Market Overview On February 1, the market navigated major macro events, including the FOMC meeting and the confirmation of the Federal Reserve Chair nomination. Following a period of medium-term strength, precious metals experienced a sharp decline. Their future trajectory is poised to significantly impact short-term capital flows and warrants close attention.

Macro Week Ahead

Monday:

US January S&P Global Manufacturing PMI (Final), US January ISM Manufacturing PMI;

Bank of Japan Summary of Opinions from the January Monetary Policy Meeting.

Tuesday:

US December JOLTs Job Openings; Speeches by 2027 FOMC Voting Member and Atlanta Fed President Bostic; Speech by Fed Governor Bowman.

Wednesday:

US API and EIA Crude Oil Stockpiles for the week ending Jan 30; France, Germany, Eurozone, UK January Services PMI (Final);

Eurozone January CPI (YoY) Preliminary, Eurozone January CPI (MoM) Preliminary, Eurozone December PPI (MoM); US January ADP Employment Change, US January S&P Global Services PMI (Final), US January ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI.

Thursday:

US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending Jan 31, US January Global Supply Chain Pressure Index;

2027 FOMC Voting Member and Atlanta Fed President Bostic participates in a conversation and Q&A on monetary policy.

Friday:

US January Unemployment Rate, US January Non-Farm Payrolls (Seasonally Adjusted);

US 2025 Benchmark Revision to Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted); US February 1-Year Inflation Expectations (Preliminary); US February University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Preliminary).

Top 10 Market Signals

1. Global Assets Under Pressure: BTC has dropped over 8% in the last 3 days, nearing April 2025 lows, while ETH fell nearly 20%. Spot gold plunged 9.25% last Friday (dropping over 12% at one point), marking the largest single-day drop in 40 years; spot silver crashed 26.42% (plummeting over 36% intraday), setting a record for the largest daily drop in history.

2. US Government Shutdown: The US federal government entered a technical partial shutdown on January 31 after the House adjourned without timely processing appropriations bills, causing some federal agencies to pause operations and furloughing non-essential employees.

3. Fed Chair Nomination: US President Trump announced the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Warsh served as a Fed Governor from 2006 to 2011 and has a background involving both the White House and Morgan Stanley.

4. Binance Reserve Strategy: Binance announced it will gradually convert the $1 billion stablecoin reserve in its SAFU fund into Bitcoin over 30 days. If the market value drops below $800 million, additional Bitcoin will be added to restore the $1 billion level.

5. Visa Stablecoin Growth: Visa disclosed its stablecoin settlement volume has reached an annualized rate of approximately $4.6 billion, a 4.6x increase since September 2025, and has expanded USDC settlement capabilities to the US domestic market to boost institutional efficiency.

6. Circle 2026 Roadmap: Circle released its 2026 product plan, focusing on the Arc public chain to advance enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure, expanding usage of digital assets like USDC and USYC, and developing payment networks and StableFX to accelerate stablecoin integration into mainstream finance.

7. Hong Kong Regulation: Hong Kong continues to advance virtual asset regulation. The "Stablecoin Ordinance" has come into effect, and the HKMA is processing fiat stablecoin issuer license applications, with other trading and custody regulatory regimes to be submitted to the Legislative Council this year.

8. RWA Fusion Accelerates: The convergence of crypto and real-world assets is speeding up. Stablecoin market cap exceeded $300 billion, tokenized funds surpassed $15 billion, tokenized US Treasuries topped $10 billion, and other tokenized asset classes hit new highs.

9. Sovereign Fund Exposure: The crypto-related indirect exposure of Norway's Government Pension Fund Global reached approximately 9,573 BTC in 2025 through holdings in crypto-linked public companies, a year-on-year increase of about 149%.

10. On-Chain User Surge: The number of on-chain RWA holders has grown nearly 10-fold over the past year, currently approaching 800,000, and is on track to break 1 million within months at the current pace.