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BTC’s price bounce fails to convince options traders: Crypto Daybook Americas

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CD20, Feb. 26 2026 (CoinDesk)

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin’s price bounce sparked optimism on social media, with X users declaring the bottom is in and a new rally is underway. Options market activity, however, reveals savvy traders remain skeptical, hedging against the risk of a potential slide below $60,000.

“While the bounce triggered some call buying in the $85,000 to $90,000 strikes, downside skew remains more elevated than upside, suggesting caution,” Sidrah Fariq, head of retail at Deribit, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat.

The demand for call options, or bullish bets, indicates that bitcoin’s Wednesday bounce to $70,000 has some traders chasing upside. However, skew, which measures prices for calls relative to puts, remains negative across all time frames. It shows that traders remain worried about price drops and are still seeking puts for downside protection.

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Underlying that theme, on Deribit, the $60,000 put remains the most popular position, with notional open interest (OI) of $1.48 billion. In contrast, the most popular call option, the $90,000 strike, has OI of $1.12 billion. Clearly, the overall positioning remains bearish.

That said, there could be some consolidation, as dealer positioning — net exposure of those who make markets by providing liquidity — has flipped positive between $60,000 and $70,000. This means dealers could buy low and sell high to maintain a net-neutral exposure, capping swings as they do so.

“Dealer positioning has shifted to neutral to slightly positive gamma, suggesting compressed volatility and range-bound price action,” Fariq said.

Other analysts are looking at the $74,000-$75,000 range as the level to beat for confirming a renewed uptrend.

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Bitcoin was recently trading near $68,500, up 4.6% on the day, while the broader market posted bigger gains, as evidenced by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index’s 5.8% advance. Ether (ETH) has risen over 8%, and XRP (XRP) and solana (SOL) both rose more than 6%.

In traditional markets, futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were little changed despite the AI giant Nvidia (NVDA) posting a blowout fourth-quarter earnings report. Gold and the Dollar Index ticked higher as investors awaited details on the U.S.-Iran talks scheduled for later in the day. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

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  • Crypto
  • Macro
    • Feb. 26, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. initial jobless claims for week ending Feb. 21 (Prev. 206K)
    • Feb. 26, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
    • Feb. 26: American Bitcoin (ABTC), pre-market, $0.01
    • Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, -$0.11
    • Feb 26: TeraWulf (WULF), post-market, -$0.15
    • Feb. 26: Figure Technologies (FIGR), post-market,$0.20
    • Feb. 26: Sui Group (SUIG), post-market, $0.01
    • Feb. 26: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.49

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

  • Governance votes & calls
    • Feb. 26: Lido DAO to host a tokenholder update call.
    • Feb. 26: Maple Finance to host an investor call.
    • Unlock DAO is voting to delegate 2,000,000 UP from the treasury to seven active community members to reliably secure quorum on future proposals. Voting ends Feb. 26.
  • Unlocks
  • Token Launches

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

Market Movements

  • BTC is down 0.52% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $68,590.57 (24hrs: +4.67%)
  • ETH is down 1.16% at $2,075.97 (24hrs: +8.36%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is down 1.27% at 2,011.66 (24hrs: +5.83%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 2 bps at 2.85%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0005% (0.5595% annualized) on Binance
CD20, Feb. 26 2026 (CoinDesk)
  • DXY is unchanged at 97.75
  • Gold futures are down 0.41% at $5,204.60
  • Silver futures are down 3.98% at $87.99
  • Nikkei 225 closed up 0.29% at 58,753.39
  • Hang Seng closed down 1.44% at 26,381.02
  • FTSE is up 0.17% at 10,824.61
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.25% at 6,188.91
  • DJIA closed on Wednesday up 0.63% at 49,482.15
  • S&P 500 closed up 0.81% at 6,946.13
  • Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.26% at 23,152.08
  • S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.46% at 34,127.33
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.68% at 3,826.41
  • U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 0.4 bps at 4.052%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,958.75
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 25,380.75
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.13% at 49,471.00

Bitcoin Stats

  • BTC Dominance: 58.55% (+0.12%)
  • Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03023 (-0.12%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,058 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): $29.79
  • Total fees: 2.91 BTC / $194,801
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 112,135 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 13.2 oz.
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 4.57%

Technical Analysis

BTC's weekly price swings in candlestick format. (TradingView)

BTC’s weekly price chart. (TradingView)
  • The chart shows bitcoin’s weekly price swings in candlestick format since mid-2024.
  • While prices have bounced strongly this week, they remain well below the $73,000-$74,000 zone that is a former support-turned-resistance.
  • The broader outlook, therefore, remains bearish. Prices need to overcome that resistance to confirm a trend reversal higher.

Crypto Equities

  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Wednesday at $183.94 (+13.52%), +0.95% at $185.69 in pre-market
  • Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $83.14 (+35.47%), +0.71% at $83.73
  • Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $22.83 (+5.99%), +1.40% at $23.15
  • Bullish (BLSH): closed at $32.89 (+6.92%), -1.03% at $32.55
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $8.57 (+6.46%), unchanged in pre-market
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $17.08 (+3.52%), -0.12% at $17.06
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $18.08 (+1.18%), -0.22% at $18.04
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.45 (+0.97%), +0.29% at $10.48
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $42.34 (-0.87%)
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $10.63 (+8.91%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

  • Strategy (MSTR): closed at $135.65 (+8.86%), -0.18% at $135.41
  • Strive (ASST): closed at $8.54 (+19.19%), -1.41% at $8.42
  • SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $7.44 (+13.59%), +0.27% at $7.46
  • Upexi (UPXI): closed at $0.83 (+35.86%), +4.53% at $0.86
  • Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.18 (+6.31%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

  • Daily net flows: $506.6 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $54.56 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~1.26 million

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flows: $157.2 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $11.67 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~5.64 million

Source: Farside Investors

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Crypto World

OpenClaw Phishing Attack Targets Developers on GitHub

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OpenClaw Phishing Attack Targets Developers on GitHub

Developers of OpenClaw, a popular open-source AI project, are being targeted by phishing attacks on GitHub with fake token rewards designed to lure users into connecting crypto wallets.

Cybersecurity firm OX Security reported the scam on Wednesday and said it had found no victims so far. OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger separately warned on X that any emails claiming association with the project are scams, urging users to only visit the official site. “We would never do that. The project is open source and non-commercial,” Steinberger said.

According to OX Security, attackers created fake GitHub accounts that posted messages in repositories they controlled, tagging developers to increase visibility. The posts claimed that recipients had won $5,000 worth of “CLAW,” a non-existent cryptocurrency falsely associated with the project, in an attempt to trick recipients into visiting a cloned website.

The campaign directed users to a cloned website resembling OpenClaw’s official page and prompted them to connect crypto wallets, a common phishing tactic used to steal credentials or secure malicious approvals.

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Source: Hacker News

Social media reports suggest that developers were aware of the fraud, with many labeling the campaign as a scam immediately.

OpenClaw creator warned users project would never launch a token

The attack comes months after the OpenClaw creator warned users that the project would never launch a cryptocurrency, and that any token claiming association with him was fraudulent.

“I will never do a coin. Any project that lists me as coin owner is a scam,” Steinberger said in an X post in January.

Source: Peter Steinberger

The phishing campaign marks another attempt by attackers to capitalize on OpenClaw’s viral popularity.

Launched in November 2025, OpenClaw offers a free, open-source autonomous AI agent that runs locally on computers to manage files, software and browser tasks via chat platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram.

Related: Crypto hacks fall to $49M in February as attackers shift to phishing scams

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The platform received high GitHub engagement and active social communities, amassing more than 465,000 subscribers on X in the months following its launch.

In a move to fight scams, the OpenClaw project also confirmed a ban on Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto discussions in its official Discord channel in February.

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