February was a nightmare for Bitcoin bulls. At the beginning of the month, Bitcoin was still above $80,000, but as tech stocks weakened and leveraged positions were liquidated, the price plummeted to $61,000 on February 5, hitting a 15-month low.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was priced at approximately $68,205, having rebounded about 12% from its low, but failing to regain the $69,000 mark.
According to VanEck's analysis, the core drivers of this sell-off include the loss of approximately $14 billion in stablecoin market capitalization from December to February (including a single-week outflow of $7 billion), record outflows from Bitcoin ETFs, and a sharp contraction in market liquidity. Technically, $69,000 has reversed from support to resistance; if it cannot be effectively recovered, $65,000 will become a key defense level.
Overall, Bitcoin fell 14.4% in February, its worst February performance in nearly a decade, and has fallen 44% from its all-time high in October last year.
Ethereum falls below $2,000, whale buck the trend and accumulate shares.
Ethereum's situation is even more dire than Bitcoin's. ETH fell below the psychological level of $2,000 last night and is currently priced at around $1,951, fluctuating narrowly between $1,900 and $1,975.
On-chain data presents a polarized picture: medium-sized wallets holding 100 to 1,000 ETH have entered the surrender phase, with their holdings decreasing from 9.79 million ETH to 8.32 million ETH; however, whale wallets holding more than 100,000 ETH have increased their holdings from 2.75 million ETH to 3.68 million ETH, accumulating a large amount of ETH against the trend.
Analysts had previously warned of a reversal cup and handle pattern for Ethereum, suggesting a potential drop to as low as $1,665 if it broke below the $1,900 support level. However, the large-scale buying by whale may indicate that smart money is accumulating positions at the bottom.
Major meme coins rebounded, but are still far from their highs.
If Bitcoin and Ethereum are "wounded," then memes are "severely wounded." By mid-February, major memes had generally fallen more than 85% from their all-time highs, severely damaging retail investor confidence.
Dogecoin (DOGE) : Currently priced at approximately $0.096, down 87% from its all-time high. While DOGE has seen a slight rebound recently, technical indicators suggest a potential pullback. It is currently consolidating in the $0.10 to $0.12 range; if it fails to recover $0.12 (the 20-day moving average), it will likely continue to face downward pressure.
Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB) : Priced at approximately $0.0000065, it has plummeted 93% from its all-time high, making it the worst-performing major meme coin. Its market capitalization is approximately $3.83 billion, and it has fallen another 6.6% in the past 7 days. However, there has been an increase in net outflows from exchanges for SHIB, indicating that some investors are choosing to transfer the tokens to cold wallets for long-term holding.
PEPE : Priced at approximately $0.0000037, down 86% from its all-time high of $0.000028 in May 2024. Despite the sharp price drop, PEPE's daily trading volume remains above $550 million, indicating that market interest in this "frog" has not completely faded. On-chain data also shows that whale are quietly buying at low prices.
In addition, the Solana ecosystem's BONK is priced at approximately $0.0000062, with a market capitalization of $558 million; FLOKI is priced at $0.0000562, currently remaining stable above its 20-day moving average. Overall, the meme coin sector has fallen by approximately 16% year-to-date, completely erasing the brief rebound in early January.
Has it reached the bottom, or is it just the prelude to a further decline?
Market opinions on the future outlook are clearly divided.
On the bearish side, Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone warned that Bitcoin could fall to $50,000, and Canary Capital CEO Steven McClurg holds a similar view, believing that Bitcoin may test new lows before summer.
However, there are also many bullish voices. Some analysts believe that the market is in the "early stages of bottoming out," and the probability of Bitcoin returning to $100,000 in bets by the end of the year on Polymarket remains not low.
In the short term, whether Bitcoin can recover to $69,000 and Ethereum can regain $2,000 will be key indicators for judging the sustainability of the rebound. If they fall below $65,000 and $1,900 again, a new round of panic selling may be unavoidable.
