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Bitcoin fell below $65,000 on February 23, 2026, with nearly $360 million in crypto long positions liquidated within roughly one hour. The headline trigger was renewed US tariff signals as President Trump signals plans to raise global tariffs to around 15%.
BREAKING: Bitcoin falls below $65,000 as $230 million worth of levered longs are liquidated in 60 minutes. pic.twitter.com/l7UFqggKOE
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 23, 2026
However, attributing the move purely to macro shock misses a more complex set of interlocking pressures that have been building for weeks. Here, we examine 8 triggers that likely contributed toward it.
The immediate catalyst was macro. Traditionally, tariffs have been known to slow global trade and increase costs for businesses and consumers, and markets reacted by reducing exposure to volatile assets. Bitcoin moved in alignment with broader risk sentiment, similar to equities and commodities.
The 7D-EMA of Net Realized Profit & Loss for recent investors plunged to –$1.24B/day on Feb 06, before moderating to –$0.48B/day today.
While the intensity has cooled, the broader regime still signals a market under pressure, with participants in the base formation phase… https://t.co/rhCsrDuDfJ pic.twitter.com/00zibdP1om— glassnode (@glassnode) February 23, 2026
The fact that BTC trading is seen as a high-beta risk asset rather than a store of value, is itself notable and structurally important to the conversation.
On February 6, 2026, The EMA from Net Realized Profit & Loss for recent investors tumbled to $1.24 billion per day before stabilizing to $0.48 billion per day on February 23, 2026.
Since early February 2026, all attempts to claw back to $70,000 have been met with sharp demand exhaustion, to the extent even net realized profit spikes above $5 million per hour triggering rejection.
The drop landed on fragile psychological ground. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index spent more than 30% of 2025 in fear or extreme fear territory, and alternative trackers placed the market in a 10 – 25 range out of 100 since mid-November. Bitcoin was already on track for its worst fourth quarter since 2018 before this week’s move.https://twitter.com/i/status/2025728673329111346
The decline in active addresses suggests retail is exiting. Institutions provide capital but not the speculative energy that drives crypto’s upside volatility. When retail leaves, the market becomes a battle between levered traders and long-term holders, with neither willing to chase prices higher. This structural vacuum amplifies drawdowns.
The Exchange Whale Ratio surged to 0.64 on February 22, 2026, which is its highest level since October 2015. This signifies that the top 10 wallets now dominate 64% of exchange inflows and are exerting significant downward pressure on Bitcoin. This metric, which tracks the proportion of inflows from large holders, has historically preceded major distribution phases and amplified drawdowns in low-liquidity conditions.
📉 “This hasn’t happened in 11 years,” @cryptoquant_com reports the Exchange Whale Ratio hit 0.64, its highest since 2015.
The metric signals potential sell pressure from the top 10 wallets driving 64% of inflows. 👀 pic.twitter.com/QjdNljNO7z
— Bitcoin.com News (@BitcoinNews) February 22, 2026
Unlike periods of broader accumulation when inflows were more dispersed, the current spike depicts a case of strategic or coordinated selling from whales rather than widespread panic, aligning with persistent negative net realized profit & loss, and repeated failures to reclaim $70,000.
Perhaps the sharpest structural signal is how Bitcoin is performing relative to gold during this risk-off episode. Gold gained 70% and silver rallied 143% in recent periods, while crypto portfolios bled. This created a specific kind of sentiment damage, with many investors getting the macro thesis right; but with the wrong instrument.
The divergence matters beyond sentiment. Bitcoin’s Sharpe ratio has fallen to -38; a level only previously seen in early 2015, in 2019, and late 2022. Notably, each of these three periods preceded significant price recoveries. Analyst Michaël van de Poppe has noted this as a potential contrarian entry signal, though the timing remains more speculative than certain.
The key question for traders is not whether macro headwinds are real, as they clearly are. But whether the current price represents a leverage flush mid-cycle or the beginning of a more sustained drawdown toward the $60,000 support band.
On-chain data continues to show robust long-term holding behavior, with a significant portion of Bitcoin supply locked in wallets that lay untouched for months or years, suggesting long-term conviction hasn’t evaporated. Moving forward, the point of divergence between on-chain conviction and spot price weakness is where the real signal sits.
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