Ethereum

According to CryptoQuant, Ethereum derivatives have seen sharp deleveraging, with aggregate open interest sliding from $33.3 billion to about $11 billion, a 66% decline. CoinGlass also tracked roughly $189 million in 24‑hour liquidations as price moved toward $1,900, while exchange balances reached a multi‑year low of 16.1 million ETH.

About 30,600 Bitcoin options with roughly $2 billion notional are expiring on Friday, Feb. 20. Coinglass places max pain near $70,000 and Deribit cites a 0.59 put/call ratio; another 212,000 Ethereum contracts worth about $404 million also roll off. Spot markets remain range-bound, with Bitcoin near $67,290 after a $65,700 weekly low.

Altcoin momentum has improved, yet multiple market signals indicate a broad altcoin season has not started. BTC dominance remains under a key threshold while ETH/BTC’s rebound has not shifted the larger trend, and recent exchange activity indicates capital still leans toward Bitcoin rather than Ethereum and other large-cap networks.

Ethereum price recently slipped below $1,950 and then rebounded from support near $1,905, with the recovery capped under $1,980. ETH is now moving below the 100-hourly Simple Moving Average and facing resistance around $1,985 and the $2,000 level. A break above $2,000 could open the way toward $2,050, while failure to clear $1,985 may trigger another drop toward $1,880 or even $1,840.

Bitcoin developer Matt Carallo told the Unchained podcast on Thursday that quantum-computing fears are not behind Bitcoin's latest slide, arguing Ether would be outperforming if they were. He noted Ether is down 58% since early October and around $1,957, while Bitcoin has fallen 46% from its October high of $126,100 to about $67,162.

Ethereum slipped firmly below $2,100, shifting short-term momentum to the downside. The $2,300–$2,100 daily band has turned into resistance after failed reclaim attempts, with $1,700–$1,500 highlighted as the next support area. A higher timeframe fractal points to potential upside if price compresses and then breaks above the current range.

Vitalik Buterin set 2026 as a target to reclaim computing self-sovereignty, detailing moves to privacy tools and trials of running language models on a personal laptop. The article argues local-only hosting cannot meet training and persistent inference needs at scale, and instead points to decentralized compute networks as a way to combine independence with elastic capacity.

On February 19, 2026, Standard Chartered lowered its end-2026 price target for XRP to $2.80 from $8 and left its 2030 projection at $28. The bank also pared targets for Bitcoin to $100,000, Ethereum to $4,000, and Solana to $135 amid short-term market pressures.

On February 18, the Ethereum Foundation outlined its 2026 protocol priorities spanning scaling, user experience, and Layer 1 resilience. The plan targets pushing the gas limit toward and beyond 100 million and advancing blob capacity for rollups, proposer–builder separation, and a zkEVM attester client. Major changes are associated with upcoming forks such as Glamsterdam.

An Ethereum developer detailed how ERC-5564 enables native stealth addresses using public meta-addresses and one-time destinations to keep wallets and histories private. The design introduces viewing and spending keys, plus optional delegation for payment scanning. He also noted gas requirements for fresh addresses and potential spam-triggered scans, with sender-included ETH and filters proposed as mitigations.