NEW YORK, Feb 17, 2026, 08:17 EST — Premarket
- BMNR down about 2.5% premarket after a sharp Friday gain
- Bitcoin near $68,400; ether below $2,000
- Focus shifts to Friday’s U.S. PCE inflation data and key crypto support levels
Shares of Bitmine Immersion Technologies fell 2.5% to $20.43 in premarket trading on Tuesday, after closing at $20.96 on Friday. (StockAnalysis)
U.S. stock markets reopen on Tuesday after Monday’s Presidents Day holiday, giving traders their first shot at repricing crypto-linked names after the long weekend. (Nasdaq)
Bitcoin traded near $68,400 and ether hovered around $1,986, still below the $2,000 line, as a weekend rally gave way to mild profit-taking. (The Economic Times)
Bitmine has leaned into an “ether treasury” model, holding large amounts of the token on its balance sheet. In a Feb. 9 filing, the company said it held about 4.326 million ETH and had staked roughly 2.897 million of them — locking tokens to help run the network and earn rewards. (SEC)
That makes the stock a rough proxy for ether, with equity moves sometimes doing the exaggeration for it.
Macro nerves are part of the mix. “Risk appetite remains selective, and macro cross-currents are keeping traders defensive,” said Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus, in comments reported by Business Standard, which also flagged $68,000 as a key near-term level for bitcoin after another failed run at $70,000. (Business Standard)
The trade has obvious cousins: Strategy for bitcoin exposure, and exchanges such as Coinbase for volumes and sentiment — all of them prone to sharp gaps when crypto prices lurch.
But the leverage cuts both ways. If ether slides deeper below $2,000, the math on Bitmine’s holdings gets less friendly fast, and risk-off moves can hit smaller, crypto-heavy balance sheets harder than the broader market.
Investors are also watching Friday’s U.S. personal consumption expenditures report, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, for any shift in rate-cut expectations that could ripple into risk assets like crypto. (Reuters)
