Cointelegraph

The European Union, often criticized for prioritizing rulemaking over innovation, is pointing to the European Blockchain Sandbox as an example of how regulation can boost innovation.

After three cohorts of confidential dialogues, the initiative has produced a 230-page best practices report and drawn in nearly 125 regulators and authorities.

The European Commission tapped law firm Bird & Bird and its consortium partners to lead the initiative, which matches blockchain use cases with regulators for confidential dialogues aimed at clearing legal challenges.

Marjolein Geus, a partner at Bird & Bird, told Cointelegraph that the process has shown compliance need not be a deterrent.

“For use case owners, it helps them better understand the relevant regulations and how those rules apply to their projects,” she said. “It allows regulators and authorities to deepen their understanding of how those technologies interact with the regulatory frameworks within their areas of competence.”

In the latest cohort, “mature” use cases were increasingly operational and embedded in sectors such as energy, healthcare and artificial intelligence, bringing along more complex compliance discussions.

Projects entering the dialogue discussed how existing regulatory frameworks apply to their use cases. Source: European Commission

How MiCA became a test of regulatory timing for blockchain

When the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) was adopted, observers warned that strict obligations would raise barriers for startups. Stablecoin rules drew particular scrutiny as Tether — issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin — ultimately decided against seeking MiCA authorization for USDt (USDT).

The brain drain narrative predates crypto. European founders have often incorporated in jurisdictions perceived as having a lighter touch.

USDT is still the largest stablecoin in the world despite pulling back from the EU. Source: CoinGecko

Similar fears surfaced when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in 2018. Businesses complained of interpretive confusion and administrative burden. Some foreign firms scaled back EU exposure. However, the GDPR has since become a global reference point, with many multinationals aligning operations to its standards.

The criticism that Europe “regulates first and innovates later” rests on the idea that legal certainty follows market development. MiCA was adopted before the crypto sector reached institutional maturity. In theory, that sequencing risks locking rapidly developing tech into rigid categories too early.

But the sandbox advanced a counterpoint, suggesting that early legislation combined with regulatory dialogue can enhance clarity and accelerate compliance. In the third cohort, 77% of respondents described the sandbox as having a crucial or valuable impact on innovation and regulation, and none reported no impact.

While the EU opted for early codification and dialogue, the world’s largest economy, the US, lacks a comprehensive federal framework for digital assets despite presidential pledges to become a global hub. Its proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has stalled after key industry figures withdrew support over provisions, including restrictions on stablecoin yield.

Related: When will crypto’s CLARITY Act framework pass in the US Senate?

Smart contracts and the limits of decentralization

While the best practices report spans over 20 chapters across multiple regulatory domains, its sections on smart contracts and decentralization focus on how blockchain systems are structured at the code and governance level.

“Virtually all blockchain DLT use cases use smart contracts. They are subject to regulation, with security requirements often relevant, as well as obligations under the GDPR,” Geus said.

Blockchain use cases in the sandbox are expanding to various sectors. Source: Bird & Bird, OXYGY/European Commission

The dialogues examined how those contracts interact with existing EU frameworks, not just MiCA. Depending on their function and the degree of control retained by identifiable actors, smart contracts may trigger obligations ranging from cybersecurity source code reviews to operational resilience testing and conformity declarations.

“The question then becomes how to ensure those smart contracts are secure and GDPR compliant and how to test whether they meet the applicable regulatory frameworks. That is an area where further clarification, harmonization and standardization are needed,” Geus said.

Another focal point of the third cohort report is the qualification of services provided “in a fully decentralized manner without any intermediary” under MiCA.

MiCA references the term “fully decentralized” but doesn’t define it.

Like smart contracts, determining full decentralization in Europe requires further clarification. The report did attempt to lay out a checklist within the limits of how MiCA and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive are structured.

Many popular DeFi protocols display characteristics that disqualify them from being “fully decentralized.” Source: Bird & Bird, OXYGY/European Commission

Among those are identifiable fee recipients or entities capable of modifying the protocol, which may suggest the existence of an intermediary. Where such influence exists, MiCA is likely to apply, and authorization as a crypto service provider may be required.

Related: Crypto’s decentralization promise breaks at interoperability

Crypto in Europe’s legal architecture

The European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox’s participation neither implies legal endorsement or regulatory approval nor does it grant derogations from applicable law.

By the third cohort, dialogues increasingly engaged horizontal legislation such as the GDPR and the Data Act. Projects were assessed not as isolated crypto experiments, but as embedded digital systems interacting with financial, cybersecurity and data governance frameworks.

Johannes Wirtz, partner at Bird & Bird’s finance regulation group, observed that regulators involved in the dialogues demonstrated deeper familiarity with crypto than expected.

“This was actually something which surprised me in certain regards because you always had this assumption that they are more or less bound to the old world, but they have their innovation departments, which are really good at identifying the issues,” Wirtz said.

If the early criticism of European policy assumed that law would constrain experimentation, Bird & Bird representatives claimed that structured dialogue clarifies how that perimeter applies in practice.

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Moonwell, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol deployed on Base and Optimism, was exploited for about $1.78 million after a pricing oracle for Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH) returned a value of about $1.12 instead of roughly $2,200, creating a sharp mispricing that attackers were able to use for profit.

The pull requests for the affected contracts show multiple commits co-authored by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, prompting security auditor Pashov to publicly flag the incident as an example of artificial intelligence-written or AI-assisted Solidity backfiring. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph about the incident, he said that he had linked the case to Claude because there were multiple commits in the pull requests that were co-authored by Claude, meaning that “the developer was using Claude to write the code, and this has led to the vulnerability.”

Pashov cautioned, however, against treating the flaw as uniquely AI-driven. He described the oracle issue as the kind of mistake “even a senior Solidity developer could have made,” arguing that the real problem was a lack of sufficiently rigorous checks and end-to-end validation.

Vulnerable code led to Moonwell exploit. Source: Pashov.

Initially, he said that he believed there had been no testing or audit at all, but later acknowledged that the team said it had unit and integration tests in a separate pull request and had commissioned an audit from Halborn. 

In his view, the mispricing “could have been caught with an integration test, a proper one, integrating with the blockchain,” but he declined to criticise other security firms directly.

Small loss, big governance questions

The dollar amount of the exploit is small compared to some of DeFi’s largest incidents, such as the Ronin bridge exploit in March 2022, where attackers stole more than $600 million, or strings of other nine-figure bridge and lending protocol hacks. 

What makes Moonwell notable is the mix of AI co-authorship, a basic-seeming price configuration failure on a major asset, and existing audits and tests that still failed to catch it. 

Pashov said his own firm would not fundamentally change its process, but if code appeared “vibe coded,” his team would “have a bit more wide open eyes” and expect a higher density of low-hanging issues, even though this particular oracle bug “was not that easy” to spot.

“Vibe coding” vs disciplined AI use

Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO of cheqd, a decentralized identity infrastructure provider, told Cointelegraph that the debate around vibe coding masks “two very different interpretations” of how AI is used. 

On one side, he said, are non-technical founders prompting AI to generate code they cannot independently review; on the other, experienced developers using AI to accelerate refactors, pattern exploration, and testing inside a mature engineering process.

AI-assisted development “can be valuable, particularly at the MVP [minimal viable product] stage,” he noted, but “should not be treated as a shortcut to production-ready infrastructure,” especially in capital-intensive systems like DeFi.

Edwards argued that all AI-generated smart contract code should be treated as untrusted input, subject to strict version control, clear code ownership, multi-person peer review, and advanced testing, especially around high-risk areas such as access controls, oracle and pricing logic, and upgrade mechanisms.

“Ultimately, responsible AI integration comes down to governance and discipline,” he said, with clear review gates, separation between code generation and validation, and an assumption that any contract deployed in an adversarial environment may contain latent risk.

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About two-thirds of crypto incidents investigated by blockchain analytics company AMLBot in 2025 were driven by social engineering rather than technical exploits, according to a report based on the company’s internal casework.

AMLBot said 65% of the incidents it reviewed last year involved access and response failures, such as compromised devices, weak verification and delayed detection, instead of vulnerabilities in blockchains or smart contracts.

The company said its analysis draws on about 2,500 internal investigations and should not be read as an industrywide measure of crypto crime, according to a Wednesday report shared with Cointelegraph.

Primary attack vectors included device compromises via chat scams, impersonation scams, and other investment and phishing scams involving social manipulation.

Crypto phishing attacks are social engineering schemes that don’t require hacking code. Instead, attackers share fraudulent links to steal victims’ sensitive information, such as the private keys to crypto wallets.

The findings suggest that security improvements at the protocol level may not be enough to protect users if scammers can bypass safeguards by targeting people directly.

Percentage of crypto theft cases by fraud category. Source: AMLBot

Investment scams and phishing lead by case count

Investment scams accounted for the largest share of cases (25%), followed by phishing attacks (18%) and device compromises (13%), as the most damaging category of attacks in terms of case frequency.

Pig butchering scams accounted for 8%, over-the-counter (OTC) fraud for 8%, and chat-based impersonation represented 7%, collectively making up the second tier of the most frequent attacks.

Percentage of crypto theft cases per month. Source: AMLBot

Impersonation linked to $9 million in recent losses

AMLBot traced at least $9 million in stolen digital assets to impersonation-related attacks over the past three months.

Impersonation is the most damaging attack vector in terms of social engineering scams, Slava Demchuk, CEO of AMLBot, told Cointelegraph. “Attackers continue to exploit and trick victims with a ruthless game of charades, posing as trusted entities,” he said. “Sometimes they’re exchange support teams, investment partners, project managers or reps.”

Demchuk urged users not to share private keys or recovery phrases and to be wary of urgent requests involving fund transfers or wallet access, which he said are common entry points for social engineering scams.

To protect against impersonation attacks, Demchuk urged crypto investors not to share their private keys and recovery phrases. 

He also advised investors to ignore the appearance of “urgent requests involving fund transfers of wallet access,” which are usually the first point of contact for social engineering scams.

CertiK reports January spike in crypto losses

Crypto scams saw an uptick in January, when scammers stole $370 million, the highest monthly figure in 11 months, according to crypto security company CertiK.

Source: CertiK

$311 million of the total value was attributed to phishing scams, with a particularly damaging social engineering scam costing one victim around $284 million.

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European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde is considering leaving before her eight-year term ends in October 2027, the Financial Times reported, citing a person “familiar with her thinking.” 

Lagarde, who took office in November 2019, is said to be weighing an early exit ahead of France’s April 2027 presidential election so that outgoing President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz can agree on a successor, the FT reported Wednesday.

An ECB spokesperson pushed back on the report, telling Cointelegraph: “President Lagarde is totally focused on her mission and has not taken any decision regarding the end of her term.”

ECB navigates digital euro and MiCA-era stablecoins

Her potential departure would come at a sensitive moment for the ECB’s digital agenda. 

Under Lagarde, the ECB has pushed ahead with preparatory work on a digital euro and repeatedly highlighted the need to manage risks from privately issued digital money, including stablecoins, within the new European Union Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) regime.

ECB officials have warned that rapidly growing stablecoins could pose financial stability and monetary policy risks in the euro area, even under MiCA’s safeguards, and have argued for a strong market for well‑regulated euro-denominated stablecoins that can compete with dollar tokens.

Christine Lagarde, ECB. Source: Financial Times

Lagarde herself has been a vocal critic of Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets, calling them “highly speculative,” and saying in a 2022 television interview that crypto is “worth nothing” and based on no underlying assets, repeating that sentiment even with BTC close to all-time highs in November 2025.

A change at the top of the ECB could therefore impact how the institution communicates on, and prioritizes, issues such as the digital euro, stablecoin oversight and crypto-related payment arrangements, even if the overall regulatory direction is set at the EU level.

Shortlist to replace Lagarde shares cautious line on crypto

Economists polled by the FT in December identified Spain’s former central bank governor Pablo Hernández de Cos and his Dutch counterpart Klaas Knot as leading contenders to replace Lagarde, with ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel and Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel also seen as potential candidates.

All four have taken cautious stances on crypto. In past speeches, Hernández de Cos has framed crypto assets and stablecoins as a financial stability risk that demands strong regulation and supervision, while Knot has called for a robust global regulatory framework for crypto and stablecoins.

Nagel has linked the push for a digital euro to safeguarding European monetary and financial sovereignty, and has called Bitcoin a “digital tulip” that is “anything but transparent,” warning against treating Bitcoin as a reserve asset. 

Schnabel previously described Bitcoin as a “speculative asset without any recognizable fundamental value.”

Digital euro timeline hinges on EU lawmakers

The digital euro project still needs the green light from EU lawmakers, while the ECB has moved into a technical preparation stage and is rolling out collaborations to ensure the digital euro is universally accessible to all.

Once the legal framework is in place, potentially in 2026, a pilot phase could begin as early as 2027, with the Eurosystem aiming to be in a position to carry out an initial issuance sometime around 2029.

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US tax filers may see larger refunds in 2026 compared to previous years, a development one Wall Street strategist says may boost risk appetite for digital assets and tech stocks preferred among retail investors.

In a note cited by CNBC, Wells Fargo analyst Ohsung Kwon said the coming refund wave could help bring back the so-called “YOLO” trade, with as much as $150 billion potentially flowing into equities and Bitcoin (BTC) by the end of March. Kwon said the extra cash could be most visible among higher-income consumers.

“Speculation picks up with bigger savings…we expect YOLO to return,” wrote Wells Fargo analyst Ohsung Kwon in a Sunday note seen by news outlet CNBC. “Additional savings from tax returns, especially for the high-income consumer will flow back into equities, in our view,” he added.

Kwon said some of that liquidity could move into Bitcoin and into stocks popular with retail traders, including Robinhood and Boeing.

Cointelegraph contacted Wells Fargo for details on the assumptions behind the $150 billion estimate and how much of that total the bank expects could go to digital assets, but had not received a response by publication time.

Bitcoin demand depends on sentiment

While some of the taxpayer funds may flow into Bitcoin and digital assets, it’s important to consider the higher inflation and consumer spending compared to the period during the Covid-19 pandemic, Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen, told Cointelegraph:

“If sentiment starts to come around and retail sees positive upwards momentum in crypto assets, I see that as increasing the likelihood of funds flowing in this direction.”

Conversely, retail investors may opt for other assets with “higher momentum and social stickiness,” if digital asset sentiment doesn’t improve in the near term, he said.

The larger tax returns are due to the passage of US President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which included numerous favorable provisions for 2025 tax filings.

Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025, saying it would cut as much as $1.6 trillion in federal spending.

Related: BlackRock enters DeFi as institutional crypto push accelerates: Finance Redefined

Smart money bets on crypto market downside as whales quietly accumulate

Meanwhile, the whales, or large investors, continue their quiet spot accumulation for the leading cryptocurrencies, while the most profitable traders by returns, tracked as “smart money,” are betting on more crypto market downside.

Smart money trader positions through the Hyperliquid exchange, top tokens. Source: Nansen

Smart money traders were net short on Bitcoin for a cumulative $107 million, along with most of the leading cryptocurrencies excluding Avalanche (AVAX), according to crypto intelligence platform Nansen.

However, whales have acquired over $41.9 million worth of spot Ether (ETH) tokens across 22 wallets during the past week, marking a 1.7-fold increase in the spot purchases of this cohort.

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US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted $104.9 million in net outflows on Tuesday in the first trading session this week.

Total trading volume in spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs fell to just over $3 billion, down nearly 80% from a record $14.7 billion on Feb. 5, reflecting a continued slowdown in trading activity, according to SoSoValue data.

Daily flows in US spot Bitcoin ETFs since Feb. 9, 2026. Source: SoSoValue

The outflows came as another round of institutions reported their Bitcoin ETF holdings for the fourth quarter of 2025, with Jane Street ranking as the second-largest buyer of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) in Q4, buying $276 million.

Q4 also saw a new IBIT entrant, an obscure Hong Kong-based company called Laurore, which acquired $436.2 million of the ETF in a single purchase reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

A potential sign of Chinese institutions moving into Bitcoin?

According to Bitwise Investments advisor Jeff Park, Laurore’s newly disclosed position in IBIT could be an early indication of institutional Chinese capital entering Bitcoin.

Park said Laurore has no public footprint — no website or press — and the only available information is that the filer’s name is Zhang Hui, the Chinese equivalent of “John Smith.”

Source: Jeff Park

While Park speculated that the investment may be linked to capital flight, some commentators questioned why the company would choose to buy Bitcoin through an ETF rather than directly.

Brevan Howard slashes IBIT holdings by 85%

Beyond Laurore and Jane Street, several institutions made significant moves with IBIT in Q4 2025. Weiss Asset Management reportedly added roughly 2.8 million shares ($107.5 million), while 59 North Capital increased its position by 2.6 million shares ($99.8 million).

Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm Mubadala Investment also boosted its IBIT holdings by 45%, rising from 8.7 million shares in Q3 to 12.7 million in Q4, valued at $630.7 million.

Source: Zerohedge

In contrast, some companies cut their Bitcoin ETF exposure in Q4 2025. Brevan Howard reduced its IBIT holdings, dropping roughly 85% from 37 million shares ($2.4 billion) in Q3 2025 to about 5.5 million shares ($273.5 million) in Q4.

Goldman Sachs also trimmed its IBIT holdings by roughly 40%, leaving around $1 billion in assets.

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Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has fully exited Ether treasury company ETHZilla, according to a Tuesday filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

Entities linked to Thiel now report owning zero shares in the company in a 13G amendment filed on Feb. 17, after previously disclosing a 7.5% stake on Aug. 4, 2025. 

At that time, the group beneficially owned 11,592,241 shares of what was then known as 180 Life Sciences Corp., representing 7.5% of the 154,032,084 shares outstanding and worth roughly $40 million based on trading around $3.50 per share in early August.

Founders Fund 13G Filing with SEC. Source: SEC

180 Life Sciences rebrands to ETHZilla

180 Life Sciences raised $425 million in July 2025 to launch an Ether treasury strategy and rebrand as ETHZilla. 

The company later moved to raise another $350 million via convertible bonds in September to expand its Ether (ETH) holdings and deploy them across decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenized assets, at one point holding more than 100,000 Ether.

ETHZilla began unloading tokens as markets turned, liquidating 24,291 Ether for $74.5 million in December 2025 at an average price of $3,068.69 per token, to repay debt, leaving about 69,800 ETH on its balance sheet.

Strain on Ether treasury company models

Thiel’s exit is the latest stress signal for public companies as crypto treasuries built around Ether rather than Bitcoin (BTC). 

Other large Ether accumulators are taking different approaches. BitMine Immersion Technologies, the largest listed Ethereum holder, acquired a further 40,613 ETH on Feb. 9, lifting its total holdings to more than 4.325 million ETH, worth about $8.8 billion at current prices.

Trend Research, on the other hand, began unwinding its entire Ethereum position this month, selling 651,757 ETH for about $1.34 billion on Feb. 8, locking in an estimated $747 million realized loss.

ETHZilla has since tried to diversify by launching ETHZilla Aerospace, a subsidiary offering tokenized exposure to leased jet engines. However, Thiel’s exit magnifies how volatile Ether‑heavy treasury strategies have become in a market still digesting last year’s peak.

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

The US state of Nevada has sued Kalshi after the prediction market company lost its court challenge to stop the state’s regulator from taking action over its sports prediction markets.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday denied Kalshi’s bid to stop Nevada’s gaming regulator from taking action on its sports event contracts, removing a block on the regulator launching a civil suit against the company.

After the decision, the Nevada Gaming Control Board promptly filed a civil enforcement action in state court against Kalshi, which it said sought to block the company “from offering unlicensed wagering in violation of Nevada law.”

Kalshi swiftly filed a motion to have the suit heard in a federal court, repeating its long-held argument that it is “subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction” under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The appeals court order and subsequent lawsuit are a blow to Kalshi in its nearly year-long battle against Nevada to keep its sports contracts active in the state. The company and other prediction markets are facing multiple similar lawsuits from other states.

The company sued the state last year in March after receiving a cease-and-desist order to halt all sports-related markets within the state, and in April, a federal court backed Kalshi’s bid to temporarily block Nevada from taking action amid court proceedings.

Source: Daniel Wallach 

Kalshi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nevada says Kalshi is flouting state law

In its latest lawsuit, the Nevada Gaming Control Board repeated its past claim that Kalshi’s sports event contracts meet the requirements to be licensed under state law, as they allow “users to wager on the outcomes of sporting events.”

Despite making wagers, sports betting and other gaming activity accessible in the State of Nevada, Kalshi is not licensed in Nevada and does not comply with Nevada gaming law,” the regulator argued.

In its federal court motion, Kalshi argued that such a claim means the court “must adopt a narrow interpretation” of federal commodity exchange laws, which it asserts it is regulated under by the CFTC.

CFTC chair asserts jurisdiction over prediction markets

Earlier on Tuesday, CFTC chair Mike Selig said his agency filed an amicus brief backing Crypto.com in a similar lawsuit the crypto exchange had brought against Nevada.

Crypto.com had sued Nevada’s regulators in June after similarly receiving a cease-and-desist letter. It also appealed to the Ninth Circuit in November after losing a federal court motion to block the state from taking action.

Related: Crypto lobby forms working group seeking prediction market clarity

The CFTC argued in its brief to the Ninth Circuit that “States cannot invade the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction over CFTC-regulated designated contract markets by re-characterizing swaps trading on DCMs as illegal gambling.”

Selig said that event contracts “are commodity derivatives and squarely within the CFTC’s regulatory remit,” and the agency would “defend its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives.”

The CFTC’s push comes after Trump Media and Technology Group said in October that it was looking to bring prediction markets to its flagship social media platform, Truth Social, via a partnership with Crypto.com.

Donald Trump Jr., the US president’s son, has also been an advisor to Kalshi since January 2025. He has also served as an advisor to rival Polymarket after investing in the company in August. 

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XRP (XRP) recovered 50% to a high of $1.67 from its 15-month low of $1.12 reached on Feb. 6. While the altcoin’s intraday price of $1.43 remains more than 60% below its multi-year high of $3.66, several metrics suggest that the local low at $1.12 could be the new bottom with XRP price set for a sustained recovery.

Key takeaways:

XRP supply on exchanges has dropped to a five-year low as holders moved tokens to self-custody, possibly signaling reduced selling pressure.

Funding rates are at extreme lows, suggesting a potential bottom.

Positive spot taker CVD, and steady ETF inflows signal strong buyer and institutional demand for a rebound.

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

Falling XRP supply on exchanges is bullish

There has been a notable decline in the XRP supply held on exchanges over the past two years, as indicated by data from Glassnode. The XRP balance on exchanges dropped to 12.9 billion XRP on Tuesday, matching with levels last seen in May 2021.

XRP balance on exchanges. Source: Glassnode

A falling token balance on exchanges suggests a lack of intention to sell by holders, possibly reinforcing the future upside potential for XRP. 

Additional data from CryptoQuant reveals that Binance’s XRP reserve has dropped sharply to around 2.57 billion XRP, with both the SMA(50) and SMA(100) sloping downward. 

Related: XRP analysts explain why price drop below $1 ‘remains possible’

“Technically, reserves are declining while price remains near the lows,” said CryptoQuant contributor PelinayPA in a Monday Quicktake analysis.

This structure increases the probability of a potential short squeeze scenario ahead.

XRP reserve on Binance. Source: CryptoQuant

XRP funding rates fall to extreme lows

Binance funding rates fell to -0.028% as the price dropped to $1.12 on Feb. 6, the lowest level since April 2025. Combined with falling spot prices, negative funding rates reflect overcrowded shorts and capitulation among leveraged longs. 

Historically, extreme negative funding often signals a potential bottom or short squeeze, as the market becomes oversold.  

Similar funding conditions in April 2025 preceded a 65% rally to $2.65, from $1.60, as shorts were squeezed out.

XRP ledger funding rates. Source: CryptoQuant

Comparable setups in late 2024 triggered sharp upside moves as traders rushed to close positions. 

Meanwhile, XRP futures open interest (OI) has decreased to around $2.53 billion on Tuesday, down 55% from peaks of $4.55 billion recorded in early January, data from CoinGlass shows.

This suggests that leverage traders are reducing their exposure rather than opening new positions, signaling weakening bearish conviction and possible price reversal if buying pressure returns. 

XRP spot taker CVD signals high buyer volumes

Analyzing the 90-day spot taker cumulative volume delta (CVD) reveals that buy orders (taker buy) have become dominant again. CVD measures the difference between buy and sell volume over a three-month period.

Until late yesterday, the CVD remained neutral, reflecting indecision in the market.

This metric flipped positive on Tuesday (green bar in the chart below), indicating a rebound in demand, with buyers regaining control.

If the CVD remains green, it would mean buyers are buying more at lower levels, which could set the stage for another leg upward, as seen in historical recoveries.

XRP spot taker CVD. Source: CryptoQuant

Spot XRP ETFs inflows continue despite crash

US-based spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to attract investor interest, with these investment products recording inflows 53 days out of 59, underscoring persistent institutional demand since their launch in November 2025.

Spot XRP ETFs added $4.5 million on Friday, bringing cumulative inflows to $1.23 billion and total net assets under management to over $1.01 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

Spot XRP ETF flows data. Source: SoSoValue

Similarly, while global crypto investment products logged the fourth week of outflows totaling $173 million, XRP ETPs bucked the trend, emerging as the top performer with inflows of $33.4 million during the week ending Feb.13. 

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

Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has rolled out a new feature that shifts rewards towards memecoin traders, rather than its deployers — in a tweak to their fee model that once generated over $15 million in a single day at its peak.

In a post to X on Tuesday, Pump.fun said the platform’s memecoin creators can now decide whether a token “truly deserves” Creator Fees, or whether it’s best to redirect rewards to traders engaging with the token through “Cashback Coins.” 

Pump.fun’s original model features Creator Fees, giving token creators 0.3% of all fees generated by the tokens they launch.

However, Pump.fun said not all tokens deserve Creator Fees because many tokens achieve success without a team or project lead, thereby disproportionately rewarding token deployers.

Creator Fees need change. Not every token deserves Creator Fees.

Now, users have the ability to decide whether a token truly deserves Creator Fees, or whether it makes more sense to reward the traders engaging with the token.

Cashback Coins are now live. Learn more 👇 pic.twitter.com/UbYoAbQ1Ya

— Pump.fun (@Pumpfun) February 17, 2026

“Now, traders can choose to engage with tokens they feel the most aligned with, ultimately letting the market decide who gets rewarded and where the bar is set.”

Pump.fun said coin creators must choose between the Creator Fees or Trader Cashback model before launching. Once chosen, the decision is irreversible.

Terminal, a crypto trading platform built into Pump.fun, said Cashback Coins are generated on every trade made and are only accessible through Terminal.

It comes as analysts from onchain analytics firm Santiment said on Friday that memecoins are showing signs of a potential bottom.

“This collective acceptance of the ‘end of the meme era’ is a classic capitulation signal,” Santiment said, explaining that when a sector of the market is completely written off, it is often the “contrarian time” to start paying attention.

Pump.fun fees have fallen over the last year

Pump.fun’s new rewards feature comes as it recorded $31.8 million worth of fees in January, marking a 75.6% fall from the $148.1 million posted in January 2025 — the platform’s best-performing month to date.

Pump.fun has brought in $15.6 million so far in February, putting it on track to fall short of its January total.

Monthly change in Pump.fun fees since March 2024. Source: DeFiLlama

The change to the rewards model also follows months of criticism that only a small number of traders were making profits on Pump.fun, while the vast majority of retail traders were ending up with losses. 

Data from Dune Analytics shows that of the 58.7 million crypto wallets that have interacted with Pump.fun, only 4.76 million have profited between $1,000 and $10,000, while 969,780 wallets have posted winnings between $10,000 and $100,000.

Less than 13,700 Pump.fun wallets have reached millionaire status on the platform.

The new feature was received well by many in the Pump.fun community, while others, such as X user Coos, pondered whether the rewards model could reduce incentives for developers to launch new coins:

“So devs have less reasons to push coins longer, as the most lucrative time is when coins are still on pf, and have just graduated where there is the most volume.”

Coinbase’s Base shut down its Creator Rewards offering

While Pump.fun has changed its rewards model, others have shut down their rewards programs entirely.

On Feb. 10, Coinbase’s Base App sunset its Creator Rewards program as part of a strategic shift to focus entirely on tradable assets.

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

The Creator Rewards program was launched in July and was intended to make the Ethereum layer-2 Base a more social ecosystem, where activity translated into earnings.

The Base App X account said it had paid around $450,000 to 17,000 creators over seven months, with data suggesting that creators earned an average of $26.

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

The divergence between Bitcoin and tech stocks is a warning sign of a potential artificial intelligence-driven credit crisis that will result in more central bank money printing, says Arthur Hayes. 

“Bitcoin is the global fiat liquidity fire alarm. It is the most responsive freely traded asset to the fiat credit supply,” said the crypto entrepreneur in his latest blog post on Wednesday.

Hayes went on to caution that the recent divergence between Bitcoin (BTC) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index “sounds the alarm that a massive credit destruction event is nigh.”

When these two previously correlated asset classes diverge, “it warrants further investigation into any trigger that could cause a destruction of fiat” — mostly dollars and credit, which is also known as deflation, he said. 

Hayes believes that job losses due to AI adoption will have a major impact on consumer credit and mortgage debt “because of the inability of white-collar knowledge worker debt donkeys to meet their monthly payments.”

“That’s a bold statement to call for a financial crisis because of job losses caused by AI adoption.”

AI job losses could trigger another banking crisis 

In 2025, companies cited AI when announcing 55,000 job cuts, more than 12 times the number of layoffs attributed to AI just two years earlier, reported CBS News in early February. 

“This AI financial crisis will restart the money printing machine for realz,” said Hayes. 

His loose model suggests that a 20% reduction in the 72 million “knowledge workers” in the US could produce around $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage losses, representing a 13% write-down of US commercial bank equity.

Predicted losses assuming a 20% AI job loss. Source: Maelstrom

Hayes speculates that weaker regional banks would buckle first, depositors would flee, and credit markets would seize. The Federal Reserve would eventually panic and start printing money. 

“While the Fed is fighting windmills, AI-related job losses will destroy the balance sheets of American banks,” he said. 

“Finally, the monetary mandarins panic and press that Brrrr button harder than I shred pow the morning after a one-meter dump.”

Hayes predicted that this surge in fiat credit creation would “pump Bitcoin decisively off its lows,” and that the future expectation of increased fiat creation to save the banking system would “propel Bitcoin to a new all-time high.”

In addition to Bitcoin, Hayes said that the two altcoins that his company, Maelstrom, will “deploy excess stables into once the Fed blinks” are Zcash (ZEC) and Hyperliquid (HYPE). 

More money-printing theories abound 

However, this is not the first radical money-printing thesis Hayes has proposed.

In January, he said that the Federal Reserve would print money to alleviate the Japanese bond crisis. 

In December 2025, he predicted that BTC would surge to $200,000 by March due to money printing through a new Fed liquidity tool called Reserve Management Purchases, which resembles quantitative easing. 

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

Exchange-traded fund issuers Bitwise and GraniteShares have filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch funds tied to event contracts on the outcome of US elections.

Bitwise filed a prospectus on Tuesday for a new lineup of ETFs branded as PredictionShares, with six prediction market-style ETFs on NYSE Arca.

The first two funds will pay out if either a Democrat or a Republican wins the U.S. presidential election in November 2028. The next two will pay out if either Democrats or Republicans win the Senate in November 2026, and the final two if either party wins the House.

“The fund’s investment objective is to provide capital appreciation to investors in the event that a member of the Democratic Party is the winner of the US Presidential election taking place on November 7, 2028,” read the prospectus.

Each fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in binary event contracts, or political prediction market derivatives traded on CFTC-regulated exchanges. These contracts settle at $1 if the referenced outcome occurs and $0 if it doesn’t. 

“In the event that a member of the Democratic Party is not the winner of the 2028 Presidential election, the fund will lose substantially all of its value,” it explained. 

Source: James Seyffart

Betting on a prediction market wrapped in an ETF 

In essence, Bitwise is offering separate ETFs for each race — one for each party — and investors can choose which one to buy into. 

The price of each fund’s shares on any given day reflects the market’s implied probability of that outcome, fluctuating between $0 and $1 based on polling, news, and sentiment.

Related: Prediction markets are the new open-source spycraft

ETF issuer GraniteShares also filed a prospectus on Tuesday offering six similar funds with the same structures based on US election outcomes. 

“The financialization and ETF-ization of everything continues,” commented Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.

Not the first prediction market-style ETF filings

“This is not the first filing of this kind, and I think it's extremely unlikely that these will be the last,” added Seyffart, in reference to the Roundhill filing for similar funds on Feb. 14.

The Roundhill prospectus also offers six prediction market-style ETFs based on the outcomes of the presidential, Senate, and House elections. 

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

Blockchain advocacy group The Digital Chamber has launched a new unit focused on supporting prediction markets and helping gain regulatory clarity for the sector in the US. 

In an announcement via X on Tuesday, The Digital Chamber unveiled the Prediction Markets Working Group, outlining a multi-year plan to bring clarity to what it called a “misunderstood segment of finance.” 

The Digital Chamber said the first course of action was sending a letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Mike Selig praising his efforts to maintain federal jurisdiction over prediction markets, while also calling for an end to regulation by enforcement.

“In our letter, we applauded Chair Selig’s recent statements regarding the intent for CFTC staff to provide tailored rulemaking and guidance for this rapidly growing segment of the financial and digital asset industries,” The Digital Chamber said. 

“For too long, operators in this space have navigated a maze of regulatory ambiguity including unclear overlaps between federal and state regulators,” it added. 

Source: The Digital Chamber 

Moving forward, the group plans to continue engaging with the CFTC, develop policy principles, submit policy recommendations, publish research and build a coalition of industry stakeholders and participants. 

It also mentioned “participating in litigation” via friend-of-the-court briefings to educate courts on what it deems the “CFTC’s historic regulatory exclusivity” over the sector.

Prediction markets are heading to court 

The move comes amid intense scrutiny of the sector from state governments and regulators. 

Kalshi, one of the leading prediction market platforms, was hit with a civil enforcement action by the Nevada Gaming Control Board on Tuesday. The gaming board is calling for an injunction to stop Kalshi from offering “unlicensed wagering” in the state. 

Both Kalshi and competitor Polymarket have seen multiple state regulators push to stop them from offering markets such as sports contracts in their respective states, arguing that they are offering unlicensed gambling products.  

Last week, Polymarket filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts to preemptively block any potential enforcement action, arguing that the CFTC has primary oversight over the sector, not state governments. 

Related: Prediction markets should become hedging platforms, says Buterin

The CFTC chair has also been echoing such sentiments recently, urging state governments to respect the CFTC’s authority and oversight over the sector or risk facing them in court. 

“Prediction markets aren’t new — the CFTC has regulated these markets for over two decades,” Selig emphasized in a video posted to X on Monday.   

Responding to Selig on Tuesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox welcomed any possible legal stoushes with the CFTC, labeling prediction markets as a form of gambling, which is “destroying the lives” of Americans. 

“Mike, I appreciate you attempting this with a straight face, but I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds. These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple.”

Magazine: Big questions: Should you sell your Bitcoin for nickels for a 43% profit? 

Crypto industry lobby Coin Center has sent a letter to the US Senate Banking Committee urging it to follow through with a bill that seeks to prevent well-intended crypto developers from being prosecuted. 

The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) was first introduced by House Representative Tom Emmer in September 2018, with a new version of the bill written last month by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden to clarify that software developers and infrastructure providers who do not control user funds are not money transmitters under federal law.

Coin Center policy director Jason Somensatto’s letter to the Senate Banking Committee, which he shared on Tuesday, further stated that blockchain innovation cannot thrive in the US when developers face constant threats of prosecution and that they deserve the same legal protections as ordinary internet developers.

Source: Coin Center

“This is the same type of activity conducted every day by internet service providers, cloud hosting services, router manufacturers, browser developers, and email providers,” he said, adding that “we do not threaten those actors with prison when a criminal uses the internet, sends an email, routes traffic, or uploads files.” 

“The same principle must apply to blockchain developers.”

Somensatto added that the “BRCA ensures that the next Satoshi Nakamoto, Vitalik Buterin, or Hayden Adams is able to develop the very systems that a market structure bill is designed to promote and protect.”

Coin Center is a Washington, DC-based non-profit think tank and advocacy center that focuses on public policy issues related to crypto and decentralized technologies.

Several crypto developers convicted in the US last year

Its push for crypto developer protections to coincide with the CLARITY Act comes amid several high-profile convictions of crypto developers last year.

Those convictions include Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and Will Lonergan Hill. 

All three were convicted of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business in 2025. Rodriguez and Lonergan Hill were sentenced to five years and four years in prison, respectively, in November, while Storm is awaiting his sentencing date.

Weakening BRCA provisions could deter developers

The Senate Banking Committee is still reviewing the latest BRCA draft. It has not been marked up or voted on yet.

Somensatto said removing or even weakening provisions of the BRCA would lead to legal uncertainty for crypto developers, potentially deterring well-intended developers from operating in the US and pushing them offshore.

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

Trading platform eToro jumped more than 20% after reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, with revenue coming mainly from its crypto services.

The company reported on Tuesday that its Q4 net income increased 16% from a year ago to $68.7 million, with earnings per share at 71 cents compared to analyst expectations of 60 cents.

Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $3.87 billion, falling 40% from the prior-year period, with its crypto revenues making up the bulk of its earnings at $3.59 billion.

The earnings beat bucked eToro’s main crypto rivals, Coinbase and Robinhood, whose Q4 earnings both missed expectations as their revenues took a hit amid a crypto market crash late last year.

Meanwhile, eToro’s full-year 2025 revenue rose more than 9% from 2024 to $13.84 billion, while its net income jumped 12% year-on-year to $215.7 million. Its full-year crypto revenue was $13 billion, up nearly 7% from 2024.

Shares climb on Q4 beat, CEO says it will catch crypto wave

Shares in eToro (ETOR) ended trading on Tuesday up 20.4% to $33.07 on the company’s earnings beat, making it one of the best-performing crypto stocks for the day. The stock fell slightly after-hours to $33.

Shares in eToro were among the best-performing crypto stocks on Tuesday. Source: Google Finance

eToro CEO Yoni Assia said it is “a pivotal moment for financial services” as artificial intelligence and the increasing use of blockchain infrastructure are “reshaping how people invest and interact with markets.”

“eToro is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity,” he said. “We are positioning eToro for a financial system that is increasingly moving on-chain. With our long-standing leadership in crypto and tokenization, we are well placed to help shape this transition.”

Assia told investors on an earnings call that eToro was seeing some of its crypto-focused customers “suddenly trading commodities” for the first time.

“There's somewhat of a convergence or a shift from crypto, which now has lower volatility, to now basically gold, silver, and other commodities that have higher volatility,” he said.

Meanwhile, the company said that its crypto trading volume in January was down 50% from last year, with 4 million crypto trades over the month, and that the amount invested per trade had also dropped 34% to $182.

However, the total number of trades last month was up 55% year-over-year to 74 million, with the amount invested per trade up 8% to $252.

Magazine: Sharplink exec shocked by level of BTC and ETH ETF hodling — Joseph Chalom

Decentralized SocialFi platform Zora has launched its new attention markets platform on Solana, allowing traders to speculate on which buzzwords, hashtags, trends and topics will go viral online.

“Trade what’s trending. Take positions on any topic, idea, meme, or moment before it breaks,” Zora’s newly launched platform states. 

One of Zora’s founders, Jacob Horne, said on Tuesday that it costs 1 Solana (SOL), currently $85, to deploy a “Trend,” aimed at disincentivizing spam. Trends have no creator rewards.

Zora is also enabling “Pairs” to be created under a Trend, which does offer creator rewards.

In a promotional video, Zora referenced the $redlight and $coldplunge pairs under the $longevity trend, as an example.

BREAKING: Zora launches attention markets on Solana

You can now start markets and take positions on any trending topic, idea, meme, or momentpic.twitter.com/55c8tM5QnB

— Solana (@solana) February 17, 2026

Traders are already testing the app, with “attentionmarkets,” “longevity,” “cats,” “dogs,” “bitcoin” and “aigirlfriend” among the most-traded tickers so far.

Dashboard of leading attention market trends. Source: Zora

The attention markets platform enables users to trade Trends and Pairs like ordinary tokens, with a dashboard to track user profits and losses in real-time.

The ZORA token responded positively to the announcement, rising 6.2% to $0.022 over the last 24 hours, while the broader crypto market retraced 1.2% over the same timeframe.

The launch of Zora’s attention markets coincides with the rapid rise of prediction markets, which are now consistently surpassing $10 billion in monthly trading volume and increasingly being marketed into the mainstream.

Meanwhile, Zora posted a job listing on Monday for an “Attention Economist,” looking for someone who lives on the internet and sees “what’s next before it has a name” by tracking cultural movements across the likes of TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and X.

Base community criticizes Zora’s Solana integration

The Solana integration disappointed some members of the Base community, because Zora moved much of its activity from its native platform to Base last year and launched its first token on the network in April.

Zora also assisted with the launch of Creator Coins linked to Base profiles in July, which even helped Base overtake Solana in daily token creation activity later that month.

Related: Base App sunsets Creator Rewards to double down on trading 

Jacek Trociński, the developer of Base memecoin Degen, said it was “really disappointing” to see Zora “pivot” to launch the attention markets platform on Solana.

“After getting support from the entire @base team for the better part of a year, they capitulated the second the trade changed. Low conviction, questionable morals, rinse users and repeat”. 

“We had to put up with your… stuff for 9 months, extracted every penny from Base with a broken model and now a final pivot to a pump clone on Solana,” Veil Cash builder Apex777.eth said.

Zora listed the Zora (ZORA) token on Solana in January, and Zora’s X profile location now shows up as “Solana.” It also hasn’t made a post about Base in several months. 

However, it has not provided any public statement to suggest it is moving on from Base. Cointelegraph reached out to Zora for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.

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

Key takeaways:

Institutional sentiment is shifting toward ETH as elite funds reallocate capital from Bitcoin to Ether ETFs.

BlackRock’s ETH ETF pairs secure staking with a low 0.25% fee, creating a major win for mainstream crypto access.

Dominance in the $20 billion real-world asset sector proves that big money prioritizes network security over low gas fees.

Ether (ETH) has failed to reclaim the $2,500 level since Jan. 31, leading traders to question what might spark sustainable bullish momentum. Investors are waiting for definitive signs of a favorable sentiment shift; meanwhile, three distinct events could signal the end of the bear cycle that bottomed at $1,744 on Feb. 6.

US-listed Ether spot ETFs daily net flows, USD. Source: CoinGlass

At first glance, the $327 million in net outflows from spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in February is mildly concerning. The apparent lack of institutional appetite while ETH sits 60% below its all-time high could be seen as a lack of confidence in the $1,800 support level. However, these outflows represent less than 3% of the total assets under management for Ether ETFs.

Recent Ether ETF milestones may boost ETH's price

While investors currently focus almost exclusively on short-term flows, the magnitude of recent Ether ETF developments will eventually reflect positively on ETH price. In bearish markets, positive news is often ignored or downplayed, but strategic moves from the world’s largest asset managers can quickly flip investor risk perception.

The latest US Securities and Exchange Commission filings revealed on Monday that the Harvard endowment fund added an $87 million position in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust during the final quarter of 2025. Interestingly, this vote of confidence arrived as Harvard reduced its iShares Bitcoin Trust holdings to $266 million, down from $443 million in September 2025.

Latest notable iShares Ethereum Trust ETF holding changes. Source: Marketbeat

In parallel, BlackRock amended its Staked Ethereum ETF proposal on Tuesday to include an 18% retention of total staking rewards as service fees. While some market participants criticized the hefty fee, the ETF sponsor must compensate intermediaries like Coinbase for staking services. Moreover, the relatively low 0.25% expense ratio remains a net positive for the industry.

The final piece of evidence pointing to growing institutional adoption lies in real world asset (RWA) tokenization, a segment that has surpassed $20 billion in assets. Ethereum stands as the absolute leader, hosting offerings from BlackRock, JPMorgan, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton. This intersection of blockchain applications and traditional finance could trigger sustainable demand for ETH.

RWA aggregate onchain market capitalization, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Nearly half of the $13 billion in RWA deposits on Ethereum represent tokenized gold, though investments in US Treasurys, bonds, and money market funds grew to an impressive $5.2 billion. By comparison, the combined RWA listings on BNB Chain and Solana amount to $4.2 billion—a strong indicator that institutional money is less concerned with fees and more focused on security.

Related: Tokenized RWAs climb 13.5% despite $1T crypto market drawdown

Even if RWA issuers currently focus on closed-end systems using exclusive decentralized finance pools or their own layer-2 networks, intermediaries will eventually find ways to connect with the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Crypto venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital’s latest $650 million funding round signals a strong appetite for tokenized stocks and private credit offerings.

Rather than backing layer-1 blockchains and consumer-focused applications, investors are directing capital toward RWA infrastructure, institutional custody, and trading platforms—a clear sign of market maturation. Although it is difficult to predict how long these shifts will take to impact Ether’s price, these events clearly indicate that a bounce back to $2,500 in the near term is feasible.

Stablecoin platform Bridge, owned by the payments processor Stripe, said it had received conditional approval to operate as a federally chartered national trust bank under the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

In a Tuesday notice, Bridge said it had received conditional approval from the banking regulator, allowing the company to “operate stablecoin products and services under direct federal oversight” once fully approved. Bridge said the charter would allow it to offer custody of digital assets, issue stablecoins and manage stablecoin reserves.

“Our compliance framework already positions Bridge to be GENIUS ready,” said the company, referring to the stablecoin bill signed into law in July 2025. “Now achieving a national trust bank charter will provide our customers the regulatory backbone they need to build with stablecoins confidently and at scale.”

Source: Bridge

Bridge is one of several crypto-aligned companies seeking a national trust bank charter from the OCC following the passage of the GENIUS Act. In December, the agency conditionally approved applications from BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos to convert their respective state-level trust companies, and conditionally approved Circle and Ripple for national trust bank charters.

Related: Bankers push OCC to slow crypto trust charters until GENIUS rules clarified

According to OCC records, Bridge applied for a bank charter in October and was given approval on Feb. 12. Stripe acquired the platform in 2025 as part of a $1.1 billion deal for the company to support stablecoin payments.

In a Wednesday letter, the American Bankers Association (ABA) urged the OCC to slow its approval of crypto companies for national bank trust charters, saying rules under the GENIUS Act were still unclear. According to the banking group, companies could use national trust charters to essentially bypass oversight by US financial regulators.

“[…] ABA strongly encourages OCC to be patient, not measure its application decisioning progress against traditional timelines, and allow each charter applicant’s regulatory responsibilities to come fully into view before moving a charter application forward,” said the letter.

US policymakers still considering how to handle stablecoin rewards

As US lawmakers in the Senate advance bills to establish a comprehensive digital asset market structure framework, White House officials continue to meet with representatives from the crypto and banking industries to address stablecoin yield. Addressing stablecoins within the market structure bill, as well as issues related to tokenized equities and conflicts of interest, could be a sticking point for many lawmakers ahead of a potential vote in the Senate.

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

Dutch payments company Quantoz Payments has become a principal member of Visa, enabling it to issue virtual debit cards backed by its regulated e-money tokens and sponsor third-party fintechs seeking to offer stablecoin-linked payment products across Europe.

Under the agreement, Quantoz will be able to issue Visa-branded virtual cards tied to balances held in its USDQ, EURQ and EURD e-money tokens, allowing users to spend those funds online, in stores and through mobile wallets.

The company will also act as a BIN sponsor, enabling fintech partners to embed card issuance directly into their platforms.

Quantoz holds an Electronic Money Institution license from the Dutch central bank and issues its tokens as regulated electronic money within the European Economic Area, with reserves held 1:1 in safeguarded accounts through a bankruptcy-remote foundation structure. The company said it is also required to maintain at least an additional 2% reserve buffer on its balance sheet.

Quantoz and Visa did not disclose a launch date for the first card programs or name any fintech partners that will use the infrastructure. The partnership is focused on the European market.

Big payment networks racing to integrate stablecoins

As major payment networks compete to integrate stablecoins into mainstream finance, Visa has expanded its capabilities through new settlement integrations and cross-border pilots, while Mastercard is weighing acquisitions to accelerate its onchain infrastructure strategy.

In July, Visa broadened its stablecoin settlement platform to support Global Dollar (USDG), PayPal USD (PYUSD) and Euro Coin (EURC), while adding integration with the Stellar and Avalanche blockchains, allowing institutions to move supported stablecoins across those networks or convert them into fiat through Visa’s infrastructure.

In September, the company launched a Visa Direct pilot enabling banks to pre-fund cross-border payments with USDC and EURC, aiming to support near-instant payouts while reducing the need to park capital in advance. 

The following month, Visa said it would expand support to four stablecoins across four separate blockchains, with CEO Ryan McInerney telling investors that Visa plans to continue growing its stablecoin capabilities after increased activity over the past fiscal year.

Unlike Visa’s expansion through pilots and network integrations, Mastercard appears to be pursuing a more acquisition-driven strategy to deepen its stablecoin infrastructure.

Rather than building each onchain component internally, Mastercard is evaluating the purchase of a turnkey provider that could be integrated into its existing payments network.

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

HIVE Digital Technologies delivered a record fiscal third quarter despite weaker Bitcoin prices, suggesting that its expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing is offsetting broader crypto-market headwinds.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025, HIVE reported $93.1 million in revenue, a 219% increase from a year earlier. Gross operating margin expanded more than sixfold year over year to $32.1 million, representing about 35% of revenue.

The strong performance came even as Bitcoin (BTC) prices declined about 10% during the quarter and network difficulty rose about 15%, conditions that have pressured mining margins across the industry following the 2024 halving.

HIVE generated 885 Bitcoin during the period, a 23% quarter-on-quarter increase, while scaling its installed hashrate to 25 exahashes per second (EH/s).

Beyond mining, the company continues to build out its AI and high-performance computing (HPC) business. In February, HIVE signed a two-year, $30 million contract to deploy 504 Nvidia B200 GPUs for enterprise AI cloud services.

The deal is expected to add about $15 million in annual recurring revenue and lift HIVE’s HPC annualized revenue run rate by about 75%.

The company is targeting $140 million in annual recurring AI cloud revenue by the fourth quarter of 2026, as part of a broader plan to scale total HPC revenue to $225 million as it expands GPU cloud and colocation capacity.

HIVE Digital’s stock was down more than 2% on Tuesday. Source: Yahoo Finance

HIVE’s expansion beyond Bitcoin mining gains traction

HIVE was among the early publicly listed Bitcoin miners, but it began pivoting toward HPC infrastructure several years ago as management anticipated increasing competition and margin compression in the mining sector.

That diversification has become increasingly relevant. Mining profitability deteriorated sharply after the 2024 halving reduced block rewards, while rising network difficulty and volatile Bitcoin prices added further pressure. The environment intensified after Bitcoin retraced from its October 2025 highs, forcing many miners to reassess capital allocation and infrastructure strategy.

HIVE’s “dual-engine” model, using Bitcoin mining as a cash-flow generator while building recurring AI and HPC revenue, reflects a broader shift among publicly traded miners seeking stability beyond Bitcoin’s price cycles.

Source: Joe Nakamoto

Several other Bitcoin miners, including IREN and TeraWulf, have shifted toward AI workloads, reflecting a growing view among analysts that the next infrastructure “supercycle” will be powered by artificial intelligence rather than crypto.

Related: Paradigm reframes Bitcoin mining as grid asset, not energy drain