CoinPhoton

XRP Ledger has activated the XLS-81 “Permissioned DEX” upgrade, enabling gated onchain trading venues where only approved participants can place and match orders. The feature lets administrators restrict access based on compliance requirements such as KYC and AML, while trades and settlement still occur natively onchain. It is designed mainly for banks and brokers that want blockchain liquidity with counterparty controls.
The rollout follows the recent XLS-85 Token Escrow upgrade, which expanded escrow functionality to issued tokens, stablecoins, and tokenized assets — not just XRP. Together, these upgrades strengthen XRPL’s toolkit for regulated tokenized markets from issuance to secondary trading.
The move highlights the ecosystem’s institutional focus. In parallel, developers at RippleX have discussed possible native XRP staking designs, with input from Ripple CTO David Schwartz, and Ripple has partnered with Aviva Investors on fund tokenization initiatives.

Offshore entity becomes largest new IBIT holder
A little-known offshore firm has emerged as the largest new holder of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), according to a Form 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hong Kong–based Laurore Ltd. disclosed ownership of 8.79 million IBIT shares valued at about $436 million as of Dec. 31, 2025. Based on recent prices near $38, the stake would now be worth roughly $334 million if unchanged, implying about a 24% drop. The filing does not reveal the ultimate beneficial owners or funding source.
The disclosure gained attention after Jeff Park of ProCap Financial noted the entity appears to hold only IBIT, suggesting it may function as a dedicated bitcoin access vehicle for investors using regulated ETF markets.
Separate filings show Abu Dhabi–linked funds held over $1 billion in IBIT at year-end, while Harvard Management Company kept a roughly $266 million position after trimming during the quarter.
Research firm K33 says current bitcoin market structure resembles late-bear phases seen in past cycles, with recoveries historically taking months and prices likely to stay rangebound before a sustained rebound.

Hyperliquid funds DeFi policy group with $29M in HYPE tokens
Hyperliquid Foundation is backing the creation of a new DeFi-focused advocacy group in Washington, D.C., committing 1 million HYPE tokens — worth about $29 million — to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center. The tokens will be unstaked to fund operations and policy efforts.
The center will lobby for clearer decentralized finance regulations in the U.S. and will be led by Jake Chervinsky, a former legal lead at Variant Fund and board member of the Blockchain Association. He described the initiative as an independent research and advocacy organization aimed at helping DeFi grow in the U.S.
The move comes as U.S. lawmakers continue working on digital asset legislation, with several key issues — including stablecoin reward treatment — still unresolved. Hyperliquid operates a decentralized perpetual futures exchange competing with centralized platforms such as Coinbase, which has long maintained a strong lobbying presence in Washington.

Ether.fi announced that it is migrating its non-custodial DeFi payment card product, ether.fi Cash, from Scroll to OP Mainnet as part of a broader infrastructure upgrade. The transition is expected to move roughly 70,000 active cards, around 300,000 user accounts, and millions of dollars in total value locked over the next few months, with the company saying the process should be seamless for end users.
Ether.fi Cash enables users to spend stablecoins directly or borrow against staked and restaked assets such as eETH as collateral, while still earning yield. The card also offers cashback rewards and is accepted anywhere supporting major payment networks, making it one of the leading crypto-native card solutions by transaction share.
By relocating to OP Mainnet, Ether.fi aims to benefit from deeper liquidity, a broader DeFi asset universe for deposits and withdrawals, and more efficient gas management. The Optimism ecosystem has processed billions of transactions and previously supported large-scale protocol migrations. Meanwhile, Ether.fi’s core restaking protocol will continue to operate primarily on Ethereum. The project currently holds multi-billion-dollar TVL and has also approved a treasury program to buy back ETHFI tokens during periods of significant price weakness.

K33 reports that Bitcoin’s current derivatives and positioning regime closely resembles the late-2022 bear market bottom, based on a composite model that tracks derivatives yields, open interest, ETF flows, and macro indicators. According to Head of Research Vetle Lunde, multiple signals now show defensive behavior across the market, including persistently negative funding rates, a sharp drop in notional open interest, and reduced leverage — all suggesting traders are closing risk rather than building new directional bets.
Spot and futures activity has cooled significantly after recent sell-offs, with trading volumes and futures positioning falling to multi-month lows. Volatility has also started to normalize, which typically happens when markets shift from capitulation toward stabilization. Institutional participation appears cautious as well, with muted activity on CME and notable drawdowns in Bitcoin ETP holdings, although most institutional exposure remains intact relative to peak levels.
K33 notes that historically similar regimes did coincide with market bottoms, but they were followed by slow, rangebound consolidation phases instead of fast rebounds. Based on past analogs, forward 90-day returns in such environments were modest or slightly negative. As a result, the firm expects Bitcoin to remain largely range-bound — roughly between $60,000 and $75,000 — for a prolonged period. The setup may offer attractive long-term entry levels, but recovery is likely to be gradual and require patience rather than signaling an imminent breakout.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon publicly confirmed for the first time that he personally owns a small amount of Bitcoin, speaking at the World Liberty Forum 2026 in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
He said he is still trying to understand Bitcoin’s behavior and continues to view it as a speculative asset, though he acknowledges it could serve as a store of value. Solomon noted that Goldman Sachs has historically been restricted from directly owning or trading crypto assets, but that stance has only recently begun to shift.
The forum was hosted by World Liberty Financial, a DeFi and stablecoin firm backed by Donald Trump and his sons. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is exploring tokenization and stablecoin use cases, even as it reduced its holdings in spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs by about 40% last quarter.

Brevan Howard flagship digital asset fund drops nearly 30% in 2025
The flagship digital asset fund of Brevan Howard posted its worst performance since launch, falling 29.5% in 2025 as the crypto market correction weighed on both token holdings and venture investments.
According to a report by Financial Times, the BH Digital Asset fund — launched in 2021 with backing from co-founder Alan Howard — saw a sharp reversal after strong gains of 43% in 2023 and 52% in 2024. Brevan Howard’s digital assets unit managed about $2.4 billion at the start of 2025, with most assets allocated to the BH Digital fund.
Despite the downturn, the fund continued deploying capital into blockchain and tokenization startups during the year, including rounds for Superstate and TRM Labs, along with investments in Nasdaq-listed miner Canaan and layer-1 project Berachain, with some deals featuring downside-protection terms.

Ledn sells $188 million in bitcoin-backed bonds
Crypto lending platform Ledn has sold $188 million in securitized bonds backed by bitcoin, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The transaction includes two bond tranches, with the investment-grade portion priced at a spread of 335 basis points over the benchmark rate. The bonds are secured by a pledge of 4.078,87 BTC with an estimated market value of about $356,9 million, based on figures from S&P Global, which assigned most of the issuance a BBB- rating.
Jefferies Financial Group acted as structuring agent and bookrunner for the deal. Ledn provides loans collateralized by bitcoin and has originated billions of dollars in crypto-backed credit, with prior backing from Tether.

YZi Labs urges 10X Capital and Hans Thomas to disclose BNC ownership
YZi Labs Management Ltd. said it has formally sent a letter to 10X Capital Asset Management LLC and director Hans Thomas calling for the immediate disclosure of their beneficial ownership in CEA Industries Inc. (BNC), citing potential violations of U.S. securities disclosure rules.
According to YZi Labs, investors who exceed 5% ownership in a public company must file a Schedule 13D within five business days. The firm believes 10X Capital has held more than 5% of BNC shares since late 2025 but has not filed the required disclosure. It also said Thomas, a BNC board member and founding partner at 10X Capital, has not filed Form 3 reporting his initial ownership with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as required under Section 16(a).
YZi Labs stated it has complied with its own Schedule 13D filing obligations and stressed that timely, transparent ownership disclosure is essential to protect shareholder rights and maintain market integrity.

AlphaTON sells biotech unit as Immunova exercises acquisition option
AlphaTON Capital Corp. is divesting part of its drug development portfolio as it sharpens focus on the Telegram blockchain ecosystem, announcing that Immunova has exercised a call option to acquire cancer-therapy developer iOx Therapeutics Limited.
Under the deal, AlphaTON will receive equity equal to 10% of Immunova’s fully diluted shares at exercise, plus milestone payments and royalties that could exceed $100 million.
The company said the move unlocks value from iOx while keeping long-term economic upside. AlphaTON, formerly Portage Biotech, will continue advancing other oncology programs while concentrating capital and strategy on infrastructure and investments tied to Telegram and The Open Network.
AlphaTON (ATON) shares trade around $0.47, down over 3% on the day and nearly 39% year-to-date.

Peter Thiel and Founders Fund exit ETHZilla stake
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel and Founders Fund have fully exited their positions in Ethereum treasury company ETHZilla in Q4 2025, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The pair previously acquired a 7.5% stake in July, which pushed the stock higher at the time. Since its August peak, ETHZ shares have plunged about 98%, adjusted for the company’s 1-for-10 stock split in October, based on data from Yahoo Finance.
ETHZilla has recently expanded beyond direct ETH holdings, launching buyback programs and moving into tokenization of real-world assets such as leased jet engines. The company declined to comment on the investors’ exit.
Thiel and Founders Fund also significantly reduced their holdings in BitMine Immersion Technologies, whose shares are down roughly 64% over the past six months.

Bitwise and GraniteShares file for election prediction market ETFs
Bitwise and GraniteShares have filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch exchange-traded funds tied to event contracts based on US election outcomes.
Bitwise submitted a prospectus for a new ETF lineup branded PredictionShares, consisting of six prediction-market-style ETFs to be listed on NYSE Arca. The structure includes:
Two funds tied to the 2028 US presidential election (one per major party winner)
Two funds tied to the 2026 Senate election outcome
Two funds tied to the 2026 House election outcome
Each fund will invest at least 80% of net assets in binary event contracts traded on exchanges regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These contracts settle at $1 if the specified outcome occurs and $0 if it does not, meaning a fund could lose nearly all its value if the predicted result fails.
GraniteShares filed for six similar ETFs with the same binary outcome structure tied to US elections.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart commented that the “financialization and ETF-ization of everything” is continuing. He also noted that this is not the first such filing, pointing to similar prediction-market ETF proposals previously submitted by Roundhill.

Pump.fun shifts rewards model to favor memecoin traders over creators
Pump.fun has introduced a new feature that redirects rewards toward memecoin traders instead of token deployers, revising a fee model that once generated more than $15 million in a single day at peak activity.
Under the update, token creators must choose before launch between traditional Creator Fees or a new Trader Cashback model using “Cashback Coins.” The decision is permanent. Previously, creators automatically received 0.3% of all trading fees from tokens they launched. The platform said many memecoins succeed without a formal team, making fixed creator rewards less justified.
Cashback Coins are generated with every trade and can only be accessed through Pump.fun’s built-in trading interface, Terminal. The change aims to let market participation determine who gets rewarded.
The rollout comes as platform fee revenue declines. Pump.fun recorded $31.8 million in fees in January, down 75.6% year over year, with February tracking lower so far. Onchain data shows only a small share of participating wallets have achieved meaningful profits, while most retail traders posted losses.
Analysts at Santiment recently said memecoins may be showing bottoming signals based on broad market capitulation sentiment.
In a related move, Coinbase shut down its Creator Rewards program on Base earlier this month as part of a shift toward focusing solely on tradable assets.

Arthur Hayes warns of AI-driven credit crisis, says money printing could send Bitcoin higher
Arthur Hayes says the recent divergence between Bitcoin and technology stocks may be signaling an artificial intelligence–driven credit crisis that could force central banks to restart large-scale money printing.
In his latest blog post, Hayes described Bitcoin as a “global fiat liquidity fire alarm,” arguing that it is the most responsive freely traded asset to changes in fiat credit supply. He warned that the growing divergence between Bitcoin and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index is a red flag pointing to a potential credit destruction event.
According to Hayes, when two previously correlated asset classes decouple, it often indicates deeper stress in dollar liquidity and credit conditions, raising the risk of deflationary pressure across the financial system.
He argues that AI adoption could lead to significant white-collar job losses, weakening borrowers’ ability to service consumer credit and mortgage debt. Using a rough model, Hayes estimates that if 20% of the 72 million U.S. knowledge workers lose their jobs, it could result in about $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage losses — equivalent to roughly a 13% write-down of U.S. commercial bank equity.
Hayes expects weaker regional banks would be hit first, followed by deposit flight and tightening credit markets, eventually forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with renewed money printing measures.
Under that scenario, he believes expanded fiat credit creation would push Bitcoin sharply off its lows and potentially drive it to a new all-time high as markets price in further monetary easing.
Hayes also noted that his firm, Maelstrom, plans to deploy excess stablecoin reserves into Zcash and Hyperliquid if the Fed pivots back to looser policy. He added that this is not his first money-printing thesis, having previously predicted liquidity-driven rallies tied to central bank interventions.

Moonwell DeFi oracle misconfiguration on Base causes $1.78M bad debt
Moonwell DeFi reported an oracle misconfiguration in its cbETH market on Base that priced cbETH at about $1.12 instead of roughly $2,200, allowing bots to liquidate collateral at artificially low values and generate approximately $1.78 million in bad debt limited to that market.
The team said the issue was detected within minutes on Feb. 15, 2026, and risk controls were immediately tightened by reducing supply and borrow caps to 0.01 to prevent further exposure. Other markets and networks, including Optimism, were not affected.
A governance proposal to fix the oracle configuration is now in progress and subject to a five-day voting and timelock period. Community responses have raised trust and compensation questions, while the team plans to publish a full postmortem with detailed loss spreadsheets.

85% of 2025 token launches are underwater as VC returns decline
About 85% of tokens launched in 2025 are currently trading below their initial listing prices, with many VC-backed projects barely breaking even or posting significant losses. The presence of a “top VC” on the cap table is no longer a strong market catalyst as it once was.
Data from Galaxy Research shows a sharp cooldown in crypto venture capital activity:
VC ROI has been trending downward since 2022
The number of new crypto funds has fallen to a five-year low
Latest quarterly fundraising totals only about 12% of Q2 2022 levels
In Q2 2022 alone, crypto VCs raised nearly $17 billion across 80+ new funds
Although VC investment reached $8.5 billion last quarter, up 84% quarter-over-quarter, most of that capital is believed to come from funds raised in 2022 rather than new inflows. Total capital deployed from 2023 to 2025 is roughly equal to what was raised in 2022 alone.
The traditional playbook of raising a round, launching a token, and selling into retail demand is fading. Market momentum is shifting toward projects with real users, real revenue, fairer launches, and product-focused development.

StarkWare is integrating Nightfall — a zero-knowledge privacy solution developed by Ernst & Young — into the Starknet Layer 2 network to enable confidential institutional transactions on public blockchain infrastructure.
The integration addresses a key barrier to enterprise adoption: public blockchain transparency that exposes balances, counterparties, and strategies. Nightfall allows private-by-default transactions with selective disclosure, so institutions can execute B2B payments, treasury operations, tokenized asset transfers, and DeFi activities while still meeting compliance and audit requirements.
Built with zero-knowledge rollups and compatible with Ethereum, Nightfall links blockchain addresses to enterprise certificates to support regulatory controls alongside transaction privacy. StarkWare says this will support use cases such as private cross-border payments and confidential treasury management.
CEO Eli Ben-Sasson called the move a milestone for institutional blockchain adoption, while EY’s blockchain lead Paul Brody described privacy as the missing component for large-scale onchain enterprise payments.

Nakamoto acquires BTC Inc to expand Bitcoin media and investment arm
Nakamoto (Nasdaq: NAKA), the Bitcoin treasury firm founded by David Bailey, has agreed to acquire BTC Inc. — owner of Bitcoin Magazine and The Bitcoin Conference — along with UTXO Management.
The all-stock deal is priced at $1.12 per share and values the transaction at over $107 million. The acquisition adds recurring revenue and expands Nakamoto into media, asset management, and advisory services beyond its core treasury strategy.
NAKA shares traded roughly flat around $0.30 after the announcement. Bailey said the company does not plan to sell its Bitcoin holdings and expects consolidation among digital asset treasury firms in the coming months.

Dragonfly closes $650M fourth crypto venture fund amid bear market
Dragonfly Capital has closed its fourth crypto-focused venture fund at $650 million, exceeding its original $500 million target by about 30% despite ongoing bear market conditions. The new Dragonfly Fund IV matches the size of the firm’s 2022 vintage fund.
Managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said the raise comes during a period of weak sentiment and elevated fear in crypto markets, but noted the firm’s prior funds were also launched during downturns and later produced strong vintages.
Recent deployments include leading a $75 million Series C round for payments network Mesh in January, alongside Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures and PayPal Ventures. The firm also co-led a $36 million Series A for cross-border payments startup Conduit in 2025, and previously backed MyShell and Fantasy.top.
The new fund follows the resolution of a potential U.S. regulatory issue tied to Dragonfly’s 2020 investment in PepperSec, developer of Tornado Cash. U.S. authorities later stated the firm and its principals were not investigation targets, while Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm was convicted in 2025.

LI.FI launches LiFI Composer for one-click multi-step DeFi transactions
LI.FI has launched LiFI Composer, a new transaction orchestration tool that lets users bundle multiple DeFi actions — including swaps, bridging, deposits, and staking — into a single on-chain transaction with a unified execution overview.
The company said the tool simulates each step in complex, multi-stage flows to improve predictability and reduce failed transactions, aiming to simplify cross-chain and self-custodial DeFi usage. LiFI Composer is also part of the firm’s broader push this year to expand product offerings for its 800+ partners and streamline user workflows.
Backed by CoinFund and Multicoin Capital, the startup was founded in 2021. Last December, it added a $29 million Series A extension led by Multicoin, bringing total capital raised to $51.7 million.
LI.FI reported strong growth, with monthly volume rising 595% year over year to about $8 billion in October 2025, up from $1.15 billion in October 2024.