Crypto markets tried to bounce over the weekend, but the move faded quickly. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading near $68,205, up about 12% from its recent low but still unable to retake $69,000. Ether changed hands around $1,951 and continued to struggle below the $2,000 mark. Pressure was even heavier in meme coins, where DOGE, SHIB, and PEPE each fell roughly 8% to 10%.
$69,000 Turns Into Resistance for Bitcoin
At the start of February, Bitcoin was still above $80,000. That changed as weakness in tech stocks combined with a wave of leveraged liquidations, sending the asset down to $61,000 on Feb. 5, its lowest level in 15 months. VanEck said the sell-off was driven by several factors at once: stablecoin market capitalization shrank by about $14 billion from December to February, including $7 billion in outflows in a single week, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw record outflows and overall market liquidity tightened sharply.
From a technical perspective, $69,000 has shifted from support to resistance. If that level is not recovered, $65,000 stands out as the next key line. Based on the source figures, Bitcoin is down 14.4% in February, marking its worst February performance in nearly a decade, and sits 44% below its all-time high from last October.
Ether Wallet Data Shows a Clear Split
Ether has looked weaker than Bitcoin. After falling through the psychological $2,000 threshold, ETH has been trading in a narrow range between $1,900 and $1,975. On-chain positioning shows a sharp divide. Mid-sized wallets holding 100 to 1,000 ETH reduced their balances from 9.79 million ETH to 8.32 million ETH, while whale wallets holding more than 100,000 ETH increased their holdings from 2.75 million ETH to 3.68 million ETH.
Analysts had earlier pointed to an inverse cup-and-handle pattern for Ether. If $1,900 fails as support, the reported downside target is as low as $1,665. At the same time, whale accumulation has kept attention on whether large holders are building positions during the decline.
Meme Coins Stay Deep Below Their Peaks
The meme coin segment remains under heavier strain. By mid-February, major meme tokens were generally down more than 85% from their record highs. DOGE was trading near $0.096, about 87% below its all-time high, and remained trapped in the $0.10 to $0.12 area. According to the source, failure to reclaim $0.12 could leave the token under pressure. SHIB traded near $0.0000065, down 93% from its peak, with a market capitalization of around $3.83 billion. It also lost 6.6% over the past seven days, though rising exchange net outflows suggested some holders were moving tokens into cold storage.
PEPE traded around $0.0000037, down 86% from its May 2024 high of $0.000028. Even after the drop, daily trading volume stayed above $550 million, a sign that market interest had not disappeared. The source also said on-chain data showed whales buying quietly at lower levels. Elsewhere, BONK was quoted near $0.0000062 with a market cap of about $558 million, while FLOKI traded at $0.0000562 and held above its 20-day moving average. The meme coin sector as a whole was down about 16% year to date.
Traders Are Watching Two Immediate Levels
Market views remain split. Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone warned that Bitcoin could fall to $50,000, and Canary Capital CEO Steven McClurg expressed a similar view, saying Bitcoin may revisit lower levels before summer. On the other side, some analysts described the market as being in the early stage of bottoming, while bets on Polymarket still assigned a meaningful probability to Bitcoin returning to $100,000 before year-end.
In the short term, the focus is narrow and clear: whether Bitcoin can recover $69,000 and whether Ether can regain $2,000. If BTC slips below $65,000 again and ETH loses $1,900, selling pressure could intensify.