Week of 2 February 2026: Bitcoin falls 8.62%, touches 60,000, then rebounds 12.19% in a day
When a market falls hard, tests a round low, and recovers most of the damage within days, what can the week's shape say about direction, and what remains undecidable?
BTC fell from 76,968.22 to 70,330.38 (-8.62%) and ETH from 2,270.16 to 2,089.74 (-7.95%). Both set their lows at 00:00 UTC on Friday 6 February, at 60,000.00 and 1,747.80, then posted their best days of the week the same day (+12.19% and +12.95%). Both closed mid-range.
What the data shows. BTC opened at 76,968.22 and closed at 70,330.38 (-8.62%); ETH opened at 2,270.16 and closed at 2,089.74 (-7.95%). Both assets set their weekly highs at 15:00 UTC on Monday 2 February, at 79,360.00 and 2,396.62, and both set their lows at 00:00 UTC on Friday 6 February, at 60,000.00 and 1,747.80. The high-to-low range was 32.27% for BTC and 37.12% for ETH. Thursday 5 February was the worst day for both (BTC -14.02%, ETH -14.96%); Friday 6 February was the best (BTC +12.19%, ETH +12.95%). Both closes landed near the middle of the week's range (53.4% and 52.7%). Dollar volume was 27.01 billion for BTC and 19.95 billion for ETH, running 2.28 and 2.18 times the prior twelve-week averages. Hourly correlation was 0.91, and the ETH/BTC ratio rose 0.74%.
What it does not show. The candles do not say what caused Thursday's fall or Friday's recovery, and they cannot identify who traded. Three of the four prior weeks were down for both assets, and BTC closed 44.19% below its 52-week high, ETH 57.65% below, so the week sits inside an existing decline; nothing here establishes whether 60,000.00 was a floor. BTC's largest hourly move was 3.47% at 01:00 UTC on Friday 6 February; the data gives no sign for it, so that hour cannot be read as either a sell-off or a recovery.
What a careful desk would check. Realised volatility, the size of the swings that actually happened, annualised at 91.9% for BTC and 119.6% for ETH. The weekly return ranked at the 13th percentile of 416 recorded weeks for BTC and the 19th for ETH. Because both closes sat mid-range, both tails were tested and the week offers no evidence of trend in either direction. A desk would ask whether stops inside the Friday 00:00-01:00 UTC window could have been filled, and how a Thursday exit would have interacted with Friday's 12.19% rebound.
Funding. BTC perpetual funding averaged -0.003% per eight hours, touching -0.0152%; ETH averaged -0.0043%, touching -0.0277%. On average, short positions paid long ones, mildly, which points to no heavy one-sided crowding in either direction.
What would change this reading
- If BTC later trades below the Friday low of 60,000.00, the mid-range close reads as a pause inside the decline rather than a bottom.
- If a later week closes above the Monday high of 79,360.00, Thursday's fall reads as a shock that was absorbed.
- If funding stays near -0.003% while price fails to advance, the short side is still paying and its pressure has not resolved.
- If hourly correlation drops well below 0.91, the two assets have stopped moving together, which changes which hedge matters.
Terms
- realised volatility
- how much the price actually swung over a period, expressed as a yearly percentage
- percentile
- the share of past weeks with a lower value; the 13th percentile means 13% of past weeks were lower
- funding rate
- the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract; negative means shorts pay longs