Cointelegraph

Global payroll platform Deel will begin offering stablecoin salary payouts through a partnership with MoonPay, starting with workers in the UK and EU next month. The integration allows employees to receive wages directly in stablecoins to non-custodial crypto wallets, with a US rollout planned in a later phase.

Deel processes $22 billion in payroll annually worldwide, to more than 150 million workers, the company said in October. It will use MoonPay to handle stablecoin conversion and onchain wallet delivery, effectively adding crypto settlement rails to its existing payroll infrastructure, according to Tuesday’s announcement.

Under the arrangement, workers will be able to opt in to receive part or all of their salary in stablecoins, instead of local fiat currencies. MoonPay will manage the conversion and settlement process, while Deel continues to operate the payroll and compliance layer.

JP Richardson, co-founder and CEO of Exodus, said the partnership signals a broader shift toward everyday crypto use. “You don’t bring the world into crypto with whitepapers. You do it with paychecks,” Richardson wrote on X, arguing that stablecoin payroll will reduce cross-border payment delays and intermediary fees for workers globally.

Source: JP Richardson

The partnership expands Deel’s existing crypto payout options and adds another enterprise distribution channel for MoonPay, which holds a New York BitLicense and money transmitter licenses across the US, as well as authorization under the EU’s MiCA framework. 

The companies did not disclose which stablecoins will be supported or how many users are expected to opt in at launch. They also did not provide a specific time line for the US expansion or details on regulatory approvals tied to the second phase.

Stablecoin space is becoming increasingly crowded 

While MoonPay and Deel’s rollout targets workers in the UK and EU, the partnership comes amid rapid expansion in the US dollar–pegged token market. Since the US Congress established a federal framework for payment stablecoins in July 2025 with the GENIUS Act, a growing number of companies have moved to launch regulated stablecoins in the US.

In March, World Liberty Financial, a DeFi platform linked to the Trump family, launched its USD1 stablecoin, and in January, Wyoming became the first US state to issue its own stablecoin, the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT). 

The same month, Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDt (USDT), confirmed the launch of USAt, a US dollar–pegged token issued through Anchorage Digital Bank and positioned as a federally regulated payment stablecoin for use within the US.

Some traditional US banks are also preparing to enter the stablecoin market after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposed a framework outlining how subsidiaries of FDIC-supervised banks could apply to issue payment stablecoins in December. 

Despite the wave of new entrants, the market remains heavily concentrated. According to DefiLlama data, Tether’s USDt accounts for about 60% of total stablecoin market capitalization, while Circle’s USDC (USDC) represents about 24%.

Stablecoin market cap. Source: DefiLlama

Magazine: Is China hoarding gold so yuan becomes global reserve instead of USD?

Asset management giant BlackRock is making its first formal move into decentralized finance by bringing its tokenized US Treasury fund to Uniswap, marking a milestone moment for institutional adoption of DeFi.

According to a Wednesday announcement, BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) will be listed on the Uniswap decentralized exchange, allowing institutional investors to buy and sell the tokenized security. 

As part of the arrangement, BlackRock is also purchasing an undisclosed amount of Uniswap’s native governance token, UNI, the announcement said.

The collaboration is being facilitated by tokenization company Securitize, which partnered with the world’s biggest asset manager on the launch of BUIDL.

According to Fortune, trading will initially be limited to a select group of eligible institutional investors and market makers before expanding more broadly.

"For the first time, institutions and whitelisted investors can access technology from a leader in the decentralized finance space to trade tokenized real-world assets like BUIDL with self-custody," said Securitize CEO Carlos Dominigo.

Source: Securitize

BUIDL is the biggest tokenized money market fund, with more than $2.18 billion in total assets, according to data compiled by RWA.xyz. The fund is issued across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Aptos and Avalanche. 

BlackRock’s BUIDL metrics. Source: RWA.xyz

In December, BUIDL reached a key milestone, surpassing $100 million in cumulative distributions from its Treasury holdings.

Related: Avalanche tokenization hits Q4 high as BlackRock’s BUIDL expands onchain

Wall Street expands tokenized money market push amid stablecoin growth

Tokenized money market funds have gained traction on Wall Street, with several major financial institutions joining BlackRock in exploring the technology. Goldman Sachs and BNY, for example, have partnered to expand institutional access to tokenized money market products.

JPMorgan strategists have also highlighted the asset class as a potential counterweight to the rapid growth of stablecoins. While both rely on blockchain infrastructure, the GENIUS Act is widely expected to accelerate stablecoin adoption, potentially drawing liquidity away from traditional money market funds.

Tokenization could help offset that shift by allowing investors to post money market fund shares as collateral without sacrificing yield, JPMorgan strategist Teresa Ho said last year.

To be sure, the GENIUS Act could also accelerate the growth of tokenized real-world assets, according to Solomon Tesfaye, chief business officer at Aptos Labs, who previously told Cointelegraph that clearer stablecoin rules may spur broader onchain adoption.

Related: Crypto’s 2026 investment playbook: Bitcoin, stablecoin infrastructure, tokenized assets

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the country’s central bank, said on Wednesday that its Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH) is piloting three regulatory sandbox programs to research and develop stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits.

BNM’s initiatives center around using ringgit stablecoins, the fiat currency of Malaysia, for cross-border settlement and developing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), according to the announcement.

The pilot also aims to test tokenized bank deposits, with all research potentially applicable to the development of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), onchain fiat currency issued and managed directly by a central bank.

The benefits of asset tokenization. Source: BNM

Partners for the trials include banking institutions Standard Chartered Bank, CIMB Group Holding, Maybank, and investment holding company Capital A.

Malaysia’s central bank will also assess “Shariah-related considerations,” which refers to the Islamic code of law governing social, financial and political customs.

The pilot programs will “inform our policy direction in these specified areas,” according to the BNM statement, highlighting the global race among nation-states to tokenize assets, including fiat currencies, for use in the digital economy.

Roadmap to expand digital asset footprint

In November 2025, officials in Kuala Lumpur published a three-year roadmap to test asset tokenization across several real-world sectors.

Malaysia’s central bank outlines a three-year roadmap for digital assets. Source: BNM

These real-world use cases included supply chain management, Shariah-compliant financial products, access to credit, programmable finance and 24/7 cross-border settlement, according to a BNM discussion paper.

Ismail Ibrahim, the crown prince of Malaysia, launched a ringgit-pegged stablecoin in December under the ticker symbol RMJDT.

The stablecoin was issued by Bullish Aim, a telecom company owned by Ibrahim, but is still in the regulatory sandbox testing phase and not yet open to public trading.

That same month, Standard Chartered Bank and Capital A also announced plans to explore a ringgit-pegged stablecoin for wholesale settlement.

Wholesale stablecoins and CBDCs are meant for institutional settlement between authorized parties such as nation-states or central banks and are not intended for retail use.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs stablecoins showdown looms as GENIUS Act nears

Bitcoin (BTC) may recover from its ongoing slump and reach $150,000 by the year’s end, according to a recent Bernstein outlook.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin must hold the 200-week SMA and see new-investor flows turn positive.

Sidelined capital must flow back into crypto, and the quantum threat needs to be addressed.

More rate cuts from the Fed in 2026 will bring risk-on investors back to BTC.

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin must hold above this key trend line

One condition that has consistently defined Bitcoin’s transition from bear markets to new bull cycles is the price action around the 200-week simple moving average (200-week SMA, the blue wave).

Historically, this wave has acted as a magnet during deep drawdowns and a solid floor once selling pressure subsides.

BTC/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

In both 2015 and 2018, Bitcoin bottomed near the 200-week SMA before entering multiyear uptrends. The 2022 bear market saw BTC price briefly breaking below it, but the failure proved short-lived.

Bitcoin holding above the 200-week SMA will reduce the odds of a prolonged, 2022-style capitulation, while keeping the path open for a new bull phase.

Bitcoin’s new investor flows must return

Another prerequisite for a sustained bull run is a reversal in new investor flows.

As of February, wallets tracking first-time and short-term holders show roughly $2.7 billion in cumulative outflows, the highest since 2022.

Bitcoin new money cumulative flows (30-day average). Source: CryptoQuant

In healthy bull markets, pullbacks attract fresh capital and accelerate participation. However, in the current market, the opposite is happening, according to IT Tech, a CryptoQuant-associated onchain analyst.

“Current readings resemble post-ATH transitions, in which marginal buyers exit and price is driven by internal rotation, not net inflows,” the analyst wrote in a Tuesday post.

In prior cycles, including 2020, 2021 and 2022, sustained bullish reversals only emerged once new-investor flows flipped decisively back into positive territory.

Bitcoin new investor cumulative flows (30-day average). Source: CryptoQuant

The same must happen in 2026 to make a strong bull case for Bitcoin. Bitcoin ETF net flows turned positive on Monday, which could be a first sign that these investor flows are starting to come back.

Sidelined Tether must flow back into crypto

Tether’s (USDT) share of the total crypto market has risen in recent weeks to test a familiar 8.5%–9.0% resistance zone.

Rising USDT dominance means investors are parking money in stablecoins and avoiding risk. Falling dominance usually signals the opposite: capital rotating back into Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.

Tether’s crypto market dominance vs. BTC/USD two-week performance chart. Source: TradingView

Since November 2022, clear pullbacks from this 8%–9% area have aligned with strong Bitcoin rebounds.

One rejection was followed by a 76% rally over 140 days, while another preceded 169% gains over 180 days. A similar setup occurred from 2020 to 2022, when the key ceiling sat near 4.5%–5.75%.

USDT dominance broke above that range in May 2022, and Bitcoin then fell by 45%, further reflecting the inverse correlation between the two.

As a result, Tether dominance must fall to start a new Bitcoin bull run.

Quantum fears must subside

Another headwind to overcome for Bitcoin is the potential quantum threat. These are theories that future quantum computers could break Bitcoin’s cryptography, putting BTC wallets at risk.

Some note that 25% of Bitcoin addresses are already at risk.

Several security-focused sources frame this as a threat that is still far off in the future.

For example, in November 2025, cryptographer and Blockstream CEO Adam Back said Bitcoin faces no meaningful quantum threat for “20 to 40 years,” adding the network can be “quantum ready” well before it becomes a real problem.

Bitcoin Optech also noted that near-term quantum risk would be concentrated in edge cases, such as reused addresses, rather than the entire network at once.

For Bitcoin to build a bull case in 2026, this threat must be addressed for buyers to regain confidence.

Doing just that, Coinbase and Strategy have launched initiatives, bringing in experts and mapping out a roadmap for Bitcoin security upgrades.

Source: MSTR Earnings call (MSTR)

More rate cuts by the Fed

Bitcoin’s chances of re-entering a bull cycle in 2026 improve if the US Federal Reserve delivers at least two rate cuts next year, which is what CME futures pricing was currently implying as of February.

Target rate probabilities for the December 2026 Fed meeting. Source: CME

Lower rates generally reduce the appeal of yield-bearing assets like U.S. Treasurys, pushing investors to seek higher returns elsewhere. That shift tends to favor risk assets, including equities and cryptocurrencies.

Donald Trump may push the new Fed chair for three rate cuts in 2026, according to Lee Ferridge, strategist at State Street Corp.

Three rate cuts this year may further increase Bitcoin’s appeal among risk traders.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility around Wednesday’s Wall Street open as US jobs data came in well above expectations.

Key points:

Bitcoin attempts to rescue the day’s losses on the back of stronger US nonfarm payrolls data.

Mixed signals result in risk assets diverging in their reactions to the numbers.

Bitcoin traders stay wary of a deeper BTC price dip to come.

Analysis: Fed interest-rate pause to “continue”

Data from TradingView tracked a BTC price spike to nearly $69,000 which quickly retraced, extending daily losses past 4% at the time of writing.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US nonfarm payrolls outperformed considerably on the day, with 130,000 jobs added in January versus the anticipated 55,000.

US civilian unemployment data. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Strong labor-market numbers tend to imply less need to lower interest rates — typically a headwind for crypto and risk assets. At the same time, the reduced likelihood of recession creates a nuanced picture for risk-asset performance.

As such, the S&P 500 initially gained 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.6% before both retraced their moves.

Precious metals also saw uncertain price action, with gold hitting new February highs before giving back gains to target $5,000 support.

XAU/USD four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Reacting, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter additionally referenced cooling unemployment in predicting that the Federal Reserve would hold rates steady at its March meeting.

“The unemployment rate FELL to 4.3%, below expectations of 4.4%. This was a much stronger than expected jobs report, all around the board,” it wrote in a post on X. 

“The Fed pause will continue.”

Fed target rate probabilities for March FOMC meeting (screenshot). Source: CME Group

The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool put the odds of a March rate pause at over 90%.

Attention now focused on Friday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for further cues as to the path of inflation.

Trader eyes BTC price “slow bleed” toward $50,000

Commenting on recent BTC price action, traders remained unimpressed and skewed toward fresh downside.

Daan Crypto Trades brought in Fibonacci retracement levels at $64,569, $62,474 and $59,805 while eyeing the potential for a deeper retracement.

“Pretty weak showing overall after the initial bounce. Bulls failed to push higher past that $72K+ mark and instead saw price break down again,” he summarized. 

“Unless ~$68k is retaken, the fib retracement levels are the ones to watch in the short term.”

BTC/USDT perpetual contract one-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on $69,000 having key long-term significance, with the risk of an extended rangebound environment developing around that level now higher.

$50,000 BTC price bottom targets also persisted, with trader Jelle arguing that BTC/USD was copying 2022 bear market trajectory “closely.”

“Would see a relatively slow bleed towards the low $50ks from here - before bouncing back up; if it keeps playing out the same,” he told X followers.

“Lots of people talk about buying there. I wonder if they will if price gets there.”

BTC/USD 2022 chart fractal. Source: Jelle/X

The European Union is finalizing a new package of sanctions aimed at closing loopholes that officials say have allowed Russia to use cryptocurrency to circumvent existing restrictions.

The EU is seeking to “ban all cryptocurrency transactions with Russia” as part of the upcoming 20th sanctions package, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Unlike previous efforts targeting Russia-linked entities spun out of already sanctioned platforms, the newly proposed measures are broader and are designed to close Russia’s crypto loophole entirely.

“Any further listing of individual crypto asset service providers […] is therefore likely to result in the set-up of new ones to circumvent those listings,” according to an internal European Commission document on the proposed sanctions, cited by the FT.

Brussels seeks total shutdown of Russia-linked crypto channels

While the new sanctions package is still being finalized and is expected to be adopted on Feb. 24, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that the measures would target 20 additional Russian regional banks, as well as several banks in third countries.

Among the foreign lenders, the EU has proposed sanctioning two Kyrgyz banks — Keremet and OJSC Capital Bank of Central Asia — along with banks in Laos and Tajikistan, Reuters reported on Monday. If approved, the listed institutions would be barred from transactions with EU individuals and companies.

“In order to ensure that sanctions achieve their intended effect [the EU] prohibits to engage with any crypto asset service provider, or to make use of any platform allowing the transfer and exchange of crypto assets that is established in Russia,” the Commission’s document reportedly states.

Sanctioned A7A5 emerged as one of the largest non-dollar stablecoins in 2025

The report suggests that the measures could target Russia-linked payments platform A7 and its ruble-pegged stablecoin, A7A5. The operator has denied facilitating sanctions evasion, calling such claims politicized and unsupported by evidence.

Despite facing multiple rounds of sanctions, A7A5 emerged as one of the fastest-growing non-dollar stablecoins by market value in 2025, according to data from CoinMarketCap and DefiLlama.

Top five largest non-USD stablecoins by market capitalization. Source: DefiLlama

Some analysts, however, questioned the reliability of the token’s reported activity.

Blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger said it identified patterns consistent with wash trading that may have inflated A7A5’s volumes and simulated demand. Global Ledger also expressed doubts about the EU’s ability to fully restrict crypto transactions involving Russia.

Analysts question whether EU can fully enforce crypto sanctions

“The EU’s recent move to impose a blanket ban on Russian crypto activity — specifically targeting the A7A5 stablecoin — highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of decentralized liquidity,” Global Ledger co-founder and CEO Lex Fisun told Cointelegraph.

Fisun said the holders of tokens such as A7A5 can swap them into globally traded stablecoins through autonomous on-chain liquidity pools, without relying on centralized intermediaries that conduct compliance checks.

Once assets move through large global exchanges and liquidity hubs, transaction histories can become increasingly difficult to trace, he said, adding:

“At this stage, distinguishing these funds from legitimate market activity becomes a technical impossibility […] For European exchanges to enforce such a ban, they would essentially have to block all flows from major global trading hubs, a move that would paralyze the legitimate crypto market.”

While sanctions may succeed in cutting Russian entities off from regulated European platforms, Fisun said decentralized infrastructure remains resistant to direct censorship, making a complete technical blockade unlikely.

The developments come as Russia advances domestic legislation on digital assets. On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers passed a law in its third reading establishing the procedure for freezing and confiscating digital currency.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in Northern Europe with over five million customers, is allowing clients to buy Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded products (ETPs) from BlackRock and WisdomTree via its eBanking and Mobile Banking platforms for the first time. 

The new offering, announced Wednesday, is open to self-directed investors only — customers who trade on the bank’s platform without receiving investment advice — and is explicitly framed as a response to “increasing customer demand” and “improved regulation” in the wake of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regime.

The bank said customers can initially buy three “carefully selected” ETPs, two tracking Bitcoin (BTC) and one tracking Ethereum (ETH), offered by BlackRock and WisdomTree and covered by Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID) rules on investor protection and cost transparency, which the bank says provide clear advantages over holding coins directly, including ease of trading and secure custody.

Danske Bank pivots. Source: Danske Bank

​Kerstin Lysholm, head of investment products and offerings at Danske Bank, said in the release that, as cryptocurrencies have become more common as an asset class, the bank was receiving an “increasing number of enquiries from customers wanting the option of investing in cryptocurrencies as part of their investment portfolio.” 

She added that regulation had “generally increased confidence in cryptocurrencies” and led the bank to conclude “the time is ripe” to make such products available to clients who accept the “very high risks” involved.

From platform ban to tightly controlled access

The shift comes after years of caution toward digital assets. In 2018, Danske Bank said it was negative toward cryptocurrencies and barred trading in them and related instruments on its own platforms, warning customers against investing due to transparency, regulatory, volatility and financial crime concerns.

In 2021, Danske updated its policy in a four-point notice, stating that it wouldn’t offer any cryptocurrency services to its customers itself, but that it would not interfere with transactions coming from crypto platforms.

Lysholm said Danske still viewed crypto as “opportunistic investments” rather than part of a long-term portfolio strategy, and said that access to ETPs “should not be seen as a recommendation of the asset class.”

The release states that cryptocurrency investments “involve a very high risk” and can result in large losses, and it is building a suitability check into the flow. Before trading, customers must answer questions to ensure they have sufficient experience and knowledge to understand the risks and characteristics of crypto ETPs. 

Broader European trend

Other European lenders are also edging into regulated crypto offerings.

BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank, launched Bitcoin and Ether trading and custody for all retail customers in Spain in 2025, after piloting similar services for private banking clients in Switzerland.

Germany’s Deutsche Bank is also reportedly preparing to roll out a crypto custody service in 2026 in collaboration with Bitpanda and Swiss digital asset firm Taurus.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Africa recorded the highest median stablecoin-to-fiat conversion spreads among tracked regions in January, according to data observed by payments infrastructure company Borderless.xyz, covering 66 currency corridors and nearly 94,000 rate observations.

The regional median spread was 299 basis points, or about 3%, compared with roughly 1.3% in Latin America and 0.07% in Asia. In Africa, conversion costs ranged from about 1.5% in South Africa to nearly 19.5% in Botswana. 

The data measures “spreads,” or the gap between a provider’s buy and sell rate for a stablecoin-to-fiat pair. Similar to a bid-ask spread in traditional markets, it reflects the execution cost paid when converting stablecoins into local fiat currency. 

The findings suggest that while stablecoins are promoted as a cheaper alternative to traditional remittance rails, actual costs vary widely across African markets and appear closely tied to local provider competition and liquidity. 

Regional median spreads for stablecoin conversions. Source: Borderless.xyz

Competition drives pricing gaps

Borderless.xyz found that markets with several competing providers generally had conversion costs between about 1.5% and 4%. In markets with only one provider, costs often exceeded 13%. 

Botswana recorded the highest median conversion cost in January at 19.4%, though pricing improved later in the month. Congo's costs were also above 13%. By contrast, South Africa, which has a more competitive foreign exchange market, showed costs of about 1.5%. 

The report suggested that these differences are driven primarily by local market conditions, such as liquidity and competition, rather than the underlying blockchain technology. In countries where multiple providers operate, conversion costs stayed closer to the regional average. 

Conversion costs in different competition levels. Source: Borderless.xyz

Related: Uganda opposition leader promotes Bitchat amid fears of internet blackout

Stablecoins versus traditional foreign exchange

The report also compares stablecoin mid-rates with traditional interbank foreign exchange rates, measuring what it calls the “TradFi premium.”

This metric reflects whether stablecoin exchange rates are cheaper or more expensive than traditional FX mid-market rates. 

Across 33 currencies globally, the median difference between stablecoin exchange rates and traditional mid-market foreign exchange rates was about 5 basis points, or 0.05%, indicating the two were largely in line.

In Africa, the median gap was wider at roughly 119 basis points, or about 1.2%, though the difference varied significantly depending on the country.

On Jan. 24, economist Vera Songwe said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that stablecoins are helping reduce remittance costs across Africa, where traditional transfer services can charge about $6 per $100 sent.

The new data adds context, suggesting that while stablecoins offer faster settlement and potential savings compared with legacy services, conversion costs within specific corridors remain elevated. 

Magazine: Hong Kong stablecoins in Q1, BitConnect kidnapping arrests: Asia Express

Lombard said it plans to launch Bitcoin Smart Accounts, designed to allow Bitcoin held in institutional custody to be used as onchain collateral without moving the asset or transferring control to a third party.

According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, following a launch this quarter, custodied Bitcoin will be recognized onchain through a receipt token, BTC.b, enabling institutions to access lending and liquidity venues while retaining legal ownership and existing custody arrangements.

Lombard said the framework targets asset managers, corporate treasuries and other institutional holders whose Bitcoin (BTC) remains idle in qualified custody. Pilots are underway with select institutional clients, though Lombard has not disclosed customer names or transaction volumes.

Bitcoin does not natively offer yield, a constraint that has kept vast amounts of the token idle compared to proof-of-stake networks. That dynamic is beginning to shift as a growing set of protocols seek to put custodied Bitcoin to work onchain.

Seeking to unstick Bitcoin

Lombard co-founder Jacob Phillips told Cointelegraph that decentralized exchanges now account for a meaningful share of crypto trading activity, with about half of lending and borrowing already taking place onchain. Phillips said:

But Bitcoin has been stuck. You’ve got roughly $1.4 trillion in BTC sitting idle, with only about $40 billion active in DeFi. Until now, if you wanted to put your Bitcoin to work onchain, you had to wrap it or move it into centralized services, which meant giving up the custody security institutional holders require. That's the problem we're solving.

Morpho will serve as the initial liquidity partner, with additional onchain protocols and custodian integrations expected over time.

Phillips said Morpho was selected for its institutional-focused lending infrastructure and experience supporting isolated Bitcoin-backed lending, adding that Bitcoin Smart Accounts are designed as open infrastructure rather than a closed integration, allowing Lombard to support additional DeFi protocols as demand emerges.

Founded in 2024, Lombard develops Bitcoin-focused onchain infrastructure and tokenized assets, including LBTC and BTC.b, designed to enable Bitcoin to be used in DeFi without leaving custody, according to the company.

New products aim to put idle Bitcoin to work

On May 1, US-based crypto exchange Coinbase launched the Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund, targeting non-US institutional investors with an expected annual net return of 4% to 8% on Bitcoin holdings.

A few months later, Solv Protocol launched a structured yield vault for institutional investors, designed to deploy idle Bitcoin across multiple yield strategies spanning decentralized finance, centralized finance and traditional markets. Solv’s BTC+ vault includes strategies such as protocol staking, basis arbitrage and exposure to tokenized real-world assets.

On Feb. 4, institutional crypto infrastructure provider Fireblocks said it would integrate Stacks to give institutional clients access to Bitcoin-based lending and yield.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder

Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried claims to have “new evidence“ that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) under former President Joe Biden silenced key witnesses in his fraud case, as he is pushing for a new trial.

“New evidence shows that Biden’s DOJ threatened multiple witnesses into silence or into changing their testimony. My conviction should be thrown out,“ said SBF in his latest X post from prison on Wednesday.

He linked to a court filing seeking a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33. The motion, submitted Thursday, references a declaration from a former FTX employee and follows earlier reporting that SBF is attempting to challenge his fraud conviction through previously unavailable witness testimony.

The filing marks SBF’s latest effort to overturn the conviction that led to his 25-year prison sentence after the collapse of FTX and its 150 subsidiaries. SBF was convicted on seven counts tied to the misuse of customer funds at FTX and its sister trading company, Alameda Research. Prosecutors said customer funds were diverted to Alameda to cover trading losses, contributing to an $8.9 billion shortfall.

Source: Sam Bankman-Fried

SBF alleges witness intimidation

The new filing centers on a declaration from Daniel Chapsky, identified as a former head of data science at FTX. According to the motion, Chapsky outlined testimony he said he would have offered at trial had he felt safe doing so.

The filing shared a newly surfaced declaration made on July 13, 2023, where Chapsky said his attorneys “strongly advised“ him not to testify as he would be exposed to “media attacks and face potential retaliatory action by the prosecution.“

“Other former FTX employees I spoke with told me that they had received similar warnings,“ said Chapsky in the attached declaration.

“Out of concern for my well-being and those around me, I directed my counsel to tell Sam Bankman-Frid’s team I was not willing to testify.“

Chapsky also claimed that his testimony would have “refuted the errors in the prosecution’s representation about FTX’s financial condition and provided the jury with more accurate information.“

Bankman-Fried court filing on testimony allegedly withheld by Chapsky. Source: Courtlistener

New declaration challenges insolvency

The filing argues that Chapsky’s testimony would have countered the prosecution’s depiction of FTX’s financial condition, including claims that the exchange was insolvent before its November 2022 bankruptcy filing.

Net Asset Value over time if lawyers hadn't placed FTX into bankruptcy. Source: Courtlistener 

The filing states that Chapsky “attests“ to FTX and Alameda being solvent and that its assets always exceeded its liabilities even in November 2022, “contrary to what the prosecution told the jury.“

This is not the first time that Bankman-Fried claimed FTX was solvent. In an interview in October 2025, he alleged that he received a call about an external investment that would have saved the company, shortly after transferring control of the company to bankruptcy specialist John J. Ray III on Nov. 11, 2022, which he called his “biggest mistake.“

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Blockchain transactions per second (TPS) numbers are often treated as a performance gauge, but they don’t tell the full story of whether a network can scale in practice.

Carter Feldman, founder of Psy Protocol and a former hacker, told Cointelegraph that TPS figures are often misleading because they ignore how transactions are actually verified and relayed across decentralized systems.

“Many pre-mainnet, testnet or isolated benchmarking tests measure TPS with only one node running. At that point, you might as well call Instagram a blockchain that can hit 1 billion TPS because it has one central authority validating every API call,” Feldman said.

Part of the issue is how most blockchains are designed. The faster they try to go, the heavier the load on every node and the harder decentralization becomes. That burden can be reduced by separating transaction execution from verification.

New projects advertise high TPS, though live network usage rarely approaches those ceilings. Source: MegaETH

TPS numbers ignore the cost of decentralization

TPS is a valid benchmark for blockchain performance. If a network has higher TPS, it can handle more real usage.

But Feldman argued most headline TPS figures represent ideal settings that don’t translate to real-world throughput. The impressive numbers don’t show how the system performs under decentralized conditions.

“The TPS of a virtual machine or a single node is not a measure of a blockchain’s real mainnet performance,” said Feldman.

“However, the number of transactions per second a blockchain can process in a production environment is still a valid way to quantify how much usage it can handle, which is what scaling should mean.”

Every full node in a blockchain must check that transactions follow the protocol’s rules. If one node accepts an invalid transaction, others should reject it. That’s what makes a decentralized ledger work.

Related: Firedancer will speed up Solana, but it won’t reach full potential 

Blockchain performance considers how fast a virtual machine executes transactions. But bandwidth, latency and network topology matter in the real world. So, performance also depends on how transactions are received and verified by other nodes across the network.

As a result, TPS figures published in white papers often diverge from mainnet performance. Benchmarks that isolate execution from relay and verification costs measure something closer to virtual machine speed than blockchain scalability.

EOS, a network on which Feldman was a former block producer, smashed initial coin offering records in 2018. Its white paper suggested a theoretical scale of around 1 million TPS. That remains an eye-popping figure even by 2026 standards.

EOS never reached its theoretical TPS target. Earlier reports claimed it could hit 4,000 transactions under favorable settings. However, research conducted by blockchain testers at Whiteblock found that in realistic network conditions, throughput fell to roughly 50 TPS.

In 2023, Jump Crypto demonstrated that its Solana validator client, Firedancer, reached what EOS couldn’t by testing 1 million TPS. The client has since been rolling out, with many validators running a hybrid version known as Frankendancer. Solana in live conditions today typically processes around 3,000-4,000 TPS. Roughly 40% of those transactions are non-vote transactions, which better reflect actual user activity.

Solana recorded 1,361 TPS without vote transactions on Feb. 10. Source: Solscan

Breaking the linear scaling problem

Blockchain throughput usually scales linearly with workload. More transactions reflect more activity, but it also means nodes receive and verify more data.

Each additional transaction adds computational burden. At some point, bandwidth limits, hardware constraints and synchronization delays make further increases unsustainable without sacrificing decentralization.

Feldman said that overcoming this constraint requires rethinking how validity is proven, which can be done through zero-knowledge (ZK) technology. ZK is a way to prove that a batch of transactions was processed correctly without making every node run those transactions again. Because it allows validity to be proven without revealing all underlying data, ZK is often pushed as a solution to privacy issues.

Related: Privacy tools are rising behind institutional adoption, says ZKsync dev

Feldman argues that it can ease the scaling burden as well via recursive ZK-proofs. In simple terms, that refers to proofs verifying other proofs.

“It turns out that you can take two ZK-proofs and generate a ZK-proof that proves that both of these proofs are correct,” Feldman said. “So, you can take two proofs and make them into one proof.”

“Let’s say we start with 16 users’ transactions. We can take those 16 and make them into eight proofs, then we can take the eight proofs and make them into four proofs,” Feldman explained while sharing a graphic of a proof tree where multiple proofs ultimately become one.

How several proofs become one. Source: Psy/Carter Feldman

In traditional blockchain designs, increasing TPS raises verification and bandwidth requirements for every node. Feldman argues that with a proof-based design, throughput can increase without proportionally increasing per-node verification costs.

That does not mean ZK eliminates scaling tradeoffs entirely. Generating proofs can be computationally intensive and may require specialized infrastructure. While verification becomes cheap for ordinary nodes, the burden shifts to provers that must perform heavy cryptographic work. Retrofitting proof-based verification into existing blockchain architectures is also complex, which helps explain why most major networks still rely on traditional execution models.

Performance beyond raw throughput

TPS is not useless, but it is conditional. According to Feldman, raw throughput figures are less meaningful than economic signals such as transaction fees, which provide a clearer indicator of network health and demand.

“I would contend that TPS is the number two benchmark of a blockchain’s performance, but only if it is measured in a production environment or in an environment where transactions are not just processed but also relayed and verified by other nodes,” he said.

LayerZero Labs unveiled its Zero chain and claimed it can scale to 2 million TPS by leveraging ZK tech. Source: LayerZero

Blockchain’s dominant and existing design also influenced investments. Those modeled around sequential execution can’t easily bolt on proof-based verification without redesigning how transactions are processed.

“In the very beginning, it was almost impossible to raise money for anything but a ZK EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine],” Feldman said, explaining Psy Protocol’s former funding issues.

“The reason people didn’t want to fund it in the beginning is that it took a while,” he added. “You can’t just fork EVMs or their state storage because everything is done completely differently.”

In most blockchains, higher TPS means more work for every node. A headline figure alone does not show whether that workload is sustainable.

Magazine: Ethereum’s roadmap to 10,000 TPS using ZK tech: Dummies’ guide

Opinion by: Jesus Rodriguez, co-founder of Sentora

OpenAI is close to the point where launching its own crypto token is a realistic, and perhaps inevitable, financing move, although OpenAI has not announced any such plans. This idea might not be as crazy as it sounds.

The scale of OpenAI’s recent trillion-dollar-scale compute deals, combined with Sam Altman’s long-running interest in crypto primitives, makes a tokenized financing instrument a very real possibility. If models are engines that turn compute into intelligence, tokens may be the fuel markets use to price that compute in real time.

OpenAI’s appetite for compute now rivals nation-state infrastructure. At the time of this writing, OpenAI has approximately $13 billion in revenue and around $1.4 trillion in compute commitments. The mismatch requires some level of financial creativity.

A crypto token, structured pragmatically as prepaid compute plus optional upside, could become the financing primitive that matches this demand curve without sacrificing strategic control. Altman has repeatedly hinted that OpenAI’s ambitions will require alternative forms of finance, even teasing “a very interesting new kind of financial instrument.”

Given his visible crypto trajectory, an OpenAI crypto token may be controversial, but it’s entirely feasible when framed as prepaid compute with tightly scoped rights.

Trillion-dollar compute deals might require a new capital stack

The modern large language model (LLM) stack follows simple scaling laws. More compute leads to better models, which lead to more users, and even more compute. OpenAI is now operating at the steep part of that curve. Training runs span months, inference is always on and the capex profile resembles building a new cloud every year.

That’s why we’re seeing mega-deals: multi-year GPU purchase commitments, data-center buildouts, equity-for-chips partnerships and large credit facilities anchored by hyperscalers and chipmakers.

Microsoft has layered an incremental $250 billion of Azure commitments on top of its equity stake, while Oracle has emerged as a flagship partner through the Stargate program, with reports indicating $300 billion of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) capacity over five years.

Amazon has joined the stack with a seven-year, $38 billion Amazon Web Services (AWS) agreement, and GPU-native cloud CoreWeave has stitched together a three-stage contract now totaling $22.4 billion in infrastructure.

On the silicon side, OpenAI has a letter of intent with Nvidia to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of systems alongside up to $100 billion in Nvidia investment, a six-gigawatt multi-generation deal for AMD Instinct GPUs, and a 10-gigawatt co-development program with Broadcom for custom accelerators in addition to undisclosed capacity being lined up across Google Cloud and other partners.

Collectively, these arrangements add up to a trillion-dollar-scale bet on future compute cycles, financed through opaque, vendor-linked contracts that behave more like exotic infrastructure derivatives than traditional cloud bills, which is precisely the kind of structure a liquid, tokenized compute credit could help normalize and expose to market pricing.

We’ve already seen the cohelp normalize and expose to market pricing. Chips effectively become capital when long-dated GPU supply agreements function like asset-backed financing: They drive unit costs down and guarantee capacity, but at the price of massive forward obligations tied to training roadmaps.

Furthermore, equity-for-chips structures, where vendors take an upside in OpenAI’s equity in exchange for a preferential allocation, push financing risk deeper into the supply chain and tightly couple product trajectories to hardware roadmaps.

Then there are the cloud pre-pays and build-transfer arrangements, in which hyperscalers front data center capital expenditures in return for platform exclusivity and a revenue share, swapping near-term cash relief for long-term platform lock-in.

These deals underscore a new pattern: Compute is financed via multi-cycle, vendor-linked contracts that behave like long-dated capex, exactly the kind of lumpy commitment that a market-priced tokenized credit could smooth.

Crypto was built for elastic, global coordination. A token can continuously price demand, pool capital across geographies and settle instantly, features hard to replicate with conventional equity or debt.

What a pragmatic OpenAI token could be

Think less memecoin, and more instrument. A pragmatic OpenAI token could fit into one of three design patterns, if pursued. The first is a pure compute credit token: a transferable claim on future inference or training time, essentially onchain credits redeemable on approved endpoints.

This version simply presells capacity, ties token demand to real model usage and sidesteps quasi-equity semantics; redemption could be indexed to a public metered schedule (tokens per second of specific models).

A second variant is a tokenized funding note: a capped-profit, revenue-linked claim paid in fiat or credits but wrapped as a token for global distribution and secondary liquidity. Coupons might reference API revenue or particular product cohorts and convert into compute credits under stress, channeling speculative pressure into actual usage and reducing misalignment.

A compute token would not just sit quietly on the balance sheet. It would plug OpenAI into a reflexive market loop. When the token trades at a high value, capital is cheap, more clusters are built, models improve and demand for compute rises, supporting the token price. When the token sells off, that loop works in reverse, creating the AI-native version of a bank run: a “run on compute,” where collapsing token prices signal doubts about future model economics long before they show up in revenue.

This also changes the power balance with hyperscalers and chip vendors. Today, they control pricing and allocation through opaque, long-term contracts. A liquid compute price set in the open market would make it harder for any single vendor to extract outsized rents, and would force them to work around the token, adopt it (for collateral or payment) or launch their own competing compute assets. The real game, in that world, is not just whether crypto markets embrace an OpenAI token, but how quickly the existing compute oligopoly decides to copy or weaponize it.

The token punchline

Tokens are not a religion; they are a tool. OpenAI’s problem is not capital in abstract, it is scheduling capital against the geometry of compute. Crypto provides a programmable balance sheet, enabling you to price minutes, pre-sell access and source liquidity from the internet at the speed your models evolve.

If the company continues to sign increasingly complex chips-as-capital deals and revenue-sharing cloud agreements, a tokenized compute credit is the logical third leg, one that turns the market into a load balancer for intelligence.

If AI is gradients over data, financing should be gradients over demand. The next breakthrough may not just be a better optimizer, it may be a better way to fund it.

Opinion by: Jesus Rodriguez, co-founder of Sentora.

This opinion article presents the contributor’s expert view and it may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance, Cointelegraph remains committed to transparent reporting and upholding the highest standards of journalism. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company.

XRP (XRP)  has retraced nearly 63% from its multi-year high of $3.66 to trade at $1.36 on Wednesday, a technical setup that may have bearish implications for its price, according to a market analyst.  

Key takeaways:

XRP appeared bearish below $1.40, with chart technicals pointing to a further drop toward $0.70-$1.

Persistent spot XRP ETFs inflows, whale accumulation, and a surge in active addresses could invalidate the bearish outlook.

Where will XRP price bottom?

In a Tuesday post on X, Chart Nerd said that previous fractals from the monthly Gaussian Channel indicator suggest that XRP could drop lower over the coming weeks or months.

Related: XRP traders more optimistic as BTC, ETH mood turns sour: Santiment

The Gaussian Channel is a technical analysis indicator used to identify trends, spot potential support/resistance levels, and overbought/oversold conditions.

The chart below shows that whenever the XRP price rallied, it has corrected to retest the upper regression band of the Gaussian Channel, which is currently at $1.16.

This has always led to three to four months of “further decline towards the middle regression band of the Gaussian Channel before marking a foundation and continuing the trajectory higher,” the analyst said, adding:

“The middle regression band currently ties up around $0.70, which is also a previous year-long resistance level seen back in 2023/2024, and hasn't been backtested for support.”

XRP/USD monthly chart depicting the Gaussian Channel. Source: Chart Nerd

Chart Nerd added that this scenario will be validated if the XRP drops below the local lows of $1.12, reached on Feb. 6. 

Meanwhile, analyst Crypto Patel said that while a drop to $1 would provide a good entry zone for XRP buyers, the “best accumulation zone” could be lower at $0.50-$0.70. 

“Currently, XRP/USDT is ~70% down from the recent ATH. After a historical 96% drawdown from $3.28 to $0.1050 in 2018,” a similar crash is unlikely,” the technical analyst said, adding:

“A corrective retracement below $1 remains possible.”

XRP/USD monthly chart. Source: Crypto Patel

As Cointelegraph reported, the odds of XRP falling below $1 increased once the price was rejected by the 200-week moving average around $1.40.

Is there hope for an XRP price recovery?

Despite XRP’s price weakness, institutional demand and whale accumulation continued.

Launched in late 2025, spot XRP ETFs have now reached $1.23 billion in cumulative net inflows. The $3.26 million inflows on Tuesday marked the fifth consecutive day of inflows, bringing the total assets under management to $1.01 billion.

Spot XRP  ETFs flows table. Source: SoSoValue

“Institutional demand and XRP ETF inflows continue, with persistent spot ETF net inflows highlighting institutional confidence,” trader Levi said in a recent post on X.

XRP’s latest rebound to $1.50 from $1.12 came as speculators discussed whether the price would fall below $1, market intelligence platform Santiment said in a recent post on X.

Another hope for the bulls is that whales accumulated during the crash as transactions involving over $100,000 in XRP spiked to four-month highs of 1,389. 

The number of active addresses on the XRP Ledger “suddenly ballooned to 78,727 in just one 8-hour candle — the highest in 6 months,” Santiment said, adding:

“These are both major signals of a price reversal for any asset.”

XRP daily active addresses and whale transactions. Source: Santiment

Arkham Exchange is not shutting down, despite reports to the contrary, and is instead redesigning itself as a decentralized trading platform, the company confirmed to Cointelegraph.

The crypto trading platform launched by data analytics firm Arkham Intelligence is shifting from a centralized model to a fully decentralized exchange (DEX), Arkham CEO Miguel Morel told Cointelegraph on Wednesday.

“The future of crypto trading is decentralized, and that’s what we’re building towards,” Morel said.

Launched in 2024, Arkham Exchange allows users to trade both spot crypto and perpetual contracts. The platform launched a mobile app in late 2025. At the time of writing, Arkham reports average daily trading of around $640,000, according to CoinGecko data.

Centralized platforms have become “unresponsive” to user needs

Arkham’s shift to a DEX comes as debate intensifies over how centralized exchanges (CEXs) manage token listings, with decentralized rivals increasingly viewed as offering greater flexibility and openness.

“Centralized incumbents have become bloated and unresponsive to user needs, becoming worse than the traditional financial systems they pretend to improve on,” Morel noted, adding: “We don’t want to invest in that.”

Source: Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao

The move also aligns with a broader industry trend, as DEX-to-CEX trading volume ratios reached new highs in 2025 after more than tripling since 2020, according to CoinGecko.

Perpetual DEXs in particular saw explosive growth. In 2025, perp DEX volumes almost tripled their volumes, from $4.1 trillion at the start of the year to as much as $12 trillion. The surge reflected a sharp spike in onchain derivatives usage, as perp DEXs absorbed a growing share of leveraged crypto trading activity.

“Decentralized trading, especially for perpetuals, has exploded because it is a return to what made crypto so exciting in the first place,” Morel said, adding:

“It is cheaper, faster, and gives users custody of their own assets. We are excited about returning to the financial frontier and delivering the best trading experience for our users.”

Arkham did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for additional details on the timeline for its transition to a DEX. This article will be updated if and when further information becomes available.

Magazine: Bitcoin difficulty plunges, Buterin sells off Ethereum: Hodler’s Digest, Feb. 1 – 7

Key takeaways

Bitcoin now responds more to liquidity than to rate cuts. While rate cuts once drove crypto rallies, Bitcoin’s recent price action reflects actual cash availability and risk capital in the system, not just borrowing costs.

Interest rates and liquidity are not the same. Rates measure the price of money, while liquidity reflects the amount of money circulating. Bitcoin reacts more when liquidity tightens or loosens, even if rates move in the opposite direction.

When liquidity is abundant, leverage and risk-taking expand, pushing Bitcoin higher. When liquidity contracts, leverage can unwind quickly, which has often coincided with sharp sell-offs across stocks and commodities.

Balance sheets and cash flows matter more than policy headlines. The Fed’s balance sheet policy, Treasury cash management and money market tools directly shape liquidity and often influence Bitcoin more than small changes in policy rates.

For years, US Federal Reserve interest rate cuts have been a key macro signal for Bitcoin (BTC) traders. Lower rates typically meant cheaper borrowing, boosted risk appetite and sparked rallies in crypto. However, that classic link between Fed rate cuts and Bitcoin trading has weakened in recent months. Bitcoin now responds more to actual liquidity levels in the financial system than to expectations or incremental changes in borrowing costs.

This article clarifies why anticipated rate cuts have not pushed up Bitcoin recently. It explains why episodes of liquidity constraint have triggered synchronized sell-offs across crypto, stocks and even precious metals.

Rates vs. liquidity: The key difference

Interest rates represent the cost of money, while liquidity reflects the quantity and flow of money available in the system. Markets sometimes confuse the two, but they can diverge sharply.

The Fed might lower rates, yet liquidity could still contract if reserves are drained elsewhere. For instance, liquidity can tighten through quantitative tightening or the US Department of the Treasury’s actions. Liquidity can also rise without rate cuts through other inflows or policy shifts.

Bitcoin’s price action increasingly tracks this liquidity pulse more closely than incremental rate adjustments.

Did you know? Bitcoin often reacts to liquidity changes before traditional markets do, earning it a reputation among macro traders as a “canary asset” that signals tightening conditions ahead of broader equity sell-offs.

Why rate cuts no longer drive Bitcoin as strongly

Several factors have diminished the impact of rate cuts:

Heavy pre-pricing: Markets and futures often anticipate cuts well in advance, pricing them in long before they happen. By the time a cut occurs, asset prices may already reflect it.

Context matters: Cuts driven by economic stress or financial instability can coincide with de-risking. In such environments, investors tend to reduce exposure to volatile assets even if rates are falling.

Cuts do not guarantee liquidity: Ongoing balance sheet runoff, large Treasury issuance or reserve drains can keep the system constrained. Bitcoin, as a volatile asset, tends to react quickly to these pressures.

Bitcoin as a liquidity-sensitive, high-beta asset

Bitcoin’s buyers rely on leverage, available risk capital and overall market conditions. Liquidity influences these factors:

In environments with abundant liquidity, leverage flows freely, volatility is more tolerated, and capital shifts toward riskier assets.

When liquidity is constrained, leverage unwinds, liquidations cascade, and risk appetite vanishes across markets.

This dynamic suggests Bitcoin behaves less like a policy rate trade and more like a real-time gauge of liquidity conditions. When cash becomes scarce, Bitcoin tends to fall in tandem with equities and commodities, regardless of the Fed funds rate.

What lies behind liquidity

To understand how Bitcoin reacts in various situations, it helps to look beyond rate decisions and into the financial plumbing:

Fed balance sheet: Quantitative tightening (QT) shrinks the Fed’s holdings and pulls reserves from banks. While markets can handle early QT, it eventually constrains risk-taking. Signals about potential balance sheet expansion can at times influence markets more than small changes in policy rates.

Treasury cash management: The US Treasury’s cash balance acts as a liquidity valve. When the Treasury rebuilds its cash balance, money moves out of the banking system. When it draws the balance down, liquidity is released.

Money market tools: Facilities like the overnight reverse repo (ON RRP) absorb or release cash. Shrinking buffers make markets more reactive to small liquidity shifts, and Bitcoin registers those changes rapidly.

Did you know? Some of Bitcoin’s sharpest intraday moves have occurred on days with no Fed announcements at all but coincided with large Treasury settlements that quietly drained cash from the banking system.

Why recent sell-offs felt macro, not crypto-specific

Lately, Bitcoin drawdowns have aligned with declines in equities and metals, pointing to broad liquidity stress rather than isolated crypto issues. This cross-asset synchronization underscores Bitcoin’s integration into the global liquidity framework.

Fed leadership and policy nuances: Shifts in expected Fed leadership, particularly views on balance sheet policy, add complexity. Skepticism toward aggressive expansion signals tighter liquidity ahead, which affects Bitcoin prices more intensely than small rate tweaks.

Liquidity surprises pack a bigger punch: Liquidity shifts are less predictable and transparent, and markets are not as adept at anticipating them. They quickly affect leverage and positioning. Rate changes, however, are widely debated and modeled. Unexpected liquidity drains can catch traders off guard, with Bitcoin’s volatility magnifying the effect.

How to think about Bitcoin’s macro sensitivity

Over long periods, interest rates shape valuations, discount rates and opportunity costs. In the current regime, however, liquidity sets the near-term boundaries for risk appetite. Bitcoin’s reaction becomes more volatile when liquidity shifts.

Key things to monitor include:

Central bank balance sheet signals

Treasury cash flows and Treasury General Account (TGA) levels

Stress or easing signals in money markets.

Rate cut narratives can shape sentiment, but sustained buying depends on whether liquidity supports risk-taking.

The broader shift

Bitcoin was long seen as a hedge against currency debasement. Today, it is increasingly viewed as a real-time indicator of financial conditions. When liquidity expands, Bitcoin benefits; when liquidity tightens, Bitcoin tends to feel the pain early.

In recent periods, Bitcoin has responded more to liquidity conditions than to rate cut headlines. In the current phase of the Bitcoin cycle, many analysts are focusing less on rate direction and more on whether system liquidity is sufficient to support risk-taking.

North Korea-linked threat actors are escalating social engineering campaigns targeting cryptocurrency and fintech companies, deploying new malware designed to harvest sensitive data and steal digital assets.

In a recent campaign, a threat cluster tracked as UNC1069 deployed seven malware families aimed at capturing and exfiltrating victim data, according to a Tuesday report by Mandiant, a US cybersecurity firm Mandiant which operates under Google Cloud.

The campaign relied on social engineering schemes involving compromised Telegram accounts and fake Zoom meetings with deepfake videos generated through artificial intelligence tools.

“This investigation revealed a tailored intrusion resulting in the deployment of seven unique malware families, including a new set of tooling designed to capture host and victim data: SILENCELIFT, DEEPBREATH and CHROMEPUSH,” the report states.

Threat actor UNC1069, attack chain. Source: Mandiant/Google Cloud

Related: CZ sounds alarm as ‘SEAL’ team uncovers 60 fake IT workers linked to North Korea

Mandiant said the activity represents an expansion of the group’s operations, primarily targeting crypto firms, software developers and venture capital companies.

The malware included two newly discovered, sophisticated data-mining viruses, named CHROMEPUSH and DEEPBREATH, which are designed to bypass key operating system components and gain access to personal data.

The threat actor with “suspected” North Korean ties has been tracked by Mandiant since 2018, but AI advancements helped the malicious actor scale up his efforts and include “AI-enabled lures in active operations” for the first time in November 2025, according to a report at the time from the Google Threat Intelligence Group.

Cointelegraph contacted Mandiant for additional details regarding the attribution, but had not received a response by publication.

Related: Balancer hack shows signs of months-long planning by skilled attacker

Attackers are stealing crypto founder accounts to launch ClickFix attacks

In one intrusion outlined by Mandiant, attackers used a compromised Telegram account belonging to a crypto founder to initiate contact. The victim was invited to a Zoom meeting featuring a fabricated video feed in which the attacker claimed to be experiencing audio problems.

The attacker then directed the user to run troubleshooting commands in their system to fix the purported audio issue in a scam known as a ClickFix attack.

The provided troubleshooting commands had embedded a hidden single command that initiated the infection chain, according to Mandiant.

UNC1069 victimology map. Source: Mandiant/Google Cloud

North Korea-linked illicit actors have been a persistent threat to both crypto investors and Web3-native companies.

In June 2025, four North Korean operatives infiltrated multiple crypto firms as freelance developers, stealing a cumulative $900,000 from these startups, Cointelegraph reported.

Earlier that year, the Lazarus Group was linked to the $1.4 billion hack of Bybit, one of the largest crypto thefts on record.

Magazine: Coinbase hack shows the law probably won’t protect you — Here’s why

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission said Wednesday it will allow licensed brokers to provide virtual asset margin financing and outlined a framework for trading platforms to offer perpetual contracts to professional investors.

Under the new guidance, brokers may extend virtual asset financing to securities margin clients with sufficient collateral and strong credit profiles. Initially, only Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) will be eligible as collateral. 

The regulator also set out a high-level framework for licensed virtual asset trading platforms to develop leveraged perpetual contracts. Access will be restricted to professional investors. 

Affiliates of licensed platforms will be allowed to act as market makers, subject to conflict-of-interest guardrails, functional independence and security controls. 

The measures introduce structured leverage and additional liquidity mechanisms into Hong Kong’s supervised crypto market while keeping retail access limited.

Liquidity focus under the ASPIRe roadmap

In a keynote speech at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Eric Yip, the SFC’s executive director of intermediaries, said the regulator’s digital asset strategy has entered a “defining stage” under its Access, Safeguards, Products, Infrastructure and Relationships (ASPIRe) roadmap. 

“This year’s focus is on liquidity — cultivating market depth, strengthening price discovery and building investor confidence,” Yip said.

He said the margin financing initiative is anchored to the existing securities margin framework, including controls on collateral quality, concentration limits, haircuts and governance. 

Yip said the goal is to enable “responsible leverage that supports liquidity without undermining financial stability,” adding that perpetual contracts will follow a principles-based model requiring transparent disclosures and strong internal risk management. 

On affiliate market makers, Yip said safeguards are designed to “narrow spreads, improve fairness and transparency.”

Related: Hong Kong defends ‘same risk, same regulation’ approach for crypto at WEF

Broader legislative rollout continues

The latest measures build on Hong Kong’s broader crypto policy rollout.

On Jan. 31, authorities announced plans to submit a draft ordinance covering crypto advisory services in 2026, alongside updates tied to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF).  

On Feb. 2, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said it is preparing to grant its first stablecoin issuer licenses in March, with initial approvals expected to be limited. 

Magazine: Did a Hong Kong fund kill Bitcoin? Bithumb’s ‘phantom’ BTC: Asia Express

The European Parliament has thrown its weight behind the European Central Bank’s (ECB) digital euro project in a vote that framed money and payments as a strategic asset in an era of rising geopolitical tensions. 

Lawmakers adopted the annual ECB report by 443 votes in favor, 71 against, and 117 abstentions, backing amendments that describe the digital euro as “essential” to strengthening European Union monetary sovereignty, reducing fragmentation in retail payments, and bolstering the integrity of the single market. 

The text places growing emphasis on how public money in digital form can curb Europe’s reliance on non‑EU payment providers and private instruments.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also underlined that the ECB must remain independent and free from political pressure, arguing that safeguarding central bank autonomy was key to maintaining price stability and market confidence.

Annual review of the ECB’s policies and recommendations for 2026. Source: European Parliament

During the plenary debate, Johan Van Overtveldt, MEP and former Belgian finance minister, flagged that “the independence of the ECB is not a technical detail.”

He warned that history showed political interference with central banks “invariably leads to inflation, financial instability and even nasty political turmoil.” 

He argued that reaffirming independence is “even more important in the current global context,” likening monetary and financial stability to utilities such as water and electricity whose importance is only truly noticed when they fail. 

Digital euro as public good and geopolitical hedge

The adopted resolution states that, even as the ECB develops a digital euro, cash should retain an important role in the euro area economy, and both physical and digital euros will be legal tender.

The parliamentary backing comes amid a broader push by central bankers and economists to frame the digital euro as a public good and a geopolitical hedge. 

Last month, ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone called the project “public money in digital form” and tied it directly to concerns about the “weaponisation of every conceivable tool.”

He argued that Europe needed a retail payment system “fully under our control” and built on European infrastructure rather than foreign schemes. 

Earlier in January, 70 economists and policy experts urged MEPs to “let the public interest prevail” on the digital euro, warning that without a strong public option, private stablecoins and foreign payment giants could gain even greater influence over Europe’s digital payments, deepening dependencies in times of stress.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Ethereum accumulation addresses have witnessed a surge in daily inflows since Friday, suggesting growing confidence in Ether’s (ETH) long-term price trajectory despite its latest drop below $2,000.

Key takeaways:

Ether’s drop below $2,000 has left 58% of addresses with unrealized losses.

Accumulation addresses have absorbed about $2.6 billion in ETH over five days.

Key Ether levels to watch below $2,000 include $1,800, $1,500, $1,200, and potentially $750–$1,000 in extreme scenarios.

58% of Ether addresses are now in the red

Ether’s 38% drop over the last month has seen it fall below key support levels, including the average entry price of accumulation addresses, the cost basis of spot Ethereum ETF investors, and the psychological level at $2,000. 

The ETH/USD pair now trades 60.5% below its all-time high of $4,950, leaving a significant portion of holders underwater. This includes BitMine, the world’s largest Ethereum treasury ​​linked to investor Tom Lee, which saw its paper losses swell to over $8 billion.

With ETH trading at $1,954 on Wednesday, only 41.5% Ethereum addresses are in profit, while over 58% are in the red.

Ethereum: Addresses in profit, %. Source: Glassnode

Ether’s current market price is also below the average cost basis of accumulation addresses currently at $2,580, suggesting that long-term holders are increasingly under strain. 

Ethereum: Realized price for accumulation addresses. Source: CryptoQuant

ETF investors are also feeling the pressure. James Seyffart, senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg, highlighted that Ethereum ETF holders are currently in a worse position than their Bitcoin counterparts. 

With ETH hovering below $2,000, the altcoin trades well below the estimated average ETF cost basis of about $3,500.

Source: X/James Seyffart

Ether accumulation absorbs 1.3 million ETH in five days

Despite the sharp downturn, investor confidence has not fully eroded. Data from CryptoQuant showed Ethereum accumulation addresses have received 1.3 million Ether worth approximately $2.6 billion at current rates. 

 The “full-scale accumulation” of ETH began in June 2025, and is “proceeding even more aggressively,” CryptoQuant analyst CW8900 said in Wednesday’s Quicktake analysis, adding:

“​​The current price will likely appear attractive to $ETH whales.”

 

ETH inflows into accumulation addresses. Source: CryptoQuant

As a result, the total ETH held by these long-term holders reached a record 27 million. That marks a 20.36% gain so far in 2026 despite the ETH price declining 34.5% over the same period.

ETH balance held by accumulation addresses. Source: CryptoQuant

Accumulation addresses are wallets that continuously receive ETH without making any outgoing transactions. They may belong to long-term holders, institutional investors, or entities strategically accumulating Ether rather than actively trading.

Large spikes in inflows to these addresses often signal strong confidence in Ether’s long-term potential, with past trends showing that such surges frequently precede price rallies.

For example, on June 22, 2025, Ethereum accumulation addresses recorded a then-all-time high daily inflow of over 380 million ETH. Nearly 30 days later, ETH’s price rose by almost 85%. A 25% price rally followed November 2025’s inflow spike into the accumulation addresses.

Key ETH price levels to watch below $2,000

The ETH/USD pair extended its losses below $2,000, a key support level, which the bulls must reclaim to prevent further downside.

“$ETH failed to hold above the $2,000 level and is now going down,” crypto analyst Ted Pillows said in an X post on Wednesday, adding:

“The next key level is around the $1,800-$1,850 level if Ethereum doesn't reclaim the $2,000 level soon.”

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: Ted Pillows

Fellow analyst Crypto Thanos shares similar views, telling followers to “get ready” for a $1,500 ETH price if $2,000 is not reclaimed by the end of the week.

Zooming out, LadyTraderRa said Ether is “definitely going” to retest the $750-$1,000 zone, based on past price action on the monthly candle chart. 

ETH/USD monthly chart. Source: LadyTraderRa

Glassnode's UTXO realized price distribution (URPD), which shows the average prices at which ETH holders bought their coins, reveals that below $2,000, key support levels for ETH sit at $1,880, $1,580, and $1,230.

ETH: UTXO realized price distribution (URPD). Source: Glassnode

As Cointelegraph reported, the ETH/USD pair could drop to $1,750 and then $1,530, after failing to hold above $2,100. 

A New York federal judge has dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Bancor-affiliated entities against Uniswap, ruling that the asserted patents claim abstract ideas and are not eligible for protection under US patent law.

In a memorandum opinion and order dated Feb. 10, Judge John G. Koeltl of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint filed by Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd. against Universal Navigation Inc. and the Uniswap Foundation. 

The court found that the patents are directed to the abstract idea of calculating crypto exchange rates and therefore fail the two-step test for patent eligibility established by the US Supreme Court. 

The ruling marks a procedural win for Uniswap, but it is not final. The case was dismissed without prejudice, giving the plaintiffs 21 days to file an amended complaint. If no amended complaint is filed, the dismissal will convert to one with prejudice.

Shortly after the ruling, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams wrote on X, “A lawyer just told me we won.”

Source: Hayden Adams

Cointelegraph reached out to representatives of Bprotocol Foundation and Uniswap for comment but did not receive a response by publication.

Judge finds that patents claim abstract ideas

As previously reported, Bancor alleged that Uniswap infringed patents related to a “constant product automated market maker” system underpinning decentralized exchanges.

The dispute centered on whether Uniswap’s protocol unlawfully used patented technology for automated token pricing and liquidity pools. 

Koeltl said that the patents are directed to “the abstract idea of calculating currency exchange rates to perform transactions.”

He wrote that currency exchange is a “fundamental economic practice” and that calculating pricing information is abstract under established Federal Circuit precedent.

The judge rejected arguments that implementing the pricing formula on blockchain infrastructure made the claims patentable, and said the patents merely use existing blockchain and smart contract technology “in predictable ways to address an economic problem.”

He said limiting an abstract idea to a particular technological environment does not make it patent-eligible. The court also found no “inventive concept” sufficient to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. 

Court grants motion to dismiss. Source: CourtListener

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Complaint fails to plead infringement

Beyond patent eligibility, the court found that the amended complaint did not plausibly allege direct infringement.

According to the memorandum, the plaintiffs failed to identify how Uniswap’s publicly available code includes the required reserve ratio constant specified in the patents.

The judge also dismissed claims of induced and willful infringement, finding that the complaint did not plausibly allege that the defendants knew about the patents before the lawsuit was filed.

The dismissal without prejudice leaves open the possibility that Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd. could attempt to refile with revised claims.

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