Bitcoin slides 5%, tumbling below $65,000 as whale selling grows and recent buyers lock in losses

Bitcoin $BTC$67,996.25 is down sharply as trading in the new week begins, down 5% over the past 24 hours to $64,700.

U.S. stock index futures are down as well, led by the Nasdaq 100’s 0.9% decline. Precious metals are sharply higher, with gold ahead 2% and silver 5.6%.

The move in bitcoin follows a sharp flush from the $67,000 range, where it was trading over the weekend, and comes as on-chain data from Glassnode and CryptoQuant suggest the worst of the panic may have passed, but the broader structure remains under pressure.

Glassnode data shows that recent bitcoin buyers were realizing heavy losses earlier this month. A smoothed 7-day measure of short-term holder profits and losses fell to –$1.24 billion per day on Feb. 6, meaning newer investors were collectively locking in more than $1 billion in losses each day.

The 7D-EMA of Net Realized Profit & Loss for recent investors plunged to –$1.24B/day on Feb 06, before moderating to –$0.48B/day today.
While the intensity has cooled, the broader regime still signals a market under pressure, with participants in the base formation phase… https://t.co/rhCsrDuDfJ pic.twitter.com/00zibdP1om

— glassnode (@glassnode) February 23, 2026

That figure has since improved to about –$0.48 billion per day. In other words, panic selling has slowed but has not fully stopped. Recent buyers are still selling at a loss overall, a dynamic that typically appears during bottom-building phases rather than during strong uptrends.

Exchange flow data from CryptoQuant paints a similar picture of shifting market dynamics.

Data from CryptoQuant’s latest weekly report shows that the amount of bitcoin being sent to exchanges surged to about 60,000 $BTC per day during the early February drop toward $60,000. That figure has since fallen to roughly 23,000 $BTC on a 7-day smoothed basis, suggesting the wave of immediate selling has cooled.

But who is doing the selling has changed. CryptoQuant’s “exchange whale ratio” has climbed to 0.64, the highest level since 2015. That means nearly two-thirds of the bitcoin flowing onto exchanges is coming from just the 10 largest deposits each day.

In other words, large holders, often referred to as whales, are accounting for most of the supply hitting exchanges. The average size of each bitcoin deposit has also risen to levels last seen in mid-2022, reinforcing the idea that bigger players, not small retail traders, are driving current exchange activity.

Altcoins are facing broader distribution. CryptoQuant data shows average daily altcoin exchange deposits have risen to about 49,000 so far in 2026, up from roughly 40,000 in Q4 2025. Elevated deposit activity across alternative tokens has historically coincided with higher volatility and weaker risk appetite.

Liquidity buffers are thinning as well. Net USDT inflows to exchanges have compressed sharply from a one-year high of $616 million in November to just $27 million, and briefly turned negative in late January, per CryptoQuant. Stablecoin inflows typically expand during rallies. Their contraction suggests reduced marginal buying power.

Taken together, Glassnode’s loss-realization data and CryptoQuant’s exchange metrics describe a market digesting a capitulation event but not yet rebuilding strong demand.

As the week begins, the key question is whether the $65,000 level holds as a near-term pivot, or whether $BTC remains in a prolonged base-building phase.

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