Bitcoin holds near $68,000 as volatility cools, WLFI jumps ahead of Mar-a-Lago forum

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Bitcoin holds near $68,000 as volatility cools, WLFI jumps ahead of Mar-a-Lago forum

Bitcoin trades in a tight range as derivatives stabilize and altcoins show pockets of strength ahead of key macro cues and a high-profile crypto event.

By Oliver Knight, Saksham Diwan|Edited by Sheldon Reback

Feb 18, 2026, 11:30 a.m.

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Bitcoin rangebound as WLFI jumps (Asa E K/Unsplash modified by CoinDesk)

What to know:

• Bitcoin is up 0.9% on Wednesday to around $68,000, holding between $65,100 and $72,000 since Feb. 6 as volatility and funding rates cool.
• Open interest sits at $15.5 billion, funding rates are flat to slightly negative, and options skew has eased, signaling a more balanced market.
• The Trump-backed WLFI token has surged nearly 19% in 24 hours ahead of a Mar-a-Lago crypto forum, while MORPHO extends its weekly rally.

The crypto market continues to trade within a tight range on Wednesday, with bitcoin BTC$67,532.47 rising by 0.9% to around $68,000 since midnight UTC.

The largest cryptocurrency has held between $65,100 and $72,000 since Feb. 6 as market volatility has reduced following a Feb. 5 selloff that took BTC to its lowest point since October 2024.

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The altcoin market is running its own race. Monero (XMR) and ADA$0.2811 are posting gains of 3% and 1.7%, respectively, since midnight, while zcash (ZEC) and hyperliquid (HYPE) lost 3.5% and 1.1% over the same period.

The muted performance across the crypto market comes as U.S. equities begin to claw their way out of trouble — S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 index futures are up 0.57% and 0.66% since midnight UTC as investors await hints on monetary policy when the Fed releases its meeting minutes later on Wednesday.

Derivatives

• Market dynamics have shifted toward stabilization as open interest holds firm at $15.5 billion, marking a transition from leverage cleanup to a steady floor.
• While retail sentiment has cooled with funding rates turning flat to slightly negative (Binance at -0.11%), institutional conviction remains anchored, the three-month annualized basis persists at 3%.
• The BTC options market has reached a state of relative equilibrium, with 24-hour volume split 49/51 between calls and puts.
• While the one-week 25-delta skew has eased further to 11%, the implied volatility (IV) term structure remains in short-term backwardation, as evidenced by the sharp front-end spike in the IV curve before leveling off near 49% for longer dated tenors.
• Coinglass data shows $193 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 62-38 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($72 million), ETH ($52 million) and others ($12 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
• The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $68,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price rise.

Token talk

• The "altcoin season" indicator has risen to 34/100, up from lows of 22/100 on Feb. 8, indicating relative strength across the altcoin market despite relatively low levels of volatility.
• The top performing asset on Wednesday has been WLFI$0.1182, the Trump family-backed DeFi token, which is up 8.8% since midnight and 18.52% over the past 24 hours.
• Investors are betting on WLFI ahead of the projects's crypto forum at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, which will be attended by executives from Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq and Franklin Templeton, among others.
• It should be noted that rallies leading up to real-world events or announcements often result in a "sell the news" scenario as those "buying the rumor" race to secure profits.
• Lending platform Morpho's native MORPHO token has also been on a bullish run of late, rising by 36% in the past week and 7% in the past 24 hours as traders attempt to capitalize on an otherwise unmoving market.

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