📉 Market Dips, Mood Shifts

Bitcoin slid again toward $66,000, and the altcoin market followed — pressure is clearly back. But the most memorable moment came not from the charts.

🍟 Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, showed he’s mentally ready for a bear market. At the Consensus event in Hong Kong, he appeared on stage wearing a McDonald’s uniform, turning market stress into a viral performance.

His message was blunt and symbolic:

“Shit is getting real.” 😁

Crypto Custody Failure in South Korea 🇰🇷

Police in Gangnam District have reportedly lost 22 BTC confiscated back in 2021. 😁 The bitcoins were drained from a seized hardware wallet — even though the physical device itself never went missing. 👀

The disappearance went unnoticed for a long time due to a suspended investigation, and an internal probe is now underway.

The audit was triggered by an even bigger incident: 320 BTC recently vanished from the prosecutor’s office in Gwangju. According to local reports, employees fell victim to a phishing attack, leaking wallet credentials after visiting a fake website.🥷

📝 In total, South Korean authorities lost confiscated BTC worth ~$48 million, exposing serious weaknesses in state-level crypto storage and cybersecurity.

🇫🇷 Binance in the Crosshairs: Armed Attack Linked to Crypto Crime Wave in France

An attempted armed home invasion targeted the head of Binance France in Val-de-Marne.

🥷 Three masked men broke into the house looking for him, but he wasn’t home. They fled with two phones. 🤷📱

A few hours later, the same group attacked another address, hoping to reach a different crypto entrepreneur — but they picked the wrong house. Thanks to CCTV, the suspects were tracked down and arrested at a train station in Lyon. 🚓

This is far from an isolated case. France has already gained notoriety for crypto-related kidnappings and physical extortion, where attackers try to steal assets through violence or threats.

📌 Recent examples:

▪️Armed attackers tying up victims to steal crypto access devices.
▪️Over 70 “wrench attacks” globally last year, with 14+ in France alone.
▪️In 2025, David Balland, co-founder of Ledger, was kidnapped for a crypto ransom and later freed by special forces.

🐳 Whales Are Buying the Dip

Large BTC holders are aggressively accumulating coins during the price decline. Transfers to so-called accumulation addresses have reached their highest level since early 2022. 🧐

While retail investors are locking in losses and exiting in fear, whales are treating the drawdown as a strategic entry opportunity.

📊 Historically, similar accumulation phases during periods of panic have often preceded strong market rebounds. Once again, smart money appears to be moving against the crowd.

🧮 The Peter Schiff Indicator at Work

If you had bought $1 worth of BTC every time Peter Schiff mentioned Bitcoin on Twitter — 1,836 times since 2013 — here’s where you’d be today:

• Total invested: $1,836
• BTC accumulated: ~0.174 BTC
• Portfolio value at $66,000: ~$11,500
• Profit: +530%

For comparison 👇
If you had bought gold with the same strategy:
• ~0.45 oz of gold
• Current value: ~$2,280
• Return: ~25%

Turns out one of Bitcoin’s loudest critics accidentally created a pretty solid DCA strategy. 😁

🤑 The Best Traders of 2025… in the US Congress

Turns out the most consistent alpha this year isn’t coming from hedge funds — it’s coming from lawmakers. 🏦

According to data shared by Unusual Whales, both Republicans and Democrats have outperformed the S&P 500 year over year.

The best part?
👉 Zero official insider trading cases.
Just pure talent, timing… and coincidence, of course.

📈 Congress beats the market
📜 Fully legal (apparently)
🎓 Still no trading courses for sale — sadly

Retail traders can only watch and learn… or vote differently 😁

👀 Who Pumped Gold? Central Banks Did the Heavy Lifting

Since 2020, countries have added nearly 2,000 tons of gold to their reserves, according to data from Visual Capitalist.🔎

Top gold buyers since 2020:
• China: +357 tons
• Poland: +314 tons
• Turkey: +251 tons
• Italy: +245 tons
• Brazil: +105 tons

📌 What’s behind it?

▪️Beijing continues its long-term strategy of reducing reliance on the US dollar.
▪️Warsaw is hedging against economic and political instability in the EU.

Then retail investors joined the party — and gold prices went vertical 📈
As a side effect, silver also pumped, becoming the “cheap alternative” once gold started to look too expensive.

Smart money first, retail later — classic market cycle. 🔄

🇯🇵 Metaplanet: Japan’s “MicroStrategy” Deep in the Red on Bitcoin

📉 Metaplanet reported an unrealized loss of ~$664M (¥102.2B) from revaluing its Bitcoin holdings for FY2025. Despite the drawdown, the company massively increased its BTC stack to 35,102 BTC, up from just 1,762 a year earlier — making it the 4th largest public Bitcoin holder, often compared to Strategy.

📉 The loss is purely on paper, but the market reacted: Metaplanet shares (ticker 3350) are now ~80% below their June peak on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

📊 At the same time, fundamentals look wild:
• Revenue +738% YoY to ~$58M
• Profit +1,694% YoY to ~$41M

💡 The key driver wasn’t BTC price appreciation, but Bitcoin options trading. Because of this, Metaplanet says it’s no longer just a “Bitcoin treasury,” but a company focused on Bitcoin and derivatives operations.

High conviction, high volatility — Japanese-style Bitcoin maximalism in action.

Tom Lee: Crypto winter is either over or will end by April

Key takeaways from his latest podcast:

1️⃣ Market Sentiment: Panic selling in crypto signals the bottom is near. Most TradFi investors are happy not to own BTC — another sign the market is early in recovery.

2️⃣ BTC vs Gold: Short-term BTC weakness vs Gold doesn’t mean structural loss. Since 2010, BTC has outpaced inflation far more consistently than Gold, even through bear markets.

3️⃣ Macro Tailwinds: Cooling inflation, a dovish new Fed chair, and ISM >50 indicate the US economy is shifting from slowdown to growth — bullish for stocks and crypto in 2026.

4️⃣ Ethereum Strategy: BitMine buys ETH weekly (~4.2M ETH), stakes it, and earns ~$1M/day. Large fiat reserves ($600M) allow strategic accumulation during dips.

5️⃣ Main Idea: Panic is part of the cycle; historically, BTC bottoms are sharp and V-shaped. Trying to perfectly time the bottom risks missing the move.

📊 Bitcoin slips out of the Top 10 assets 👀

📉 Bitcoin has dropped out of the world’s top 10 most valuable assets and is now valued below Tesla, once infamous for heavy losses.

It’s a sharp contrast to recent peaks and a reminder of how fast rankings can change in risk-off markets. While BTC cools down, traditional equities are briefly taking the spotlight again.

Markets rotate — narratives follow. The leaderboard never stays the same for long. 📉➡️📈

📉 From “Supercycle” back to the 4-year playbook

🔎 Crypto analysts have suddenly forgotten about the 2026 supercycle and returned to the classic 4-year cycle narrative. According to it, Bitcoin is expected to form a bottom within the next year — usually in the second half of the cycle 😏

For now, BTC keeps moving sideways. Futures on the S&P 500 hint at a relatively calm session, while bears seem busy elsewhere: gold (-1.45%) and silver (-2.16%) are taking the hit today 📉.

Same market, new-old story. 🤷

📉 More than a dip — signs of a bear market?

According to CryptoQuant, the current price action looks less like a routine pullback and more like a transition into a bear market.

The Bitcoin Adjusted SOPR (aSOPR) has dropped into the 0.92–0.94 range — levels that in 2019 and 2023 coincided with deep corrections and widespread loss realization.

Historically, a durable bottom tends to form only after even stronger compression and a clear capitulation peak. For now, this signal points to structural weakness, not the end of the decline.

In short: pain may not be over yet. 🐻📊

🇺🇸 Harvard rotates from BTC to ETH

According to the latest 13F filing, Harvard University adjusted its crypto exposure in Q4 2025.

• The university cut its Bitcoin ETF position by 21%, from $442M to $265M.
• At the same time, Harvard opened a new position in Ethereum ETFs worth $87M.

Looks like one of the world’s top endowments is rebalancing rather than exiting crypto, shifting part of its bet from BTC to ETH. Quiet move — but a telling one. 👀📊

💰 Strategy keeps buying the dip

Strategy added 2,486 BTC for $168.4M, paying an average of $67,710 per coin.

📊 As of Feb 16, 2026:

• Total holdings: 717,131 BTC
• Total spent: $54.52B
• Average entry price: $76,027

Yes, the data came out a bit late — looks like an intern forgot to hit “post” 😁
But the message is clear: Strategy is still stacking, even below its average price. 💪

📉 Bitcoin could dip to $55K before a reversal

The CEO of CryptoQuant believes the market is now in a full-fledged bear phase, and a sustainable recovery may take months.

Key points:
• Despite hundreds of billions in capital inflows, total market cap is stagnating — sell pressure outweighs demand.
• ETF inflows are slowing, while OTC demand is weakening.
• Institutional investors are trimming positions and pulling capital.
• Large holders are executing aggressive sell-offs.

📊 Possible scenarios:
1️⃣ BTC drops to ~$55K, then forms a reversal.
2️⃣ Prolonged consolidation in the $60K–$70K range before the next uptrend.

❗️Altcoins look even weaker: fresh capital is flowing only into a few tokens with ETF narratives, while the broad “rising tide lifts all boats” story is gone.

Patience may matter more than hopium in this phase. 🧐

🚀 Ethereum hits a new milestone

For the first time in history, over 50% of all ETH supply is now locked in Proof-of-Stake staking contracts, according to data from Santiment. 🔎

This signals a growing shift from speculation to yield and long-term conviction. During market slowdowns, trading activity typically drops — and staking becomes the preferred strategy for many holders.

📈 If the market remains weak or sideways, the share of staked ETH is likely to keep increasing, further reducing liquid supply and strengthening Ethereum’s long-term fundamentals.

🌐 Global uncertainty hits an all-time high

The world has entered the most uncertain period in modern history — surpassing the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2008 global financial crisis, and even the dot-com bubble 👀

Geopolitics, rates, inflation, tech shifts — everything is in flux at once.
In an environment like this, even traditional markets struggle with direction.

So yeah… trying to confidently predict where crypto goes next feels a bit like fortune-telling 🔮🤔

High uncertainty = high volatility. Buckle up. 🎢

📉 Altcoins under the heaviest pressure in 5 years

🔎 According to data from CryptoQuant, sell pressure on altcoins has reached a five-year extreme.

📊 This isn’t a short-term dip — it’s 13 straight months of net selling on spot CEX markets. Demand is drying up, liquidity is thin, and buyers are simply not stepping in.

With many alts breaking new lows again and again, the big question remains:
who’s going to catch a falling knife for the fifth time in a row? 🤷‍♂️

For now, the market is clearly in survival mode rather than accumulation.

📈The gap between Strategy and IBIT is shrinking fast

Strategy is now just 44,000 BTC behind IBIT, BlackRock’s flagship Bitcoin ETF. 👀

Institutions aren’t just buying Bitcoin — they’re competing for control over supply. And this race is far from over 🟠🏁

🤞 Eric Trump stays ultra-bullish on Bitcoin

Eric Trump says he still believes Bitcoin can reach $1 million — and claims he’s never been more optimistic about BTC and crypto overall.

This optimism isn’t happening in a vacuum. According to Bloomberg, the family of Donald Trump earned around $1.4B from crypto assets in 2025, making digital assets a major contributor to their growing net worth. 💵

When crypto brings in billions, long-term conviction suddenly becomes much easier 😅

📊 CryptoQuant Signal: BTC Short-Term Sharpe Ratio Hits Buy Zone

🔎 According to CryptoQuant, the Sharpe Ratio for short-term Bitcoin positions has dropped into an extremely negative zone — a level that historically marked peak market stress.

🔹 The Sharpe Ratio measures risk-adjusted returns
🔹 Current readings are at extreme lows
🔹 In past cycles, this zone appeared near local bottoms
🔹 Every previous dip here was followed by sharp rebounds and new highs

📈 While sentiment remains bearish, data suggests risk/reward is quietly shifting in favor of buyers.

As always, signals don’t guarantee outcomes — but this is a zone the market has respected before. 👀