Bitcoin Price Drivers: What Influences 2026 Markets
Bitcoin price drivers explained for active investors.
Glassnode data is showing buying across all cohorts of bitcoin holders.
Bitcoin price action has entered a technically significant phase, with traders and long-term market participants monitoring levels that have historically coincided with major inflection points.
February 7, 2026, 8:00 pmCrypto expert Tony Severino has opined that Bitcoin isn’t just showing signs of a yearly top but also that the BTC price may have hit a 16-year cyclical peak. This comes amid the flagship crypto’s recent crash to $60,000, which sparked fears of a bear market.
February 7, 2026, 8:00 pmBitcoin price drivers explained for active investors.
Bitcoin dropped harder than anyone expected, and no one actually knows what set it off. It lost 16% in a week, crashing to $70,008, and at one point touched $60,000. That’s a massive fall from the all-time high of $126,273 it hit in October. Ether didn’t do much better.
Several X accounts have reignited a long-running debate in bitcoin circles, arguing that a single onchain bitcoin now underpins multiple financial claims across exchange-traded funds (ETFs), futures, perpetual swaps, wrapped tokens, and structured products.
The Bitcoin price has been on one of its worst runs in recent years, falling by double digits over the past week.
Bitcoin’s hard cap is easy to understand: there will only ever be 21 million coins. What's hard to understand is that the marginal market is allowed to trade far more than 21 million coins worth of exposure, because most of that exposure is synthetic and cash-settled, and it can be created or reduced in seconds.
Arthur Hayes, co‑founder of BitMEX, has pointed to hedging tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a major driver behind the recent Bitcoin sell‑off.
In early Q1 2026, the top cryptocurrency market is moving through a clear period of change. While prices across the market have pulled back, the mood among experienced investors is less about fear and more about repositioning. Capital is no longer chasing the highs of past rallies.
The selloff reflects bitcoin’s built-in volatility and market misreads of Fed policy, not structural weakness, aruged Bode.
Crypto sentiment was hit as Gemini plans to close operations in several regions and cut staff, while spot bitcoin ETF flows turned negative.