3 Bullish Signals for Bitcoin That Investors Are Overlooking Amid Extreme Fear

The market remains gripped by extreme fear. Many Bitcoin investors focus only on short-term price fluctuations and fixate on negative factors. As a result, they overlook strong underlying fundamentals.

Although the price may be correcting, the following data reinforces the case for a recovery.

Lightning Network Growth Despite a Sharp Bitcoin Price Decline

Bitcoin’s price has fallen sharply. However, its use as a payment network has reached an all-time high, as reflected in breakthrough data from the Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network is a Layer 2 protocol built on top of Bitcoin. It enables scalable, low-cost, and near-instant transactions, making it ideal for everyday payments.

Data from Newhedge shows that Bitcoin Lightning Network capacity rose to a record high of 5,800 BTC in December. It remained above 5,600 BTC in early 2026.

Capacity (blue) represents the total amount of Bitcoin locked in Lightning Network payment channels. For the Lightning Network to function, participants must commit BTC to channels in advance. This committed BTC forms the network’s capacity.

Therefore, capacity determines the total value that can be transacted through the Lightning Network at any given time. An increase signals improvements in scalability, reliability, and user adoption.

In addition, a recent report from River revealed that the Lightning Network surpassed $1 billion in monthly transaction volume for the first time. It processed 5.22 million transactions. This growth indicates that businesses and exchanges are using Lightning to move real funds.

“While everyone is focused on Bitcoin dropping to $63K, something happened last week that nobody talked about. The Lightning Network crossed $1 billion in monthly transaction volume for the first time ever… Businesses are using it,” said Fernando Nikolić, a developer at Perception.

Sam Wouters, Director of Marketing at River, explained that most transactions involve transfers between exchanges, often with large amounts. He predicted that in the future, the emergence of AI agents could reduce the average transaction size when executing many small transactions.

Hashrate Recovery Reflects Renewed Miner Confidence

Second, Bitcoin’s hashrate—an important metric that measures the network’s total computational power—has recovered to levels equivalent to September last year, when BTC traded above $100,000.

The strong V-shaped recovery in February shows that miners have returned with renewed confidence. It also strengthens the network’s security and resilience.

Miners appear to have moved past extreme negative sentiment. They have restarted operations after severe weather disruptions earlier in the year.