February 26, according to The Kobeissi Letter, the put/call ratio of the Nasdaq 100 index has risen to 1.2, the highest level since the 2022 bear market low, representing investors hedging against tech stocks. This surpassed the peak in April 2025 and any other reading in the past 12 years, excluding 2022 when the ratio reached 2.3.Furthermore, the total put/call ratio of the S&P 500 index has risen to 0.9, the highest level since April 2025. This aligns with levels seen during market pullbacks of 3-5% since early 2024.Additionally, the current put option trading volume, measured in dollars, is the second-largest increase in nearly two years compared to the call option trading volume, second only to levels seen before April 2025.

February 21st, according to HyperInsight monitoring, the "Silver Head Iron Army" (0x61cee) once again entered the market shorting 5000 ETH ($9.88 million), entry price $1,968.97, currently at a floating loss of $36,000. They also shorted 50 BTC ($3.4 million), entry price $67,727.5, currently at a floating loss of $16,000.This address is firmly bearish on silver, having previously closed a long-held silver short position at a loss of $4.79 million.

February 21st, according to Onchain Lens monitoring, a whale that has been dormant for 5 years deposited 1,000 BTC to Bitfinex (about $67.64 million), realizing a profit of approximately $38.35 million.The address originally spent about $29.28 million to withdraw this batch of Bitcoin from Bitstamp and FTX.

February 21, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated in a post on the X platform, "Coinbase custodies over 80% of all US BTC and ETH ETF assets and hit a peak of $31 billion in ETF asset net inflows in 2025. Coinbase is currently a partner to numerous ETF providers, including large financial institutions and government entities. Coinbase regularly conducts penetration tests with top cryptographers, holds multiple relevant technical patents, and undergoes continuous security reviews."

February 21, Cryptocurrency analyst Michaël van de Poppe posted that "Bitcoin's recent pullback has led to a significant surge in current realized losses, reaching a historical high. This is one of the largest realized loss events in Bitcoin's history, comparable to the 2018 bear market crash, the March 2020 COVID-19 plunge, and the loss peak during the 2022 Luna/FTX collapse."A large number of holders are engaging in capitulation-style selling, either panic selling or transferring their BTC while at a loss. This extreme realization of losses typically signifies market panic selling and forced liquidations. Historically, similar significant spikes in realized losses often occur near or at interim bottoms because it represents the clearing out of "weak hands" and highly leveraged positions.It is worth noting that the Sharpe Ratio has dropped to the lowest level since the last bottom; the market is undergoing a massive capitulation event with a very high scale of realized losses; market sentiment is nearly at rock bottom. The only difference is that this round of Bitcoin has dropped only about 50% from its all-time high, not 80%. The bottom is near."

February 21st. In response to today's circulating IoTeX token security incident, the IoTeX team has issued an official announcement stating that they have intervened in a timely manner and the current situation is under control. Initial assessments indicate that potential losses are far lower than rumored. The official statement indicates that they have collaborated with multiple major exchanges to track and freeze the hacker's assets. Further developments will be announced in a timely manner, reminding users to rely on official information.Prior to this, on-chain analyst Specter tweeted that they had discovered suspicious activity related to IoTeX token security.

February 21st: The probability of "Bitcoin rebounding to $75,000 in February" on Polymarket has dropped to 17%. Furthermore, the probability of rising to $80,000 is 3%, and the probability of falling to $60,000 is 14%.

February 21st, according to HTX market data, YGG surged over 21% in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $0.0484.

February 21st, on-chain analyst Specter posted that IoTeX may have experienced a private key leak incident, with its token treasury assets fully drained by an attacker, resulting in a total loss of approximately $4.3 million.On-chain data shows that the attacker transferred multiple token assets, including USDC, USDT, IOTX, PAYG, WBTC, and BUSD. Subsequently, the stolen assets were exchanged for ETH, with around 45 ETH then bridged to the Bitcoin network.Furthermore, 111 million CIOTEX tokens were minted at the address starting with 0xA46.

February 21st, according to Coinglass data, if Bitcoin breaks through $69,000, the total short liquidation intensity of mainstream CEXs will reach $864 million.Conversely, if Bitcoin falls below $67,000, the total long liquidation intensity of mainstream CEXs will reach $419 million.BlockBeats Note: The liquidation chart does not show the exact number of contracts awaiting liquidation or the exact value of contracts being liquidated. The bars on the liquidation chart actually represent the importance of each liquidation cluster relative to neighboring liquidation clusters, i.e., intensity.Therefore, the liquidation chart shows to what extent the price of the underlying asset will be affected when it reaches a certain level. A higher "liquidation bar" indicates that the price will experience a more intense reaction due to a liquidity cascade once it reaches that level.

February 21st, the DFINITY Foundation stated in a post that the "Internet Computer economic model is changing: the old model rewarded node providers for simply running a node. The new model will distribute 80% of the Cloud Engine revenue to nodes that provide computing power support, with 20% used to burn ICP tokens.Currently, the Node Providers Association has started preparations to promote Cloud Engine services to enterprises across Europe."

February 21, VanEck released the mid-February 2026 Bitcoin On-Chain Report. The report pointed out that "BTC continues to decline, market sentiment weakens: In the past 30 days, Bitcoin has fallen by 29%, pushing the NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss) indicator close to the 'Anxiety' zone, and at one point entering the 'Fear' zone. At the same time, leverage has been reset, and the open interest of futures contracts has fallen to the level last seen in September 2024.Mid-term holders lead distribution, but selling pressure is slowing: Realized selling still mostly concentrated in the 1 to 5-year holder group, but over the past month, the distribution speed of holders over 1 year has significantly slowed down.Miner profitability under pressure, hashrate shrinking: In the past 90 days, the network's hashrate has dropped by about 14%, reflecting a tightening mining economy. Similar historical scenarios have often foreshadowed a stronger subsequent return for Bitcoin."

February 21st, according to GMGN monitoring, the on-chain Solana Meme coin Lobstar's market cap continued to rise today, reaching a high point of over $15 million before falling back, currently at $10.6 million, a 579% increase in the last 24 hours, with a 24-hour trading volume of $28.4 million.BlockBeats reminds users that Meme coin trading is highly volatile, heavily influenced by market sentiment and speculative hype, with no real value or use case. Investors should be aware of the risks.

February 21st, the latest Kitco News weekly gold survey showed that bullish sentiment among Wall Street's gold is dominant again, while retail investors have maintained a modestly bullish mainstream attitude for the third consecutive week. Rich Checkan, President and Chief Operating Officer of Asset Strategies International, said that there has been no fundamental change in the gold market to support the previous pullback, and it is clear that this is just a short-term correction. This is healthy, and the upward price trend should resume soon.Darin Newsom, Senior Market Analyst at Barchart.com, said that with the Supreme Court rejecting Trump's tariff policy, he may be in a bad mood this weekend, increasing the likelihood of military action. Adrian Day, President of Adrian Day Asset Management, said that it appears that we have likely reached the low point after the January sell-off, and gold is clearly rebounding. No one is willing to sell before the weekend due to concerns that the US may take action against Iran, so if the situation does not escalate, gold may experience a slight pullback on Monday, but the short-term recovery trend is already evident. (FX678)

February 21, according to Coinglass data, Coinbase's Bitcoin Premium Index has been in a negative premium for 37 consecutive days, currently at -0.0523%, exceeding the approximately 30 days of consecutive negative premium during the '1011 Crash'.The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index is used to measure the difference between the Bitcoin price on Coinbase and the global market average price. A negative premium usually indicates a large selling pressure in the U.S. market, a decreased investor risk appetite, increasing market risk aversion sentiment, or capital outflows.

February 21, according to data from ultrasound.money, since Ethereum completed the merge upgrade, its circulation has increased by more than 950,000 ETH. Currently, the total Ethereum supply is around 121.5 million ETH, with an annual inflation rate of about 0.23%.

February 21st. According to analyst Darkfost, a dynamic factor that had been suppressing Bitcoin demand is gradually shifting since the beginning of the year. On December 18th, Bitcoin's monthly cumulative on-chain demand dropped to a low of -154,000 BTC. Since then, demand has been gradually improving and has recently returned to positive territory, at around +1,200 BTC. This reversal marks the end of nearly three months of continuous negative demand and this phase has been largely responsible for the subdued price action observed so far.The analysis points out that with the decrease in selling pressure and signs of demand improvement, Bitcoin is finally starting to send out constructive signals, provided that this trend continues over the next few weeks.Note: On-chain demand is defined as the daily block reward minus changes in the supply inactive for over a year and is used to measure whether long-term holders are effectively absorbing newly issued bitcoins.

February 21, according to Polymarket data, the probability of Bitcoin hitting $55,000 by the year 2026 is as high as 73%, while the probability of it reaching $100,000 is only 38%.

February 21st, according to on-chain platform Santiment data, since Bitcoin hit a record high in October last year, the holdings of small wallets holding less than 0.1 BTC (usually considered retail investors) have increased by about 2.5%, with their supply reaching the highest level since mid-2024. In contrast, the overall holdings of Bitcoin "whales" (whales and sharks) holding 10 to 10,000 BTC have decreased by about 0.8%. This structural differentiation often leads to volatile price fluctuations and prevents the formation of a clear trend.The current Bitcoin price is mostly fluctuating around the $60,000 mark. Market views indicate that retail buying pressure can provide a certain "bottom support" to the market and bring short-term momentum. However, to establish a sustainable rebound, large holders need to stop distributing and even switch to net accumulation. Analysis suggests that Bitcoin is currently not lacking retail participation; the key is whether whales will stop selling pressure and shift to structural buying. Otherwise, each rebound may face the risk of being sold at high levels.

February 21st, NBA retired star Scottie Pippen shared a Bitcoin futures chart, comparing the 2020 bull market start to the current pattern, implying a similar surge is about to occur.Pippen has previously made several crypto-friendly remarks and claimed to have met Satoshi Nakamoto himself in 1993.