Stjepan Šarc

After a sharp drop, markets tend to bounce. Shorts take profits, forced sellers are exhausted, and price lifts quickly. The speed of the move creates hope, and that hope is what defines a relief rally. It looks like the market is healing, but more often than not it’s just pressure being released rather than real demand coming in, and that distinction is where many traders get trapped.A relief rally isn’t powered by new buyers stepping in with conviction. It happens because the selling that caused the drop temporarily disappears. Shorts close positions, panic sellers are already out, and volatility compresses for a moment. With less sell pressure, price naturally rebounds. The move can look strong on the chart, but structurally nothing has changed. Demand hasn’t proven itself, and the market hasn’t resolved the imbalance that caused the drop in the first place.These rallies feel convincing because they move fast. After days or weeks of red candles, any green feels meaningful. Traders confuse speed with strength, and sentiment flips almost instantly. Narratives about the bottom being in start circulating, confidence returns, and positioning ramps up. Real recoveries don’t need that kind of urgency. They build slowly, often painfully, while most participants are still unsure or disengaged. Relief rallies need excitement because without it, they collapse.Under the surface, the structure usually tells a very different story. Spot volume stays light, open interest rises as leverage comes back in, and buying is dominated by perpetual contracts rather than real capital. Price moves higher, but follow-through is weak. When momentum stalls even slightly, there’s no solid demand underneath to support it, and price rolls over again. The chart ends up revisiting the same levels that triggered fear before, sometimes pushing even lower. The most common mistake traders make is sizing up too early. They see the bounce as confirmation instead of what it actually is, a pause in selling. They commit aggressively just as the market is offering liquidity to stronger players. Relief rallies don’t exist to resolve risk, they exist to redistribute it. When the bounce fails, those late buyers are trapped, emotionally anchored to an entry that felt safe only moments earlier.Professionals don’t chase relief rallies, they test them. They watch whether higher lows can hold, whether spot demand shows up consistently, and whether volume expands in a way that supports continuation. If those things don’t happen, they scale down exposure, stay patient, or look for short opportunities once weakness reappears. They understand that a fast bounce without structural repair is not a signal of strength.This matters especially in crypto because everything moves faster, including emotion. Relief rallies briefly reward impatience and then punish it hard. Real bottoms rarely feel good. They’re slow, dull, and uncomfortable, and they frustrate both bulls and bears. When a bounce makes everyone feel better immediately, it’s usually a sign that the market isn’t finished yet.

After a sharp drop, markets tend to bounce. Shorts take profits, forced sellers are exhausted, and price lifts quickly. The speed of the move creates hope, and that hope is what defines a relief rally. It looks like the market is healing, but more often than not it’s just pressure being released rather than real demand coming in, and that distinction is where many traders get trapped.A relief rally isn’t powered by new buyers stepping in with conviction. It happens because the selling that caused the drop temporarily disappears. Shorts close positions, panic sellers are already out, and volatility compresses for a moment. With less sell pressure, price naturally rebounds. The move can look strong on the chart, but structurally nothing has changed. Demand hasn’t proven itself, and the market hasn’t resolved the imbalance that caused the drop in the first place.These rallies feel convincing because they move fast. After days or weeks of red candles, any green feels meaningful. Traders confuse speed with strength, and sentiment flips almost instantly. Narratives about the bottom being in start circulating, confidence returns, and positioning ramps up. Real recoveries don’t need that kind of urgency. They build slowly, often painfully, while most participants are still unsure or disengaged. Relief rallies need excitement because without it, they collapse.Under the surface, the structure usually tells a very different story. Spot volume stays light, open interest rises as leverage comes back in, and buying is dominated by perpetual contracts rather than real capital. Price moves higher, but follow-through is weak. When momentum stalls even slightly, there’s no solid demand underneath to support it, and price rolls over again. The chart ends up revisiting the same levels that triggered fear before, sometimes pushing even lower. The most common mistake traders make is sizing up too early. They see the bounce as confirmation instead of what it actually is, a pause in selling. They commit aggressively just as the market is offering liquidity to stronger players. Relief rallies don’t exist to resolve risk, they exist to redistribute it. When the bounce fails, those late buyers are trapped, emotionally anchored to an entry that felt safe only moments earlier.Professionals don’t chase relief rallies, they test them. They watch whether higher lows can hold, whether spot demand shows up consistently, and whether volume expands in a way that supports continuation. If those things don’t happen, they scale down exposure, stay patient, or look for short opportunities once weakness reappears. They understand that a fast bounce without structural repair is not a signal of strength.This matters especially in crypto because everything moves faster, including emotion. Relief rallies briefly reward impatience and then punish it hard. Real bottoms rarely feel good. They’re slow, dull, and uncomfortable, and they frustrate both bulls and bears. When a bounce makes everyone feel better immediately, it’s usually a sign that the market isn’t finished yet.

重仓抄底！比特币还会再跌？真会去3万？我来告诉你答案！
细思极恐，币圈为何暴跌这么狠？原来罪魁祸首竟是他！
华尔街进场抄底？马斯克即将上市SpaceX，对币圈有何影响？BNB和微策略MSTR将有重大消息~
$BTC $BNB $TSLA

Markets don’t always move on logic they move on nerves.
What we’re witnessing today in crypto isn’t just a routine correction or a normal sell-off. We’re looking at a structural liquidity unwind that effectively began on October 6, when total market cap peaked around $4.3 trillion.
Since then, the market has been bleeding quietly shedding more than $2.2 trillion in total value.

But the question everyone is asking in disbelief:
Why is the market collapsing while the fundamentals haven’t changed?
1) The election rally trap vs. harsh reality
Bitcoin has now erased all the gains made after Trump’s victory and is trading 10% below election-day levels.
The truth is simple: markets had overpriced optimism.
With the nomination of Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed, investors are starting to realize that the era of easy money may not return as quickly as expected and that Fed balance-sheet contraction remains the number one enemy of high-risk assets.
2) October 10th: an earthquake that never healed
On October 10, the market experienced a historic $19.5 billion liquidation in a single day.
This wasn’t just a loss for overleveraged traders it was a fracture in the market’s backbone: market depth.
Since that day, crypto has become a thin market, where a single large sell order from an institution or a whale can move prices thousands of dollars within minutes.
That fragility is exactly what we’ve been seeing through recent price gaps.
3) Contagion risk: crypto is no longer an isolated island
The real danger lies in liquidation pressure spreading from crypto into mega-cap tech stocks.
When institutions are forced to cover crypto losses, they sell liquid assets like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google.
This creates a vicious cycle:
crypto liquidations--> equity selling--> weaker sentiment--> more crypto selling.
4) Sentiment: the true ruler of markets
The Fear & Greed Index has collapsed into single-digit fear.
Past crypto cycles taught us one thing: sentiment is everything.
When conviction breaks, markets don’t care about network strength or institutional adoption they care about exiting with minimal damage.
Conclusion & outlook
We are approaching a capitulation zone.
Historically, true bottoms only form when:
the number of winning coins equals the number of losing onesand leverage is fully flushed from the system
What’s happening now is a painful but necessary cleansing process.
A bottom isn’t a price it’s a state of collective despair and the restoration of structural liquidity.
Until that happens, volatility will remain dominant.
The difference between a smart investor and a panicked speculator is the ability to distinguish between:

a price collapse
and
a value collapse.
So what do you think are we approaching a historic re-positioning opportunity,
or will this “winter” last far longer than most expect?
Share your view in the comments.
$BTC

In the last 24 hours, 2,500,000 RLUSD have been burned at the RLUSD treasury, according to Ripple stablecoin tracker, reducing the Ripple USD stablecoin supply on the Ethereum blockchain.

This trend was noticed earlier this week with a total of 25,014,695 RLUSD burned at the RLUSD treasury on Feb. 5. These include 15,014,695 RLUSD burned on the Ethereum blockchain, while 10,000,000 RLUSD were burned at the RLUSD treasury on XRP Ledger.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 2,500,000 #RLUSD burned at RLUSD Treasury.https://t.co/dK4BMFBiBL

— Ripple Stablecoin Tracker (@RL_Tracker) February 7, 2026

The recent burns follow a spree of minting events at February's start. A total of 28,200,000 RLUSD, 15,000,000 RLUSD and 59,000,000 RLUSD were minted at the RLUSD treasury in three separate transactions for both XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchains on Feb. 2. A total of 35,000,000 RLUSD was minted at the RLUSD treasury on Feb. 3, while 10,000,000 RLUSD and 15,000,000 RLUSD were minted on XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchains, respectively, on Feb. 5.

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Ripple’s RLUSD total market cap is now at $1.49 billion on XRPL and Ethereum, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Stablecoin insights teased at XRP community event

On Feb. 11 and 12, XRP holders, builders, institutions and Ripple leaders will come together for XRP Community Day 2026, a global virtual event that will celebrate XRP's increasing utility, adoption and real-world impact as well as the broader XRPL ecosystem.

Three live X Spaces are set to be hosted by Ripple, covering EMEA, Americas and APAC regions. Feb. 11 is specifically for EMEA and Americas, while Feb. 12 will cover the APAC region.

In a recent tweet, Ripple highlights a key segment of the upcoming event, "Why Stablecoins and XRP Matter Together," featuring Jack McDonald, SVP, Stablecoins of Ripple, Lauren Berta, the head of Product, Stablecoins at Ripple, with the moderator being Matt Kreiser, the lead analyst for State of XRPL Report at Messari.

This is expected to present a clearer picture of how XRP and stablecoins complement each other.