Crypto Risk Appetite Report 26th February 2026

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Risk sentiment improved on Wednesday, lifting crypto: BTC jumped nearly 10% intraday but failed at $70k and is holding above $68k, while ETH rose 8.6% to above $2k and SOL gained 7.2% to $88. US spot BTC ETFs saw their strongest daily inflow in three weeks at $506.5M, though 2026 YTD flows remain negative at -$433.4M; ETH and SOL ETFs added $157.1M and $30.9M. US equities also rallied after Nvidia beat Q4 revenue expectations at $68.1B versus $65.7B and guided Q1 sales to around $78B versus $72.8B. Crypto headlines included Vitalik selling roughly 17.2k ETH worth about $35M, CoinShares launching a zero-fee Hyperliquid staking ETP, and Hut 8 posting higher revenue but a large net loss tied to unrealised crypto losses.

Bitcoin rebounded above $65,900 in early Wednesday trading, up around 3% from yesterday afternoon, with broad altcoin strength led by ETH up 4.8%, SOL up more than 7%, and XRP up around 3%. Asian equities pushed to record highs as AI-linked chipmakers rallied ahead of Nvidia’s earnings, while Andrew Bailey said a March BoE rate cut is still genuinely an open question. In policy, Trump’s new 10% global tariff took effect yesterday after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier package, and Hong Kong signalled first fiat-referenced stablecoin licences could be approved in March alongside new regimes for dealers and custodians. Coinbase rolled out tokenised stock and ETF trading to all US users and partnered with Yahoo Finance, Bitwise acquired staking provider Chorus One, and reports said Meta is exploring stablecoin payments in its apps, targeting early H2 2026.