Author: CryptoNarratives (Viktor)

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Introduction: This monthly review summarizes the key trends in the cryptocurrency market in February: BTC's $60k extreme rebound, panic and rapid recovery on the day of the attack on Iran, the expectations surrounding the ZRO conference, and the prevalence of manipulated coins in the bear market. The information density is high, making it suitable as background material for understanding the current market structure.

The full text is as follows:

BTC Timeline

The following are the main timelines for February:

Gold saw a significant correction after reaching a peak at the end of January, dropping from $5600 to $4400. The bottom occurred on February 2, quickly rebounding back to $5100 within two days. Silver also experienced a peak collapse, plunging nearly 50% from $121 to $64 on February 6.

BTC started February with an extremely weak stance, hitting a high of $98k in January and opening February at $78k, falling to $70k within four days, followed by a drop on February 5 from $70k to $60k in a single day.

BTC strongly rebounded at the $60k level, returning to nearly $72k in less than a day. This complete trend defined the fluctuation range for the rest of the month, basically between $60k and $70k.

After the first week, BTC oscillated around $68k for most of the month, with only two distinct bullish periods: from February 13-14 and February 25, during which some strong altcoin movements occurred.

On February 27, BTC fell from $68k to $65k due to rumors of an imminent airstrike on Iran, with the attack occurring the following day. After the actual news landed, BTC further decreased to $62k, but was continuously supported by buying pressure, ultimately closing near $68k, ending the month at this price. On the same day, the news of Khamenei's death was announced, which the market generally interpreted as a bullish signal (as it implied the U.S. was unlikely to invest too many resources in this conflict).

ZRO Conference

In February, the almost only narrative that gained traction among altcoins was the LayerZero conference on February 10. $ZRO has been gaining strength since the beginning of the year, primarily driven by expectations of this event. I initially anticipated this would be a typical sell-off opportunity due to positive announcements, but the actual situation was slightly different.

On the day, a video announcing the launch of its own blockchain was prematurely leaked, triggering a news sell-off, plummeting roughly 20% in an hour, but this also marked the bottom for that day. Later that evening, the official announcement confirmed the launch of the blockchain "Zero," accompanied by strong partnership announcements, including Citadel Securities, Cathie Wood/ARK, DTCC, and ICE.

The result was a strong surge after the conference, with $ZRO seeing an increase of about 45% within 12 hours, catching many "the good news sell-off" participants off guard. However, shortly after, all gains were given back, with the token sliding down to $1.5, a price that currently appears to have formed strong support.

VVV's Unusual Strength

VVV was the best-performing "non-scam" token in February, rising from a bottom of $1.65 to $5.5 by the end of the month (further squeezing to $8 on March 2). One of the catalysts was its legitimate status as a project at the intersection of AI, privacy, and crypto, with the bottom valuation being below $100M; on the other hand, it also benefited from OpenClaw's influence, as OpenClaw had still been recommending Venice as a model supplier in its documentation until yesterday.

(I tend to think it peaked at the $8.4 squeeze in early March, but I could be wrong)

At the end of February, there were also a few AI tokens that briefly awakened, with $SAHARA squeezing +70% in a single day and $GRASS also increasing +70% within four days.

A Bumper Month for Scam Coins: $PIPPIN, $SIREN, $POWER

The bear market seems to provide excellent fertile ground for scam coins. In February, the veteran AI meme coin $PIPPIN made a comeback—its supply had been completely locked by some entity, and its performance showcased classic artificial manipulation. At the beginning of the month, $PIPPIN stabilized at a market cap of $180M, having previously experienced a 70% drop over four days. Starting from February 8, it strongly surged, increasing +315% within seven days, reaching a new high market cap of $750M, before falling back to $500M and then pushing back to another new high of $900M. Strangely, its funding rate is no longer negative, making it a relatively lower-risk short target for scam coins than before. Even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if it surpasses a $1bn market cap.

$POWER was one of the newly emerged manipulated coins in February, rising twelve times from bottom to top, squeezing to a $2.3bn FDV, with the funding rate extremely negative. If you are shorting this, please do so very cautiously.

Another noteworthy trend is $SIREN, this BSC scam meme coin staged a one-day price mark-up on February 8—from a market cap of $100M to $400M and then back to $100M—while slowly climbing to a new high over the remaining time of February, ultimately completing a significant squeeze at a market cap of $600M.

It is also worth mentioning $BULLA, which surged 13 times at the end of January, then experienced a single-day crash of 95% on February 1, dropping from $450M FDV to $25M FDV. $ARC also saw an increase from $40M to $130M before undergoing an 80% collapse.

Bear Market Characteristics

We are in a bear market environment: most altcoin bullish trends are short-term squeezes, which quickly evaporate. The following tokens exhibited such behavior in February: ZK ZIL LA NIL SONIC DYM ME MOVE 0G INIT RPL ESP AZTEC BIO AGLD SAHARA. These trends typically experienced jumps of +50% to +100% in a single day, accompanied by negative funding rates (making it difficult for short positions), before weakening again within a few days.

Aside from rebounds after sharp declines, altcoins only had two brief bullish periods. The first period was from February 13-15, led by meme coins (USELESS+50%, PEPE+35%) and AI tokens ($TAO+35%, $VVV+150%, VIRTUAL+25%). The second period occurred on February 25, extremely brief, purely a short squeeze of "dead" large-cap coins, with these tokens experiencing gains of +25% to +30% (DOT NEAR UNI APT FIL TIA……).

$HYPE and the Perpetual DEX Sector

$HYPE ended January with a strong stance, rising from $22 to $34 in a single day, and this strength continued into early February. It reached $38 on February 3, becoming the strongest performing token on February 5 during the overall market crash and liquidation cascading day. The degree of strength can be seen—it nearly touched $37 on February 6, as if the market crash had no impact on HYPE at all—but this also signaled its peak relative to the altcoin market. In the following 20 days, it slightly underperformed against the altcoin market, retreating to $26.

One reason for $HYPE's strength in early February was Multicoin's large purchases over several days, while HSI/PURR (HYPE's DAT) continued to accumulate.

In the perpetual DEX sector, $LIT continued to perform extremely weakly in February, currently supported at $1.3, having tested that level four or five times.

$ASTER saw a strong rebound after plummeting on February 5, rising from a near $0.4 bottom to $0.7, and then bizarrely maintaining a sideways move around $0.7 for the rest of the month. It has a bullish catalyst: it plans to launch its own L1/blockchain in March.

Uniswap x BlackRock

On February 11, Uniswap announced a partnership with BlackRock to provide liquidity for its BUIDL products, while also announcing that BlackRock directly invested in $UNI tokens (amount undisclosed). The market reacted very strongly, with $UNI increasing +40% within 10 minutes—quite astonishing for a token with an FDV exceeding $3 billion. However, the gains were all given back within the following 10 hours, a typical bear market spike and sell-off.

Aave experienced a period of public relations turmoil in February. On February 20, BGD Labs announced its exit from Aave DAO, citing strategic disagreements with V4, leading to an 8% drop in $AAVE. At the end of the month, a prominent figure in the Aave ecosystem, Marc Zeller, criticized Aave Labs, characterizing it as a de facto extractor of interests, resulting in further weakening of the token.

To Aave's detriment, its main competitor $MORPHO performed strongly in 2026, with gains nearing +75% in February. Currently, the FDVs of the two tokens have essentially leveled out, around $2 billion.

Other Important Events in February

On February 18, Base announced it would transition from the Optimism tech stack to its own build. This was a devastating blow to $OP, which dropped 40% within four days. $ARB was also dragged down due to correlation, now with an FDV of "only" $1 billion, a 96% drop from its historical peak (with $OP dropping 97%).

On February 11, $BERA experienced a strong short squeeze, rising +160% in 8 hours, with spot and futures price divergences reaching extreme levels (15% difference). This is a bizarre token that often significantly underperforms the market, but occasionally sees very strong random squeezes, having already seen a five-day stretch with a 2x increase last month.

On February 18, $WLFI suddenly rose +30% without any obvious reason, while open interest (OI) increased by nearly $100M—this likely means a single entity drove the price by going long on $100M worth of $WLFI. The price then peaked here, having fallen about 20% from the high, and no new news has emerged since. The actions of this entity are quite strange; I anticipate that $WLFI will drop further in the coming months.

At the end of February 2026, Terraform Labs’ bankruptcy assets sued Jane Street in Manhattan Federal Court, accusing it of trading on inside information during the key UST liquidity events amid the 2022 Terra collapse. Following the news, $LUNC saw a +35% increase within a few days.

$ZEC is still digesting the significant gains from the fourth quarter of 2025, generally underperforming, but occasionally experiencing strong squeezes, such as +45% on February 13-14. I believe it is quite likely to fall to $150 or even $100 in the coming months.

$HNT experienced a strong 2x trend in February; is this a dead cat bounce for an asset that has suffered from excessive issuance, or has this DePIN token finally dropped to a price low enough to become a worthy buy?

As in the previous month, $STABLE continued to trade with a locked supply posture, rising +144% from a local bottom at $1.6bn FDV, hitting a new high close to $4bn FDV. DegenSpartan also supported it in an article, and given that DegenSpartan has rarely voiced publicly during this time, this endorsement is quite bullish.

$BCH is a peculiar token; it continuously rose relative to BTC (outperforming by 40%) for 22 days, only to suddenly reverse, giving back all excess earnings in less than a week. Due to the "quantum-resistant" narrative and the overall strength since early 2025, many have become bullish on BCH, but it now seems that some entity holding a large amount of BCH has decided to sell, continuously executing TWAP sales.

Robinhood listed two altcoins in February: $SNX (February 19) and $CC. $CC saw little reaction, but $SNX rose +42% within a few days as a result. Listings on Upbit remain a strong catalyst for tokens; $AZTEC (+70%), $ESP (+100%), and $SKR (+40%) have all seen such occurrences, and shortly after listings, their funding rates were extremely negative. $BIRB also saw a 2x increase after listing on Bithumb on February 3.

Two noteworthy TGEs in February were $AZTEC and $ESP (Espresso). Both have trading valuations that are quite low (FDVs below $500M, such projects could easily reach $1bn+ FDV a few months ago), indicating that altcoin premiums are slowly redefining down. However, $ESP had a stronger performance, with an increase of +280% from bottom to top in February.

Polymarket announced a partnership with Kaito to launch an attention market; after the news, $KAITO rose +13% within three minutes, only to give it all back within an hour.