JPMorgan Turns Bullish in 2026: Repricing Crypto Asset Risks Amid Extreme Fear

On February 12, 2026, amid Bitcoin falling below $66,000 and the Fear & Greed Index at just 11—indicating “extreme fear”—the shadow of the FTX collapse is dissipating, and the fundamental strength of the crypto market is becoming the core logic for institutions to reassess the industry.

Just yesterday, Chicago-based institutional liquidity provider BlockFills temporarily paused customer deposits and withdrawals. Some voices compared this to the FTX collapse in 2022. However, top industry venture capitalists and Wall Street giants have given markedly different assessments: Dragonfly managing partner openly stated, “Current sentiment is far from the despair we saw during FTX,” while JPMorgan has shifted to a structurally bullish outlook for 2026 after the market’s sharp decline.

Based on the latest data from the Gate platform on February 12, this article dissects the fundamental differences between this cycle and the FTX era, and highlights genuine signals of sentiment warming.

BlockFills Incident ≠ FTX 2.0: System Not Collapsing, Risk Controls Upgraded

On February 11, news of BlockFills suspending deposits and withdrawals quickly spread. This veteran broker, serving 2,000 institutional clients with a trading volume of $60 billion in 2025, triggered concerns of a “domino effect.”

But data and facts point to a very different conclusion:

• FTX was a fraud leading to systemic collapse, whereas BlockFills’ pause was a liquidity self-protection measure by a single institution after a 45% asset price correction.
• Regulatory environments differ vastly: in 2026, although the US CLARITY Act is temporarily shelved, compliance frameworks are much more developed than in 2022; stablecoins have a total market cap approaching $300 billion, with USDT and USDC forming a duopoly that has withstood multiple stress tests.
• No contagious bank runs: leading exchanges like Gate are operating normally, Bitcoin’s dominance remains steady around 59%, and funds are consolidating into top players rather than fleeing.

As Dragonfly partner Haseeb said, “After FTX, we didn’t know what could survive; today, the system has withstood the test.”

February 12 Market Update: Prices Under Pressure, But Structure Better Than 2022

According to real-time data from the Gate platform, the current market is at a price and sentiment bottom:

Key signals:

• Bitcoin has retraced 45.5% from its all-time high of $126,210, entering technical bear market territory.
• Ethereum remains relatively weak, further below the $3,000 level seen at the end of January.
• Unlike during the FTX collapse when liquidity dried up and there was “nowhere to run,” the current market shows orderly deleveraging: futures open interest has fallen 45% from its peak, and options open interest has for the first time surpassed perpetual contracts, indicating a shift from “betting on direction” to “risk management.”

Micro evidence of sentiment turning positive: on February 10, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net inflow of $166.5 million, led by Ark Invest and Fidelity. Institutions have completed a shift from selling in fear to re-pricing assets.

Fundamentals Remain Solid: Which Indicators Are Strengthening Against the Trend?

The sentiment shift isn’t blind optimism but is based on verifiable fundamental data:

1. Explosive Growth in Stablecoin Adoption

As of the end of January 2026, total stablecoin market cap reached $293.3 billion. Although growth has slowed, the absolute size is more than double what it was during the FTX collapse. US dollar stablecoins have become the settlement layer of the crypto economy, not just a one-way capital channel during bull markets.

2. RWA (Real-World Assets) Expansion Against the Trend

• The market cap of tokenized real-world assets grew 41.1% from Q3 2025 to the end of January 2026, reaching $23.7 billion.
• US Treasuries account for 40% of RWA, with traditional asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity actively promoting compliant tokenization.
• This is fundamentally different from the “air assets” dominated structure during the FTX era.

3. DEX and Infrastructure Unaffected

• Perpetual DEX trading volumes recently hit record highs amid volatility.
• Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystems (Base, Arbitrum) maintain relatively resilient TVL.

Conclusion: The crypto market’s fundamentals are not “problem-free,” but are shifting from narrative-driven speculation to cash flow and utility-based valuation. The collapse of 11.6 million tokens in 2025 is precisely the industry’s natural process of clearing zombie capacity and reallocating resources to genuine builders.

Institutional Attitudes Do a 180: JPMorgan Turns Bullish on 2026

While retail investors are gripped by extreme fear, the world’s largest bank, JPMorgan, officially turned bullish on 2026 in February.

Core logic:

1. Institutional-driven next wave of inflows: 2026’s incremental capital will mainly come from institutional balance sheet allocations, not retail FOMO.
2. Improved regulatory clarity: Although the CLARITY Act is delayed, the US digital asset legislative framework has entered a substantive phase, reducing tail risks.
3. Bitcoin production cost support: Current marginal production cost of Bitcoin is about $77,000, below the spot price, indicating miners will enter a self-correcting cycle, establishing a new price equilibrium.

A joint report by Coinbase and Glassnode also states that market risk is being re-priced rather than abandoned, with cautious sentiment but the best structural resilience since 2022.

How to Capture Structural Opportunities in Sentiment Warming?

At Gate, we observe professional investors adopting the following strategies in response to the cycle shift:

1. Left-side DCA (Bitcoin)

• $65,000: allocate 20% of reserved cash
• $60,000: add another 30%
• $55,000 (August 2024 low): invest remaining 50%

2. Avoid pitfalls, focus on quality

• Avoid: high-valuation VC tokens launched in 2024-2025 with no product delivery; tokens relying on incentives to maintain DAU.
• Focus on:
  • AI + blockchain infrastructure (with actual compute delivery)
  • Bitcoin ecosystem (Ordinals, Layer 2)
  • Leading RWA tokenization projects

3. Cash is king, wait for right-side confirmation signals

• ETF net inflows exceeding $500 million for five consecutive days
• Bitcoin daily price above 200-day moving average (~$72,000)
• Fear & Greed Index exits extreme zone (>25)
• Until these signals align, maintain 40-50% stablecoin holdings

Summary

In February 2026, the crypto market stands at the intersection of two narratives: one rooted in the lingering scars of BlockFills, and the other in JPMorgan’s bullish outlook, Dragonfly’s fundamental tone, and the defense provided by $290 billion in stablecoins.

The shadow of the FTX collapse is fading—not because we forget lessons, but because the industry has spent three years recovering from trust breakdowns and rebuilding systems.

When the Fear & Greed Index hits just 11, remember: markets always nurture opportunities in despair and accumulate risks in euphoria. The current cautiousness and differentiation are precisely the true beginning of a warming sentiment in the 2026 crypto market.