Crypto Market Enters “Extreme Fear” As Bitcoin Sinks Below $87,000; XRP, ETH, SOL, DOGE Fall Dram...
It’s a blood-red Tuesday across the crypto markets.
Crypto market sentiment has fallen into “extreme fear” as Bitcoin slumped to as low as $86,887, its lowest since mid-November. Broadly, the crypto market has dropped by over 10% over the last day, with some leading coins like Solana, Ripple’s XRP, and Dogecoin nursing much larger losses during the same span.
Crypto Trader Sentiment Drops To ‘Extreme Fear’
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a multifactorial measure of crypto market sentiment, hit a score of 25 on Feb. 25, showing “extreme fear. Tuesday’s 24-point drop from the day prior that pinned sentiment at “neutral” signals one of the sharpest drops since September. The quick drop signifies a rapid dip toward overly bearish sentiment.
Reasons for the panic include the Monday crypto market sell-off extending into Tuesday and the heavy outflows from US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Bitcoin is down 7.8% to trade hands at $87,939, while Ethereum plummeted 11.3% to $2,377, CoinGecko data shows.
Ripple’s XRP remains the biggest loser in the top 10 coins, with its decline deepening since earlier Monday. It’s down 15.6% over the last day and 19.7% on the week to a current price of around $2.08.
Other top coins are faring almost as badly as XRP, with Solana’s SOL down roughly 13.7% at $135.52, top meme coin Dogecoin falling circa 13% to $0.1997, and Cardano also down 13% at a current price of $0.6345.
$1.5 Billion Crypto Liquidation Storm
Amid Tuesday’s across-the-board price carnage, liquidations have surged to $1.48 billion over the last 24 hours, per data from CoinGlass, with Ethereum and Bitcoin leading the charge at about $641 million and $302 million, respectively. Most of the liquidations are for those betting on a price rise.
The current pullback mirrors the 2017 market formation when Bitcoin saw a 28% correction five times, each lasting two to three months, Global Macro Investor founder and CEO Raoul Pal, observed in a Feb. 25 post on the X platform.
The crypto market drawdown followed another wave of selling in US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, with around $516 million in investor cash exiting the funds on Feb. 24 alone. The BTC ETFs have now witnessed six straight days of outflows, data from Farside Investors shows.
Moreover, the crypto industry was recently rocked by the largest hack in crypto history on Feb. 21, when Bybit lost nearly $1.5 billion.
Solana-based Pump.fun regains control of its X page after brief hijack
Pump.fun regained control of its X account after a brief takeover by unknown attackers.
Hackers briefly accessed the X page of the Solana meme launchpad, using the platform to promote scam meme tokens in a series of posts.
Renowned blockchain investigator ZachXBT was the first to warn users about the breach, advising traders not to click any links or trade the meme tokens posted by the attackers.
In one of the now-deleted posts, the hackers attempted to deceive investors into purchasing a fake Pump.fun governance token. The platform does not have a native token and only facilitates the quick creation of Solana-based cryptocurrencies.
Pump.fun had fully regained control of its X account by the time of publication. It remains unclear if meme traders suffered any losses from the incident.
This wasn’t the first social media hack orchestrated by the same bad actors, ZachXBT noted on his official Telegram channel. “The PumpDotFun X account compromise is directly connected on-chain to the Jupiter DAO Feb 2025 & DogWifCoin Nov 2024 X account compromises.” ZachXBT wrote.
Several X accounts have been hijacked in recent months. Attackers typically take control of popular accounts, post fraudulent contract addresses, and attempt to steal funds from unsuspecting users.
“It is likely not the fault of either the Pump Fun or Jupiter teams,” ZachXBT noted . According to the blockchain investigator, it’s likely a “ threat actor is social engineering employees at X with fraudulent documents/emails or a panel is being exploited.”
The ICT Power of 3 (PO3) is a trading strategy to identify 'smart money' actions, focusing on three stages: accumulation, manipulation, and distribution.
❇️ This appears wherever investors or traders are participating, like $BTC.
#Bitcoin has just entered the Manipulation Phase.
Savvy investors manipulate stop losses to mislead casual traders.
In bullish times, prices dip briefly.
This stage involves quick, deceptive moves to control liquidity.
Following manipulation, smart money brings up the trend in the Distribution Phase, leading to significant price movements in the intended direction.
In the current setting, this involves a strong upward move.
A Haircut, a Conversation, and the Real Value of Pi
Yesterday, I spent more time than usual at the barber—not just getting a haircut, but explaining blockchain technology to him and his colleagues. Not crypto speculation, not moonshots—just the fundamentals of a decentralized, trustless system and why it matters.
For the first time, my barber had an aha! moment. By the end of our talk, he was convinced enough to take a leap: he started accepting Pi for haircuts. 🚀
To help him get started—since it was his first real experience with crypto—we even set up a simple exchange account, so he could begin exploring the ecosystem and understanding how things work beyond just receiving Pi.
So, naturally, we checked the Pi value at that moment, did some quick math, and rounded it (low) to 1.5 USDT per Pi. I paid 10 Pi for my cut. No fiat, no bank in between—just a direct transaction.
Then this morning, as I checked Pi’s latest value, it hit me:
💡 That same haircut today would have cost me 7 Pi.
I'm sure my barber is happier today about the deal… and I’m excited to chat with him next time I get a cut!
And that’s the point. Pi is no longer just an idea—it’s becoming a real exchange of value. The more people accept it, the more its role in daily life shifts from a "future possibility" to a functional digital economy.
Who’s next?
How much will my next haircut cost me?
😉