Bitcoin market pain intensifies as ETF outflows continue and miner exits for AI
Meanwhile, Strategy is unfazed by bitcoin’s woes and announced its 100th bitcoin purchase.
To say the sentiment around bitcoin is gloomy is to put it mildly. The asset is continuing to struggle, dropping below $65,000 on Sunday evening. As of 9:30 a.m. ET Monday, bitcoin’s market cap has dropped to $1.3 trillion from its peak of $2.5 trillion on October 6.
Timothy Misir, head of research at Blockhead Research Network, said that the market pain has intensified beneath the surface and at the $67,000 level, unrealized losses equal 19% of the market cap, “echoing May 2022’s drawdown structure.”
“Bitcoin has slipped below its True Market Mean, drifting defensively toward the Realized Price (~$54.9K). This range defines the lower boundary of the current cycle’s structural support. The selloff that began in January has matured into a broader structural retracement,” Misir wrote in a February 23 note.
Meanwhile, bitcoin ETFs have seen $993 million in outflows in February. The funds have seen five consecutive weeks of outflows now totaling $3.8 billion, the longest exodus since February 2025, according to SoSoValue. Crypto liquidations reached $503.8 million in the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data shows. Bitcoin suffered $234.1 million in liquidations, with the bulk of them — $207 million — in long positions.
“In the crypto market, BTC’s recent decline has once again flushed out long positioning, while a visible concentration of short interest remains near the 70,000 psychological level. If macro uncertainty persists, capital preferences may continue to favor lower leverage, reinforcing a range-bound structure,” said Dean Chen, a Bitunix analyst.
There is also another layer adding to bitcoin’s pain, Misir said: miner behavior.
Over the weekend, former bitcoin miner Bitdeer announced it had sold all of its bitcoin holdings to fund its pivot to AI.
“Miner treasury sales historically signal balance-sheet discipline during late-cycle compression phases,” Misir said.
Bitdeer tried to assuage investors, saying that selling bitcoin “should not be a concern for the broader market.”
“We are currently evaluating multiple non-binding powered land acquisition opportunities, and we believe it is prudent to prepare liquidity now,” the company wrote on X.
This comes amid growing concerns that digital asset treasuries (DATs), many of which are under pressure, might be forced to sell, further straining bitcoin.
Nic Puckrin, cofounder of Coin Bureau, said that, for instance, Nakamoto’s shares are down 99.32% over the last 280 days, with unrealized losses of $270 million.
“As contagion increases, we could see further corporate selling in the weeks to come, pushing the price of bitcoin toward its bear market low,” Puckrin said, adding that few DATs have the balance sheet strength and stamina to withstand a long bitcoin downturn the way Strategy can.
Speaking of Strategy, the company remains unfazed and announced its 100th bitcoin purchase since it began accumulating bitcoin in August 2020, raising its pile to 717,722 bitcoin. Strategy funded its latest purchase by selling shares of Strategy’s Class A common stock, which sent the stock down in early trading.
