Early morning! All markets plummeted with over 430,000 liquidations! US stocks, gold, silver, Bitcoin, and oil all crashed.

Financial markets encounter a widespread sell-off.

On February 6th, early morning Beijing time, the cryptocurrency market experienced a “crash-like” plunge. As of 06:30 Beijing time, Bitcoin dropped over 12% intraday, Ethereum fell more than 13%. CoinGlass data shows that over 430,000 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the US stock market and precious metals markets also suffered a full-scale decline. Spot silver once plunged over 20%, spot gold dropped more than 4%. The three major US stock indices all closed down over 1%, with the Nasdaq experiencing its worst three-day sell-off since April last year. Analysts point out that, in addition to concerns triggered by the AI (artificial intelligence) shockwave, weak US employment data has also caused the sell-off to spread across the entire market.

Additionally, international oil prices also declined sharply. WTI crude oil futures closed down 2.84%, at $63.29 per barrel; Brent crude futures fell 2.75%, to $67.55.

Cryptocurrency Market “Crash-Like” Decline

During Thursday’s US stock trading hours, the cryptocurrency market collapsed across the board. Bitcoin accelerated its decline to around $63,000. As of 06:30 Beijing time, the intraday drop widened to 12.81%, at $63,860.8 per coin; Ethereum plummeted 13.1%, XRP dropped over 22%, SOL and Dogecoin fell more than 14%, BNB declined over 12%.

Since reaching its peak in October last year, Bitcoin’s price has fallen more than 48% in total, currently hovering near the price level of October 2024. Its total market capitalization has also shrunk significantly, from a peak of $2.48 trillion to $1.27 trillion.

CoinGlass data shows that over 430,000 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total liquidation amounting to $2.069 billion (about 14.4 billion RMB).

Wenny Cai, COO of SynFutures, pointed out that the scale of liquidation is huge, and market sentiment has shifted toward risk aversion. Price movements are now more driven by balance sheet mechanisms rather than narrative logic.

Analysts believe that behind this round of sharp decline are the nearly simultaneous breakdown of Bitcoin’s upward momentum, market narratives, and the “safe-haven asset” label.

Ilan Solot, Senior Global Market Strategist at Marex Solutions, said: This basically reflects the current market’s bearish sentiment. Bitcoin’s recent failure to serve as a safe haven is also one of the reasons.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, after recording a net inflow of about $562 million on Monday, over $800 million flowed out of Bitcoin ETFs in the following two trading days. CryptoQuant’s report on Wednesday indicated that the US ETF that bought 46,000 Bitcoin last year has turned into a net seller by 2026.

Shiliang Tang, Managing Partner at Monarq Asset Management, said that the cryptocurrency market is experiencing a “confidence crisis.” Considering that the current US government has promised to strengthen its leadership in digital assets, the $70,000 level is seen as an important psychological threshold.

Therefore, some market observers suggest that once the $70,000 level is broken, it could trigger a larger-scale sell-off in the short term.

Currently, contracts on the prediction platform Polymarket show an 82% probability that Bitcoin will fall below $65,000 this year. Some traders are even betting on worse outcomes, with the probability of Bitcoin dropping below $55,000 rising to about 60%.

US Stock Market Suffered a Full-Scale Sell-Off

Meanwhile, overnight, the US stock and precious metals markets also experienced intense selling.

The three major US stock indices all opened lower and continued to decline. By the close, the Nasdaq fell 1.59%, marking its most severe three-day sell-off since April last year; the S&P 500 dropped 1.23%, and the Dow Jones declined 1.2%.

Most large tech stocks in the US also fell sharply. Amazon and Microsoft both dropped over 4%, Tesla declined more than 2%, Nvidia fell over 1%, while Apple and Google closed slightly lower; TSMC ADR rose over 1% against the trend, with Meta and Broadcom posting small gains.

Software stocks in the US also faced heavy selling again. FactSet Research Systems Inc. stock once plunged over 10%, Thomson Reuters fell over 5%, hitting a new intraday low since March 2020; stocks of S&P Global Inc., Moody’s Corp., and Nasdaq Inc. also declined significantly.

On the news front, the US AI star company Anthropic, which triggered this week’s software stock sell-off, launched an AI model called Claude Opus4.6 on Thursday. It can quickly analyze company data, regulatory documents, and market information, with significant upgrades in programming and multitasking capabilities.

Additionally, weak employment data dampened market bullish sentiment. According to data from employment agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas, US employers announced 108,435 layoffs in January, the highest “January layoffs” since the 2008 financial crisis.

Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, said: “It’s noteworthy that these layoffs occurred while GDP was still growing at about 4%, which accelerated the decoupling of employment and economic growth—if this phenomenon continues, it will have profound economic, political, and social impacts.”

Meanwhile, US Department of Labor data shows that the weekly initial jobless claims as of January 31 also exceeded expectations. Additionally, job vacancies in December 2025 fell to the lowest level since September 2020.

The precious metals markets also suffered a heavy blow. Spot silver plunged over 19%, and spot gold fell more than 3%. Both commodities are still searching for a bottom after experiencing historic sell-offs last Friday.

After a new round of sharp declines, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) issued an emergency notice again, announcing adjustments to margin requirements (Outright Rates) for some gold, silver, and aluminum futures contracts. The document shows that the new margin requirement for gold has been raised to 9%, and for silver to 18%. The new standards will take effect after the market close on February 6th local time.

(Source: Securities Times)