加密城市 Crypto City

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has long held a reserved attitude towards cryptocurrency, referring to it in 2024 as a 'speculative asset lacking practical use.' However, recently at the 'World Liberty Forum' held at Mar-a-Lago, Solomon admitted to personally holding a 'very small amount' of Bitcoin.

Goldman Sachs CEO breaks silence: From skeptic to Bitcoin holder

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has long held a reserved attitude towards cryptocurrency, having referred to it in 2024 as a 'speculative asset lacking practical use.' According to Bloomberg, Solomon publicly admitted on Wednesday (2/18) at the 'World Liberty Forum' held at Mar-a-Lago in Florida that he currently holds a 'very small amount' of Bitcoin. Although he emphasized that he remains an 'observer' rather than a forecaster of the asset, this statement symbolizes a subtle yet critical qualitative change in Wall Street's traditional stance towards cryptocurrency.

The well-known venture capital firm Founders Fund has completely liquidated its shares in ETHZilla Corp. This company underwent significant transformation last year, shifting its operational focus towards decentralized finance and Ethereum asset reserves. With Ethereum ($ETH) struggling to maintain a price around $2,000, many Ethereum reserve companies that emerged last year have been unable to raise funds. Founders Fund's complete exit is an important signal; if Ethereum does not rise in the short term, more DAT companies will face crises of transformation or even delisting.

Founders Fund fully exits Ethereum reserve company ETHZilla

Warning prediction that the market is overly converging, V criticizes the trend of 'corporate garbage'

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently expressed deep concerns on social media platform X about the current trajectory of the prediction market. He pointed out that while the industry has achieved significant success in scale and influence, it is currently overly converging on an unhealthy product-market fit.

Vitalik described this phenomenon as 'corporate garbage (Corposlop)', meaning that platforms, in order to maintain revenue during a bear market, choose to compromise with short-term dopamine-driven gambling behavior. Such products usually involve short-term cryptocurrency price predictions and sports betting, lacking long-term social value or information aggregation functions.

The core management team collectively resigned, and GEMI's stock price plummeted.

According to the 8-K document received by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 17, the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini (Gemini Space Station Inc.), founded by the Winklevoss brothers, is caught in an unprecedented leadership upheaval.

The company confirmed that COO Marshall Beard, CFO Dan Chen, and CLO Tyler Meade, three core executives, immediately resigned that day. This significant personnel change has raised concerns in the market regarding the company's internal management stability, causing Gemini's stock listed on Nasdaq (NASDAQ: GEMI) to plummet 12.9%, closing at $6.59.

Silicon Valley tech giants are in a talent scramble

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman officially announced on February 15, 2026, through the X platform that Austrian senior software engineer Peter Steinberger will join the OpenAI team to lead the development of the next generation personal AI assistant. This renowned technical genius in the developer community is the creator of the recently sensational open-source AI agent project OpenClaw.

Image source: X/@sama OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that Austrian senior software engineer Peter Steinberger will join the OpenAI team

The auction price set a Guinness World Record, with the son of a famous collector taking over for a hefty sum.

Famous YouTuber and entrepreneur Logan Paul has once again become the focus of the collectibles and cryptocurrency community. According to the auction house Goldin's official data, his extremely rare PSA 10 graded 'Pikachu Illustrator' Pokémon card was ultimately sold for an astonishing price of $16,492,000, officially breaking the Guinness World Record, becoming the most expensive trading card in history. This card was born from a competition in 1998, with only 39 known copies globally, and this auction item is currently the only one known to have received a perfect PSA 10 rating.

After three years of silence, Nexo teams up with Bakkt to launch compliant operations.

According to a report by Reuters, the cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo officially announced its return to the U.S. market on February 16, 2026, three years after the company withdrew from the U.S. due to regulatory pressure. According to official statements, this once-industry-leading digital asset wealth platform has established a new U.S. headquarters in Florida and is restructuring its business framework through partnerships with several leading compliance service providers.

The core strategy of this return lies in establishing deep technical and infrastructure cooperation with the U.S. listed cryptocurrency company Bakkt, providing U.S. users with regulatory-compliant trading and custody services through this platform supported by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Harvard's endowment fund adjusts positions: Bitcoin holdings shrink by 21%, making a significant entry into Ethereum.

According to the latest 13F regulatory filings disclosed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Harvard Management Company (HMC), which manages Harvard University's (Harvard University) endowment fund of up to $56.9 billion, made significant strategic adjustments to its cryptocurrency investment portfolio in the fourth quarter of 2025. The endowment fund of this world-renowned institution reduced its holdings in BlackRock's ($BTC) spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by approximately 21% during that quarter.

Disney threw down the legal gauntlet, suing ByteDance for establishing a 'pirated material library'.

ByteDance's generative artificial intelligence (AI) video tool Seedance 2.0 was embroiled in intense legal disputes right after its launch. According to Axios, global entertainment giant Disney officially issued a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance on February 14, accusing the tool of massively infringing on its copyright assets during the training process.

Disney appointed partner David Singer from Jenner & Block law firm to handle this case, who harshly condemned ByteDance's actions in a letter as akin to a 'virtual smash-and-grab', asserting that this infringement on intellectual property (IP) is deliberate and widespread, and utterly unacceptable.

The scale of cross-border crime surges by 85%, with Southeast Asia becoming the core hub.

According to the (2026 Crypto Crime Report) released by blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, the cryptocurrency transaction volume related to suspected human trafficking activities is projected to experience explosive growth between 2024 and 2025, with an increase of up to 85%. Although the report indicates that this is only the lower limit of a conservative estimate, the monitored inflow of funds has already reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

Source: Chainalysis reported that cryptocurrency transaction volume related to suspected human trafficking activities is expected to grow explosively between 2024 and 2025, with an increase of up to 85%.

The leadership structure has been adjusted again, Tomasz Stanczak resigns as co-executive director

The Ethereum Foundation (Ethereum Foundation, EF) officially announced on February 13, 2026, that current co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak will leave at the end of February, concluding his tenure of less than a year. This change occurred within nine months after the Foundation officially established the co-executive director system in April 2025. After Stanczak's resignation, his position will be taken over by Bastian Aue, who was originally responsible for policy support and long-term projects, and Aue will co-lead the Foundation with current co-executive director Wang Xiaowei.

Enhancing dynamic real-time trading momentum, Smart Cashtags will be launched in a few weeks.

On Valentine's Day (2/14), X's product manager Nikita Bier officially announced that the platform plans to launch a revolutionary feature called 'Smart Cashtags' in the coming weeks. This feature is built on the existing Cashtag mechanism, allowing users to click on currency symbol tags like $BTC or $TSLA in their timeline, which will then pop up real-time price charts, relevant market data, and trading options.

Bessent pointed out that the market volatility is due to "artificial factors," striving to submit the bill to the President for signing before spring.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a strong call during an interview with CNBC on February 13, 2026, urging Congress to pass federal digital asset legislation, widely known as the CLARITY Act, before this spring. Bessent pointed out that the cryptocurrency market has experienced severe turbulence recently, with Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) both significantly dropping from their historical highs set last year, with a monthly decline exceeding 29% at one point.

If Bitcoin is frozen to prevent quantum threats, can it still be unfrozen?

Will Bitcoin be cracked by quantum computers? How can we guard against this? Recently, there has been a voice in the community suggesting that threatened Bitcoin assets be 'frozen'.

But if it really needs to be frozen, perhaps there is hope for users to safely retrieve their assets? The latest report from the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange research team BitMEX Research proposed four methods to mitigate the impact of quantum computer attacks that could lead to Bitcoin being frozen. Theoretically, a system can be constructed to allow Bitcoin deemed 'quasi-frozen' to be redeemed in a quantum-safe environment.

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio discussed the development direction of 'Central Bank Digital Currency' (CBDC) in a recent interview. He pointed out that CBDC has advantages in transaction convenience and institutional operation. From a technical and policy perspective, the likelihood of its implementation is quite high. At the same time, he also highlighted several potential risks of CBDC, including insufficient privacy protection, a significant increase in government control over the flow of funds, and the impact it may have on the trust base of international holders. Dalio did not make a value judgment on CBDC, but rather described the structural impacts this institutional change might bring from the perspectives of 'monetary operation mechanisms' and 'government control structures.'

Cathie Wood expressed her views on the recent resurgence of AI bubble discussions and investors' collective panic regarding Bitcoin on the Ark Invest program. She reminded investors to identify investment value based on technology maturity, asset pricing, and macro liquidity. Below is a summary of the video's viewpoints, analyzing Cathie Wood's perspectives on artificial intelligence, crypto assets, and the current state of the overall financial environment.

Is artificial intelligence a bubble? Elders who have experienced the last economic bubble are overly worried.

Wood illustrated with charts that the capital expenditure of the tech industry as a percentage of GDP is approaching historical highs, similar to past bubble periods, causing unease among investors. Wood stated that she knows many experienced investors who were young during the internet bubble era and are now elderly with gray hair. They have gone through that bubble period and believe it is necessary to protect themselves and their companies from the impact of bubbles, tending to be more conservative in corporate decision-making in an attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes.

UK seizes G7 first launch position, HSBC teams up with Ashurst

The UK Treasury (HM Treasury) recently announced the selection of HSBC Holdings, the largest bank in Europe by asset size, and the internationally renowned law firm Ashurst to jointly lead its 'Digital Gilt' pilot program. This initiative, named 'Digital Gilt Instrument' (abbreviated as DIGIT), symbolizes the UK's commitment to becoming the first country in the Group of Seven (G7) to issue sovereign bonds directly on the blockchain.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission announced the latest guidelines on (2/11), allowing licensed brokers providing virtual asset trading services to expand their business scope to 'virtual asset margin financing', allowing the use of virtual assets as collateral; at the same time, a 'high-level framework' has been established to allow licensed virtual asset trading platforms to offer perpetual contracts to professional investors.

Open virtual asset margin financing to enhance market participation

The Securities and Futures Commission stated that the relevant measures are the latest progress in expanding the diversity of digital asset products and services based on the 'ASPIRe roadmap'. In the future, licensed virtual asset brokers may provide virtual asset financing services to securities margin clients, provided they have sufficient collateral and a sound investor protection mechanism.

Microsoft AI CEO: AI will achieve white-collar job automation within 18 months

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently predicted in an interview with the Financial Times that AI will be capable of handling the vast majority of white-collar jobs within the next 12 to 18 months and will reach human-level performance on most professional tasks.

This means that any profession that involves working in front of a computer, whether it be a lawyer, accountant, project manager, or marketing personnel, may have most of its work content fully automated by AI.

According to an official statement, the Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH) under Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has launched 3 major projects this year, focusing on testing the practical application scenarios of the 'Ringgit stablecoin' and 'tokenized deposits', which include domestic and cross-border wholesale payments and tokenized asset settlements. The list of selected test projects includes:

Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia, Capital A Bhd: Collaborating to launch 'Ringgit stablecoin' for business-to-business (B2B) settlements;

Maybank: Launched tokenized deposits for payment scenarios;