Following Bitcoin’s 5% decline in two hours on February 22, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index fell again.
The index was in the ‘extreme fear’ range in February, but fell to a level of 5 on Monday.
As Joao Wedson, CEO and founder of intelligence platform Alphractal, noted, the last time the index hit this low was in 2019. Analysts expect the price to rise to the network’s realized price of $54,000.
It may need to drop further south to push participants into a “maximum stress” phase before the cyclical recovery can begin. The falling Bitcoin [BTC] prices and extreme conditions of fear caused a capital flight from crypto.
Source: USDT.D on TradingView
The USDT dominance reflects the USDT market capitalization as a percentage of the total crypto market capitalization. Rising USDT.D trends imply that crypto prices are on a downward trend, and market participants feel safer on the sidelines when holding stablecoins.
The stablecoin reserve on the exchanges grew towards the end of 2025. It represented increasing purchasing power waiting to hit the bottom. This status quo mainly applied from September to November.
Over the past month, the total supply of stablecoins has shrunk from $161.19 billion to $153.75 billion. During this time, USDT.D jumped higher again.
The developments of the past month have captured capital that fled the crypto market (exchanged for fiat). Combined with the extreme fear displayed on the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, it appeared that the market was firmly in the hands of the bears.
Long-term Bitcoin holders were distributing
The long-term holder’s net position change measured the 30-day change in supply controlled by long-term holders (holders of BTC who are at least 155 days old). The huge negative spike on February 5 caused 244,866 BTC to flow out of the LTH supply.
The downward price trends and heavy long-term distribution reinforced bear market conditions and low conviction in BTC.
The stablecoin offering and Tether’s dominance further illustrated that market participants remained sidelined and exited crypto.
Final summary
- The Crypto Fear and Greed Index hit 5 on Monday, a low last seen in 2019.
- Onchain statistics highlighted the bearish pressure on Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market.