Unexpected turns of 2026: how the balance of power is shifting in the crypto market
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) entered the top ten leading cryptocurrencies
Despite the crypto market crash and the drop in prices of major cryptocurrencies, the leading Bitcoin fork — Bitcoin Cash — unexpectedly began to rise in price in early February 2026, climbing to tenth place in the CoinMarketCap ranking by market capitalization.
According to the service, the market capitalization of BCH exceeded $9 billion, making it, by this metric, the 12th-largest cryptocurrency. By this metric, the altcoin surpassed Cardano (ADA) and Hyperliquid (HYPE).
At the same time, Bitcoin Cash is the only cryptocurrency among the top ten, excluding stablecoins, that has gained in price over the past 90 days. The value of the altcoin increased by more than 18% during this period, from $472 to $556. Over the past year, the BCH rate has risen by 74%.
Some experts believe that investors shifted their attention to the Bitcoin fork after the information noise surrounding the first cryptocurrency, which created reputational pressure amid a possible connection to the scandalously known Jeffrey Epstein. According to analysts, this factor, along with growing investor interest, may have influenced the increase in Bitcoin Cash liquidity.
Long-term holders are selling BTC at a loss
The decline of Bitcoin in recent months has put strong psychological pressure not only on short-term investors but also on long-term holders. Experts even link the current situation to the collapse of Terra (LUNA) in May 2022.
Glassnode analysts note that the SOPR* indicator, which reflects the profitability of long-term holders' investments, has fallen below one — a rare occurrence for the crypto market — and as of February 2026 stands at 0.88. This indicates that long-term holders have begun selling Bitcoin while locking in significant losses. Experts point out that this phenomenon suggests that the crypto market has reached a late stage of the bearish trend. The last time SOPR dropped below one was in 2022, during a crisis period in the crypto market.
* SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) is an indicator that reflects the degree of realized profit/loss for all coins moved on the blockchain. A SOPR value above one indicates that investors are selling coins at a profit.
BPO: an unexpected Ethereum hard fork that the media overlooked
On January 7, 2026, the Blob Parameter-Only (BPO) hard fork was activated on the Ethereum network, increasing the blobs* limit from 15 to 21, which made it possible to boost the throughput of the second-largest blockchain by market capitalization.
* Blobs are large data packages in Ethereum that can be included in transaction blocks. Blobs were introduced into the Ethereum blockchain in 2024 as part of the major Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844) upgrade.
In addition, the BPO hard fork now allows the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to store up to 2.6 MB of data per block, improving the performance of second-layer (L2) scaling solutions for Ethereum such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Mantle, and others.
The unexpected connection between Epstein and the crypto industry
In February 2026, heated discussions erupted regarding the possible influence of Jeffrey Epstein on the early development of Bitcoin. Published correspondence revealed a possible connection with one of the Bitcoin developers, Gavin Andresen, whom the scandal-ridden financier had contacted back in 2011. The founder of the well-known platform CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju, even stated that Epstein personally invested in Bitcoin during the early period of the cryptocurrency's development.
However, Epstein's connection to the crypto industry does not end there. According to media reports, Epstein may have invested $3 million in Coinbase, which is now one of the leading crypto service providers in the digital asset market, and even scheduled a meeting with former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler to discuss cryptocurrencies.
Experts note that the newly published data triggered a reputational crisis for the first cryptocurrency, which may also have led to a decline in quotations and a drop in the value of "digital gold" below $70,000 in February 2026. Analysts even called this the "Epstein effect." According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin has lost more than a quarter of its value over the past month alone.
BUILD from BlackRock to appear on Uniswap
The entry into the crypto market by the world's largest investment company, BlackRock, which manages assets worth more than $10 trillion, came as an unexpected event for many investors. In 2024, BlackRock launched its own Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).
However, in 2026, the company took another unexpected step by listing its own tokenized fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), on the largest and most liquid decentralized exchange, Uniswap.
As of February 2026, Uniswap leads DEX platforms in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market by total value locked (TVL), with a figure exceeding $3 billion. For comparison, the TVL of the exchanges following Uniswap and PancakeSwap amounts to only about $2 billion.
BUIDL may attract additional liquidity to Uniswap and further widen the gap with competitors: according to DeFi Llama, the TVL of the tokenized BUIDL fund exceeds $2.3 billion. Experts call the integration of BUIDL into Uniswap a "convergence of tokenized products and DeFi infrastructure." In addition, this step may attract new institutional traders interested in trading traditional products in a decentralized environment.