Portofino Mint - 9 February 2026

🚀 Welcome to the Portofino Mint!

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📊 Cryptos at a Glance

Crypto  entered crash mode on Thursday, as a macro-led selloff pushed Bitcoin to a ~15-month low and triggered widespread forced deleveraging across spot, derivatives, and crypto-backed lending. BTC and ETH posted double-digit declines, wiping out more than $170m in collateral on Coinbase-linked lending products via Morpho. Market sentiment collapsed to levels last seen during the 2022 Terra unwind. Crypto equities sold off sharply as high-beta exposure before rebounding once Bitcoin stabilised and US spot demand re-emerged.

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📊 Key Market Levels

• Bitcoin (BTC): ~$60,255 intraday low (Thu), lowest level in ~15 months
• Ethereum (ETH): tracked BTC lower, double-digit weekly drawdown
• Crypto Fear & Greed Index: 9 — Extreme Fear, lowest reading in ~3.5 years

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🪙 Macro Overview

The selloff reinforced crypto’s role as a liquidity-sensitive risk asset, with price action driven by deleveraging rather than crypto-specific shocks. As volatility spiked, traditional defensive assets regained relative appeal. Speaking at Digital Assets Forum London, Bitwise executives framed Bitcoin as an offensive rebound asset, contrasting it with gold’s defensive role during drawdowns.

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🌐 Project & Token Highlights

• Polymarket filed US trademark applications for “POLY” and “$POLY,” signalling concrete steps toward launching a native token despite mounting regulatory pressure.
• Trump-linked tokens sold off sharply, with TRUMP down ~25% on the week and WLFI posting double-digit losses following scrutiny into World Liberty Financial.
• NFT market repricing continued, highlighted by Justin Bieber’s Bored Ape NFT falling from a ~$1.3m purchase price in 2022 to roughly $12k today.

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🏛️ Regulatory Updates

• The FDIC agreed to drop its FOIA fight and release crypto-related “pause letters,” paying ~$188k in legal fees and reopening scrutiny into informal crypto debanking practices.
• China formally banned unapproved yuan-linked stablecoins and classified most real-world asset tokenisation as illegal financial activity.
• South Korea signalled tighter crypto market surveillance, targeting manipulation and unfair trading practices.
• US Senator Cynthia Lummis urged banks to embrace stablecoins, framing them as a commercial opportunity amid continued gridlock on the CLARITY Act.

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🏢 Institutional Developments

• Bitfarms exited Bitcoin mining entirely, rebranded as Keel Infrastructure, and pivoted toward AI infrastructure while relocating operations to the US.
• Ark Invest sold ~$19m of Coinbase shares during the drawdown, reversing purchases made just days earlier.
• Public miners IREN and CleanSpark fell sharply after earnings misses compounded sector-wide stress.
• Tether announced plans to hire 150 new staff over the next 18 months, signalling continued expansion despite deteriorating market conditions.
• Bithumb experienced a major operational incident during last week’s selloff, temporarily disrupting trading for Korean retail users. While not a primary driver of Bitcoin’s global drawdown, the outage added to regional panic and highlighted how exchange reliability issues can amplify sentiment during periods of market stress.

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📆 What to Watch Next Week

• US inflation data (CPI, PPI), with markets highly sensitive to any upside surprise following last week’s risk-off move.
• US retail sales and consumer confidence prints, as investors reassess growth resilience amid tightening financial conditions.
• Japan’s snap election, where Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has tied her leadership to accelerating crypto reform.
• Regulatory fallout from FDIC disclosures, as released “pause letters” may reignite scrutiny around informal crypto debanking.
• Post-liquidation market structure, as BTC attempts to hold recent lows with sentiment at historically extreme fear levels.

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📅 Missed last week’s update? Catch up on all headlines in the previous Portofino Mint.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘐𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘎𝘗𝘛.

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