Cointelegraph

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to bleed on Wednesday as market sentiment remained negative and BTC briefly dipped below $66,000.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $133.3 million in net outflows on Wednesday, bringing weekly losses to $238 million, according to SoSoValue data. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led outflows, with over $84 million exiting the fund.

Trading volumes remained subdued, falling below $3 billion, highlighting the persistent lack of activity even as analysts previously noted potential inflection points amid the slowdown in outflows.

Weekly flows in US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2026. Source: SoSoValue

If the ETFs fail to recover in Thursday and Friday sessions, this week could mark the first five-week outflow streak for Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs since March of last year.

Year-to-date, Bitcoin ETFs have seen about $2.5 billion in outflows, leaving assets under management at $83.6 billion.

Solana ETFs keep bucking the trend after launch in late 2025

While Ether (ETH) and XRP (XRP) ETFs posted modest daily outflows of $41.8 million and $2.2 million, respectively, Solana (SOL) funds continued to buck the trend.

Solana ETFs have recorded a six-day streak of inflows, with year-to-date gains totaling around $113 million. Trading activity, however, remains subdued compared with past months, as February inflows of $9 million so far are well below $105 million in January and December 2025’s $148 million.

Weekly flows in US spot Solana ETFs in 2026. Source: SoSoValue

Since their October 2025 launch, US spot Solana ETFs have accumulated nearly $700 million in assets under management, trailing XRP funds, which have amassed $1 billion since their November debut.

Crypto market remains in extreme fear, BTC down 24% year-to-date

The ongoing sell-off in Bitcoin ETFs comes as the Crypto Fear & Greed Index continues to signal persistent negative sentiment.

Even though Bitcoin has slightly recovered from multi-month lows near $60,000 logged in early February, the index has largely remained in “Extreme Fear” territory.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: Alternative.me

At the time of writing, Bitcoin traded at $67,058 on Coinbase, down about 24% year-to-date. Analysts at major financial institutions, including Standard Chartered, have predicted that BTC could fall as low as $50,000 before potentially recovering to $100,000 later in 2026.

According to the crypto analytics platform CryptoQuant, Bitcoin’s short-term Sharpe ratio has reached levels historically associated with “generational buying zones.”

“The arrows in the chart illustrate this clearly: each prior extreme negative reading was followed by violent recoveries to new highs,” CryptoQuant analyst Ignacio Moreno De Vicente said.

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

Key takeaways

Address poisoning exploits behavior, not private keys. Attackers manipulate transaction history and rely on users mistakenly copying a malicious lookalike address.

Cases such as the 50-million-USDT loss in 2025 and the 3.5 wBTC drain in February 2026 demonstrate how simple interface deception can lead to massive financial damage.

Copy buttons, visible transaction history and unfiltered dust transfers make poisoned addresses appear trustworthy within wallet interfaces.

Because blockchains are permissionless, anyone can send tokens to any address. Wallets typically display all transactions, including spam, which attackers use to plant malicious entries.

Most crypto users believe that their funds stay secure as long as their private keys are protected. However, as a rising number of scams show, this is not always the case. Scammers have been using an insidious tactic, address poisoning, to steal assets without ever accessing the victim’s private key.

In February 2026, a phishing scheme targeted a Phantom Chat feature. Using an address poisoning tactic, attackers successfully drained roughly 3.5 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), worth more than $264,000.

In 2025, a victim lost $50 million in Tether’s USDt (USDT) after copying a poisoned address. Such incidents have highlighted how poor interface design and everyday user habits can result in massive losses.

Prominent crypto figures like Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao have publicly urged wallets to add stronger safeguards following address poisoning incidents.

This article explains how address poisoning scams exploit user behavior rather than private key theft. It details how attackers manipulate transaction history, why the tactic succeeds on transparent blockchains and what practical steps users and wallet developers can take to reduce the risk.

What address poisoning really involves

Unlike traditional hacks that target private keys or exploit code flaws, address poisoning manipulates a user’s transaction history to deceive them into sending funds to the wrong address.

Usually, the attack proceeds in the following way:

Scammers identify high-value wallets via public blockchain data.

They create a wallet address that closely resembles one the victim often uses. For example, the attacker may match the first and last few characters.

They send a small or zero-value transaction to the victim’s wallet from this fake address.

They rely on the victim copying the attacker’s address from their recent transaction list later.

They collect the funds when the victim accidentally pastes and sends them to the malicious address.

The victim’s wallet and private keys remain untouched, and blockchain cryptography stays unbroken. The scam thrives purely on human error and trust in familiar patterns.

Did you know? Address poisoning scams surged alongside the rise of Ethereum layer-2 networks, where lower fees make it cheaper for attackers to mass-send dust transactions to thousands of wallets at once.

How attackers craft deceptive addresses

Crypto addresses are lengthy hexadecimal strings, often 42 characters on Ethereum-compatible chains. Wallets usually show only a truncated version, such as “0x85c...4b7,” which scammers take advantage of. Fake addresses have identical beginnings and endings, while the middle portion differs.

Legitimate address (example format):

0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc454e4438f44e

Poisoned lookalike address:

0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc454e4438f4Ae

Scammers use vanity address generators to craft these near-identical strings. The fake one appears in the victim’s transaction history thanks to the dusting transfer. To users, it looks trustworthy at a glance, especially since they rarely verify the full address string.

Did you know? Some blockchain explorers now automatically label suspicious dusting transactions, helping users spot potential poisoning attempts before interacting with their transaction history.

Why this scam succeeds so well

There are several intertwined factors that make address poisoning devastatingly effective:

Human limitations in handling long strings: Because addresses are not human-friendly, users rely on quick visual checks at the beginning and end. Scammers exploit this tendency.

Convenient but risky wallet features: Many wallets offer easy copy buttons next to recent transactions. While this feature is helpful for legitimate use, it becomes risky when spam entries sneak in. Investigators such as ZachXBT have pointed to cases where victims copied poisoned addresses directly from their wallet UI.

3. No need for technical exploits: Because blockchains are public and permissionless, anyone can send tokens to any address. Wallets usually display all incoming transactions, including spam, and users tend to trust their own history.

The vulnerability lies in behavior and UX, not in encryption or key security.

Why keys aren’t enough protection

Private keys control authorization, meaning they ensure only you can sign transactions. However, they cannot verify whether the destination address is correct. Blockchain’s core traits — permissionless access, irreversibility of transactions and trust minimization — mean malicious transactions get permanently recorded.

In these scams, the user willingly signs the transfer. The system functions exactly as designed, and the flaw lies in human judgment.

Underlying psychological and design issues involve:

Routine habits: People tend to repeatedly send funds to the same addresses, so they copy from their transaction history instead of reentering addresses.

Cognitive strain: Transactions involve multiple steps, such as addresses, fees, networks and approvals. Many users find scrutinizing every character tedious.

Truncated displays: Wallet UIs hide most of the address, leading to partial checks.

Did you know? In certain cases, attackers automate address lookalike generation using GPU-powered vanity tools, allowing them to produce thousands of near-identical wallet addresses within minutes.

Practical ways to stay safer

While address poisoning exploits user behavior rather than technical vulnerabilities, small changes in transaction habits can significantly reduce the risk. Understanding a few practical safety measures can help crypto users avoid costly mistakes without requiring advanced technical knowledge.

For users

Simple verification habits and transaction discipline can significantly reduce your chances of falling victim to address poisoning scams.

Build and use a verified address book or whitelist for frequent recipients.

Verify the full address. Use a checker or compare it character by character before making payments.

Never copy addresses from recent transaction history. Instead, reenter addresses or use bookmarks.

Ignore or report unsolicited small transfers as potential poisoning attempts.

For wallet developers

Thoughtful interface design and built-in safeguards can minimize user error and make address poisoning attacks far less effective.

Filtering or hiding low-value spam transactions

Similarity detection for recipient addresses

Pre-signing simulations and risk warnings

Built-in poisoned address checks via onchain queries or shared blacklists.

The Ethereum Foundation has announced it is targeting faster transactions, smarter wallets, better cross-chain transactions and quantum security measures as its “protocol priorities” in 2026.

In a statement published on Wednesday, the Ethereum Foundation outlined several goals, including continuing to scale the gas limit — the maximum amount of computational work a block can handle — “toward and beyond” 100 million, which has been a major topic of discussion among the Ethereum community in 2025. 

Source: Ethereum Foundation

Some Ethereum community members anticipate that the gas limit will increase significantly this year. In November 2025, Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano said that the goal of significantly increasing Ethereum’s gas limit to 180 million in 2026 is a baseline rather than a best-case scenario. 

“Post-quantum readiness” is a focus for Ethereum

The foundation pointed to the Glamsterdam network upgrade, set for the first half of 2026, as a major priority. It also emphasized “post-quantum readiness” in its trillion-dollar security initiative as a priority.

On Jan. 24, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake said in an X post that the foundation had “formed a new Post-Quantum (PQ) team.” 

“Today marks an inflection in the Ethereum Foundation's long-term quantum strategy,” Drake said.

The Ethereum Foundation said it will also focus on improving user experience in 2026, with an emphasis on enhancing smart wallets through native account abstraction and enabling smoother interactions between blockchains via interoperability.

“The goal remains seamless, trust-minimized cross-L2 interactions, and we're getting closer day by day. Continued progress on faster L1 confirmations and shorter L2 settlement times directly supports this.”

The foundation said that 2025 was one of the “most productive years,” citing two major network upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka, and the community raising the gas limit from 30 million to 60 million between the upgrades, for the first time since 2021.

Buterin’s big plans for Ethereum and AI

Ethereum Foundation’s Mario Havel said in an X post on Wednesday that, “It took us a while to push out the announcement because we were preparing the biggest curriculum so far.” 

It comes just days after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his latest vision for Ethereum’s intersection with artificial intelligence on Feb. 10. Buterin explained that he sees the two working together to improve markets, financial safety, and human agency.  

Buterin said his broader vision for the future of AI is to empower humans rather than replace them, though he said the short term involves much more “ordinary” ideas.

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

Trump family-owned Mar-a-Lago was home to traditional finance giants, US government officials and crypto executives in a crypto forum on Wednesday, hosted by the family’s sprawling crypto company.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who Donald Trump pardoned last year, were at the exclusive World Liberty Forum event alongside Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and the heads of the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange.

The event saw traditional finance executives and US regulators embrace crypto, with Solomon, a long-time crypto skeptic, saying on stage that he now owns “a little Bitcoin, very little,” according to one of the attendees.

Donald Trump Jr. (left) and Eric Trump (middle) appeared on stage at World Liberty Financial’s event in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Source: Richard Sieler

“The great irony is this whole world has gone full circle,” Bloomberg reported Eric Trump as saying at the event.

“There’s people in this room that were probably on the opposite side of us, that were canceling bank accounts for us, that were kicking us out of their big banks for no reason other than the fact that my father was wearing a hat that said, ‘Make America Great Again.’”

Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Mike Selig, the head of an agency that is pushing to regulate the crypto industry, was also in attendance, along with Republican senators Ashley Moody and Bernie Moreno.

World Liberty announces tokenization tie-up for Trump hotel

World Liberty announced at the event that it has partnered with tokenization firm Securitize, with plans to tokenize loan revenue interests in an upcoming Trump-branded resort in the Maldives.

The company said it was part of a “broader strategy to design, structure, and distribute [World Liberty]-branded tokenized real-world asset offerings.”

The Trump Organization said in November that it would tokenize the development of the project, which is being built by real estate developer DarGlobal. The resort is set to be completed in 2030 and feature 100 luxury villas.

World Liberty said that the offering will give investors “both a fixed yield and loan revenue streams” from the resort, giving exposure to “both potential income distributions and the potential for certain profits upon any future sale.”

It added that the offering is only available to eligible accredited investors in the US and would be accessed via “select third-party partners and wallets.”

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

United States Federal Reserve policymakers discussed the possibility of interest rate increases last month, according to newly released comments from a January meeting.

The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting from late January were released on Wednesday, revealing that some policymakers were mulling a rate hike due to stubbornly high inflation. 

Several participants indicated that they would support “the possibility that upward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation remains at above-target levels,” the minutes stated. 

Central bank policymakers voted to keep interest rates unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75% at their January meeting after cutting rates three times at the end of 2025, from 4.5% to current levels.

If enacted, it would be the first rate hike since July 2023. However, CME futures markets indicate a 94% probability that rates will remain unchanged at the Fed’s next meeting on March 18. 

The Federal Reserve has two primary mandates for its policy on rates: inflation and the labor market. 

The Fed has been cutting rates since September 2024. Source: Trading Economics 

High inflation concerns persist 

The minutes also revealed that there is a significant “hawkish” contingent that is not yet ready to commit to further cuts. 

Some participants commented that it would likely be appropriate to “hold the policy rate steady for some time” to give them more time to assess economic data. 

However, a number of these participants judged that “additional policy easing may not be warranted until there was a clear indication that the progress of disinflation was firmly back on track.”

Related: Why Bitcoin has recently reacted more to liquidity conditions than to rate cuts

Most participants cautioned that progress toward the 2% inflation objective “might be slower and more uneven than generally expected,” judging that there was a meaningful risk of it remaining above the target. 

If inflation were to decline in line with expectations, rate reductions “would likely be appropriate,” the minutes stated.  

US inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is currently 2.4%, having increased 0.2% in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

Current inflation remains above the Fed’s target. Source: BLS

Rate hikes are typically bad for crypto prices

Higher rates are generally bearish for high-risk assets such as crypto, as safer assets like Treasury bonds or cash offer better returns with no risk. 

Higher rates also make borrowing more expensive, which reduces speculative activity, leverage, and venture capital investments. 

Crypto market sentiment, which is already at rock bottom, could also be further hit by a hawkish Federal Reserve. 

Magazine: Chinese New Year boosts interest, TradFi buying crypto exchanges: Asia Express

The US CLARITY Act, a highly anticipated bill aimed at providing greater clarity for the US crypto industry, could make it through Congress in just over a month, according to crypto-friendly US Senator Bernie Moreno.

“Hopefully by April,” Moreno told CNBC during an interview at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida on Wednesday.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joined Moreno for the interview, explaining that they were with representatives from the crypto, banking and US Congress at the World Liberty Financial (WLF) crypto forum to reach a solution on market structure.

“A path forward” is in sight, says Moreno

“One of the big issues that did come up in the past was this idea of stablecoins on rewards,” Armstrong said. The banking industry previously raised concerns that offering stablecoin yields could undermine traditional banking and cause deposits and interest to move away from banks.

While Armstrong had issues with the draft bill and withdrew his support for the CLARITY Act in January, he said there is “now a path forward, where we can get a win-win-win outcome here.”

Brian Armstrong and Bernie Moreno joined CNBC on Wednesday. Source: CNBC

“A win for the crypto industry, a win for the banks, and a win for the American consumer to get President Trump’s crypto agenda through to the finish line, so we can make America the crypto capital of the world,” Armstrong said. 

Armstrong said the crypto exchange previously couldn’t support the bill because it includes provisions that ban interest-bearing stablecoins and position the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the primary regulator of the crypto industry. The White House was reportedly disappointed by Coinbase’s decision to withdraw its support, describing the move as a “unilateral” action that blindsided administration officials.

Moreno admitted that the delay stems from “getting hung up” on the stablecoin rewards, which he said “shouldn’t be part of this equation.”

Crypto prediction platform Polymarket's odds of the US CLARITY Act passing in 2026 briefly surged to 90% on Wednesday before falling to 72% at the time of publication.

Moreno shuts down idea of a Democrat-led midterm election

Meanwhile, Moreno dismissed the idea that a Democratic takeover of Congress could threaten the bill when asked. “The house isn’t going to go Democrat, and neither is the Senate,” Moreno said.

“The American people are sick and tired of open borders; that is why we got elected. They were sick and tired of high inflation, and they were sick and tired of an out-of-control government,” he added. 

On Dec. 19, White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks voiced strong confidence that the bill would pass early this year.

“We are closer than ever to passing the landmark crypto market structure legislation that President Trump has called for. We look forward to finishing the job in January,” Sacks said at the time.

Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum: BIP-360 co-author

Three researchers at the US Federal Reserve argue that prediction market Kalshi can better measure macroeconomic expectations in real time than existing solutions and thus should be incorporated into the Fed’s decision-making process.

The “Kalshi and the Rise of Macro Markets” paper was released on Feb. 12 by Federal Reserve Board principal economist Anthony Diercks, Federal Reserve research assistant Jared Dean Katz and Johns Hopkins research associate Jonathan Wright.

Kalshi data was compared with traditional surveys and market-implied forecasts to examine how beliefs about future economic outcomes change in response to macroeconomic news and statements from policymakers.

Source: Tarek Mansour

“Managing expectations is central to modern macroeconomic policy. Yet the tools that are often relied upon—surveys and financial derivatives—have many drawbacks,” the researchers said, adding that Kalshi can capture the market’s “beliefs directly and in real time.”

“Kalshi markets provide a high-frequency, continuously updated, distributionally rich benchmark that is valuable to both researchers and policymakers.”

Kalshi traders can bet on a range of markets tied to the Federal Reserve’s decision-making, including consumer price index inflation and payroll, in addition to other macroeconomic outcomes such as gross domestic product growth and gas prices.

The Fed researchers said Kalshi data should be used to provide a risk-neutral probability density function, which shows all possible outcomes of Fed interest rate decisions and how likely each one is. 

“Overall, we argue that Kalshi should be used to provide risk-neutral [probability density functions] concerning FOMC decisions at specific meetings” arguing that the current benchmark is “too far removed from the monetary policy interest rate decision.”

However, Fed research papers are only “preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion” and do not impact the central bank’s decision-making.

Prediction markets became one of the hottest use cases in crypto last year and have consistently surpassed $10 billion in monthly trading volume. Kalshi and competitor platform Polymarket have been aggressively marketing their products to retail users in recent months despite some state regulators seeking to restrict the industry.

Kalshi is more reactive than existing expectations tools

The Federal Reserve noted one advantage Kalshi has in examining macroeconomic expectations is its “rich intraday dynamics.”

Related: Treasury bills seen as primary driver of Bitcoin's price: Report 

“These probabilities respond sharply and sensibly to major developments,” the researchers said, pointing out an example where the implied probability of a rate cut in July rose to 25% following remarks from Federal Reserve Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman before falling after a stronger-than-expected June employment report.

“Kalshi provides the fastest-updating distributions currently available for many key macroeconomic indicators,” the researchers added.

Magazine: Brandt says Bitcoin yet to bottom, Polymarket sees hope: Trade Secrets

Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren has reportedly sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urging them not to bail out “cryptocurrency billionaires” with taxpayer dollars. 

Warren warned that any potential bailout “would be deeply unpopular to transfer wealth from American taxpayers to cryptocurrency billionaires,” adding that it could also “directly enrich President Trump and his family’s cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, according to CNBC.

The letter comes as Bitcoin (BTC) prices have fallen more than 50% from their all-time high in October, hitting a local low of $60,000 on Feb. 6.

The letter also came on the same day that World Liberty Financial hosted its first “World Liberty Forum” for crypto executives and pro-industry policymakers at the President’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

The US government is retaining seized Bitcoin  

Senator Warren also referenced the Annual Report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council hearing on Feb. 4, during which Secretary Bessent was asked about his authority to bail out the crypto industry.

During the hearing, Congressman Brad Sherman asked Bessent if the Treasury Department “has the authority to bail out Bitcoin?” or instruct banks to buy Bitcoin or Trumpcoin (TRUMP). 

A bemused Bessent asked for clarification on the question, stating that “within the context of asset diversification within banks, they could hold many assets.”

Related: Senators ask Bessent to probe $500M UAE stake in Trump-linked WLFI

Sherman also expressed concern that US tax dollars might be invested in crypto assets. “Why would a private bank be your tax dollars?” asked the Treasury secretary.

Bessent confirmed that “we are retaining seized Bitcoin,” which is not tax money, but an “asset of the US government.”  

Senator Warren claims response was “deflection”

Warren saw the exchange differently, stating in her letter that Bessent “deflected.” 

“It’s deeply unclear what, if any, plans the US government currently has to intervene in the current Bitcoin selloff,” she wrote. 

“Ultimately, any government intervention to stabilize Bitcoin would disproportionately benefit crypto billionaires.” 

“Your agencies must refrain from propping up Bitcoin and transferring wealth from taxpayers to crypto billionaires through direct purchases, guarantees, or liquidity facilities,” the letter reportedly stated. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Elizabeth Warren and the Treasury for comment, but did not receive an immediate response. A Federal Reserve spokesman confirmed they had received the letter but declined to comment. 

Magazine: Chinese New Year boosts interest, TradFi buying crypto exchanges: Asia Express

The Aptos Foundation is looking to propose a significant shakeup to the dynamics of the Aptos token, announcing a host of potential policy changes designed to spur greater APT deflation.  

In an X post on Wednesday, the Aptos Foundation said it would submit several governance proposals to help transition the ecosystem away from its current subsidy-based emission format to something focused more on “performance-driven mechanisms” and decreasing APT supply. 

“The Aptos network is transitioning to performance-driven tokenomics designed to align supply mechanics with network utilization,” the Aptos Foundation said, adding:

“This update replaces bootstrap-era subsidy with mechanisms tied to transaction activity, establishing a framework where burns can exceed emissions as high-throughput applications scale.” 

Source: Aptos

One of the foundation’s proposals is to set a hard cap at 2.1 billion tokens, as APT currently does not have a maximum cap on the total supply. The team said there are currently 1.196 billion APT in circulation.

Under the current emission structure, new tokens are continuously minted to support the ecosystem by funding things like development, grants, and staking rewards. 

Meanwhile, significant token unlocks have been hanging over the ecosystem. 

However, the Aptos Foundation said that this specific pressure has been easing and will continue to decline after the next major four-year token unlock cycle ends in October, stating that it will result in a 60% reduction in annualized supply unlocks. 

The team said that as the ecosystem has matured to the point where big institutions such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Apollo are now deploying “hundreds of millions onchain,” APT tokenomics need to become more sustainable. 

“Without reform, emissions continue indefinitely with no hard ceiling, no performance requirements, and no connection between issuance and network activity,” the team said. 

Key proposals and policy changes afoot 

Alongside the hard 2.1 billion supply cap, the proposed policy changes include a reduction of the annual staking rewards rate from 5.19% to 2.6%, alongside increasing rewards for “longer staking commitments.” 

The Aptos Foundation said this would result in reduced overall staking emissions while also rewarding long-term participants. 

Elsewhere, the team is pushing for a 10-fold increase in gas fees, arguing that there is room to do this given how cheap it is to use the network. As gas fees paid in APT are burned, this would also help reduce emissions. 

Related: Coinbase's Base transitions to its own architecture with eye on streamlining

“Even with a 10X increase, stablecoin transfers would still be the lowest in the world at around $0.00014, making it the ideal blockchain for stablecoins, payments, and any other similar high-volume transactions,” the team said.

The Aptos Foundation also proposed permanently locking 210 million APT tokens for staking on the network. The team said this would be “functionally equivalent to a token burn” and will use the rewards to fund foundation operations. 

The team also said it will change its grants policy and enact stricter KPIs to ensure greater performance before issuing tokens. Finally, the foundation will also explore a token buyback program or APT reserve to help balance supply.

The Aptos Foundation is not alone in seeking major shakeups to native token dynamics. In January, the Optimism governance community approved a proposal from its foundation to initiate a buyback program using 50% of Superchain revenue. 

Meanwhile, decentralized exchange Uniswap saw a significant token burn approved in December, and PancakeSwap’s community also approved a supply-reducing proposal last month.

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

Crypto industry executives at Cointelegraph’s LONGITUDE conference in Hong Kong stressed the importance of addressing Bitcoin’s technological risks and said that clear US regulations can’t come soon enough.

Co-hosted by crypto exchange OneBullEx, the Feb. 12 event opened with a fireside chat featuring Tron founder Justin Sun, who discussed what the industry needs to prioritize — including preparing for artificial general intelligence (AGI) — which many expect to arrive within the next few years.

“We need to create a very easy standard for AGI to use blockchain,” Sun said.

Tron founder Justin Sun shared his optimism about the industry’s future. Source: Cointelegraph

Sun’s fireside chat was followed by three panel discussions covering the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin, the potential impact of the US CLARITY Act on the industry, and the progress of crypto infrastructure toward a trillion-dollar scale.

Despite a volatile crypto market at the end of 2025, industry players expressed optimism about the industry’s future.

Bitcoiners should ‘discount the value’ until quantum solve

Quantum computing, which some in the Bitcoin community see as a serious potential threat, sparked a debate among panelists.

Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards said the risk should be priced into Bitcoin until the asset becomes quantum-resistant.

“Today, you kind of have to start to discount the value of Bitcoin based on that risk until it’s solved,” Edwards said. He pointed to growing fears about quantum computing as a primary reason Bitcoin’s price ended the year lower than it started.

Charles Edwards (Capriole Investments), John Lilic (NeverLocal), Matthew Roszak (Hemi), and Akshat Vaidya (Maelstrom) shared their thoughts on quantum computing’s threat to Bitcoin. Source: Cointelegraph

“If you just look at the data, 2025 should have been a great year for Bitcoin,” Edwards said, explaining that quantum became a “non-zero threat” and US-based Bitcoin ETF issuers began adding risk disclaimers for quantum.

Meanwhile, Matthew Roszak, Bloq chairman and Hemi co-founder, wasn’t as worried about how it might play out:

“To look at this as a movie trailer and what's ahead for Bitcoin and quantum. Just the preview here. It's a two-step process. We're going to upgrade and chill. That's it. That's the process.”

Maelstrom managing partner and co-founder Akshat Vaidya admitted that quantum is an “existential threat,” but it will be met with a “coordinated response that’s proportionate.”

US CLARITY Act will be significant for the industry

White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks said in December that the US is “closer than ever” to passing the US CLARITY Act, which aims to provide the industry with clearer regulations.

Although the bill hasn’t passed, industry panelists agreed that the US has become noticeably more friendly toward crypto since President Donald Trump took office.

 Henri Arslanian (Nine Blocks Capital Management) led a panel on the US CLARITY Act, consisting of Craig Salm (Grayscale), Brian Mehler (Stable), Graham Ferguson (Securitize), Sonia Shaw (OneAsset), and Sean McHugh (VARA). Source: Cointelegraph

Sean McHugh, senior director at Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, who previously worked in TradFi in the US, said one of the main reasons he moved to Dubai was its more crypto-friendly regulatory environment than the US.

“I think one of the reasons why I moved to Dubai is because, you know, they were committed to clarity when I left a year and a half ago,” McHugh said, adding:

“The US was in a very different place than it is now.”

Grayscale Investments’ chief legal officer, Craig Salm, pointed to past conflicts over crypto between the two US financial regulators during the Joe Biden administration. 

“There used to be this whole turf war between the SEC and the CFTC,” Salm said, adding:

“Your regulator fighting over jurisdiction just isn’t productive for anybody.”

Salm also noted that the environment has changed. Instead of clashing, the SEC and CFTC are meeting together and coordinating to bring much-needed clarity to the asset class.

“Which is exactly what I think we all need,” Salm said.

Doubts over crypto infrastructure readiness for big flows

When asked whether crypto infrastructure is ready to handle trillion-dollar institutional flows, the panelists expressed some doubts.

“I would say probably not yet,” Offchain Labs chief strategy officer A.J. Warner said.

A.J. Warner (Offchain Labs), Joanita Titan (Monad Foundation), Austin Federa (DoubleZero) and Isroil Shafiev (OneBullEx) explored the infrastructure required for global adoption, institutional-grade use cases, and RWAs. Source: Cointelegraph

Monad Foundation head of institutional growth, Joanita Titan, echoed Warner’s sentiment. “Billion-dollar payments or billion-dollar processing is not a problem, but trillion dollars, I don't think we're there yet,” she said.

Warner argued that the largest bottlenecks are “continuing to scale, resiliency of networks, and user experiences.”

Cointelegraph’s exclusive LONGITUDE events will continue in 2026, with editions planned for New York, Paris, Dubai, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

Crypto platform Hyperliquid has launched a new advocacy organization aimed at pushing through policy changes involving decentralized finance in Congress. 

The Hyperliquid Policy Center said on Wednesday that it had launched in Washington, DC, and named Jake Chervinsky as founder and CEO, a veteran crypto lawyer who was the legal head at crypto venture fund Variant and former policy chief at crypto lobbyist Blockchain Association.

The organization said it will look to advance “a clear, regulated path for decentralized finance to thrive in the United States” and will push policy “with a specialty in perpetual derivatives and blockchain-based financial infrastructure.”

Hyperliquid is a layer-1 blockchain and perpetual futures exchange that has recently exploded in popularity as traders turned to commodities trading amid a broad market downturn, and the platform has looked to expand into prediction markets.

The Hyper Foundation, an independent body that backs Hyperliquid, will contribute 1 million Hyperliquid (HYPE) tokens to fund the policy center’s launch.

“Critical time” for policy, says Hyperliquid CEO

Chervinsky said more traditional finance companies are launching blockchain-based products or services because the technology offers “efficiency, transparency, and resilience that legacy systems cannot match.”

“This technology is poised to become the base layer of the global financial system,” he added. “Now the United States must choose: we can either adopt new rules that allow this innovation to thrive here at home, or we can wait and watch as other nations seize the opportunity.”

Source: Jake Chervinsky 

Hyperliquid co-founder and CEO Jeff Yan said on X that it was a “critical time in policy discussions” in the US and that the platform had “lacked a unified voice in important policy discussions until now.”

“There is a tangible and urgent possibility of upgrading the tech stack of the existing financial system,” he said. “Global financial regulation will be shaped in the United States, and we must work to ensure that these new policies thoughtfully embrace the potential of the new financial system.”

Congress is working to pass a bill defining how market regulators are to police crypto, but the legislation is stalled in the Senate as lawmakers, along with the crypto and bank lobbies, disagree on provisions pertaining to stablecoins.

The Hyperliquid Policy Center said its founding team also included the newly-appointed policy director, Salah Ghazzal, Variant’s former policy lead, and policy counsel, Brad Bourque, a former associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm famously tied to the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX.

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

Bitcoin (BTC) trades in a tight $65,000–$70,000 range on Wednesday, a structure that has held for the past two weeks.

The lower time frames show a bullish divergence, signaling fading short-term selling pressure, while futures data indicate fresh long positions opened from $66,000.

Analysts say the compression may precede a breakout attempt, with liquidity clusters below $66,000 and above $71,000 being the zones that may define the next directional move.

Bitcoin’s bullish divergence rests near a support level

On the one-hour chart, Bitcoin is forming a descending channel similar to last week’s structure that preceded a move toward $70,000. Within this channel, a clear bullish divergence has developed in the relative strength index indicator (RSI).

A bullish divergence occurs when the price makes lower lows or equal lows while the RSI prints higher lows. This sequence suggests that selling pressure is losing strength on the shorter time frame.

A sustained break above $68,000 may confirm momentum, leading to a price rally toward the external liquidity and resistance level above $71,500. 

Bitcoin one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The invalidation level sits below $66,000, where internal liquidity is present near the $65,000. A breakdown beneath that region invalidates the divergence setup and shifts focus to the higher-time-frame support range between $62,000 and $60,000.

Derivatives data shows aggregated open interest has climbed 3% to $15.50 billion from $15.10 billion over the past two days, even as the price drifted lower.

The aggregated funding rate has ticked higher to 0.046%, suggesting a growing long exposure from futures traders. 

Since Feb. 15, roughly $250 million in aggregated long liquidations have occurred, forcing leveraged positions to close below $67,000. These long-side sell-offs reduce excess leverage, which may stabilize price and create better conditions for an uptrend once traders re-engage in the market. 

BTC price, aggregated open interest, funding rate, and liquidations. Source: Velo data

Related: Bitcoin’s tech stock divergence is a ‘fire alarm’ for fiat: Arthur Hayes

Futures momentum and macro positioning

Crypto analyst Amr Taha noted a sharp drop in Binance Bitcoin futures power 30-day change, which tracks the net change in price, funding, and open interest. The index fell to -0.18, matching levels last seen between April and May 2024.

Binance Bitcoin Futures Power 30D Change. Source: CryptoQuant

Taha said that this may mark a turning point for BTC, as similar deep negative readings between April and May 2024 led to a strong rebound that pushed Bitcoin above the $100,000 level, once the index turned positive in the latter half of 2024. 

Meanwhile, crypto analyst Dom said that the spot order books show thin liquidity between $66,000 and $69,000, describing the current activity as neutral, with BTC’s price compressing ahead of a breakout attempt. 

Liquidity heatmaps shared by BTC trader Daan show dense liquidity clusters below $66,000 and above $71,000, pointing to areas where stop orders and resting positions are likely concentrated.

BTC liquidity heatmap. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

Related: Bitcoin 2024 buyers steady BTC price as trader sees $52K 'next week or so'

OpenAI has launched a new benchmark that evaluates how well different AI models detect, patch, and even exploit security vulnerabilities found in crypto smart contracts.

OpenAI released the “EVMbench: Evaluating AI Agents on Smart Contract Security” paper on Wednesday, in collaboration with crypto investment firm Paradigm and crypto security firm OtterSec, to evaluate how much the AI agents could theoretically exploit from 120 smart contract vulnerabilities.

Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 came out on top with an average “detect award” of $37,824, followed by OpenAI’s OC-GPT-5.2 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro at $31,623 and $25,112, respectively.

Detect awards won by AI agents. Source: OpenAI

While AI agents are becoming increasingly efficient at handling basic tasks, OpenAI said it is becoming more important to evaluate their performance in “economically meaningful environments.”

“Smart contracts secure billions of dollars in assets, and AI agents are likely to be transformative for both attackers and defenders.”

“We expect agentic stablecoin payments to grow, and help ground it in a domain of emerging practical importance,” OpenAI added.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicted on Jan. 22 that billions of AI agents will be transacting with stablecoins for everyday payments on behalf of users within five years, while former Binance boss Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also recently tipped that crypto would end up being the “native currency for AI agents.”

The need to test agentic AI performance in spotting security vulnerabilities comes as attackers stole $3.4 billion worth of crypto funds in 2025, a marginal increase from 2024. 

Related: China’s AI lead will shape crypto’s future

EVMbench drew on 120 curated vulnerabilities from 40 smart contract audits, with most of them sourced from open-source audit competitions. OpenAI said it hopes the benchmark will help track AI progress in spotting and mitigating smart contract vulnerabilities at scale. 

Smart contracts weren’t built for humans: Dragonfly

In a post to X on Wednesday, Dragonfly’s managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said crypto’s promise of replacing property rights and legal contracts never materialized, not because the technology failed, but because it was never designed for human intuition.

Qureshi said it still feels “terrifying” to sign large transactions, particularly with drainer wallets and other threats always present, whereas bank transfers rarely provoke the same fear.

Instead, Qureshi believes the future of crypto transactions will be facilitated by AI-intermediated, self-driving wallets, which will take care of those threats and manage complex operations on behalf of users:

“A technology often snaps into place once its complement finally arrives. GPS had to wait for the smartphone, TCP/IP had to wait for the browser. For crypto, we might just have found it in AI agents.”

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Key takeaways:

SOL is struggling to hold $80 as a 75% drop in futures' open interest shows that traders are heading for the exits rather than opening new bets.

Solana remains heavily dependent on retail and memecoin activity, while Ethereum maintains its lead in high-value decentralized finance.

Solana's native token, SOL (SOL), has hit a wall, repeatedly failing to break back above $89 over the last two weeks. This sluggish price action comes after a rejection at the $145 level in mid-January and a sharp drop to $67.60 during the Feb. 6 crash. Demand for bullish leverage has essentially evaporated as traders brace for more pain.

SOL futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas.ch

Those betting against SOL are currently paying an annual rate of 20% just to keep their short positions open, a rare and aggressive move. When funding rates stay negative like this for over a week, it shows that bears have a lot of conviction. In contrast, ETH's annualized funding rate sat at 1% on Wednesday. While that’s below the usual 6% neutral mark, it’s nowhere near the lopsided levels seen in SOL.

Frustration is mounting as SOL underperformed the rest of the crypto market by 11% over the past 30 days.

SOL/USD vs. total crypto capitalization, USD. Source: TradingView

Even though SOL is still holding its spot among the top seven cryptocurrencies by market cap, the 67% slide from its $253 peak in September 2025 has left a mark on both onchain activity and derivatives. In fact, SOL futures open interest has dropped 75% from its $13.5 billion high seen only five months ago.

Lower SOL prices reduce incentives, discouraging long-term holding

This price slump is also hurting the decentralized applications (dApps) built on Solana. Revenues are down across the board, from staking and decentralized exchanges to launchpads and lending platforms. Investors are starting to worry about a "death spiral," where falling prices lead to fewer incentives, making it harder for people to justify holding SOL for the long haul.

Solana network weekly dApps revenue, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Weekly dApps revenue on Solana dropped to $22.8 million, the lowest since October 2024. Curiously, the memecoin launchpad Pump generated $9.1 million in revenue during those seven days, accounting for 40% of the entire network. In comparison, weekly DApps revenue on Ethereum totaled $16 million, up 2% from the previous month.

Related: Pump.fun rolls out trader cashbacks in tweak to memecoin model

Unlike Solana, the top revenue-generating DApps on Ethereum are Sky, Flashbots, and Aave—key infrastructure players for decentralized finance. Essentially, Solana is heavily dependent on retail onboarding and the memecoin sector, while Ethereum has secured its lead in total value locked (TVL) and use cases that require higher decentralization.

This weak institutional demand is visible in SOL exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Solana's high transaction volume and second-place spot in TVL haven't been enough to convince traditional investors to buy into SOL ETFs offered by Bitwise, Fidelity, Grayscale, 21Shares, Coinshares, and REX-Osprey.

Crypto exchange-traded products flows, USD million. Source: Coinshares

While relevant, Solana's $2.1 billion in ETF assets under management is still 86% behind Ethereum's $15.8 billion. Many investors have lost confidence that demand for Solana DApps will spike anytime soon, likely a side effect of the heavy hype around memecoins and launchpads.

For SOL to regain its bullish momentum, it will likely need a push from sectors like artificial intelligence infrastructure and prediction markets. These areas show promise, but the competition is fierce.

Presently, weak SOL derivatives and Solana onchain metrics are a warning sign. Any further disappointment may trigger another price drop, putting the already shaky $78 support level at serious risk.

A key Bitcoin (BTC) on-chain metric is flashing its most extreme capitulation signal since 2018, hinting at a potential cycle-low setup.

Bitcoin is mirroring 1,900% rally setup from 2018

Bitcoin’s short-term holder stress has dropped to its lowest level since the 2018 bear market bottom, according to new on-chain data from Checkonchain.

The Short-Term Holder (STH) Bollinger Band metric shows the oscillator falling into its deepest oversold territory in nearly eight years.

Bitcoin short-term holder MVRV Bollinger bands. Source: Checkonchain.COM

The indicator applies Bollinger Bands to the gap between Bitcoin’s spot price and the average cost basis of short-term holders, defined as wallets holding BTC for less than 155 days.

When the oscillator pierces the lower statistical band, it signals that Bitcoin is trading significantly below what recent buyers paid, beyond normal historical volatility. Historically, this signal has aligned with macro bottoms.

For instance, a similar oversold print appeared in late 2018 and preceded a roughly 150% rally within a year and 1,900% BTC price increase in three years.

Source: X

It also flashed ahead of the November 2022 bottom, which preceded a 700% rally to a record high near $126,270.

Additionally, realized losses among short-term holder whales have stayed muted since Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak near $126,000, suggesting larger recent buyers haven’t capitulated yet.

These metrics hint at seller exhaustion, aligning with the bottom outlook of multiple analysts, including those at crypto custodian platform MatrixPort.

Bitcoin may rebound by the end of March

Wells Fargo also sees a near-term liquidity tailwind building for Bitcoin.

In a note cited by CNBC, Wells Fargo strategist Ohsung Kwon said larger-than-usual US tax refunds in 2026 could revive the so-called “YOLO” trade, with as much as $150 billion potentially flowing into equities and Bitcoin by the end of March.

Such an event could absorb remaining sell pressure, reinforcing the idea that Bitcoin may bottom in the coming weeks.

Base, a decentralized Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, said Wednesday that it is transitioning from running on L2 blockchain protocol Optimism’s tech stack to running on its own, unified software architecture.

Launched in 2023 as an Optimism chain, Base is shifting to its own tech stack to reduce dependencies on external service providers and shorten the time it takes to ship new upgrades, according to an announcement from Base. The team said:

“Consolidating into Base changes how Base packages and releases software for the network. We will ship one official distribution for each upgrade: a single Base binary for operating nodes on the network.”

The transition is also expected to simplify the Base network’s sequencer, which helps network validators to order transactions, the Base engineering team said. 

The Base sequencer before and after the shift to a unified architecture. Source: Base

The rollout will take place in four phases, according to a roadmap provided by the project, with node runners having to shift to the new Base client over the next several months for official upgrades.

Related: Base says configuration change caused transaction delays, fixes issue

Ethereum co-founder changes tune on layer-2 scaling networks

Earlier this month, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of the Ethereum L1 blockchain network, reversed course on scaling Ethereum through L2s.

The Base roadmap for the shift away from the Optimism tech stack. Source: Base

L2s are taking longer than initially thought to transition to fully decentralized models, Buterin said, adding that the Ethereum L1 is already scaling on its own and features record-low network fees.

“The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path,” Buterin said in February. 

Buterin’s comments drew mixed reactions from L2 teams, with some agreeing that scaling networks must pivot beyond being a cheaper execution layer for Ethereum.

“It’s great to see Ethereum scaling L1 - this is a win for the entire ecosystem. going forward, L2s can’t just be ‘Ethereum but cheaper,’” Base founder Jesse Pollak said in response.

Source: Jesse Pollak

Other L2 founders contend that scaling layers are already in alignment with the network’s long-term goals.

There are more than 128 different Ethereum L2 scaling networks at the time of publication, according to L2Beat.

Magazine: Coinbase and Base: Is crypto just becoming traditional finance 2.0?

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has acquired tokenization platform Magna, expanding the company’s infrastructure.

Kraken said Wednesday the acquisition would allow Magna to operate “as a standalone platform, powered by” the crypto exchange. The company’s announcement said Kraken would use the platform for “onchain and offchain vesting, white-label token claims, custody and escrow workflows, specialized staking functionality” and other functions.

“Joining Kraken gives us the resources to support existing and new clients with institutional-grade infrastructure, deeper liquidity, and global distribution,” said Magna CEO Bruno Faviero.

According to Kraken, Magna serves more than 160 clients with a peak total value locked of $60 billion in 2025. The acquisition is the latest move by the exchange this month, following an integration with ICE Chat, and its move to sponsor “Trump Accounts” under an initiative pushed by US President Donald Trump.

Kraken submitted a confidential initial public offering filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in November, signaling a potential IPO in the future. The company reported $2.2 billion in adjusted revenue for 2025.

In 2025, Payward acquired crypto native prop company Breakout, futures trading platform NinjaTrader, derivatives trading platform Small Exchange and software company Capitalise.

Other crypto companies mulling US IPOs in 2026

Crypto hardware wallet provider Ledger, headquartered in France, was reportedly discussing a potential public offering in the United States, with a valuation of $4 billion. Digital asset custodian Copper, based in London, was also reportedly considering a similar move into the US markets, while Securitize, a tokenization platform, reported in January that the company’s revenues were up over 840%, in an SEC filing ahead of plans to go public.

Magazine: IronClaw rivals OpenClaw, Olas launches bots for Polymarket — AI Eye

Solana’s SOL (SOL) continues to be battered by bearish headwinds since collapsing to $67 on Feb. 6. SOL is more than 72% below its all-time high of $295, and several metrics suggest that the downside may be far from over.

Key takeaways:

Solana’s bearish technical patterns lean toward a $50 price target.

The MVRV bands suggest SOL may have bottomed, but the data point is an outlier.

The spot Solana ETFs continue to attract investor interest, providing hope for a short-term price recovery.

SOL: Price drawdown from all-time highs. Source: Glassnode

SOL chart technicals target $50

Solana’s latest drawdown caused its price to lose key support levels, confirming a head-and-shoulders (H&S) pattern on the weekly chart.

Crypto analyst Bitcoinsensus shared a chart showing SOL validating a H&S pattern, hinting at more downside ahead.

“The next level of support sits around the $50-$60 area.”

SOL/USD weekly chart. Source: Bitcoinsensus

The two-day chart shows that the price had broken below the H&S’s neckline at $120 on Jan. 30. The measured target of the H&S pattern, calculated by adding the head’s height from the breakdown point, is $57, representing a 30% drop from the current level.

SOL/USD two-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Zooming in, the price was retesting support provided by the lower boundary of a bear flag at $80 on the daily chart, as shown in the chart below.

Related: Zora debuts attention markets on Solana, betting on social trends

A daily candlestick close below $80 will confirm the pattern, opening the path to a further drop toward the measured target of the flag at $48. Such a move would bring the total losses to 41%.

SOL/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Solana’s MVRV bands hint at a bottom

Below $80, SOL's first line of defense is provided by the lowest boundary of its MVRV pricing bands at $73. The bands represent onchain price zones that show when SOL is trading below or above the average price at which traders last moved their coins.

Historically, SOL's price plunged near or even below the lowest MVRV band before a significant rally took place. This can be seen in March 2022, when SOL price rose 87% within three weeks to $140 after testing the lowest MVRV deviation band around $75. A similar rebound occurred earlier in June 2022 and December 2020.

Solana MVRV extreme deviation pricing bands. Source: Glassnode

Solana’s association with the FTX crash in November 2022 saw a significant deviation below this band, with the price dropping another 70% and bottoming around $7 in December that year.

Solana ETFs inflows provide reprieve

US-based spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to attract investor interest, with these investment products recording inflows in 66 of 74 days, underscoring persistent institutional demand since their launch in late October 2025.

The spot SOL ETFs added $2.9 million on Tuesday, bringing their cumulative inflows to $877 million and the total net assets under management to over $726 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

Spot Solana ETF flows data. Source: SoSoValue

Similarly, global Solana-based investment products logged a total of $31 million in net inflows during the week ending Feb. 13. 

This reinforced the steady institutional demand for SOL-based ETPs, even as the market price weakened.

Altcoins, excluding Ether (ETH), have recorded $209 billion in net selling volume since January 2025, marking one of the steepest declines in speculative demand for crypto assets this cycle.

On Binance, altcoin trading volumes dropped roughly 50% since November 2025, reflecting a steady dip in activity. The decrease also coincides with an increase in Bitcoin’s volume share on the exchange.

Analysts said that the contraction in altcoin demand, alongside elevated stablecoin dominance, signals that the broader market is shifting its capital toward BTC during the current downtrend.

Altcoin spot volume imbalance deepens against Bitcoin

Crypto analyst IT Tech noted that the cumulative buy and sell difference for altcoins, excluding BTC and Ether (ETH), reached -$209 billion. The metric measures net spot demand across centralized exchanges for altcoin trading pairs. A positive reading indicates rising spot demand, which was briefly observed back in January 2025.

1-year cumulative buy-sell volume for Altcoins (excludes ETH). Source: CryptoQuant

A negative cumulative delta at this scale signals the absence of consistent spot buyers. The analyst noted that the metric tracks net flow imbalance rather than price valuation, so it does not indicate a market bottom. Over the past 13 months, capital has exited the altcoin markets without significant counterflows.

Volume data from Binance reinforces the shift. As BTC tested the $60,000 level in early February, the total trading volume was redistributed. On Feb. 7, Bitcoin volumes rose to 36.8% of total activity. Altcoin volumes dropped to 33.6% by mid-February, from a high of 59.2% in November.

According to crypto analyst Darkfost, similar rotations appeared in April 2025, August 2024, and October 2022. During these corrective phases, capital consolidated into Bitcoin while altcoin volumes contracted. 

Bitcoin, Altcoins volume activity. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: New Bitcoin whales are trapped underwater, but for how long?

Tether dominance rises to its all-time high level 

Tether’s USDt (USDT) market cap dominance reached the 8% level on the one-week chart, aligning with prior highs which lasted between June 2022 and October 2023. The rising stablecoin dominance typically coincides with capital moving into dollar-pegged assets rather than deploying into tokens like BTC (BTC) and Ether (ETH). 

USDT.D and BTC price chart comparison. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

As observed, the elevated USDT dominance coincided with Bitcoin consolidating near bear market lows, as observed in 2022 and 2023. A decline in dominance has often marked one of the earliest signals of a renewed bullish trend.

Previously, the USDT dominance chart formed lows around 3.80-4% in March 2024, December 2024, and October 2025. These periods coincided with Bitcoin setting new all-time highs near $72,000, $104,000, and $126,000, respectively. 

Related: Wells Fargo sees ‘YOLO’ trade driving $150B into Bitcoin and risk assets

DerivaDEX has launched a Bermuda-licensed crypto derivatives platform, becoming what it says is the first DAO-governed decentralized exchange to operate under formal regulatory approval.

According to a statement from the platform, the exchange received a T license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority and has begun offering crypto perpetual swaps trading to a limited number of advanced retail and institutional participants.

The BMA’s T, or test license, is issued for a digital asset business seeking to test a proof of concept.

At launch, DerivaDEX supports major crypto perpetual products and said it plans to expand into additional markets, including prediction markets and traditional securities. The company said the platform combines offchain order matching with onchain settlement to Ethereum, while allowing users to retain noncustodial control of funds.

DerivaDEX also said the platform, developed by DEXLabs, uses encrypted order handling and trusted execution environments, which are intended to mitigate front-running and other forms of market manipulation.

A decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, is a blockchain-based governance structure in which token holders collectively vote on decisions according to rules encoded in smart contracts rather than relying on a traditional management hierarchy.

Traditional asset managers move into DeFi infrastructure

DerivaDEX’s launch comes as traditional asset managers are increasingly engaging with decentralized finance infrastructure on public blockchains.

On Feb. 11, BlackRock made its tokenized US Treasury product, the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), available on the decentralized exchange Uniswap. The move allows institutional investors to trade the tokenized fund onchain, and included BlackRock purchasing an undisclosed amount of Uniswap’s governance token, UNI.

A few days later, Apollo Global Management agreed to acquire up to 90 million governance tokens of decentralized finance protocol Morpho over four years, representing 9% of the token’s 1 billion total supply. The $940 billion asset manager said the agreement includes supporting Morpho’s decentralized lending infrastructure.

These developments come as US lawmakers continue debating provisions in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, legislation aimed at defining how cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance platforms would be regulated.

While the major sticking point remains around stablecoin yield, in January, crypto venture firms Paradigm and Variant warned that current draft legislation left uncertainty over whether DeFi developers and infrastructure providers could face registration, Know Your Customer requirements or other compliance obligations designed for centralized intermediaries.

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