Over the past week, the market experienced an extreme 'moment of terror': the total network liquidation volume surged to $2.5 billion on January 31st - February 1st, ranking as the 10th largest liquidation event in crypto history, with BTC briefly falling below the 75K mark, touching MicroStrategy's cost basis. Although the market was filled with 'zeroing out' and 'deep bear market' theories shouted by many bloggers and KOLs, from a macro analysis and technological evolution perspective, this is not the end of the bull market, but rather a deep structural adjustment triggered by the resonance of institutional deleveraging and macro risk-off sentiment.
First are the two core protagonists of this liquidation: one is the rumored 10.11 insider whale, allegedly the son of Trump, who was fully liquidated for over $700 million in a single trade on Hyperliquid, with cumulative losses exceeding $128 million since operations began in October 2025. The other is Yi Lihua's Trend Research, which high-profile leveraged built a position in ETH starting from 2700 and has been continuously selling over the past two days to supplement margin, admitting defeat and surrendering. With these two surrendering, the on-field leverage is pretty much cleaned up.
Macro-Level Driving Factors
On the macro level, the partial US government shutdown, Trump's negotiations with Iran, and Russia-Ukraine entering substantive ceasefire talks are all short-term disturbances. But the deeper driver is AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), which will pump the US stock AI sector again (NVIDIA, MSFT, GOOG, etc.). The precious metals sector serves two main purposes: hedging against the decline of the US dollar + hedging geopolitical risk. When these two risks are removed (Russia-Ukraine peace, temporary USD stabilization), gold and silver won't plummet sharply but will enter a stagnant state.
Of course, some views suggest that a certain major mysterious nation's massive purchases of gold are to back the internationalization of the RMB, and purchases of silver are a hard demand for high-tech (photovoltaics, electronics, AI chips). This logic is solid, but it doesn't change the震荡 (zhèndàng - oscillating/volatile) pattern of precious metals in the short term. The crypto market is strongly tied to US stocks. The narrative US stocks can borrow is AI, and this time AGI is particularly crucial. Otherwise, after Russia-Ukraine peace, much capital might withdraw from the US back to Europe, which is bearish for risk assets.
Technical Level, The Underlying Support and Application Landing of the Agent Wave
Then, on the technical level, the most underestimated event in the past two days is the official launch of ERC-8004. This is an Ethereum protocol specifically designed for 'trustless AI agents', providing three main modules: on-chain identity registration, reputation scoring, and a verification registry. Combined with the x402 payment protocol promoted by Coinbase, AI Agents can finally achieve 'trustless discovery, seamless payment, and autonomous collaboration'.
In the past two days, Moltbook (a social network for AI Agents derived from OpenClaw/Clawdbot) has been trending, with millions of Agents socializing, posting, and even creating 'religions' (Crustafarianism). Agent-themed memes like $CLAW, $MOLT, $CLAWNCH on the Base chain surged over 10x in the short term, then corrected, but trading volume and on-chain activity far exceeded traditional memes.
Unlike Shitcoins on BSC, this is not a one-wave炒作 (chǎozuò - hype/speculation), but a signal that the era of Agent applications has truly arrived. The new market cycle will be led by 'technology drive' rather than 'narrative drive'. The Claw concept sector on the Base chain is becoming a testing ground for Agent implementation: low fees, high throughput, native Agent toolchain, avoiding the hollowing-out trap of Solana memes. Emotional narratives still exist, but they lean towards real落地 (luòdì - landing/implementation).
Resonance Effect Between Traditional AI Circle and Crypto Circle
Simultaneously, resonance between the traditional AI circle (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and the crypto circle is happening. The approach of AGI is smoothing out the gap that existed over the past two years between stagnant crypto technology and the traditional tech circle. The arrival of zero technical barriers means vertically integrated market function applications will be widely promoted. The past phenomenon of 'bad money driving out good money' in the crypto circle will change. Because Agent emotional reactions are faster than humans, spread wider, and execute more decisively. Even for memes, humans can't outrun Agent quantitative charges.
The era of micro-quant trading has truly arrived: Agents can monitor 24/7, perform micro-transactions, automatic arbitrage, and social propagation. x402 and ERC-8004 are no longer just narratives; they are entering the application era of a technological explosion. Projects like Virtuals Protocol and the Claw ecosystem on Base will be the first to benefit after this decline. The Claw concept sector belongs to an emerging track: they rise with incremental funds when the大盘 (dàpán - general market) rebounds; they反而 (fǎn'ér - instead) become a避险 (bìxiǎn - risk-off) narrative sector when the market falls. This is also why memes never die; narratives are always iterating.
On-Field Interlude: The Six Major Sects Siege the Bright Summit
Then, besides the great cleansing, the hottest gossip is undoubtedly the infighting among CEXs. After Cathie Wood (木头姐 Mùtou jiě) fired shots at Binance during a Fox Business live broadcast, directly pointing out that 10.111's culprit was Binance, it caused an uproar and骂声 (màshēng - cursing/swearing) in the overseas community. Subsequently, OKX founder Star Xu posted long threads, accusing Binance of using USDe's 12% high-yield marketing + zero risk control margin循环放大 (xúnhuàn fàngdà -循环循环 recycling amplification) leverage, which led to a chain liquidation 'more severe than FTX'. The public opinion suppressed by 10.11 erupted, followed by collective condemnation from the entire crypto circle. It was indeed a scene of the six major sects besieging the Bright Summit, quite a spectacle.
Referencing Lei Jun's (雷布斯 Léi bùsī) years of dominating through fever fans, hunger marketing,刷屏 (shuāpíng - screen flooding), and cost-performance narrative; once technological iteration arrived, the traffic红利 (hónglì - dividend) faded, all the suppressed technical doubts反弹 (fǎndàn - rebounded).
The crypto circle is the same. Those deeply bound with Agents will have the advantage of proximity when the technology narrative returns.
Final Thoughts
Regarding whether to buy the dip, my view is simple: if you didn't buy at 80k last time, you might slap your thigh seeing 98k, but feel庆幸 (qìngxìng - relieved/fortunate) seeing 75k; but as Livermore said, to know if you win or lose, you have to place a bet to find out.
Spot + long-term holding of technology narrative assets is the correct solution to穿越周期 (chuānyuè zhōuqī - traverse cycles).
This Agent wave is the most certain Alpha opportunity in the past five years.
