BizwavemediaPersonal Finance and Crypto Updates

XRP plunged over 17% on Thursday, its steepest one-day loss since October 2025, according to CoinGecko data.

The drop sent the token below $1.25, extending weekly losses to nearly 30% and pushing its market cap down to $75 billion, a sharp fall from its $210 billion peak in July 2025.

XRP is now down 45% from its January 2026 high of $2.41, as the broader crypto market endures one of its worst stretches in months. Bitcoin dropped 9% toward $65K, Ethereum fell below $2K, and Solana traded near $82, as the selloff widened across major tokens.

Despite the sharp decline, XRP ETFs have remained resilient. Since launching in November 2025, XRP exchange-traded products have posted inflows on all but four trading days. This week alone, inflows have totaled nearly $24 million, bringing cumulative net inflows to $1.2 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

Amazon said Thursday it plans to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, with a focus on artificial intelligence infrastructure, triggering a steep sell-off in after-hours trading. The stock dropped over 10% and fell below $200 as investors reacted to the scale of the planned investment.

The announcement followed solid fourth-quarter earnings, with revenue climbing to $213.4 billion and net profit hitting $21.2 billion, matching analyst expectations. Amazon cited a strong holiday season and 24% year-over-year growth in its AWS cloud business as key drivers.

The company also said it will close underperforming units to streamline operations. The layoffs, totaling 16,000 workers, announced last week, are part of these broader cost-cutting efforts. For the first quarter of 2026, Amazon forecast revenue between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion, with operating income expected between $16.5 billion and $21.5 billion.

Despite the strong cloud performance, AWS generated $35.6 billion in Q4 revenue, investors focused on the spending outlook. The sell-off comes amid broader tech sector concerns over ballooning AI-related investment.

Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) purchased an additional 3,600 Bitcoin for approximately $233 million on Friday, bringing its total Bitcoin holdings to 6,230 BTC valued at around $410 million at current market prices, according to on-chain data.

Binance targets converting $1 billion of stablecoin reserves in the SAFU fund into Bitcoin in 30 days. The company surpassed 40% of its goal in four days.

SAFU, established in July 2018 following a security breach, functions as an emergency reserve to protect user assets in the event of hacks or exchange issues. The fund reached $1 billion in value by January 2022, funded through allocations from trading fees.

Binance announced the strategic shift to Bitcoin holdings on January 30, citing transparency, auditability, and inflation hedging as primary motivations. The conversion process began on February 2 with an initial purchase of 1,315 BTC for over $100 million.

The exchange has committed to restoring SAFU to $1 billion if its value falls below $800 million. The fund currently safeguards assets for over 300 million users.

Liquid Capital–affiliated investment firm Trend Research has nearly exited its Ethereum position after incurring losses of $747 million, according to data tracked by Lookonchain.

Trend Research started aggressively accumulating ETH in late 2025 through leveraged borrowing on Aave. Analysts noted that the entity’s ETH holdings exceeded 650,000 units on January 20.

The market is falling, but whales and institutions are buying $ETH.

Trend Research borrowed 70M $USDT from Aave and bought 24,555 $ETH($75.5M), currently holding 651,310 $ETH($1.92B).

OTC whale (0xFB7) bought 20,000 $ETH($58.8M) via #FalconX and #Wintermute.… pic.twitter.com/hGuO3OSs5P

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 21, 2026

However, the recent market corrections crushed the whale’s position.

ETH plunged below $1,900 on Thursday, extending its year-to-date losses to 37%. Despite a bounce above $2,000, ETH is still down 55% over the past four months.

In response to market swings and growing liquidation risks, Trend Research has scaled back its ETH exposure.

According to a Friday report, the firm returned 772,865 ETH to Binance at $2,326 after withdrawing 792,532 ETH from the exchange at an average price of $3,267 following a series of purchases. It retains over 21,000 ETH worth approximately $44 million.

Trend Research has almost sold all of its $ETH!

They have withdrew 792,532 $ETH($2.59B) from #Binance at $3,267, and deposited 772,865 $ETH($1.8B) back to #Binance at $2,326.

Only 21,301 $ETH($43.92M) is left.

Total loss: $747M.https://t.co/Odh9SnonLL pic.twitter.com/KnEKjr0l1N

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 7, 2026

This week’s sell-off comes after the major market crash on October 10 last year, when roughly $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, driving ETH down from highs around $4,700. Since that event, ETH and other crypto assets have struggled to reclaim pre-cash levels.

Bitcoin reclaimed the $70,000 level today after surging more than 11% by midday Friday, recovering from its steepest single-day drop since the FTX collapse. The leading crypto asset had plunged below $60,000 on Thursday before rebounding sharply.

Ethereum climbed back above $2,000 after falling to $1,750, while Solana recovered to $86 from a low of $65. XRP rallied 22% to $1.50 after dipping below $1.14, with the broader crypto market retracing most of its losses from the previous session.

Crypto-exposed equities also snapped back. Strategy shares surged over 21% to $130 after nearing a breakdown below $100 in Thursday’s after-hours trading, following the firm’s $12.4 billion quarterly loss announcement.

Coinbase gained 10%, Galaxy rose 17%, and mining stocks Marathon and Cipher jumped 20% and 13%, respectively.

Traditional markets staged a recovery from levels not seen since mid-December. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were both up around 1.5% by midday.

In commodities, gold climbed nearly 4% toward the $5,000 mark, while silver surged 8% to $76. Both remain well below last week’s record highs.

Despite the broad bounce, some analysts warned this could be a short-lived relief rally, citing persistent macroeconomic headwinds and advising caution ahead of next week’s open.

Sui Network, a high-performance layer-1 blockchain platform, and Coinbase, a leading crypto exchange, announced a partnership today to expand institutional and retail access via the Sui token standard.

Excited to announce we’re partnering with @Coinbase as they adopt the Sui token standard, making it easier than ever for institutions, builders, and everyday users to participate in the Sui ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/nzPW2Pu1V1

— Sui (@SuiNetwork) February 6, 2026

The collaboration aims to improve accessibility of Sui tokens across Coinbase’s platform, targeting broader adoption among both individual investors and institutions.

The partnership builds on Coinbase’s December move to enable SUI trading for New York residents, a key milestone under the state’s stringent BitLicense regime. Sui became more accessible to a regulated retail base, widening its reach in one of the toughest crypto jurisdictions.

Bitwise also filed in December for a SUI ETF that would use Coinbase Custody for asset storage, adding to the competition for Sui-focused investment products.

SUI traded near $1 at press time, up 14% on the day after recovering from yesterday’s lows of $0.78 during Bitcoin’s drop below $60K.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on investor concerns about overbuilding data center capacity, calling the current wave of AI infrastructure spending both sustainable and necessary.

“The demand is just incredibly high,” Huang said on CNBC, adding that the AI buildout will continue for seven to eight years. He characterized the effort as a “once in a generation infrastructure buildout.”

The comments came as Nvidia shares rebounded sharply Friday, jumping as much as 7.5% in their biggest intraday gain since April. The rally added more than $300 billion in market value, partially recovering from a $500 billion selloff over the past week.

Investor sentiment improved after Amazon announced plans to spend $200 billion this year on data centers, chips, and other infrastructure. Combined spending from Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft is expected to reach $650 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, a 60% increase from last year.

While shares of big tech remain under pressure, the surge in spending has lifted infrastructure providers across the AI supply chain.

Semiconductor stocks, including Broadcom and Marvell, climbed 6% and 7% respectively, alongside digital storage firms Sandisk and Western Digital, which rose 4% and 7%. Cloud services firm CoreWeave surged 20%.