Bitcoin is going through a “valley of despair” similar to Apple’s in 2013
According to CoinDesk, Strategy founder Michael Saylor compared Bitcoin’s current 45% retracement to Apple’s 2013 decline in a podcast interview. At that time, Apple's stock price fell 45% from its high point, and its price-to-earnings ratio fell below 10 times. The market lost confidence in its future, but it ultimately took seven years to fully recover its valuation with the support of Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett. Saylor believes that any successful technology investment must experience a 45% retracement and the "valley of despair." The Bitcoin retracement has currently lasted 137 days, but may last two, three or even seven years.
Saylor attributed the weakening of volatility in this cycle to structural changes: the shift of derivatives activities from offshore platforms to regulated U.S. markets suppressed two-way fluctuations and compressed a potential 80% retracement to 40-50%. Traditional banks continue to refuse to provide meaningful credit against Bitcoin holdings, forcing some investors into shadow banking or rehypothecation structures, which can create artificial selling pressure during periods of market stress. Regarding the threat of quantum computing, Saylor believes that this is not a short-term risk, and that the actual threat is at least ten years away. By then government, financial, consumer and defense systems will have transitioned to post-quantum cryptography, and Bitcoin software will have been upgraded through global consensus.
More than 400,000 Bitcoins have been accumulated in the range of US$60,000 to US$70,000, forming an intensive cost support area.
According to CoinDesk, Glassnode data shows that during Bitcoin’s recent decline, more than 400,000 BTC were accumulated in the $60,000 to $70,000 range. The supply in this price range has increased from about 997,000 coins on January 1 to about 1.43 million coins currently, an increase of 43%, accounting for more than 8% of the non-exchange circulating supply, forming a dense currency holding cost area.
The analysis is based on Glassnode’s UTXO implemented price distribution metric, which groups the existing supply by the price of each Bitcoin’s last on-chain move, and excludes intra-entity transfers and exchange balances through entity adjustments to more clearly reflect the cost base of real investors. The $70,000 to $80,000 area has previously been described as a "layer of air" and has historically seen thin trading volumes. During this decline, Bitcoin fell from $80,000 to $70,000 in just five days (January 31 to February 5), highlighting how quickly prices can move through low volume areas to denser supply zones below.
PlutonAI completed US$2.7 million in seed and private placement rounds, led by kitchenvc
PlutonAI, a project focusing on DeFAI (Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Finance) on Telegram, completed US$2.7 million in seed and private placement rounds, led by kitchenvc, and received incubation support from HyperGPT. This round of funds will be used for core platform development, ecosystem and agent expansion, and scalable, production-ready AI infrastructure construction. The goal is to create a DeFAI portal driven by intelligent agents and promote real applications and value creation on the chain.
The Smarter Web Company secures $30M credit line from Coinbase to support its Bitcoin strategy
According to TipRanks, the British listed company The Smarter Web Company (code SWC) announced that it has obtained a US$30 million strategic credit line from Coinbase Credit, using its Bitcoin holdings as collateral, with interest only on the amount withdrawn and no fixed maturity date. The facility is designed to enable the company to deploy funds into Bitcoin immediately after completing equity financing, reducing settlement timing risks in volatile markets and supporting its Bitcoin-centric treasury strategy.
Rhythmic, the underlying payment infrastructure for stablecoins, completed a US$4 million seed round of financing, led by Dragonfly and HadickM
Aaron, a former payment and digital asset practitioner, announced that Rhythmic, which he founded, has completed a US$4 million seed round of financing, led by Dragonfly and HadickM, with participation from Mirana, The Fintech Fund and others.
Rhythmic is building a financial infrastructure platform for consumer Internet companies, allowing accounts, stored value, cards and reward systems to be embedded into products in a "native" form, with stablecoins completing fund flow and settlement at the bottom. The user front-end only embodies the concept of "holding balances, receiving rewards, and spending at will" without direct contact with the wallet or "using stable coins". This round of financing will be used to improve the core platform, connect with the first partners, and expand the engineering and compliance teams.
