Bitcoin briefly fell below $71,000, how much HODL faith is left in the crypto community?

By: blockbeats|2026/02/05 13:00:00
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Original Title: "Bitcoin Dips Below $72,000, How Much Faith Is Left in the Crypto Space?"
Original Author: Yang Chen, Wall Street News

Bitcoin dipping below the $72,000 mark (Update: Bitcoin has now dipped below $71,000) has brought the "faith" issue in the crypto market to the forefront. Against the backdrop of a sharp decline in global risk appetite, investors are reevaluating Bitcoin's position in the market turbulence, and the narrative of crypto assets as a hedge is being questioned.

According to Bloomberg, Bitcoin on Wednesday dipped to $71,739 in New York's closing, marking the first dip below $72,000 in about 15 months. Compared to its peak in October last year, Bitcoin has retraced over 42%, with a year-to-date decline of around 17%, falling to its lowest level since November 6, 2024.

Bitcoin briefly fell below $71,000, how much HODL faith is left in the crypto community?

This round of decline is no longer just a deleveraging within the crypto market but is due to broader cross-asset pressure. On Wednesday, global markets experienced synchronous selling, with the Nasdaq 100 index dropping over 2%, sectors more sensitive to interest rates such as software and chips were generally under pressure, dragging Bitcoin down along with them.

On an emotional level, a "crisis of faith" is brewing. Shiliang Tang, managing partner at Monarq Asset Management, stated that the market is undergoing a "crisis of faith."

Andrew Tu, Head of Business Development at Efficient Frontier, also noted that market sentiment in the crypto space is currently at "extreme fear," and if $72,000 is breached, Bitcoin could drop to $68,000 or even fall back to the low range before the initial bounce in early 2024.

According to Polymarket, there is an 83% probability that Bitcoin will drop to $65,000 this year, and the probability of falling below $55,000 has risen to about 59%.

Risk Aversion Sudden Turn, Bitcoin Labelled as "High-Volatility Risk Asset"

According to Bloomberg, the pressure on Bitcoin on Wednesday was related to broader cross-asset tension rather than solely being driven by internal crypto asset liquidation. This is significant for investors because as the market entered a phase of synchronous selling, Bitcoin did not demonstrate resilience independent of risky assets but rather resembled a high-volatility long tail risk asset.

The Nasdaq 100 Index experienced a daily decline of over 2%, dragging down sectors such as software and semiconductors. On the same trading day, Bitcoin dropped below a key psychological level, reinforcing its market perception as being correlated with risk appetite.

With a 42% Retreat from Peak, the Crypto Market Evaporated Over $460 Billion in a Week

Price retracement is rapidly transmitting through market cap contraction. According to CoinGecko data, the total market capitalization of crypto assets has shrunk by around $1.7 trillion since last October's peak. In just the past week, the crypto market cap has decreased by over $460 billion.

As the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin's magnitude and speed of decline have a "anchoring effect" on market sentiment. When Bitcoin's year-to-date decline widens to around 17%, risk control, margin management, and fund redemption pressure often rise simultaneously, further intensifying overall volatility.

How the "Crisis of Faith" Emerges: From Liquidation Shock to Sentiment Dissipation

Market participants' expressions indicate that emotional shifts are becoming a core variable. The "crisis of faith" as described by Shiliang Tang points to investors' simultaneous doubts about the long-term narrative and short-term pricing mechanism of crypto assets.

More importantly, there has been a shift in the driving force behind the decline. According to Bloomberg, the earlier downward phase was more driven by crypto-specific liquidation, while Wednesday's pressure came from broader cross-market tension.

This means that even if the internal leverage unwinding in the crypto market comes to a halt, as long as external risk assets remain under pressure, Bitcoin may still lack an independent catalyst for a rebound.

-- Price

--

72000 as a Short-Term Watershed, Market Predicts a Fall to 65000 by Year-End

Many traders view $72,000 as a key short-term price level. Andrew Tu points out that if this level cannot hold, Bitcoin is "likely" to fall to $68,000 and may revisit the low range before the initial rebound in early 2024.

According to Polymarket, Bitcoin has an 83% probability of falling to $65,000 this year, while the likelihood of dropping below $55,000 has risen to around 59%.

The funding side is also sending out mixed signals. According to Bloomberg compilation data, a U.S.-listed Bitcoin spot ETF recorded around $562 million in net inflows on Monday, but quickly turned into net outflows of $272 million on Tuesday, indicating that incremental funds are not stable.

Amid price declines and fund flow fluctuations, skepticism in the market about Bitcoin's role as a "safe-haven asset in times of pressure" is on the rise.

Original Article Link

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Before using Musk's "Western WeChat" X Chat, you need to understand these three questions

The X Chat will be available for download on the App Store this Friday. The media has already covered the feature list, including self-destructing messages, screenshot prevention, 481-person group chats, Grok integration, and registration without a phone number, positioning it as the "Western WeChat." However, there are three questions that have hardly been addressed in any reports.


There is a sentence on X's official help page that is still hanging there: "If malicious insiders or X itself cause encrypted conversations to be exposed through legal processes, both the sender and receiver will be completely unaware."


Question One: Is this encryption the same as Signal's encryption?


No. The difference lies in where the keys are stored.


In Signal's end-to-end encryption, the keys never leave your device. X, the court, or any external party does not hold your keys. Signal's servers have nothing to decrypt your messages; even if they were subpoenaed, they could only provide registration timestamps and last connection times, as evidenced by past subpoena records.


X Chat uses the Juicebox protocol. This solution divides the key into three parts, each stored on three servers operated by X. When recovering the key with a PIN code, the system retrieves these three shards from X's servers and recombines them. No matter how complex the PIN code is, X is the actual custodian of the key, not the user.


This is the technical background of the "help page sentence": because the key is on X's servers, X has the ability to respond to legal processes without the user's knowledge. Signal does not have this capability, not because of policy, but because it simply does not have the key.


The following illustration compares the security mechanisms of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X Chat along six dimensions. X Chat is the only one of the four where the platform holds the key and the only one without Forward Secrecy.


The significance of Forward Secrecy is that even if a key is compromised at a certain point in time, historical messages cannot be decrypted because each message has a unique key. Signal's Double Ratchet protocol automatically updates the key after each message, a mechanism lacking in X Chat.


After analyzing the X Chat architecture in June 2025, Johns Hopkins University cryptology professor Matthew Green commented, "If we judge XChat as an end-to-end encryption scheme, this seems like a pretty game-over type of vulnerability." He later added, "I would not trust this any more than I trust current unencrypted DMs."


From a September 2025 TechCrunch report to being live in April 2026, this architecture saw no changes.


In a February 9, 2026 tweet, Musk pledged to undergo rigorous security tests of X Chat before its launch on X Chat and to open source all the code.



As of the April 17 launch date, no independent third-party audit has been completed, there is no official code repository on GitHub, the App Store's privacy label reveals X Chat collects five or more categories of data including location, contact info, and search history, directly contradicting the marketing claim of "No Ads, No Trackers."


Issue 2: Does Grok know what you're messaging in private?


Not continuous monitoring, but a clear access point.


For every message on X Chat, users can long-press and select "Ask Grok." When this button is clicked, the message is delivered to Grok in plaintext, transitioning from encrypted to unencrypted at this stage.


This design is not a vulnerability but a feature. However, X Chat's privacy policy does not state whether this plaintext data will be used for Grok's model training or if Grok will store this conversation content. By actively clicking "Ask Grok," users are voluntarily removing the encryption protection of that message.


There is also a structural issue: How quickly will this button shift from an "optional feature" to a "default habit"? The higher the quality of Grok's replies, the more frequently users will rely on it, leading to an increase in the proportion of messages flowing out of encryption protection. The actual encryption strength of X Chat, in the long run, depends not only on the design of the Juicebox protocol but also on the frequency of user clicks on "Ask Grok."


Issue 3: Why is there no Android version?


X Chat's initial release only supports iOS, with the Android version simply stating "coming soon" without a timeline.


In the global smartphone market, Android holds about 73%, while iOS holds about 27% (IDC/Statista, 2025). Of WhatsApp's 3.14 billion monthly active users, 73% are on Android (according to Demand Sage). In India, WhatsApp covers 854 million users, with over 95% Android penetration. In Brazil, there are 148 million users, with 81% on Android, and in Indonesia, there are 112 million users, with 87% on Android.



WhatsApp's dominance in the global communication market is built on Android. Signal, with a monthly active user base of around 85 million, also relies mainly on privacy-conscious users in Android-dominant countries.


X Chat circumvented this battlefield, with two possible interpretations. One is technical debt; X Chat is built with Rust, and achieving cross-platform support is not easy, so prioritizing iOS may be an engineering constraint. The other is a strategic choice; with iOS holding a market share of nearly 55% in the U.S., X's core user base being in the U.S., prioritizing iOS means focusing on their core user base rather than engaging in direct competition with Android-dominated emerging markets and WhatsApp.


These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, leading to the same result: X Chat's debut saw it willingly forfeit 73% of the global smartphone user base.


Elon Musk's "Super App"


This matter has been described by some: X Chat, along with X Money and Grok, forms a trifecta creating a closed-loop data system parallel to the existing infrastructure, similar in concept to the WeChat ecosystem. This assessment is not new, but with X Chat's launch, it's worth revisiting the schematic.



X Chat generates communication metadata, including information on who is talking to whom, for how long, and how frequently. This data flows into X's identity system. Part of the message content goes through the Ask Grok feature and enters Grok's processing chain. Financial transactions are handled by X Money: external public testing was completed in March, opening to the public in April, enabling fiat peer-to-peer transfers via Visa Direct. A senior Fireblocks executive confirmed plans for cryptocurrency payments to go live by the end of the year, holding money transmitter licenses in over 40 U.S. states currently.


Every WeChat feature operates within China's regulatory framework. Musk's system operates within Western regulatory frameworks, but he also serves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This is not a WeChat replica; it is a reenactment of the same logic under different political conditions.


The difference is that WeChat has never explicitly claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted" on its main interface, whereas X Chat does. "End-to-end encryption" in user perception means that no one, not even the platform, can see your messages. X Chat's architectural design does not meet this user expectation, but it uses this term.


X Chat consolidates the three data lines of "who this person is, who they are talking to, and where their money comes from and goes to" in one company's hands.


The help page sentence has never been just technical instructions.


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