How your brain may drive bitcoin higher

Crypto Daybook Americas Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email How your brain may drive bitcoin higher Your day-ahead look for Feb. 4, 2026 By Omkar Godbole | Edited by Sheldon Reback Feb 4, 2026, 12:15 p.m. Make us preferred on Google Your behavioral biases may fuel demand for bitcoin at current prices. (SvedOliver/Shutterstock modified by CoinDesk) What to know : You are viewing Crypto Daybook Americas, your morning briefing on what happened in the crypto markets overnight and what's expected during the coming day. Crypto Daybook Americas will kickstart your morning with comprehensive insights. If you're not already subscribed to the email, click here . You won't want to start your day without it. By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Bitcoin's BTC $ 76,020.66 bear market feels brutal and could deepen. Analysts are suggesting potential Fed interest-rate cuts and crypto-specific regulatory breaks are required to turn the tide. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy . But beneath the surface, something as simple as two behavioral biases may play a pivotal role: anchoring bias and regret aversion. Last year's bull market didn't feel like a bull market. Absent was the frenzied retail and institutional stampede of 2020-21 or 2017. Spot ETFs sucked in billions, but mostly as a result of arbitrage bets, not outright bullish positioning. That's possibly due to the anchoring bias, a mental shortcut where people fixate on one piece of information, like a reference price, and skew their judgment of value. Investors may have been swayed by bitcoin's $100,000 price tag, and then balked: "That's way higher than typical tech stocks, even Nasdaq doesn't trade that high; must be overpriced." In other words, they could have anchored on familiar benchmarks, decided BTC was too costly and sat on the fence. Fast forward to today: Bitcoin trades at $76,000, well off its peak. If it drops under $60,000 , a 50% discount to its October high, last year's holdouts have every reason to pile in long and strong. That's regret aversion: fear of missing future gains after sitting out, driving aggressive dip-buying in assets with proven upward trajectories. While behavioral biases offer one compelling theory for a snapback there's still the possibility that macroeconomic influences and regulatory developments could call the shots. For now, the crypto market has stabilized, with bitcoin bouncing to $76,000 from overnight lows near $73,000 amid oversold signals from technical indicators. Ether ETH $ 2,251.89 , solana SOL $ 96.06 and XRP XRP $ 1.5960 also rose, but are being overshadowed by more substantial gains in monero XMR $ 388.96 , WLFI and other smaller tokens. Onchain data shows that profit-taking by long-term holders, or wallets with a history of holding coins for over five months, has slowed, according to Tagus Capital. Still, the risk of a deeper selloff prevails if Wall Street's tech-heavy index, the Nasdaq 100, extends Monday's selloff and Treasury yields rise further. Key U.S. data due for release today — the ADP employment and ISM services — could add to market volatility. Stay alert! Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today What to Watch For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's " Crypto Week Ahead ". Crypto Nothing scheduled. Macro Feb. 4, 7 a.m.: U.S. MBA 30-year mortgage rate for week ending Jan. 30 (Prev. 6.24%) Feb. 4, 10 a.m.: U.S. ISM Services PMI for January (Prev. 54.4) Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) Feb. 4: CME Group (CME), pre-market, $2.74 Token Events For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's " Crypto Week Ahead ". Governance votes & calls Feb. 4: Stacks to host a townhall meeting . Unlocks No major unlocks. Token Launches Feb. 4: THORChain Solana mainnet is expected to debut. Conferences For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's " Crypto Week Ahead ". Day 4 of 4: Web Summit Qatar (Doha, Qatar) Market Movements BTC is down 0.14% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $76,051.11 (24hrs: -2.75%) ETH is down 0.98% at $2,607.45 (24hrs: -1.75%) CoinDesk 20 is down 0.73% at 2,230.96 (24hrs: -1.9%) Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 17 bps at 2.83% BTC funding rate is at 0.0028% (3.0748% annualized) on Binance DXY is unchanged at 97.53 Gold futures are up 2.81% at $5,073.50 Silver futures are up 7.99% at $89.96 Nikkei 225 closed down 0.78% at 54,293.36 Hang Seng closed unchanged at 26,847.32 FTSE is up 1% at 10,417.96 Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.21% at 6,008.14 DJIA closed on Tuesday down 0.34% at 49,240.99 S&P 500 closed down 0.84% at 6,917.81 Nasdaq Composite closed down 1.43% at 23,255.19 S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.64% at 32,388.60 S&P 40 Latin America closed up 2.89% at 3,761.64 U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 0.7 bps at 4.28% E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.13% at 6,950.50 E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 25,455.00 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.28% at 49,486.00 Bitcoin Stats BTC Dominance: 59.63% (-0.02%) Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.02966 (0.61%) Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 880 EH/s Hashprice (spot): $33.97 Total fees: 3.3 BTC / $254,499 CME Futures Open Interest: 115,185 BTC BTC priced in gold: 15 oz. BTC vs gold market cap: 5.06% Technical Analysis XRP has dipped below key demand level. (TradingView) The chart shows XRP's price swings in candlestick format. Prices have penetrated support at $1.60. This is the level where buyers stepped in during the April selloff, arresting the slide. A drop lower, therefore, indicates significant weakening of demand, suggesting potential for a deeper decline toward $1.00. Crypto Equities Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Tuesday at $179.66 (-4.36%), -0.19% at $179.32 in pre-market Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $56.16 (-4.59%), -0.32% at $55.98 Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $21.98 (-16.87%), +0.18% at $22.02 Bullish (BLSH): closed at $27.64 (-3.93%), -0.14% at $27.60 MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $9.05 (-0.77%), -0.99% at $8.96 Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.34 (+0.13%), -0.46% at $15.27 Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.74 (-0.73%), unchanged in pre-market CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.36 (+2.90%), -0.97% at $11.25 CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $45.30 (+1.94%) Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $10.47 (-6.35%), unchanged in pre-market Crypto Treasury Companies Strategy (MSTR): closed at $133.26 (-4.56%), -0.68% at $132.36 Strive (ASST): closed at $0.68 (-5.67%), -3.08% at $0.66 SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $7.66 (-1.67%), -1.57% at $7.54 Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.55 (-4.32%) Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.15 (+0.88%) ETF Flows Spot BTC ETFs Daily net flows: -$272 million Cumulative net flows: $55.28 billion Total BTC holdings ~1.28 million Spot ETH ETFs Daily net flows: $14 million Cumulative net flows: $12.02 billion Total ETH holdings ~5.9 million Source: Farside Investors While You Were Sleeping Tether scales back $20 billion funding ambitions after investor resistance: FT (CoinDesk): Tether pulled back from plans to raise as much as $20 billion in fresh capital after facing investor resistance to a proposed valuation. Stocks waver after AI scare as gold hits $5,000 (Bloomberg): Stocks fluctuated after a selloff in software shares, while gold reclaimed the $5,000-an-ounce mark. Economically sensitive shares were Wednesday’s biggest gainers. US and Iran to seek de-escalation in nuclear talks in Oman, regional official says (Reuters): The U.S. and Iran are due to hold talks in Oman on Friday, as a build-up of U.S. forces in the Middle East raises concerns of a confrontation. Crypto Daybook Americas In this article BTC BTC $ 76,020.66 ◢ 2.89 % ETH ETH $ 2,251.89 ◢ 2.12 % SOL SOL $ 96.06 ◢ 6.84 %