Last updated on March 6th, 2026 at 02:25 pm
Bitcoin ($BTC) plummeted below the $65,000 mark on Sunday evening, February 22, 2026, wiping out all gains from the previous 48 hours and triggering a massive $360 million wave of long liquidations in just 60 minutes.
The sharp decline from $67,600 to a low of $64,700 was driven by a combination of geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic shocks that rattled an already fragile market.
This sudden volatility has pushed the Crypto Fear & Greed Index back into the extreme fear zone, reflecting a significant shift in investor sentiment as the market struggles with persistent deleveraging.
Macroeconomic shocks and miner sell-offs fuel the decline
The late-Sunday rout was intensified by news that Bitdeer Technologies, a major Nasdaq-listed mining firm, had fully liquidated its remaining 943.1 $BTC treasury to fund its transition into AI data centres. This move made Bitdeer the first major self-mining entity to hold zero Bitcoin on its balance sheet, adding significant spot selling pressure to a market already dealing with five consecutive weeks of spot Bitcoin ETF outflows.
Furthermore, Ethereum ($ETH) mirrored the decline, dropping nearly 6% to trade below $1,900, while Solana ($SOL) saw a steeper 8.3% plunge to approximately $77. Despite a brief $88 million inflow into spot ETFs led by BlackRock’s IBIT on February 20, the broader trend remains bearish. Market participants are now closely watching the $62,800 support level, which experts say is the final line of defence against a deeper retracement toward the $55,000 region.
Market structure and historical trends
This latest volatility is part of a broader orderly deleveraging process that has defined the early months of 2026. Earlier this month, on February 5, Bitcoin experienced its largest one-day decline since the FTX collapse, briefly reaching extreme fear levels, with scores as low as 5/100 on some indices.
While the market had shown signs of stabilization in the following weeks, the failure to reclaim the $71,000 resistance zone has left price action vulnerable to flash crashes triggered by over-leveraged derivatives.
Meanwhile, Metaplanet Inc. now holds 35,102 BTC, surpassing its 30,000 target for 2025. This makes it Japan’s largest public Bitcoin holder and the fourth largest globally, after MARA Holdings and Twenty One Capital. The aggressive 2024 acquisition strategy, aimed at corporate treasury diversification, has given Metaplanet roughly 0.16% of the total Bitcoin supply, following a JPY 517.2 billion capital raise.
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