Crypto Daily Report #我在Gate广场过新年 02.10: Bitcoin Drops Below $70,000, Institutions Split, Bulls and Bears Both Hanging On

1. Bitcoin Price Swings and Market Moves

Bitcoin’s been on a wild ride lately. It shot up to $100,000 in January, tumbled below $60,000 for a bit, then bounced back. On February 9th, right around 7:20 AM in New York, it dipped to $69,037—slipping under $70,000 again after briefly climbing above it. Volatility’s off the charts. The Bitcoin Volatility Index jumped above 97%, the biggest single-day spike since the FTX collapse in 2022. On the same day, the US Bitcoin ETF picked up a net 3,286 BTC, but Ethereum’s ETF saw a net outflow of 54,718 ETH.

Risk assets rallied together. The Nasdaq rose 1%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5%, gold jumped 1.9% to $5,075 an ounce, and silver surged 7.4%. Bitcoin itself gained 0.5% in 24 hours, while Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and a few others tacked on nearly 1.5%.

2. Institutional and Corporate Bitcoin Holdings

MicroStrategy (now just called "Strategy") keeps stacking sats. Last week, the company bought 1,142 more BTC at $78,815 each, spending $90 million. Their total stash now sits at 714,644 BTC. At today’s price of $69,000, that’s an unrealized loss of about $5.2 billion. They funded the purchase by issuing new stock, which brought in a net profit of $89.5 million.

Metalpha, a blockchain company trading on Nasdaq, rolled out a plan to put up to 20% of its annual net profit into Bitcoin. For starters, they set aside $3.2 million and already bought $1 million worth of BTC.

Globally, public companies (excluding miners) bought a net $92.83 million in Bitcoin last week—a 24.5% drop from the week before. Strategy alone made up over 97% of that. Others like Japan’s DayDayCook ($9.12 million), Genius Group from the US (sold $7.03 million in BTC), and Sweden’s H100 ($3 million) made smaller moves.

Meanwhile, BlackRock just deposited 2,268 BTC (about $155.94 million) into Coinbase Prime.

3. Market Analysis and Institutional Views

Gautam Chhugani from Bernstein isn’t fazed. He calls this Bitcoin’s weakest-ever bear market and sticks to his $150,000 price target by the end of 2026. He says today’s crisis of confidence doesn’t really shake Bitcoin’s fundamentals and that the current timing actually works in its favor.

Jim Ferraioli at Charles Schwab notes that Bitcoin sell-offs usually bottom out near production costs, which you can track through mining difficulty. Right now, mining difficulty just dropped the most since 2021, and some miners are packing up and leaving.

Some institutions have slashed their price targets for Strategy—Canaccord Genuity cut theirs from $474 to $185, and Citigroup dropped from $485 to $325. Even so, TD Cowen and Citigroup still rate it a “Buy,” hoping for a Bitcoin rebound.

4. Retail Moves and Hedging Tools

Canadian rapper Drake threw down a $1 million BTC bet on the New England Patriots to win the 2026 Super Bowl. The team lost, so Drake did too—adding to the so-called “Drake Curse” where he backs teams that go on to lose.

On the trading side, Bit exchange just launched traditional finance features, letting users trade crypto (BTC, ETH) and gold (XAUUSD, tokenized gold like PAXG/XAUT) all in the same account. That means you can hedge across assets more easily. Compared to rivals like Cbe and Kk, Bit stands out for its unified accounts, lower fees, and USDT settlement.