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Feb 23, 202620 hours ago

Despite the Recent Bitcoin Shakeouts, Holders Accumulated over 200,000 BTC

RG
Rand Group@cryptorand

AI Summary

This market bulletin cuts through the noise to deliver a clear snapshot of a crypto landscape defined by extreme fear and strategic accumulation. It opens with a deep dive into Bitcoin's sharp pullback to $64,300, which has vaporized weekend gains and pushed the market's Fear & Greed Index to a rare "extreme fear" reading of 5. Amidst this turmoil, the analysis reveals a compelling counter-narrative: while leveraged longs are being liquidated and realized losses mount, on-chain data suggests steadfast holders are seizing the opportunity, accumulating over 200,000 BTC during the shakeout.

Welcome again to today’s market bulletin! We’ve gathered the most relevant trends and developments shaping the crypto and finance world, all in one place. Clear, concise, and focused, here’s what you need to know to stay on top of the markets this week. Let’s begin:

Surfing the Market, with the ETH and Binance.

Don’t miss BTC’s slide back to extreme fear as it wipes weekend gains and JPMorgan’s admission it debanked Trump after the Capitol attack!

World Liberty Finance (WLFI) is under the spotlight.

A short article about DCA on the way down or up?

ETH unable to bounce and recover the $2,000 support, pushed back to the $1,800 range. Really important level:

Binance has more stablecoins parked than the next 4 exchanges combined. Data, not opinion:

Bitcoin Slides to $64K as Crypto Fear Gauge Hits Record Lows

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-style vibes are back in crypto: Bitcoin has dumped more than 4% in a few hours, erasing its entire weekend bounce and dropping to around $64,300. The move has sent the Crypto Fear & Greed Index crashing back down to 5/100 an “extreme fear” reading seen only a handful of times since 2018. At the same time, hundreds of millions in leveraged longs have been wiped out, pushing BTC back toward the bottom of its recent trading range.

Highlights

Longs get flushed: Over 136,000 traders were liquidated in the last 24 hours, with about $458 million in positions blown out, roughly 92% of them on the long side, underscoring how lopsided positioning had become.

Weekend rally erased: BTC briefly tagged around $68,600 on Saturday before reversing hard; it’s now clinging to support at the lower edge of the sideways channel that’s been in place since the Feb. 6 plunge toward $60,000.

Deep drawdown from the top: Prices sit about 48% below the October all-time high near $126,000 and roughly 5.5% under the prior cycle peak around $69,000, leaving many latecomers underwater.

Sentiment at “max pain”: Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index has dropped back to 5, a level only reached three other times since the metric launched in August 2019, June 2022 and earlier this month, all periods associated with heavy pessimism.

Realized losses piling up: Glassnode data show recent buyers are still locking in roughly $500 million in net realized losses per day on a seven-day basis, suggesting capitulation is ongoing even if the worst of the panic has cooled.

Sharpe ratio screaming “accumulation”: Analyst Michaël van de Poppe notes Bitcoin’s Sharpe Ratio has slumped to about -38.4, a reading that has only been lower twice in its history and that he frames as typical of “low-risk” accumulation windows.

If this combination of extreme fear, heavy liquidations and historically weak risk-adjusted returns follows past patterns, it could be setting the stage for longer-term bargain hunters to step in. But until price action stabilizes above support and realized losses start to shrink, the market remains in a grind-y “base building” phase where more chop and more nerves, are likely.

JPMorgan Admits It ‘Debanked’ Trump After Capitol Attack, Court Filings Reveal

New court documents show that JPMorgan Chase formally acknowledged closing personal and business accounts tied to President Donald Trump in February 2021, weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The admission comes amid Trump’s $5 billion lawsuit accusing the bank and CEO Jamie Dimon of politically motivated “debanking” that damaged his companies. JPMorgan says the relationship simply no longer fit its interests and is pushing to move the case out of Florida and into federal court in New York.

Highlights

First written acknowledgment: In a recent filing, a former JPMorgan executive confirmed the bank shut Trump’s accounts in its private and commercial banking units in early 2021, something it had not stated explicitly before.

$5B ‘debanking’ lawsuit: Trump alleges the closures were driven by politics and claims he was effectively placed on a reputational “blacklist,” cutting him and his businesses off from future banking services.

Dimon in the crosshairs: The suit personally names CEO Jamie Dimon, a move JPMorgan calls improper and “fraudulent,” arguing he was added mainly to keep the case in a friendlier Florida court.

Bank denies political bias: JPMorgan maintains it does not close accounts over political or religious views and says client relationships are sometimes ended when they no longer align with the bank’s risk and business priorities.

Broader ‘debanking’ fight: The case taps into a wider conservative backlash against banks allegedly cutting ties over “reputational risk,” an issue Trump has already targeted with an executive order limiting that rationale in supervision.

How this lawsuit unfolds could reshape the debate over when large financial institutions can sever ties with controversial public figures and whether “debanking” becomes a legal flashpoint or remains a discretionary risk tool for banks.

Project Research: World Liberty Finance (WLFI)

ORIGIN

World Liberty Finance is a blockchain enabled financial ecosystem aiming to bridge traditional finance, digital assets, and real world economic activity. It positions itself as a next-gen aggregator for DeFi yield, cross chain gateways, and sustainable tokenomics, while also fostering real world community development and networking through global events and forums. WLFI’s narrative revolves around creating an onchain infrastructure that supports financial interoperability, accessible yield opportunities, and broader economic participation beyond crypto insiders.

The project emphasizes building both digital financial rails and physical community touchpoints that bring builders, investors, and industry leaders together not just online, but in person.

OPERATIVE

World Liberty Finance operates as a multi-layer financial ecosystem with several interconnected components:

Token & Governance: WLFI’s native token $WLFI functions as both a utility and governance asset. USD1 the native dollar pegged digital asset on WLFI, boasts of $5 billion in FDV. Token holders are positioned to participate in ecosystem governance votes, yield participation programs, and crosschain gateway access. The token’s role is core to the platform’s incentive layer and protocol feedback mechanisms.

Yield & DeFi Aggregation: The platform offers a suite of DeFi yield strategies and aggregation products that let users optimize returns across multiple chains and liquidity pools. WLFI’s architecture aims to simplify crosschain yield participation while maintaining transparency and reducing friction between disparate DeFi protocols.

CrossChain Interoperability: WLFI’s systems include crosschain messaging and transfer layers that help move assets and liquidity between ecosystems securely. This interoperability is key to enabling users to deploy capital where it’s most efficient without unnecessary complexity.

Tokenomics & Value Capture: WLFI’s economic model is outlined in its MiCA whitepaper, which describes how value is captured within the ecosystem via fees, staking, and governance participation. The Gold Paper supplements the economic design with additional protocols and operational tiers that support long term stability and community alignment.

Community & Networking: Beyond protocol mechanics, WLFI is building real world engagement channels. The WLFI Forum in Florida is a recent high profile event bringing together founders, investors, technologists, regulators, and community ambassadors to discuss trends, economic impact, and financial innovation. The agenda showcased sessions on decentralized finance, scaling frameworks, and real world use case adoption.

SUMMARY

World Liberty Finance is an ambitious ecosystem combining DeFi aggregation, crosschain infrastructure, token based governance, and real world community engagement. Its native token is central to governance, yield participation, and ecosystem incentives, while its protocol design aims to make yield generation and crosschain liquidity more accessible.

A DeFi infrastructure with a strong global presence, WLFI seeks to bridge the divide between digital asset communities and mainstream economic stakeholders.

COMPETITORS

WLFI competes with multi-chain DeFi ecosystems and major stablecoin providers such as Pendle, Stargate, USDC, and USDT, but its edge lies in its community engagement strategy and crosschain integration focus that emphasizes real world participation alongside onchain utility. This hybrid model positions WLFI as both a financial protocol and a global builder network.

DCA on the way down or up?

Dollar Cost Averaging (aka DCA) is one of the strategies that tends to work best in the market when our goal is to make money instead of trying to perfectly time bottoms or tops. Many investors use it, but not everyone stops to think about when it’s better to apply it. A disorganized DCA is no longer a strategy, it’s usually a sign that our position wasn’t planned correctly.

What is it?

It’s a strategy that consists of making several purchases over time to average out your final entry price. In other words, instead of placing one large buy order, you split it into several orders executed at different moments and prices. This reduces the risk of having bought too early in a falling market or having bought too late in a rising one.

DCA on the way down: When the market hasn’t found a bottom, the best thing we can do is apply a DCA strategy with predefined buying levels, so that our average entry price becomes lower and closer to the eventual bottom with each new purchase.

DCA on the way up: Many investors prefer to wait until the market shows signs that it has reached a bottom before they begin to buy. Each purchase increases the average entry price, but these buys occur after confirmations or broken resistances, which means the risk is lower.

Equality

There is one situation where buying on the way down or on the way up is exactly the same: when the prices are the same.

If we decide to buy on the way down:

1 × $50

1 × $30

1 × $20

It’s the same as buying on the way up after the bottom:

1 × $20

1 × $30

1 × $50

In both cases, our average entry price will be the same: $33.33.

There are different ways to conduct DCA. The most common approach is splitting the allocated capital into equal parts, but more sophisticated versions pyramid the buys: placing more weight either on the early purchases or the later ones, depending on the strategy.

Psychology

The example above makes perfect sense on paper, but in reality, it’s much easier for most investors to DCA on the way down than on the way up.

When buying during a downtrend, each new purchase lowers the average entry price, improving our position ahead of a potential bounce.

On the way up, each new buy increases the average entry price, which makes many investors feel uncomfortable and often leads them to stop buying, leaving them with a smaller position than they originally wanted.

Conclusion

The best way to apply DCA is in an organized and pre-planned manner, executing it without hesitation. From a psychological perspective, DCA on the way down is more tolerable than DCA on the way up, making the former the more comfortable approach.

The two only become equal if the purchase prices end up being the same. The only issue with buying on the way up is that you must wait for the bottom to occur first, and in highly volatile markets like crypto, this wait can be costly.

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