Crypto’s Long, Hard Fall This Winter

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4.1 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2026

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

P.M. Edition for Feb. 5. Even as stocks have been on a tear in recent months, the price of bitcoin has fallen, today closing below $64,000, its lowest level in more than a year. Journal reporter Vicky Ge Huang talks about why investors seem to have soured on bitcoin and crypto. Plus, the latest batch of Epstein files has led to political pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and led Brad Karp, leader of the law firm Paul Weiss, to step down as chair of the firm. We hear from WSJ national legal affairs reporter Erin Mulvaney about what his resignation means for Paul Weiss. And the government’s January jobs report may be delayed because of the government shutdown, but other sources of data indicate it probably wasn’t a great month for the labor market. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How are the U.S. businesses of Philip Morris International invested in America?
0:05.0	We're invested in advancing science, giving adults who smoke better options.
0:10.0	We're invested in American manufacturing, helping local economies thrive.
0:15.0	We're invested in community, supporting military veterans and their families,
0:19.0	disaster relief, and economic empowerment.
0:22.5	Because we're proud to be invested in America.
0:25.9	See how at uspMI.com.
0:33.5	Bitcoin hits its lowest price in more than a year.
0:36.8	What's driving its fall?
0:37.9	That's the narrative that it's supposed to be this digital gold, that it would perform better than gold.
0:44.3	But the reality is that it just has not acted like a hedge against inflation and has underperformed gold.
0:50.7	Plus, big tech companies like Google and METa plan to spend billions on AI this year.
0:56.1	Investors are having mixed feelings. And the latest batch of Epstein files shakes up UK politics
1:02.2	and an elite U.S. law firm. It's Thursday, February 5th. I'm Alex Oslov for the Wall Street Journal.
1:09.0	This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
1:18.5	Big tech companies are announcing big AI spending plans. Meta said last week that it would spend up to $135 billion on capital expenditures this year. And yesterday,
1:29.7	Google Parent Alphabet said it was planning to spend as much as $185 billion, about double last year.
1:36.4	Investors have their doubts. WSJ heard on the street columnist Dan Gallagher joins me now with more.
1:42.9	Dan, I just laid out these eye-popping numbers for
1:45.6	KAPX spending this year. Is it all going to the building out of AI? Well, most of it is, yes.
1:50.9	Especially with Google and what they said on their earnings call is like, yeah, the bulk of it goes to
1:56.4	essentially the AI infrastructure. And a lot of it goes to specifically the chips and the servers
	...

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