It’s still unclear whether Bitcoin has bottomed out. But mixed sentiment has extended into the new week, driven by different market headlines.
Here’s a recap of key updates shaping the market in the third week of February.
Is Bitcoin eyeing ‘stabilization’ or more downside risk?
After renewed strength and a retest of $70K over the weekend, Bitcoin [BTC] has given some of those gains back.
It dropped to a low of $67.2K during the intraday trading session on the 16th of February and was barely holding $68K level at the time of writing.
The brief reset has deflated the optimism around the previous market recovery, dragging the broader crypto sentiment back to “extreme fear”.
According to Bitfinex analysts, however, this was part of broader price “stabilization,” citing constructive macro landscape and derivatives market positioning.
The analysts added,
“Derivatives positioning supports the view that the recent bounce is a stabilisation phase rather than a leverage-driven squeeze. Funding rates have also normalised.”
The analysts highlighted that Options positioning was also somewhat neutral, and over 18,400 BTC was moved off exchanges last week. They concluded,
“This repricing suggests that traders are no longer aggressively hedging tail risk, but neither are they aggressively re-leveraging.”
Bitfinex expects the price to remain range-bound between $55K-$78.2K before BTC enters a new market bull run.
Institutional interest diverges across crypto ETPs
That said, crypto ETPs saw $173 million Cumulative Outflows last week, marking the fourth week of distribution.
Over the 4-week period, nearly $4 billion has been distributed by the crypto ETPs, led by Bitcoin and Ethereum [ETH]. In the past week alone, BTC saw a $133 million sell-off, while ETH bled $85 million.
Source: CoinShares
Interestingly, XRP and Solana led altcoin institutional inflows, recording $33.4 million and $31 million in new demand, respectively.
Overall, despite soured and ‘extreme fear’ sentiment for BTC and ETH, select altcoins like XRP and Solana were boosted by institutional demand. It was unclear whether the demand divergence would persist.
Harvard trims Bitcoin exposure y 21%, rotates to ETH
Still on institutional crypto investors, Harvard Management Company reportedly cut its position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 21% in Q4 2025, according to SEC filings.
As of the 31st of December, the company held 5.35 million IBIT shares, worth $265.8 million at that time. This was a reduction of 1.48 million shares over the quarter.
Despite the sale, its BTC exposure was still the record-high public investment in the university’s portfolio.
Interestingly, Harvard also made its first debut in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), investing $86.8 million. It was not clear whether the move was a rebalancing act or hedging for Harvard.
CFTC fights to control prediction markets
CFTC Chair Mike Selig is unhappy with the ongoing federal-state regulatory clash over event contracts, also known as prediction markets.
For states, including Nevada, even contracts for gambling, such as sports betting, should be subject to the same local laws.
However, CFTC maintains that these markets go beyond that and act as risk management tools that help aggregate future probabilities and hedge risks.
For the federal regulator, states’ “encroachment” would undermine the growth of these markets, with Selig adding,
“The CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency’s exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products.”
The regular has joined Crypto.com in a lawsuit against Nevada on the same, and the ruling could bring more clarity to prediction markets.
Final Summary
- Bitfinex analysts said that the BTC price was ‘stabilizing’ but expected an extended consolidation until positive flows return
- CFTC maintained that it has sole federal jurisdiction over the regulation of prediction markets, not the states.