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, Recently, community user dasha proposed the idea of gradually phasing out the current Ethereum through fragmentation (such as L2, application-specific chains) and rebuilding a pure cypherpunk chain from scratch based on RISC-V.Vitalik Buterin responded, rejecting the idea of a slow death for the current Ethereum, and instead planning to build a "cypherpunk-in-spirit non-ugly Ethereum" as a tightly coupled extension of the current system to achieve seamless interoperability and migrate the existing system through smart contracts within 5 years. Vitalik emphasized that through progressive upgrades similar to the previous "merge" upgrade, there would be 4 subsequent major upgrades, including state tree optimizations, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, and VM changes, to enhance censorship resistance, ZK-friendliness, and simplicity.

February 20th, Forbes released the 11th annual Fintech 50 list for 2026, predicting that the market platforms Polymarket (raised $2.3B), Securitize (raised $425M), Phantom (raised $2.68B), Ledn (raised $1.07B), and Hyperliquid (raised $0) will be among the top five cryptocurrency companies.Although the cryptocurrency industry's valuation is considered conservative compared to AI startups, it still demonstrates innovation and rapid growth potential. According to CB Insights data, the total amount of fintech private funding reached $53B in 2025, a decrease from $152B in 2021, but showing growth for the first time in four years.