collapse

According to Cointelegraph, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that U.S. authorities should prepare short-term, targeted emergency plans in advance for the potential collapse of future U.S. Treasury demand. He stated that once a crisis occurs, the impact will be severe. The U.S. Treasury market is seen as the cornerstone of the global financial system, and if it becomes unstable, it could affect the pricing of corporate bonds, mortgages, and stocks.The report pointed out that if a crisis weakens confidence in the dollar, it could drive funds toward alternative value storage assets like Bitcoin and gold; however, Tether, which uses U.S. Treasuries as its main reserve asset, may also face redemption and de-pegging risks.

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) detailed the Terra/UST/LUNA collapse in his new book "Binance Life." In 2018, Binance's venture capital department invested $3 million in Terra in exchange for LUNA tokens. Starting on May 7, 2022, UST began to de-peg and rapidly collapsed, with approximately $60 billion in value evaporating.At the same time, the team informed that the early investment in LUNA was worth $1.6 billion, and CZ decided not to sell to cash out, reasoning that he did not want to trigger market panic, harm the project, or be seen as running ahead of retail investors. Nevertheless, the LUNA he held plummeted from a market value of $1.6 billion to a few thousand dollars within days, resulting in significant losses for Binance.CZ pointed out in the book that Terra claimed to have billions of dollars in reserves but did not use them to stabilize UST, and founder Do Kwon lacked transparent responses. The design of UST relied on LUNA as a reserve, and after the de-pegging, the system crazily minted LUNA, increasing the total supply by 1,000 times, accelerating the collapse. Terra ultimately used $3 billion in Bitcoin reserves to try to save the situation, but it was too late, and he expressed shock that Do Kwon might have privately kept $200 million for legal fees.

According to Jinshi Data, U.S. President Trump stated that Cuba will collapse in a short period of time.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, published a lengthy article titled "It All Comes Down to Who Controls the Strait of Hormuz: The Final Battle." The article points out one obvious fact about the war with Iran: everything will come down to who controls the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran still controls who can pass through the Strait of Hormuz, or even retains the power to negotiate, the United States will be deemed to have lost this war.If Trump and the U.S. cannot win this war, they will be seen as having created an irreparable catastrophic situation. Regardless of the reasons for the U.S. failing to control Hormuz, both Trump and the U.S. will lose. Losing influence over Hormuz for the U.S. will be akin to the impact of the 1956 Suez Canal crisis on Britain, as well as similar failures of the Dutch Empire in the 18th century and the Spanish Empire in the 17th century. The pattern of events leading to the collapse of empires is almost always the same, and this decisive "final battle" will determine whether U.S. global hegemony persists or collapses.

According to a Reuters report, the latest intelligence from the United States indicates that the Iranian leadership "remains largely intact" and is not at risk of collapse in the near future.The report states that a large number of intelligence reports provide a "consistent analysis" indicating that the regime "is not in danger of collapsing." Intelligence also suggests that the Iranian government "still controls the Iranian public." Israeli officials have also acknowledged in closed-door meetings that this war "does not guarantee" the fall of the Iranian government. The local situation is described as "rapidly changing."

According to Lookonchain monitoring, a wallet suspected to be linked to the US-Iran conflict, after being silent for three days, invested $3,000 predicting that the Iranian regime will collapse before March 31.This wallet was created on February 28 and had previously made only two prediction trades, both of which were successful, with a profit of $16,000.

Darkfost posted on platform X that 38% of altcoins are nearing historical lows, worse than the post-FTX period. The overall environment remains unfavorable for risk-taking, with the first affected sector being the cryptocurrency market, especially altcoins. Current market liquidity is still weak, with more flowing into more volatile stocks or commodities.The indicator shows that altcoins are still under pressure, marking the largest drawdown for altcoins in this cycle. In comparison, the indicator was at 35% in April 2025 and 37.8% after the FTX collapse. The chart clearly illustrates the current state of altcoins, with investors remaining cautious and continuing to lose interest in them. However, it is precisely when conditions significantly worsen that opportunities begin to emerge.

CryptoQuant's Bull-Bear Index recently hit its lowest point since the FTX collapse in 2022. This indicator measures market momentum by the difference between the market profit and loss index and its 365-day moving average. Historical data shows that similar extreme bear market levels often signal the formation of a bottom.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, a study by data provider Amberdata found that WLFI exhibited significant warning signs during a massive market liquidation on October 10, 2025. More than five hours before approximately $6.93 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated across the network, WLFI began to decline sharply, while the price of Bitcoin remained around $121,000, showing no obvious signs of pressure.The study suggests that due to many trading platforms supporting WLFI as collateral, the token's extreme volatility led to a decrease in collateral value, forcing traders to liquidate BTC and ETH to cover their positions, triggering a chain reaction across the entire market. Mike Marshall from Amberdata stated that this five-hour lead time is hard to consider a coincidence, as WLFI's high leverage characteristics make it more sensitive to market pressures.

QCP Director Elbert Iswara stated in a Money FM 89.3 radio program that the recent significant fluctuations in Bitcoin resemble a liquidity reset rather than a structural collapse. Although the price briefly fell to $60,033, the subsequent rebound indicates that long-term investors and institutional demand still exist.He pointed out that the current Bitcoin trend is mainly influenced by the macroeconomic environment, while factors such as ETF fund outflows, derivative positions, and leverage liquidations have exacerbated the volatility. Iswara suggested that investors pay attention to the key price range of $60,000 to $65,000, ETF fund flows, leverage liquidation situations, and changes in the correlation between Bitcoin and stocks, and believes that Bitcoin should be regarded as a high beta asset for risk management in the short term.

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov stated that despite the cryptocurrency market's total market capitalization dropping 44% from the historical high of $4.4 trillion in October, this bear market has two essential differences from previous cycles.First, unlike the collapse of crypto lending institutions like FTX in 2022, this downturn has not seen significant institutional failures or systemic risks; there have been no major risk management failures leading to institutional bankruptcies or widespread systemic risks, indicating that the industry is now better equipped to handle volatility. Second, the on-chain RWA tokenization value has grown by 300% over the past 12 months, proving that this innovation has value independent of speculation and is not closely tied to cryptocurrency prices.Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani also mentioned that the current Bitcoin price movement is merely a crisis of confidence, with nothing collapsing. BTSE exchange COO Jeff Mei pointed out that this sell-off is primarily driven by non-crypto catalysts, including concerns over the bursting of the AI tech bubble and the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair, which may tighten liquidity.

Google's global "crypto" search volume is currently hovering near an annual low of 30/100 (with 100 representing the highest search interest), reflecting weak investor sentiment. The total market capitalization of the crypto market has fallen from a historical high of over $4.2 trillion to about $2.4 trillion, and market trading volume has plummeted from $153 billion on January 14 to $87.5 billion on Sunday.The Crypto Fear and Greed Index hit a historical low of 5 last Thursday, and slightly rebounded to 8 on Sunday, still in the extreme fear range. This is the lowest level since the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and its dollar-pegged stablecoin in 2022. At that time, the Terra collapse triggered a wave of liquidations, accelerating the bear market of 2022.

According to Bloomberg, Lesetja Kganyago, the Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, warned at the 2026 Warwick Economic Summit that the increasing popularity of stablecoins poses risks, as these cryptocurrency assets could "collapse."Kganyago emphasized that central banks need to "maintain the integrity of the currency and the public's affordability of money."

Bitcoin has just recorded its largest weekly decline since the FTX collapse at the end of 2022, and the weekly RSI has risen to (or touched) levels above the pressure point following the FTX event. It is important to note that an RSI bottom does not necessarily mean that prices will bottom out simultaneously, but it does indicate that the current market is in a severely oversold condition.

According to Coinglass data, the Bitcoin Ahr999 indicator has dropped to 0.27, significantly below the "buying bottom line" (0.45). The last time this index fell to this level was on June 18, 2022, and again on November 22 of the same year, when the market experienced the "ETH crash liquidation" and "FTX explosion" events, respectively. Looking further back, it can be traced to March 16, 2020, the "316 crash" event.This indicator was created by ahr999 to assist Bitcoin dollar-cost averaging users in making investment decisions based on timing strategies. The indicator implies the short-term return rate of Bitcoin dollar-cost averaging and the deviation of Bitcoin's price from its expected valuation. Historically, the Ahr999 index has been below the buying bottom line (0.45) for 572 days.

According to on-chain analyst Murphy (@Murphychen888), the realized losses of Bitcoin adjusted for entities reached $3.2 billion on February 5. This figure surpasses the scale of losses caused by historical black swan events including the Luna collapse, FTX bankruptcy, and 312/519.

Deutsche Bank stated in a report on Wednesday that the recent decline in Bitcoin is more due to a slow erosion of confidence among institutions and regulators, rather than a single macro shock.The bank believes that three forces are putting pressure on the asset: ongoing institutional capital outflows, the breakdown of traditional market relationships for Bitcoin, and a weakening of regulatory momentum that previously supported liquidity and volatility compression. The report noted that U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs have recorded significant capital outflows since October, with over $7 billion flowing out in November, about $2 billion in December, and over $3 billion in January. The correlation between Bitcoin and stocks and gold has weakened, and its narrative as "digital gold" has been affected, with gold rising over 60% this year while Bitcoin has fallen 6.5%. Additionally, amid the controversy in Congress over stablecoin provisions, bipartisan efforts on the digital asset market CLARITY Act have stalled. Deutsche Bank's survey shows that the cryptocurrency adoption rate among U.S. consumers has dropped from around 17% in mid-2025 to about 12%. Furthermore, Citi pointed out in a report on Tuesday that as inflows slow and resistance increases, Bitcoin's trading price is below the key ETF cost level and is approaching its pre-election price bottom.

Tom Lee stated during the podcast "The Compound" this Thursday that the current bear market was triggered by the largest deleveraging event in crypto history that occurred last October (larger than the FTX collapse): a pricing error on a trading platform triggered a chain of automatic liquidations, resulting in over 2 million accounts being liquidated globally, one-third of market makers being destroyed, and a severe blow to the trading platform's balance sheet, causing the entire ecosystem to "limp."Tom Lee also mentioned that the selling pressure has not completely ended, similar to the recovery in 2022 which took 8-12 weeks, but there are currently no obvious signs of a rebound.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, published a lengthy analysis on social media, warning that the United States is in the fifth stage of his "Big Cycle" theory (the eve of order collapse), with multiple indicators suggesting that society may slide into the sixth stage (civil war and order collapse). His core judgments are based on:Deteriorating finances and conflicts: High government deficits and rising debt, along with historical highs in wealth and value gaps, constitute a "classic deadly combination."Populism and extremism: Increased political polarization, the silencing of moderates, media becoming a tool for partisan struggle, and the "loss of truth" in the public sphere.Escalation of violent incidents: Recent deaths of protesters in Minneapolis and conflicts between federal and state governments are typical signs of transitioning to the sixth stage.Systemic dysfunction: Legal and political systems are increasingly used as weapons in struggles, with rules giving way to the logic of "winning at all costs."Ray Dalio stated that the current situation is highly similar to the early period of order reorganization from 1930 to 1945. If consensus cannot be built through leadership and painful but necessary reforms are not implemented, society may repeat the mistakes of civil war/revolution. Investors and policymakers should recognize the forces of the cycle, promote productivity-oriented reforms (education, infrastructure, research), and replace "zero-sum struggle" with "win-win cooperation" to avoid an irreversible collapse of the system. Although the trajectory is difficult to change, it is still possible and necessary to mitigate conflicts and reshape broad prosperity through wise choices before sliding into the sixth stage.