Market Overview
The charts look like a crime scene today. Bitcoin revisited the $86k level (its lowest since December) driven by a brutal combination of US winter storms knocking out 32% of the network's hashrate and looming government shutdown fears. It's a perfect storm, literally.
While crypto bleeds, Gold is rubbing salt in the wound by hitting an all-time high above $5,000. Investors are fleeing to traditional safety, dumping digital assets in the process. We saw over $550 million in liquidations across the board. Total market cap is down roughly 7.9% week-over-week. It's ugly, but the order books tell a different story than the headlines.
Bitcoin & Majors
Bitcoin ($BTC) is struggling physically and financially. The hashrate drop is significant. miners are powering down to save the grid, but the network is fine. The price action is just panic. Look at who is buying: MicroStrategy (Strategy) just scooped up another 2,932 BTC for roughly $264.1 million. They don't care about the snow.
Ethereum ($ETH) is in a weird spot. Transaction fees are at multi-year lows (May 2017 levels), which means nobody is using the network, yet whales are loading up. BitMine just acquired $117 million in ETH.
Also, keep an eye on Metaplanet. They booked a $680M impairment loss on their BTC holdings. Sounds bad? It's just accounting. They haven't sold. Don't let the headline fool you.
Outliers
While the majors are taking a beating, a few assets are ignoring the macro doom:
- $AVAX (Avalanche): The adult in the room. VanEck launched a spot AVAX ETF on Nasdaq. This is a massive step for institutional legitimacy outside of BTC/ETH.
- $PIPE (+163%): Leading the gainer list on Biconomy. purely speculative flow ignoring the broader market dump.
- $BOOM (+143%): Another low-cap surging on KuCoin. When the majors dump, degens often rotate into these volatile plays to chase yield.
- $SOL: Seeing strong inflows ($1.3B in stablecoins) even as price wavers. The Coinbase integration for Solana tokens is fueling a meme coin frenzy.
Sentiment
My read: Fearful but Opportunistic.
Retail is getting shaken out by the scary headlines — shutdowns, storms, and regulation. The ETF outflows ($1.33B last week) confirm this. But the smart money — Saylor, BitMine, and the whales diverting into Gold-backed stablecoins like XAUt — is buying the blood.
We are likely seeing a local bottom forming around this $86k level. If the US government doesn't shut down and the snow melts, that hashrate comes back online and the price likely follows.
