More than 36,000 BTC left exchanges this month as miners shifted holdings to cold storage, hinting at bullish expectations ahead.

Bitcoin miners have moved more than 36,000 BTC from exchanges since the beginning of February.

The volume stands out when measured against earlier months and points to a change in how they are managing their holdings.

Miner Activity in February

A CryptoQuant report indicates that roughly 36,000 BTC were transferred from trading platforms within a short period this month. Out of that total, more than 12,000 BTC was withdrawn from Binance, while the remaining 24,000 BTC was distributed across several other exchanges. This shows that the activity occurred broadly across the market, instead of being linked to a single exchange or one isolated transaction.

This type of activity is generally associated with long-term storage because miners typically move BTC to cold wallets instead of leaving their holdings on exchanges. Such transfers can also mean confidence in future price growth, as lower exchange balances reduce the amount of BTC readily available for sale on the spot market.

CryptoQuant also noted that daily withdrawals accelerated during the period. On one day alone, more than 6,000 BTC was moved off exchanges, marking the highest single-day total since last November. Compared to January, February’s withdrawal levels are much higher, contributing to the view that miners are actively repositioning.

At the same time, miners are not the only group showing sustained faith in the OG cryptocurrency’s upside. Data shows that long-term holders accumulated 380,104 BTC over the past 30 days, indicating continued demand from that segment of the market.

Market Outlook

The opening weeks of February have delivered a blow to BTC, with its price falling near the $60,000 at one point. Data from CoinGecko shows that over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency went from slightly over $67,000 to just under $70,000, while posting a decline of more than 28% over the past month.

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However, analysts at VanEck describe the 2026 downtrend as an “orderly deleveraging” instead of a sudden collapse. Head of Digital Asset Research Mathew Sigel previously explained that this is because futures open interest has dropped by about 20%, suggesting leveraged positions are being reduced in a controlled manner rather than through panic-driven liquidations.

February’s performance has also been shaped by institutional outflows, macroeconomic pressure, and tax-related factors. Spot Bitcoin ETF outflows are now exceeding inflows, suggesting profit-taking or a shift to defensive assets like gold. The Federal Reserve has also maintained rates near 3.75% amid 2.4% inflation, while the newly introduced Internal Revenue Service 1099-DA form adds compliance pressure for investors.

An Ethereum user lost $600,000 on Tuesday morning to a common crypto scam known as ‘address poisoning.’

Highlighting the loss, SpecterAnalyst, a self-described “onchain investigator,” warned users to “always verify the entire wallet address.”

The costly mishap comes just one week after another user lost over $350,000 to the same scam, despite first sending a test transaction to the attacker’s address.

Read more: Crypto trader loses $50M USDT to address poisoning scam

Address poisoning is an attack vector in which scammers send spam transactions to genuine users, after they make a transfer.

The incoming transactions come from similar-looking addresses in the hopes that the user will confuse them for the intended address in future transfers. Fake versions of common token tickers may be transferred in these spam transactions, or small amounts of genuine assets.

The strategy requires generating a new, look-alike address with identical beginning and end characters, which the user accidentally copies and pastes into future transfers. 

Popular block explorers often abbreviate the middle portion of addresses to save space.

Read more: Refund of $70M ‘address poisoning’ scam ongoing, over 50% returned

Barabazs.eth, of the Ethereum Foundation and Ump.eth, proposes a partial solution to this issue. The tool allows for visually truncated addresses, while the full text remains searchable for users to double-check before transfers.

However, using an address book is far safer than copying addresses from a block explorer.

After Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade lowered transaction costs, address poisoning has surged. The volume of freshly created addresses has risen sharply following the protocol upgrade in December last year, according to research from Andrey Sergeenkov.

Test failed successfully

In the wake of today’s loss, SpecterAnalyst also drew attention to a significant loss from last week.

This time, the user even sent a test transaction to the scammer’s spoofed address, but “the test fund was not properly confirmed before sending the main amount.”

The simple error led to a loss of over $350,000.

SpecterAnalyst suggests that, for this user, testing became “a routine step rather than serving its actual purpose of confirming the correct destination address.”

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Dutch payments company Quantoz Payments has become a principal member of Visa, enabling it to issue virtual debit cards backed by its regulated e-money tokens and sponsor third-party fintechs seeking to offer stablecoin-linked payment products across Europe.

Under the agreement, Quantoz will be able to issue Visa-branded virtual cards tied to balances held in its USDQ, EURQ and EURD e-money tokens, allowing users to spend those funds online, in stores and through mobile wallets.

The company will also act as a BIN sponsor, enabling fintech partners to embed card issuance directly into their platforms.