its event contracts constitute unlicensed gambling under state law.

This ban arrives at a critical moment. Coinbase had just expanded its prediction market access to all 50 states in January, leveraging a partnership with CFTC-regulated Kalshi. By using Kalshi’s legal rails, Coinbase hoped to bypass the regulatory minefield that plagues competitors. Nevada’s aggressive intervention suggests that for state regulators, the technology (blockchain) matters less than the activity (betting).

“Nevada Gaming Control Board Files Civil Enforcement Action Against Coinbase”

Press release from NGCB: pic.twitter.com/mSSN6NlOZO

— Daniel Wallach (@WALLACHLEGAL) February 3, 2026

This mirrors earlier action against other platforms. Nevada has already moved to shut down Polymarket access.

This also explains why Coinbase spends so much time on compliance. While fighting for prediction markets, Coinbase is simultaneously defending its core revenue engine against the banking lobby.

This is just another battle that the Coinbase legal team is adding to its plate.

Read our full coverage here.

Are the DOJ and authorities in the US working overtime? Following high-profile actions against figures like Maduro, a federal judge in New York recently sentenced 24-year-old Taiwanese national Rui-Siang Lin to 30 years in prison. This sentencing marks yet another victory for authorities who have been on an aggressive offensive, cracking down on darknet narcotics trafficking.

Lin was known in digital circles as “Pharaoh” and was the brains behind Incognito Market. The marketplace was a revival of the “Silk Road,” using cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin to enable the illegal sale of over $105M worth of drugs.

The ruling comes at a time when the crypto market is shaky, with Ethereum and other top assets stabilizing after a worrying slide on February 3.

What is XAUT? Tether Gold (XAUT) gives crypto users a way to buy real gold without touching a vault key. Each XAUT token represents ownership of one fine troy ounce of physical gold on the London Good Delivery bar, but it trades with the speed and ease of a stablecoin.

Gold demand climbed through 2025, and tokenized gold followed. On-chain data shows XAUT supply backed by roughly 246,000 ounces of gold, stored in Swiss vaults, as interest in real-world assets moved on-chain.

With gold spot prices shattering the $5,000 ceiling and silver rallying over 140% in the last year, the “boring” metal markets are suddenly witnessing crypto-like volatility.

Read our full coverage here.

If Ethereum is to be a world computer, consistent with its original vision, then it must be cheap to transact on. Remember the CryptoKitties boom of early 2018? Well, that was the first major stress test, and Ethereum failed.

Over the years, developers have been hard at work optimizing the network and balancing performance with gas fees. They have been largely successful. Ethereum is performant, and gas fees on the mainnet are attractively low. All this is thanks to the explosion of layer-2 alternatives like Base and Arbitrum, rerouting transactions from the mainnet.

But here’s the problem: cheap gas fees are now incentivizing “dust” attacks. New data shows tiny “dust” stablecoin transfers on Ethereum tripled after the Fusaka upgrade, even as the Ethereum price stayed muted.

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Elon Musk just put Dogecoin back on the map after reigniting the long-delayed DOGE-1 space mission, saying SpaceX may put a “literal Dogecoin on the literal moon” as soon as next year, sparking a lot of chatter around the leading meme coin.

Worryingly for the DOGE community, the meme coin barely moved on Elon’s X post, spiking just +1.5% to above $0.10 in the hour after his comment as traders reacted quickly. That momentum has already seemingly been lost as Dogecoin is down -0.3% in the past 24 hours but still holding just above the key $0.10 level.

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While this fits a familiar pattern in which Elon Musk’s space and AI ambitions keep pulling meme coins like Dogecoin back into the spotlight, long gone are the days when a mere mention of DOGE on the SpaceX founder’s social media would cause a double-digit percentage price surge.

Read our full coverage here.

At current market conditions, crypto and Bitcoin traders are high on “hopium.” The thing is, there is nothing they can do. The Bitcoin price appears to be heading in one direction only: southward. Before last week, when real cracks began to emerge, there was confidence that the BTC USD price would hold above $80,000 and track higher.

However, looking at prevailing market conditions, it is evident that bears are unyielding. If the 2021 highs are lost, fear could set in and drag the entire market with it. Already, even top meme coins are bleeding value first, while some of the best cryptos to buy print red, extending losses from Q4 2025 lows.

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There are multiple triggers that may explain the sell-off of February 3, which saw the BTC USD price drop below $73,000, forcing prices below November lows. Fears of a “hawkish” year are one factor, but at the moment, eyes are on the fragile US credit markets, specifically, the ICE BofA US Corporate Option-Adjusted Spread, which tracks that fear.

Read more about it here.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the network needs “a new path,” openly walking back Ethereum’s long-standing reliance on Layer-2 networks for scaling. Vitalik’s comments came as ETH USD slid a further -2% overnight to $2,270, with the total crypto market cap slipping back below $2.7 trillion.

This comes at a time when most Ethereum activity lives off the main chain, raising a simple question: Did scaling drift too far? Ethereum has spent years pushing transactions onto L2s to cut fees and congestion.

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That strategy worked on cost, but it also created trade-offs around control and trust. Now, the project’s original architect says those trade-offs are too big to ignore. Another talking point for Ethereum is yesterday’s (February 3) ETF flows, which saw BlackRock buy $42.9M ETH, marking a green day for the products.

Talking of L2s, while Ethereum is saturated with them, there still isn’t one for Bitcoin, until now. Bitcoin Hyper (HYPER) is one of the hottest crypto presales in recent memory, having raised over $31M to date. Stick around until the end to find out why HYPER is a must-buy for 2026.

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