According to Chainalysis, cryptocurrency payments to suppliers of fentanyl precursor chemicals started to decline in mid-2023, several months before official data showed a fall in overdose deaths. The report argues that on-chain flows can signal disruptions in illicit synthetic opioid supply three to six months ahead of public health statistics. It also notes an 85% year-over-year surge in 2025 crypto transactions tied to suspected human trafficking services, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, with much of the activity centered in Southeast Asia.

Bitcoin has fallen nearly half since its October record and remains below $70,000. Brian Armstrong said Coinbase data shows retail users continued buying dips, with February balances equal to or above December, while market commentator Mippo warned of a potential "full-on crypto winter" comparable to 2022 or 2019.

Santiment's data indicates that Bitcoin's aggregated funding rates across major exchanges have fallen to their most negative levels since August 2024, reflecting a heavy build-up of short positions. Following long liquidations on Binance on October 10, 2025, traders increasingly moved into leveraged shorts, creating one-sided bearish positioning that could set the stage for a potential short squeeze.

Bitcoin traded above $66,000 on Friday after falling about 30% over the past month. Alphractal said the network's long-term Realized Cap Impulse moved below zero for the first time in three years, a shift historically followed by extended drawdowns. A global uncertainty gauge is at a record high, reinforcing a cautious backdrop for risk assets.

Crypto lender BlockFills temporarily paused client deposits and withdrawals last week amid market volatility and liquidity pressures. Trading on spot and derivatives markets remains available, while the freeze may affect around 2,000 institutional clients with at least $10 million in crypto assets. Management is working with investors and clients to restore platform liquidity.

According to Santiment, the top 100 Pepe wallets accumulated a combined 23.02 trillion tokens during the October market downturn, while PEPE's market cap sits about 73% below its peak nearly nine months ago. A market commentator said PEPE remains below major moving averages, with $0.0000031 marked as key support and $0.00000726 needed to hint at a reversal. PEPE traded near $0.0000035 after a 4% daily drop.

Trend Research, led by Jack Yi, has fully closed what was described as Asia's largest leveraged Ethereum long, resulting in an on-chain realized loss of about $869 million. Just days before the final exit, Yi reiterated a bullish outlook, projecting ETH above $10,000 and Bitcoin over $200,000 while noting market liquidity concerns. On-chain metrics show accumulating Ethereum addresses now hold 27 million ETH, roughly 23% of the circulating supply, and have historically added during periods when price trades below their realized level.

Robinhood has activated the public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 built on Arbitrum, to support tokenized real-world and digital assets and give developers early access ahead of a planned mainnet later this year. Infrastructure providers including Alchemy, Allium, Chainlink, LayerZero, and TRM are integrating, with more partners expected during the early test phase.

Artemis data indicates that decentralized perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid has processed $2.6 trillion in trading volume, almost twice Coinbase's $1.4 trillion over the same period. Hyperliquid's token has risen 31.7% year-to-date in 2026, while Coinbase has fallen 27.0%, and the platform reported $822 million in revenue in 2025 and $79.1 million so far this year. Ripple's Ripple Prime brokerage is adding support for Hyperliquid, even as the exchange addresses an insider-trading case tied to leveraged shorts in its HYPE token.