A whale who once made $36.21 million on PEPE has purchased 4.6 million ASTER tokens.

February 21 —— Coinglass data shows Coinbase’s Bitcoin Premium Index has stayed in negative territory for 37 consecutive days, currently at -0.0523%. This streak tops the roughly 30 days of negative premium recorded during the October 11, 2021 market crash. The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index tracks the difference between Bitcoin’s price on Coinbase and the global market average. A negative premium typically signals heavy selling pressure in the U.S. market, diminished investor risk appetite, growing risk aversion, or capital outflows.

February 21st Analyst Darkfost notes that a dynamic factor suppressing Bitcoin demand has been gradually shifting since the start of the year. On December 18th, Bitcoin’s monthly cumulative on-chain demand hit a low of -154,000 BTC. Since then, demand has improved steadily and recently moved back into positive territory at roughly +1,200 BTC. This reversal marks the end of nearly three months of consecutive negative demand—a phase largely responsible for the subdued price action seen so far. The analysis notes that with reduced selling pressure and signs of improving demand, Bitcoin is finally sending constructive signals—provided this trend holds over the next few weeks. Note: On-chain demand is defined as daily block rewards minus changes in the supply of Bitcoin inactive for over a year. It’s used to measure whether long-term holders are effectively absorbing newly issued bitcoins.

As of February 21, Polymarket data shows Bitcoin has a 73% probability of hitting $55k by 2026, while the odds of it reaching $100k stand at just 38%.

On-chain analytics firm Santiment reports that since Bitcoin hit an all-time high (ATH) last October, retail-focused wallets holding <0.1 BTC have grown by ~2.5%, with their holdings hitting a mid-2024 high. In contrast, whales/sharks holding 10–10,000 BTC have seen their total holdings drop by ~0.8%. This structural split often fuels price volatility and blocks a clear trend from emerging. Bitcoin is currently trading around the $60k level. Market sentiment notes retail buying pressure is providing short-term floor support and momentum. But a sustainable rebound requires big holders to halt distribution and shift to net accumulation. Analysts note retail participation isn’t lacking right now— the key is whether whales pause selling pressure and shift to structural buying. Otherwise, every rebound risks being met with selling at highs.

On February 21st, retired NBA star Scottie Pippen shared a Bitcoin futures chart, comparing the early stages of the 2020 bull market to the current chart pattern and implying a similar surge is imminent. Pippen has previously made a number of crypto-friendly comments and claimed to have met Satoshi Nakamoto in person back in 1993.

February 21st – Community user dasha recently proposed phasing out the current Ethereum gradually via fragmentation (such as Layer 2s and application-specific chains) and rebuilding a pure cypherpunk chain from scratch based on RISC-V. Vitalik Buterin pushed back against the idea of the current Ethereum “dying slowly.” Instead, he plans to build a “cypherpunk-in-spirit, non-ugly Ethereum” as a tightly coupled extension of the existing system. The goal is to enable seamless interoperability and migrate the current system via smart contracts within 5 years. Vitalik stressed that after the earlier “Merge” upgrade, there will be 4 subsequent major upgrades: state tree optimizations, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, and VM changes. These upgrades aim to enhance censorship resistance, ZK-friendliness, and simplicity.