New York, February 3, 2026, 10:17 EST — Regular session.
- Bitcoin down about 1.4% near $77,100, hovering close to the day’s low
- Coinbase, Strategy and BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF trade lower in early New York dealing
- Investors track ETF flows, rate expectations and a shutdown-delayed U.S. jobs report
Bitcoin fell about 1.4% to $77,116 on Tuesday, hovering near the session low in early New York trade. Crypto-linked names including Coinbase Global, Strategy and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF were down between about 1% and 3%.
The market is still digesting a wave of liquidations — forced closures of leveraged bets when traders cannot meet margin rules — that wiped out about $2.56 billion of long and short bitcoin positions in recent days, CoinGlass data showed. “What we’ve seen the last few months is probably people taking a step back while they have to reassess their risk frameworks and how they operate in this market,” said Adam McCarthy, a senior research analyst at Kaiko. “Investors were looking for an excuse to lighten up and they finally got several,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation. Reuters
Money flows are the other tell. U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds — funds that hold bitcoin and trade like stocks — pulled in net inflows of $561.8 million on Monday, led by Fidelity’s FBTC ($153.3 million) and BlackRock’s IBIT ($142.0 million), Farside Investors data showed.
Traders have also been recalibrating around U.S. rate expectations after President Donald Trump named Kevin Warsh as his pick to lead the Federal Reserve, a development that rattled wider risk markets and spilled into crypto. In crypto, the link is blunt: higher yields and a firmer dollar tend to drain appetite for high-volatility trades.
Strategy, one of the biggest corporate holders of bitcoin, has become a proxy for that swing in sentiment. The company recently bought 855 bitcoins at an average cost of $87,974, taking its holdings to 713,502 bitcoins at an average purchase price of $76,052, MarketWatch reported.
Macro uncertainty is not helping. The U.S. Labor Department said it will not publish the January jobs report on Friday as scheduled because of the partial federal government shutdown, a delay that also pushes back other releases such as job openings data; the Bureau of Labor Statistics had listed Feb. 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET for the employment report.
Bitcoin has struggled to regain its footing after last year’s run, and trading remains jumpy. Moves can look exaggerated when liquidity thins, especially outside U.S. hours, and the latest washout has left investors more sensitive to headlines that shift the rate outlook.
But the downside is not hard to sketch: a renewed jump in yields or the dollar, or another stretch of ETF outflows, could drag bitcoin back toward levels that force more selling in leveraged positions — and amplify pressure on crypto-exposed equities.
For now, traders are watching the daily ETF flow prints and any sign Washington is close to restoring government funding. The next obvious calendar marker was the jobs report slot on Friday, Feb. 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET — now delayed — and the market will be looking for an updated release timetable.
