February 17th Weekly Market Recap: “BlackRock Boosted its Stake in BitMin”

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DeFi Analytics 13 February 2026

The weekly addition of the Crypto DeFi Analytics, covering chain fee generation, Beacon Chain Balance, Uniswap V3 and Liquidations.

Crypto Risk Appetite Report 13th February 2026

The weekly addition of our Market Sentiment Report.

BlackRock Boosted its Stake in BitMin

BTC remains rangebound at $65–68K after sliding from $70K this week, while options markets have rapidly de-risked with BTC and ETH implied vols around 50% and 65%, flat term structures, and persistent downside demand as puts trade 8–9 vol points over calls. Spot BTC ETFs saw $410.2M of outflows yesterday, taking the 20-day rolling total to -$3.8B, while ETH remains below $2,000 with ETH ETFs seeing $113.1M of outflows versus $2.7M of inflows into SOL ETFs.

Risk sentiment remains pressured by the equity selloff, with the S&P 500 down 1.57% and the Nasdaq-100 down more than 2%, as macro attention turns to jobless claims at 227K following a stronger January NFP print of 130K ahead of today’s CPI.

UK Treasury Selects HSBC Orion for DIGIT Pilot

Crypto markets remain rangebound, with BTC trading between $65K and $68K, ETH between $1,800 and $2,000, and SOL around $80, while spot ETF demand softened as Bitcoin ETFs recorded $276.30M of net outflows and Ethereum ETFs $129.18M, partially offset by modest inflows in Solana ETFs of $478.90K and Avalanche ETFs of $447.41K.

A firmer US jobs report showing 130,000 payroll gains and unemployment easing to 4.3%, alongside sharp downward revisions to 2025 hiring, lifted the 2-year Treasury by nearly 10bps to around 3.54% and pushed the next expected Fed cut to July from June.

Japan’s PPI eased to 2.3% year-on-year and the UK economy grew 0.1% month-on-month, while the UK Treasury selected HSBC Orion for its DIGIT tokenised gilt pilot and Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets for autonomous agents..

“Right now, I am more worried about inflation remaining stubbornly high”

BTC broke below $70K yesterday, sliding to $66.5K as the broader crypto complex sold off, though Glassnode notes whales bought 53K BTC over the past week and spot BTC ETFs logged a third straight day of inflows ($166.5M). Macro signals were mixed: December retail sales stalled, but January payrolls beat (130K vs 70K) and unemployment dipped to 4.3%, pulling Treasury yields lower while equities still closed down amid mega-cap weakness.

Fed officials Hammack and Logan leaned hawkish, stressing patience and persistent inflation risks, keeping rate-cut expectations constrained. On policy and plumbing, stablecoin-yield talks at the White House ended without resolution, while institutions accelerated onchain rails via Malaysia’s stablecoin pilots, Franklin–Binance collateral, Robinhood’s Arbitrum-based L2 testnet, Stripe’s x402 machine payments, and BUIDL trading on UniswapX via Securitize

Equities Near Record Highs

BTC is consolidating around $70K, while ETH briefly dipped below $2,000 before recovering, with modest institutional support emerging across both assets. Spot BTC ETFs saw $144.9M of net inflows yesterday after $371.1M on Friday, while Strategy added 1,142 BTC for $90M at an average $78,815, ahead of last week’s sharp sell-off. On ETH, spot ETF products flipped back to $57M of net buying and BitMine added 40,613 ETH last week, taking holdings to 4.325M ETH.

Risk sentiment remains constructive with US equities higher as the S&P rose 0.47% into January NFP, with consensus at 68K payroll growth and a 4.4% unemployment rate, while market-structure headlines included CoinDesk BNB Futures launching on ICE Futures US, Ledger integrating OKX DEX for hardware-signed swaps, and Backpack detailing milestone-based token unlocks.

21Shares Files Trust for ONDO ETF

BTC steadied around $70K after a sharp sub-$60K flush and rebound, with spot BTC ETFs taking $330.7m of inflows on Friday as broader risk sentiment improved. Derivatives have cooled from panic levels but still lean defensive: BTC and ETH vol curves remain inverted and 7-day put-call skew sits near -13% for BTC and -11% for ETH versus roughly -30% at last week’s lows.

Macro risk caught a bid with US equities up 1.97% and Japan’s Nikkei up 3.89%, even as $10Y US yields rose about 4bp and the dollar continued to soften. Policy and product headlines remain active, including tighter South Korea oversight, a White House meeting on stablecoin yield, Bitcoin difficulty down to $125.86T, and new crypto market plumbing via the 21Shares ONDO ETF filing and TON Pay for Telegram Mini Apps.