We note that the situation with cryptocurrencies today does look dire. Over the last 24 hours, the top coins have sagged noticeably and erased the recent gains for traders that appeared as BTC rose above $25,000. All in all, it looks like this.

The market collapse took place tonight, and it was very sharp. To illustrate, here is a 15-minute chart of Bitcoin’s exchange rate. As you can see, the value of BTC sank from $23.4 to $22.1 thousand over the course of half an hour.

Despite this, investors continue to accumulate bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. This can be inferred from the number of addresses with at least 1 BTC. Today, this figure exceeded 983 thousand units for the first time in Bitcoin’s history.

In addition BTC investors at least are not in a hurry to panic. Judging by the so-called fear and greed index of Bitcoin investors, the state of the latter is now rated at 50 out of 100, which is characterized as “neutral”. Consequently, capital owners are in no hurry to both increase positions and get rid of them.

What will happen to Bitcoin in the near future?

According to a fresh report from analysts CryptoCompare, investment in digital assets continued its upward trend in February, with total digital assets under management by various organisations reaching a new high of $28.3 billion. That’s an increase of 5.25 per cent since January 2023. It is logical to assume that the increase in asset volume is indicative of bullish investor sentiment and growing appetite for crypto.

The volume of Bitcoin-based investment products in the portfolios of major market players increased by 6.06 per cent. The same figure for Etherium-based instruments increased by 1.72 per cent. On a currency equivalent basis, these figures are $20 billion and $6.8 billion, respectively. That is, BTC- and ETH-based instruments now account for 70.5 percent and 24 percent of total market volume, respectively, which is also a positive sign.

In other words, there is enough demand for the crypto among large investors, well, local fluctuations in Bitcoin’s value have not deterred them from investing last month. A few more fundamentals also suggest a positive outlook for the future. The first is Bitcoin’s hash rate, which reached an all-time high the day before.

More specifically, the hash rate reached a level of 405 hashes per second, which was recorded on February 27. This means that the Bitcoin network is now more secure than ever from possible attempts to influence what happens to blocks and transactions within it.

The second indicator is the number of bitcoins blocked on Lightning Network channels. Recall, LN is a second-tier solution that allows you to make almost instant transfers in BTC for very low fees.


Over the years, however, the Lightning Network is still not seriously popular. Still, it is relatively technically difficult to work with, and to send BTCs via LN channels you need to send them there first by making a separate transaction. The same goes for opening a channel between two network members if they have no "friends" in common. That is, this is usually something that only avid Bitcoin fans, who care about using Lightning Network, are willing to do.


The market has also seen an increase in the volume of bitcoins that have been sitting idle for a long time. This is an illiquid supply of cryptocurrency, which eliminates the selling pressure of some BTCs on the market, because the owners are clearly not going to get rid of them.

Also keep in mind Bitcoin’s historical deviations from its highs. In the current cycle, the cryptocurrency has pretty much bottomed out when you consider the trends of previous years, according to CryptoPotato. In other words, compared to the old bearish phases, the current drawdown of the digital asset industry is enough to be considered full and final.

Finally, the latest sign of the end of the bearish trend is the exit of most short-term Bitcoin holders to the upside. According to CryptoSlate sources, about 70 per cent of short-term BTC holders can currently sell their coins at a profit. As a reminder, this category of market players includes those investors who bought coins six months ago or earlier.

A similar situation has formed on every global day of the crypto market at the end of previous bearish cycles. The analysts’ conclusion is obvious: investors should have no serious reason to panic if they expect to profit from BTC and other crypto-assets in the medium term.


Forecasting cryptocurrency market growth over a few months or even years is easy enough, as the coin industry has actually moved in cycles of about four years in the past. This has happened many times before, so experts are now assuming history repeats itself. Most importantly, investors expect the same, which means they will act accordingly. And that will contribute to this scenario one way or another, because asset purchases are pushing rates up.