Last Night's Market Recap: Despite Several Twists and Turns, US-EU Manage to Resume Negotiations, Bitcoin Hits New Bear Market Low, Nasdaq Falls 1.5% Dragging Down Crypto Stocks

Feb. 5 — The U.S. and Iran had previously agreed to hold talks in Istanbul on Friday, with other Middle Eastern nations participating as observers. On Tuesday, however, Iran said it wanted to shift the venue to Oman and hold bilateral talks focused solely on its nuclear program. U.S. officials initially signaled openness to the venue change but later rejected the request. Subsequently, at least nine Middle Eastern countries reached out to the White House via diplomatic channels to urge the Trump administration not to carry out its threat to withdraw from the talks. The final nuclear negotiations are set for 10 a.m. local time Friday in Muscat, Oman’s capital (2 p.m. Beijing time, Feb. 6). Bitcoin hit a new bear market low twice early Wednesday (local time) — likely amid U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiation turmoil — dropping to as low as $71,888 before falling further to $71,680 at press time. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1.5%, with AMD (AMD.O) down 17.3%, Tesla (TSLA.O) off nearly 4%, and Nvidia (NVDA.O) dropping more than 3%. Crypto-related stocks also tumbled in sync: Coinbase (COIN) fell 6.14%, Bitmine (BMNR) 9.17%, BTCS Inc (BTCS) 11.74%, and Trump family-backed ALT5 Sigma (ALTS) 18.1%. Coinglass data shows $537 million in total liquidations across the entire crypto network in the past 12 hours, including $436 million in long positions and $101 million in short positions.