Bitcoin Breaches Fire-Sale Band Near $63.5K as Hedge Funds Dump 52K BTC and Bernstein Backs Miners

Bitcoin News

Bitcoin sank beneath the so-called Rainbow Chart "Fire Sale" band on Thursday, marking only the second time since the November 2022 FTX implosion that the asset has traded below the model's lowest valuation tier. BTC opened the session around $63,500 after dipping under $62,000 overnight, while the Fear and Greed Index registered 12 — deep in extreme-fear territory and just above February's all-time index low of 5. The descent extends a multi-week breakdown from October 2025's $126,000 cycle peak, with the rare sub-band reading historically flagged as an extreme-discount signal rather than a continuation trigger.

Quarterly 13F filings reveal that professional managers cut spot Bitcoin ETF exposure by 52,000 BTC during Q1 2026, trimming aggregate holdings to 261,000 BTC from 313,000 BTC — a 17% decline that pushed combined valuations down 35% to $17.8 billion. Hedge funds and brokerages accounted for roughly 96% of the unwind, shedding 31,400 and 18,800 BTC respectively. Investment advisors barely flinched at a 5.9% reduction, while banks more than doubled their positions by adding 7,800 BTC. The split reflects tactical leverage being unwound while longer-duration allocators quietly stepped in during the drawdown.

DDC Enterprise added 90 BTC to its corporate treasury this week, lifting total holdings to 2,804 BTC and securing the 28th slot among publicly traded Bitcoin holders. The Asian food-brand operator framed the buy as opportunistic, citing an average acquisition cost of $78,736 and a year-to-date BTC yield of 48.3%. Management remains targeting 5,000 BTC by year-end 2026, backed by a previously disclosed $124 million equity raise. Shares closed at $1.18 on Wednesday, down 7.1% on the session, as the broader market priced in the same macro bear-market pressure weighing on the spot tape.

Bernstein initiated coverage of Bitcoin miners TeraWulf and Cipher Digital at Outperform with price targets of $36 and $32, branding both firms "the power landlords of AI." Analysts project sector AI revenue scaling ninefold from $1.2 billion in 2026 to $10.7 billion by 2030, underpinned by 6 gigawatts of contracted hyperscaler capacity across 17 deals worth more than $110 billion. TeraWulf alone has committed 643 megawatts to Fluidstack and Core42 across 10-to-25-year terms representing roughly $13 billion in contracted revenue, with brownfield site economics cutting buildout capex to $7.2 million per IT megawatt versus an $11-$13 million peer benchmark.

Technically, BTC has retagged its 200-week simple moving average near $61,626 for the first time since October 2023, revisiting a trend line that functioned as resistance throughout the 2022 cycle bottom. Daily relative strength index readings have collapsed to roughly 17.35 — the most stretched oversold print since 2020 — joining February's reading as a generational extreme. Market commentators note that historically, the deepest Bitcoin accumulation windows have occurred below the 200-week line, although every prior tag has produced a short-term mean-reversion bounce before any longer-term resolution.

Standard Chartered's digital asset research head Geoff Kendrick argues "the low is almost in," anchoring the call on three conditions. First, Strategy's 32 BTC sale last week could mirror its December 2022 playbook, where the firm repurchased multiples of what it sold within 48 hours. Second, despite $5 billion in three-week ETF outflows, cumulative inflows since 2024 inception remain near $54.2 billion with custodied coins essentially flat at 674,000. Third, $1.5 billion in futures liquidations have already cleared, mirroring January's flush and thinning the pool of leveraged longs remaining to be forcibly unwound on further downside.

BTC trades near $63,591 with a 24-hour decline of roughly 2.61% and a market cap of $1.27 trillion, while a daily RSI print of 17.79 paired with a bearish MACD confirms momentum is exhausted but stretched. Immediate support sits at $62,909, with the 200-week SMA cluster near $61,430 and $59,762 below that — losing the latter opens the door to deeper capitulation. Resistance starts at $63,830, with $66,487 and $72,070 marking the levels bulls must reclaim to neutralize the downtrend. A confirmed close back above $66,487 with RSI lifting out of oversold would invalidate the bearish setup.