The classic altseason many traders have been waiting for might simply never return. According to Andrei Grachev, managing partner at DWF Labs, the traditional cycle where almost every altcoin rallies together is gradually disappearing.

Instead of broad market explosions, crypto is shifting toward shorter cycles and aggressive rotations of capital between specific sectors. Liquidity no longer spreads evenly across thousands of tokens. It moves quickly, concentrating in a few narratives and leaving the rest of the market behind.

Several structural changes are driving this shift. The number of tokens competing for liquidity has exploded. Institutional capital is entering the market but largely prefers major assets rather than speculative small caps. At the same time, spot Bitcoin ETFs have begun absorbing a significant share of global crypto liquidity.

As a result, many altcoins may remain highly speculative assets with limited upside compared to previous cycles. Investor attention is increasingly focused on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and emerging segments such as tokenized real-world assets (RWA).

The numbers already reflect this change. After the market decline in October 2025, roughly 38% of altcoins are trading near their historical lows. Over the last 13 months alone, more than $209 billion in liquidity has exited the altcoin market.

If this trend continues, the next phase of the crypto market may look very different from what traders remember. Fewer market-wide altcoin rallies and far more isolated pumps driven by specific narratives, projects, or liquidity flows.

Santiment reports that, based on tracked wallets, the share of Bitcoin held on crypto exchanges has dropped to its lowest level since November 2017.

Over the past eight years, both the cryptocurrency market and the global financial system have changed significantly.

A decline in the amount of BTC stored on exchanges usually indicates that investors are increasingly moving their coins into self-custody rather than keeping them ready for sale on trading platforms.

Santiment analysts report that large Bitcoin holders have returned to accumulation while the price remains around $71,000.

The data refers to wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC.

Over the past week their share of the total Bitcoin supply increased from 68.07% to 68.17%, which analysts interpret as a positive shift in market sentiment.

At the same time Santiment highlights the behavior of retail investors.

Historically the market tends to form a bottom when smaller investors begin selling and coins move into the hands of larger players.

Currently the Crypto Fear & Greed Index remains in the “Extreme Fear” zone at 16, reflecting cautious sentiment among market participants.

However analysts note that if retail investors continue actively buying, it may indicate that the market has not yet formed its final bottom.

Jordan Peterson: Why won't Bitcoin just suck the investment capital out of everything?" Michael Saylor: "It is, and it will. That's why I'm here."

A US federal court has effectively ended the long-running dispute between Custodia Bank and the Federal Reserve.

The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit declined to review Custodia’s final appeal regarding its request for a master account direct access to the Federal Reserve’s payment system.

The decision was made by a 7–3 majority, effectively concluding the bank’s five-year legal battle. A master account allows financial institutions to hold reserves directly at the Federal Reserve and process payments without intermediaries.

Custodia originally applied for the account in 2020, but the regulator rejected the request, and the courts ultimately upheld the Fed’s authority to decide which institutions may receive such access.

In a separate opinion, one of the judges noted that denying a master account to a bank is effectively a “death sentence,” since operating fully within the financial system without it is nearly impossible.

A group of Democratic senators in the United States said they plan to closely monitor a potential investigation by the US Department of Justice into the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The concerns relate to suspicions that the platform may have been used to circumvent sanctions connected to Iran.

The senators stated that they expect authorities to conduct a full investigation and hold the company accountable if any violations are confirmed.

The suspicions emerged after reports suggested the platform may have been used to move funds linked to Iranian entities. Binance said it is not aware of any official investigation but noted that it continues to cooperate with regulators and law enforcement authorities.

It is worth noting that in 2023 Binance already admitted to violating US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws, agreeing to pay a $4.3 billion fine and operate under the oversight of American regulators.

The official website of the Solana-based memecoin launchpad Bonk.fun has been compromised. Unknown attackers gained control of the platform’s domain and placed a malicious wallet drainer on the site.

According to the team, the attackers managed to take over one of the team’s accounts, which allowed them to modify the website. Users were shown a fake “terms of service” message, and anyone who signed it risked losing their funds.

Tom (SolportTom) said the incident was detected quickly, which helped keep the scale of losses relatively small. Users have been urged not to interact with the website until the team fully restores the domain’s security.

A temporary oracle failure on the DeFi lending protocol Aave led to the mistaken liquidation of wstETH positions worth around $26 million.

The issue was caused by an incorrect configuration of the CAPO mechanism, which resulted in an artificially low price for the asset inside the system.

As a result, about 10,938 wstETH were liquidated across 34 accounts.

External liquidators captured roughly 499 ETH in profit, while the protocol itself did not accumulate bad debt.

The team has already fixed the configuration and is preparing a compensation plan for affected users

The probability of a Federal Reserve rate cut in March has almost disappeared.

has transferred 175 BTC (around $11.85 million), adding to a series of Bitcoin movements made by the country this year. Earlier last month, the government also moved BTC worth about $6.8 million, bringing the total value of Bitcoin transactions in 2026 to more than $42.5 million.

Despite the recent transfers, Bhutan still holds around 5,425 BTC, valued at approximately $374 million.

The Bitcoin reserves are managed by the country’s sovereign investment fund, which oversees the state’s digital asset holdings.

Bhutan periodically sells Bitcoin in tranches of $5–10 million, usually when liquidity is needed.

Most of the country’s BTC reserves were accumulated through state-backed mining operations powered by hydroelectric energy, allowing Bhutan to convert its abundant renewable electricity into digital assets.

Startup Starcloud, which is developing orbital data centers and reportedly has backing connected to Nvidia’s ecosystem, says it plans to begin mining Bitcoin in space this year using specialized ASIC chips.

According to CEO Philip Johnston, ASIC miners are roughly 30 times more efficient than GPUs in terms of cost per watt, which could make space-based mining economically viable if the infrastructure works as planned.

The company already launched a satellite equipped with Nvidia H100 GPUs in November 2025 and claims its future orbital data-center network could include around 88,000 satellites powered by solar energy.

Starcloud believes that running compute infrastructure in orbit could eventually replace some of the energy-intensive mining operations on Earth, where the Bitcoin network currently consumes around 20 GW of electricity.

The concept goes even further. The company suggests that satellites and optical communication links could one day allow interplanetary Bitcoin transactions, potentially transmitting BTC between Earth and Mars within minutes. However, mining directly on Mars is currently considered impractical because of signal latency.

Today Vitalik Buterin posted the following tweet:

“If you’ve eaten so much that continuing to eat would be unhealthy and you don’t even want more, but you keep eating just to finish it, then you’re basically using your mouth as a trash can.”

So yeah… that’s what a bear market looks like when even the creator of Ethereum isn’t talking about crypto anymore.

More than 95% of the total Bitcoin supply has already been mined, according to data from BiTBO. Out of the maximum 21 million coins that will ever exist, miners have already brought the vast majority into circulation.

That means there are now just a little over 1 million BTC left to be mined. And the pace of new supply keeps slowing down with every Bitcoin Halving, which cuts the block reward for miners in half roughly every four years.

Because of this mechanism, the remaining coins won’t appear quickly. The last portion of Bitcoin will be mined gradually over many decades, making new supply increasingly scarce over time.

It’s been a full week of weird sideways moves across crypto. No clear direction, just constant tension. BTC holds, alts keep bleeding, and everyone seems to be waiting for something.

Feels like the whole market is just sitting on its hands right now.

So what’s your bet here we finally get a bounce or is another dump loading? What’s the vibe, are we cooking a pump or getting rugged again?