Data & Insights: BTC Below Saylor Cost Basis; Moltbook Crypto

Sayl(or)-ing The Storm

• Bitcoin momentarily fell to under $75,000 over the weekend, its lowest level since April 2025 and a 40% decline from October's all-time high.
  • The move pushed BTC below Strategy's average cost basis of approximately $76,037 per coin, which is the first time the company's BTC position has traded underwater since October 2023.
• The weekend sell-off followed President Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair on Friday.
  • Polymarket odds for Warsh had surged to over 90% based on rumors prior to the official announcement, triggering a broad risk-off move across crypto, equities, and precious metals, which continued into the weekend. The dollar also spiked higher in response.
  • This may be because markets view Warsh as more hawkish than other candidates.
• Weekend liquidity exacerbated the damage in crypto, as over $3 billion in long crypto positions were liquidated since Friday.
  • Meanwhile, Ethereum also momentarily fell to under $2,200, erasing the entirety of its gains that stemmed from Bitmine Immersion’s DAT-led pump from July 2025.
  • Another notable casualty of the liquidation event was Garrett Jin, whose sizable ETH long positions on Hyperliquid were liquidated amid the crash.

Who wants to be a Moltbook mod? 

• Base network's 7-day moving average (7DMA) transaction count rose to 10.5 million on January 31, up more than 15% from just three days prior.
  • The spike coincided with the viral launch of Moltbook, an AI agent social network that went live on January 28 and immediately spawned a flurry of Base-native tokens from memecoins to utility projects.
  • Moltbook operates as a "Reddit for AI agents"—a platform where autonomous AI assistants (built on the Clawd/OpenClaw/Moltbot framework) post, interact, and self-govern while humans can only observe.
  • Within 72 hours of launch, tens of thousands of AI agents had registered on the platform, catching the attention of notable tech figureheads such as Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen and Naval Ravikant, among others. 
• The onchain activity on Base stems from token speculation tied to projects around the Moltbook ecosystem.
  • Several Base-native tokens reached market caps exceeding $50 million over the weekend, and the official Moltbook X account began interacting with them as well.
  • Many of these tokens were launched via BankrBot, a token deployment tool on Base.
  • The activity represents a distinct pattern from Base's November transaction peak, which was primarily driven by Zora creator coins, whereas the current uptick is narrower, concentrated on AI agent infrastructure.

Hyperliquid.

• Hyperliquid facilitated over $208 billion in perpetual futures volume in January 2026, capturing 5.38% of total centralized exchanges (CEXs) perpetual volume
  • This represents its highest market share on record by volume, surpassing the previous peak of 5.36% set in August 2025.
  • The platform's share gains came despite CEXs recording $3.88 trillion in January perpetual volume, which was relatively flat month over month.
  • This implies that Hyperliquid's growth reflects structural migration of speculative flow toward onchain venues rather than a broader expansive growth of the overall derivatives market.
• A disconnect also persists between Hyperliquid's operational metrics and its token price.
  • HYPE currently trades around $27–$31, down over 50% from its September 2025 all-time high.
  • During August 2025, when Hyperliquid last achieved similar market share ratios in terms of volume against CEXs, HYPE was trading above $45.
  • This volume also does not take into account the recent exponential rise in HIP-3 volumes derived from trade.xyz, which enables users to trade commodities and equities on Hyperliquid, and has gained significant activity amid recent volatility in the metals market.

Pedal to the Metal

• Tether Gold (XAUT) total value locked (TVL) hit $3.46 billion on February 1, a new all-time high, up from $2.57 billion just the day prior. This 35% single-day increase reflected gold's highly volatile intraday fluctuations.
  • Paxos Gold (PAXG) peaked at $2.32 billion on January 30 before pulling back to $2.11 billion on February 1.
• The extreme volatility mirrors the underlying metals market. Gold futures dropped as low as ~$4,400 per ounce on Monday’s Asian trading session—a 40% decline from Thursday’s record highs.
  • Silver has suffered an even more dramatic 40% collapse since, trading as low as ~$72 an ounce.
  • Similar to what caused the crypto liquidation cascade on Friday, the sell-off in metals was triggered by the Kevin Warsh Fed chair nomination, which markets interpreted as signaling tighter monetary policy ahead.
  • Warsh's reputation for fiscal discipline and preference for higher real rates undermined the bullish case for non-yielding assets such as gold and silver.
• Combined XAUT and PAXG TVL now stand at over $5.5 billion, up over 40% from $3.88 billion at the start of January.
  • As of the time of writing, both Gold and Silver's year-to-date performances remain positive, up approximately 7% and 8%, respectively, for January 2026.

Phantom of the Appstore

• Phantom wallet climbed to rank #3 in the US App Store utilities category as of late January, up from #249 just the month before.
  • The app peaked at #3 on January 21 before falling back to #25 by the end of the month, representing a 224-position improvement over the past five weeks.
  • The ranking spike correlates with renewed Solana ecosystem activity. The week of January 20 marked a local high in SOL-related speculation, with Phantom being the dominant non-custodial wallet for Solana, benefiting from user onboarding for speculative memecoin trading.
  • The app hitting its lowest ranking (#249) also coincided with the holiday lull during Christmas, when onchain activity contracted.
• Phantom's trajectory currently mirrors its November 2024 surge, albeit on a much smaller scale
  • At that time, the app reached #6 overall in the App Store and #1 in utilities during the peak of Solana's memecoin mania.
  • That episode saw Phantom flip TikTok, WhatsApp, and Instagram in the overall free app rankings, a signal that crypto wallet adoption had pierced mainstream consciousness.
    With the wallet now having over 15 million monthly active users and processing billions in swap volume annually, it has become a reliable barometer of retail crypto engagement.
    This makes Phantom similar to the Coinbase app as a retail sentiment indicator, where the latter’s position in the top 10 rankings has often preceded local market tops in prior cycles.