This week, the global cryptocurrency market plunged into a state of deep pessimism, with the Fear and Greed Index hitting a multi-year low, falling to a critical 5. Massive sell-offs of digital assets by institutional players and government agencies triggered panic among private investors, increasing pressure on the prices of major cryptocurrencies. Despite localized surges in activity in individual altcoins, the overall market situation remains extremely tense amid macroeconomic uncertainty and tightened regulatory oversight.

Monday set an alarming tone for the entire week: Bitcoin mining difficulty plummeted by 11% following a recent recalculation, indicating a mass shutdown of mining equipment due to low profitability. Meanwhile, the largest public miners continued to aggressively reduce their reserves, recording losses to maintain operations. Against this gloomy backdrop, only technological news stood out—the launch of an advanced AI bot in popular messaging apps capable of generating multimedia content based on text queries, confirming the continued interest in integrating neural networks into the digital environment.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought important news in the legal and institutional spheres. The Russian State Duma passed a law officially recognizing digital currency as property in criminal proceedings, simplifying the procedure for its seizure and arrest by law enforcement. Meanwhile, a scandal erupted in South Korea: parliamentarians warned of the risk of a market collapse due to the abnormal concentration of assets on major exchanges and their close ties to projects like World Liberty Financial. However, Wednesday gave investors cause for local optimism—the UNI token soared 40% on news of the launch of initiatives to redistribute protocol fees, and experts from BitMine predicted the emergence of new financial institutions based on the audience of top video bloggers.

By the end of the week, market pressure only intensified: Thursday marked a capitulation, with major banks sharply cutting their BTC and ETH forecasts, anticipating further capital outflows from spot ETFs. Friday brought elements of espionage and geopolitics to the news, as Israeli intelligence agencies launched an investigation into reservists who used military secrets to manipulate prediction markets. The week ended with alarming news about a 400 BTC decline in Bhutan's Bitcoin reserves and the mysterious withdrawal of old, confiscated coins from cold government wallets, further highlighting the vulnerability of even the most secure storage facilities in the current climate.