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Your day-ahead look for Feb. 26, 2026
(Midjourney/Modified by CoinDesk)
What to know:
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By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless specified otherwise)
The price of Bitcoin experienced a bounce, generating enthusiasm on social media, with users on X claiming that the bottom has been reached and a new rally is beginning. Nonetheless, activity in the options market suggests that experienced traders remain cautious, hedging against the possibility of a drop below $60,000.
"While the bounce has led to some call buying around the $85,000 to $90,000 strikes, the downside skew remains more pronounced than the upside, implying a degree of caution," Sidrah Fariq, who heads retail at Deribit, remarked to CoinDesk via Telegram.
The interest in call options, or bullish positions, reflects that Bitcoin’s increase to $70,000 on Wednesday has prompted some traders to pursue upside potential. However, the skew, which assesses the pricing of calls relative to puts, continues to show a negative trend across all time frames. This indicates that traders are still worried about potential price declines and are actively seeking puts for downside coverage.
Supporting this trend, on Deribit, the $60,000 put option is the most favored position, boasting notional open interest (OI) of $1.48 billion. In contrast, the most sought-after call option, the $90,000 strike, has OI of $1.12 billion. This clearly indicates a predominantly bearish positioning.
That said, there may be potential for some consolidation, as dealer positioning — the net exposure of those providing liquidity in the markets — has shifted to positive between $60,000 and $70,000. This indicates that dealers might buy low and sell high to sustain a net-neutral exposure, thereby limiting price fluctuations.
"Dealer positioning has transitioned to neutral to slightly positive gamma, suggesting reduced volatility and range-bound price activity," Fariq noted.
Additional analysts are monitoring the $74,000-$75,000 range as a key level for confirming a renewed upward trend.
Bitcoin was recently trading around $68,500, marking a 4.6% increase for the day, while the overall market exhibited larger gains, reflected by a 5.8% rise in the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index. Ether (ETH) has surged over 8%, and both XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL) have gained more than 6%.
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In traditional markets, futures related to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 remained largely unchanged, even after AI leader Nvidia (NVDA) released an impressive fourth-quarter earnings report. Gold and the Dollar Index saw slight increases as market participants awaited updates on the U.S.-Iran discussions set for later in the day. Remain vigilant!
Read more: For further analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, refer to Crypto Markets Today
What to Watch
For a more extensive list of events this week, consult CoinDesk’s "Crypto Week Ahead".
- Crypto
- No events scheduled.
- Macro
- Feb. 26, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending Feb. 21 (Prev. 206K)
- Feb. 26, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- Feb. 26: American Bitcoin (ABTC), pre-market, $0.01
- Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, -$0.11
- Feb. 26: TeraWulf (WULF), post-market, -$0.15
- Feb. 26: Figure Technologies (FIGR), post-market, $0.20
- Feb. 26: Sui Group (SUIG), post-market, $0.01
- Feb. 26: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.49
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s "Crypto Week Ahead".
- Governance votes & calls
- Feb. 26: Lido DAO will conduct a tokenholder update call.
- Feb. 26: Maple Finance will hold an investor call.
- Unlock DAO is voting to delegate 2,000,000 UP from the treasury to seven active community members to reliably secure quorum for future proposals. Voting concludes on Feb. 26.
- Unlocks
- No events scheduled.
- Token Launches
- Feb. 26: and Injective are set to be listed on OKX.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s "Crypto Week Ahead".
- Day 4 of 4: Strategy World 2026 (Las Vegas)
- Day 3 of 4: GFTN Forum Japan (Tokyo)
Market Movements
- BTC is down 0.52% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $68,590.57 (24hrs: +4.67%)
- ETH is down 1.16% at $2,075.97 (24hrs: +8.36%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 1.27% at 2,011.66 (24hrs: +5.83%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 2 bps at 2.85%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0005% (0.5595% annualized) on Binance
