Governments And Private Equity Bought Bitcoin In Q4 While Advisors And Hedge Funds Sold

Bitcoin's (BTC) options market has reached its most extreme defensive positioning since the FTX collapse in November 2022, even as no comparable fundamental crisis exists in either crypto markets or the broader economy, according to Binance Research's weekly report published Thursday.

Separately, the ongoing divergence between Bitcoin and rising global M2 money supply has now extended beyond any prior episode in the dataset's history - a gap that Binance analysts attribute to three overlapping structural distortions rather than a single catalyst.

The report covers the week ending Feb. 25, 2026, a period defined by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down IEEPA tariffs, NVIDIA's Q4 earnings, and continued weakness in technology-adjacent assets including cryptocurrency.

Options Hedging at a Three-Year Extreme

The BTC options 25-delta skew index - which measures the relative cost of downside put protection versus upside calls - has hit its most negative reading since November 2022.

Binance Research notes that the current environment lacks any equivalent fundamental shock: no major exchange collapse, no regulatory crisis, no systemic failure.

The report argues this degree of hedging appears disproportionate, suggesting the market may be closer to a sentiment trough than a precipice. Corroborating this, Bitcoin's Realized Profit/Loss ratio has fallen below 1.0 for the first time since 2023, typically a hallmark of forced capitulation rather than orderly distribution.