Bitcoin keeps hitting $70K and bouncing back. Leverage, macro pressure, and an AI sell-off are keeping BTC rangebound – and the path forward is murky.
Bitcoin keeps knocking on $70,000. It keeps getting turned away. And the reasons go deeper than most headlines are willing to spell out.
As of February 18, BTC sat around $68,300 — close, but not close enough. The $70K level has become a wall, not just a number. According to Wintermute Trading on X, Bitcoin remains firmly rangebound between $60K and $70K, with no structural bid strong enough to push it clean through.
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The Macro One-Two Punch That Wrecked Rate Cut Hopes
Two macro prints shaped the week leading up to February 18. First came a January jobs report beat, unemployment ticked down to 4.3%, Treasury yields jumped, and rate cut expectations got crushed on the spot. ETF outflows followed fast.
Then January CPI came in soft at 2.4% year-on-year, down from 2.7% the prior month. A relief rally kicked off. But Wintermute, in their February 16 market update on X, noted it “lacked the conviction needed to shift the broader narrative.” ETF flows stayed under pressure through the bounce.
Spot volumes are compressing. That’s the part that matters most right now. Without real spot buying, leverage is running the show, and leverage-driven markets swing hard in both directions without building anything durable underneath.
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Crypto Is Taking the AI Rotation Hit
Here’s what makes this moment different. Investors have been quietly rotating out of AI and tech exposure into cyclicals, industrials, and value names. Crypto, sitting at the highest-beta end of the growth spectrum, absorbs the most pressure when that rotation picks up speed.
Wintermute pointed to this directly on X, the surface trigger was U.S. fiscal year 2025 earnings and Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 announcement, but the real force was stretched tech valuations finally giving the market a reason to redistribute. Discretionary, chemicals, and industrials picked up the flows. BTC didn’t.
The deeper dynamic, as Wintermute described it, is structural. AI diffusion is accelerating. Innovation costs are compressing. That raises perceived disruption risk across software-supported business models, and pushes risk premia higher. Crypto catches the blowback.
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BTC Dominance and the 200-Week Moving Average
One tentative signal stands out. BTC dominance got rejected from 60%, and altcoins showed some resilience in the back half of last week. That’s not nothing. But it’s also not a trend yet.
Technically, BTC has found support near its 200-week moving average. Wintermute’s team flagged this on X as historically where bear market bottoms tend to form, which either means the floor is holding, or the precedent is about to get tested hard.
Ethereum sits around $1,965. Also range-bound, also unconvincing.
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Light Positioning, Zero Conviction
Wintermute’s bottom line, posted on X February 16: positioning is light, conviction is absent, and every rally is being sold into rather than chased. That’s not a bearish call; it’s a description of a market that has no clear story to trade right now.
The higher-for-longer rate narrative and Federal Reserve uncertainty around a potential Kevin Warsh appointment are real headwinds. Gold’s initial rally on USD debasement fears overheated and partially corrected. The impulse behind it hasn’t disappeared, though.
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$70K stays a resistance level for the near term. A recovery into the second half of 2026 is possible. But getting there, Wintermute said on X, “requires patience that most participants have already run out of.”
