Polymarket Predicts 78% Probability of "Bitcoin Falling to $65K by 2026"

February 4 — Bitwise Asset Management, a cryptocurrency asset manager, is acquiring Chorus One, an institutional-grade staking service provider for decentralized networks. Both firms confirmed the deal but did not disclose financial terms. Chorus One currently oversees roughly $2.2 billion in staked assets under management (AUM). Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley noted staking is “one of the most compelling growth opportunities” for clients holding spot crypto assets.

February 4 Per incomplete data from L2Beat, there are roughly 135 active Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) networks today. Of these, 109 have a daily average User Operations Per Second (UOPS) of less than 1. ### Ethereum Mainnet The Ethereum mainnet logged a daily UOPS of 29.94 over the past 24 hours, with a recent peak of 33.59 on January 16, 2026. ### Key L2 Networks (Daily UOPS & All-Time Peaks) - Base: 144.04 | Peak = 213.14 (Nov 18, 2025) - Polygon: 81.49 | Peak = 190 (Nov 16, 2023) - Arbitrum: 60.13 | Peak = 69.35 (Sep 25, 2025) - Optimism (OP): 28.71 | Peak = 33.81 (Oct 10, 2025) ### Notable L2s with Daily UOPS < 1 Among the 109 low-UOPS networks, prominent ones include: ApeChain (0.73), Linea (0.73), Blast (0.67), Mantle (0.54), Manta (0.52), ZKsync Era (0.46), Metis (0.28), Hemi (0.1), Sophon (0.08), Zora (0.07), ZKFair (0.06), Aevo (0.05), Degen Chain (0.04), Polygon zkEVM (0.04), Redstone (< 0.01), Loopring (< 0.01)

**Bitcoin Update (Feb. 4)** Per HTX market data, Bitcoin dipped below $73,000 in early trading this morning—falling beneath the strategy’s average cost basis of $76,052 for a second time. It has since rebounded above $76,000, last trading at $76,650. The strategy’s Bitcoin holdings currently show an unrealized gain of 0.78%, equivalent to approximately $427 million. As of Feb. 1, 2026, the strategy holds 713,502 BTC, with a total acquisition cost of roughly $54.26 billion (or ~$76,052 per BTC on average).

On February 4, per data from Coinbob Popular Address Monitor, Hyperliquid ecosystem early contributor Loracle opened 20x leveraged short positions totaling $56 million on BTC and ETH—both currently showing floating losses. The address also placed an ETH short order worth ~$6.6 million in the $2,400-$2,440 range (unfilled). Additionally, amid a rally in spot gold prices, it opened a 10x leveraged long position on PAXG (the on-chain gold token). **Key Position Details**: - HYPE (5x Long): ~$49.67M size, avg entry $24.37, floating profit ~$13.63M (+137%) - ETH (20x Short): ~$29.49M size, avg entry ~$2,207, floating loss ~$0.93M (-64%) - BTC (20x Short): ~$27.08M size, avg entry ~$74,467, floating loss ~$0.737M (-56%) - PAXG (10x Long): ~$3.02M size, avg entry ~$4,985, floating profit ~$0.063M (+20%) Total position size grew from $50M to $110M vs. yesterday. The HYPE long’s floating profit retreated ~$6M from yesterday’s level. The large BTC/ETH shorts likely hedge its

On February 4, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a message stating that with notable advancements in Ethereum’s mainnet (L1) scaling and gas limit plans, Layer 2 (L2) solutions originally framed as a scaling strategy via rollups are no longer necessary. L2s cannot fully deliver on the “rollups as a scaling strategy” promise, and some projects may remain in Phase 1 permanently to meet user compliance needs. Thus, L2s should be repositioned away from solely prioritizing scaling, and instead offer unique value-add features: privacy-centric virtual machines, application-specific efficiency gains, extreme scalability, design for social, identity, AI, and other non-financial use cases, plus low latency or native oracles. Reactions in the Ethereum community to Buterin’s L2 perspective are split. On one side, some users agree with this shift, arguing the L2 narrative was an attempt to paper over L1’s scaling shortcomings and that L1’s progress has rendered L2 redundant. They als

**Feb 4** Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted yesterday (Feb 3) that slow Layer 1 (L1) self-improvement and sluggish Layer 2 (L2) development mean the original vision for L2 and its role in Ethereum is no longer viable—calling for a new path and positioning. This isn’t the first time Vitalik has walked back a previously championed part of Ethereum’s roadmap, especially around scalability. - **2017–2018 Plasma Push**: Vitalik touted Plasma (a sidechain/childchain solution) as L2’s backbone, lauding its high throughput and security, with a top spot on the roadmap. But Plasma hit real-world roadblocks (data availability gaps, exit complexity). By 2020–2021, he noted Plasma “is not as practical as Rollups in most cases,” and the roadmap demoted it to a “research direction” (not core). - **2017 “Full Node Fantasy” U-turn**: In ~2017, Vitalik called regular users fully verifying Ethereum’s entire history a “fantasy” on Twitter. In early 2026, he reversed course—framing 2026 a