Crypto Market Review: Week of February 17

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It was a bruising week for crypto markets, with digital assets failing to find any meaningful footing and sentiment sliding toward extreme fear.

Bitcoin and Ethereum in the Red

Bitcoin opened the week around $70,000, slid to a local low near $65,000 by Thursday, and clawed back to roughly $67,000 by Sunday — a weekly loss of about 4%, and a steep 25% decline over the past 30 days. Ethereum followed bitcoin lower, failing to hold the psychological $2,000 level and falling 5.5% over seven days. Among the top 10 assets, TRX was the lone bright spot, posting a 3% gain. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index hunkered down near a deeply fearful reading of 9.

Long-Term Holders Capitulating

Perhaps the most telling signal of the week came from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode. Their data showed that the seven-day exponential moving average of SOPR for long-term holders fell below 1, implying these investors began selling at sizeable losses — a rare behavioral shift typically associated with deeper bear-market phases, comparable in psychological pressure to the Terra ecosystem collapse in May 2022.

Adding to the bearish picture, US spot bitcoin ETFs saw outflows for a fifth consecutive week, with crypto funds zeroing out bitcoin and ether positions and rotating into more liquid assets or higher cash balances.Technical analysts also flagged a “bear pennant” pattern forming on both bitcoin and Ethereum charts, pointing to potential downside targets of $55,000 and $1,100 respectively.

Mining: Difficulty Surges, Profitability Falls

On the mining side, the story was one of stark contrasts. On February 19, bitcoin mining difficulty rose by 14.73% to 144.4 T — one of the biggest upward adjustments since 2021. The previous period had seen an 11% drop after severe weather forced large miners offline. Now that they’re back, difficulty has snapped sharply higher.

But higher difficulty with lower bitcoin prices is a painful combination. Hashprice fell from $34 to $28 per PH/s per day over the week, even as total hashrate climbed back above 1 ZH/s. Miner Bitdeer drew attention by selling its entire bitcoin reserve, offloading 943.1 BTC — yet still managed to overtake MARA Holdings in hashrate to become the largest public miner. MARA, meanwhile, pivoted toward diversification by acquiring a 64% stake in AI infrastructure provider Exaion.

Ethereum Foundation Eyes 2026

Away from the market turmoil, the Ethereum Foundation released an updated 2026 roadmap centered on three pillars: scaling, user experience, and base layer security. Key scaling targets include stepwise increases to the gas limit, preparation for the Glamsterdam hard fork, and the launch of a zkEVM-based attester client. On the UX front, the focus is on native account abstraction and cross-chain interoperability. Separately, Ethereum’s staking share reached a record 50.18%, with around 37.1 million ETH locked on the mainnet across nearly 965,000 active validators.

A Note on AI and the Military

In a story that touched directly on the crypto AI nexus, the WSJ reported that the US Army may have used Anthropic’s Claude in an operation related to capturing Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro — a claim Anthropic denied commenting on specifically, while reaffirming its policy against using its models for violence or surveillance.

Bottom Line

Last week underscored that the crypto market correction is more than a routine pullback. Long-term holders selling at a loss, persistent ETF outflows, a near-record fear reading, and bearish technical patterns all point to a market still searching for a floor. The mining sector’s resilience — hashrate holding strong despite lower profitability — suggests believers remain committed, but the near-term macro and sentiment backdrop remains challenging.