Autonomous AI agents are set to transform economic systems and redefine labor in the coming years.

The post Jansen Teng: AI agents will become autonomous economic actors, teleoperation can cut costs by 60%, and tokenization is key for robotics innovation | Unchained appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Anthropic accuses DeepSeek, Moonshot and MiniMax of using fraudulent accounts to distill Claude capabilities across 16 million exchanges.

The post Anthropic alleges industrial-scale Claude attacks by DeepSeek and other Chinese AI rivals appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The closure of SolanaFloor highlights the vulnerability of blockchain-based platforms to financial instability and security breaches.

The post SolanaFloor winds down operations after challenges at Step Finance appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

World Libertys USD1 stablecoin briefly fell to $0.98 before recovering, as the firm blamed a coordinated social media and trading attack.

The post World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin slips below dollar peg amid coordinated attack claims appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Binance.US's pursuit of deeper banking ties post-lawsuit could reshape US crypto regulation, fostering innovation while ensuring compliance.

The post Binance.US eyes deeper banking ties and charter options after SEC lawsuit withdrawal appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

From 40 Meetups a Month to Nationwide Freedom: Bitcoin Indonesia’s Real-Life Comeback

Boasting 40 meetups a month and a broad estimated community of 55,000 bitcoiners, the Bitcoin Indonesia ecosystem might be one of the most active and successful Bitcoin adoption stories in the world today. 

Indonesia is a nation made up of 17,000 islands with over 380 different tribes and cultures. The nation, located between Australia and China, has a population of over 280 million people, which has been ravaged by inflation and monetary repression, seeing the Ruphia collaps 61% since over the past 30 years versus the dollar. As a result, its population is keenly aware of the problems with fiat currency and often open to alternatives, fertile ground for Bitcoin adoption. 

Today, the Bitcoin Indonesia circular economy has multiple ongoing education and adoption efforts across the country. According to Dimas, a former materials science engineer turned Bitcoin evangelist and one of the founders of Bitcoin Indonesia, there are roughly 55,000 people engaging with Bitcoin in one way or another through their efforts. The 40 meetups a month are hosted across 40 different cities throughout the country, with Fedi, Blink, and Wallet of Satoshi as popular wallets. Bitcoin Indonesia’s Fedimint Federation — a Bitcoin ecash payments infrastructure — is estimated to have between 10,000 and 20,000 members, though specific numbers are not available given ecash’s strong privacy properties. 

They have over 3,600 members in Telegram, over 27,000 on Instagram, and over 10,000 on TikTok, social platforms through which they distribute Bitcoin education content in a mix of Bahasa Indonesia and English to the local population. They are also one of the biggest My First Bitcoin nodes, having graduated 500 students by 2025 of the Bitcoin certification and education program originally born in El Salvador. They aim to double the number of graduates by the end of 2026. 

Surviving a Government Ban

While Bitcoin Indonesia’s success is impressive, it is not the first time Bitcoin adoption has swelled in the country. Back in 2014, there was a Bitcoin adoption initiative that got some international attention called the Bitcoin island, which focused primarily on the beautiful tourist island of Bali. The initiative saw as few as 42 merchants accepting bitcoin up to ‘hundreads’ according to Dimas, including the purchase of a high-profile luxury villa with bitcoin, worth $500,000 at the time or 800 BTC. 

The momentum and adoption must have been strong because the Indonesian government responded to it, but not well. In 2017, the government unleashed a crackdown on alternative currencies in the country by the Bank of Indonesia, which issued a Regulation banning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as payment instruments, effective January 2018. It did not just target cryptocurrencies but also foreign fiat currencies like the dollar or euros for payments. The BI cited risks to financial stability, money laundering, and volatility, guaranteeing in turn the continued impoverishment of its population under a collapsing Ruphia. The crackdown was no paper tiger either; businesses advertising alternative currencies like Bitcoin saw undercover probes lead to shop closures under the threat of arrest and even jail time for operators.

The crackdown coincided with the 2017 bitcoin bull market as well, which saw on-chain fees go as high as $50 dollars, an economic event in Bitcoin which shook the industry and led to the development of the Lightning Network, designed for high-speed, low-cost payments and which is used today throughout Bitcoin Circular Economies. As a result, however, adoption quieted down for years in this asian nation of islands, until after COVID hit, when the founders of the Bitcoin Indonesia community thought of a new way to spur bitcoin adoption in the country.

Motivated by the post-COVID political and economic crisis, as well as the meteoric rise of bitcoin from a low of $4,000 to as high as $70,000, a small group of Indonesian Bitcoiners kickstarted the local Bitcoin community again, using a new legal strategy that had protected credit cards and airmiles rewards programs from the 2018 legal restrictions. Turns out if your payment system is a “closed loop” then you are not a ‘currency’. Bitcoin ownership was still legal as a store of value; it was only the medium of exchange usage that was restricted. But if instead of buying something with bitcoin you are redeeming bitcoin for a product or service, then it is, legally speaking, a fair game. This loophole, which protects the local banks and other major legacy financial players, also gave cover to Bitcoin. 

Here’s Fedi came in to provide infrastructure, leading to an actively used Bitcoin ecash mint, estimated to have 10,000 to 20,000 members. In Bitcoin Indonesia, people don’t spend bitcoin; they redeem it in stores that are members of the network, keeping the use of bitcoin legally compliant with the local laws, while unlocking merchant adoption. 

With the legal strategy sorted out, it was a matter of reactivating the network of Bitcoin OGs in the country, many likely created in that 2014 era of “The Bitcoin Island” in Bali. One moment in particular stood out to Dimas, looking back at the bootstrap phase of the community. He reached out to a local “Bitcoin whale” and mentioned he wanted to start a local My First Bitcoin node. Soon enough, the whale got back to him and offered a commercial location at a nearby mall to host the events; “owned by a son-in-law,” he said, “you can use it for free”. Stunned, Dimas asked, “Does he own the store or something?” The whale said, “No, he owns the mall”. An example, Dimas says that “anything can happen in Bitcoin”. This same initiative eventually led to the 500 students graduating from the My First Bitcoin program in 2025.

Pillars of a Successful Bitcoin Meetup

Leveraging his experience in the broader crypto industry, hosting education events for exchanges like Tokocrypto in 2021, Dimas and the local community also started hosting Bitcoin meetups. Unlike much of the competition in the country at the time, these educational events were free rather than costing attendees hundreds of dollars to access. Eventually, Bitcoin Indonesia developed a template for creating successful Bitcoin meetups, which they published as a guide on GitHub for free.

The main pillars of a successful meetup, according to Dimas and the Bitcoin Indonesia community, are: 

1. Be a genuine Bitcoiner with solid knowledge.
   
   “First, you have to be a Bitcoiner. You have to know enough about Bitcoin.” Dimas explained. The leader must have a real understanding to educate and inspire others authentically.
   
2. Be willing to become a long-term community leader.
   
   “Second, you are willing to become a leader, which means that you should be able to expand. Manage your community, and make it bigger. You don’t just run meet up and that’s it. You have to become like a role figure in your area.”
   
   Success requires ongoing commitment beyond one event. It means being publicly visible, building, growing, and owning the local Bitcoin presence.

1. Secure a free venue with no barriers.
   
   “Third one, you have to find a place, a space, ideally a cafe… that attendees don’t have to pay to attend. There can’t be a minimum order of coffee or something like that.”
   
   The location must be zero-cost and welcoming (no minimum spend), removing financial hurdles so anyone can attend.

2. Provide free branding and materials (with reimbursement).
   
   “We provide the leaders with the flag, with the books, flyers, stickers, banners, and everything. So they print it themselves, and then we just reimburse them.”
   
   Marketing and infrastructure support, like flags, books, flyers, etc, make the event look professional and consistent, while reimbursement keeps the leader motivated. Eventually, donations can support growing meetups. 

3. Keep it completely free for attendees.
   
   “Our brand is free, free meetup, free education.”
   
   Charging for education, like competing crypto academies that charge $1,000–$2,000, creates expectations of quick returns and often leads to disappointment or scams. Free access builds trust and rapid growth.
   
4. Focus on Bitcoin and financial literacy.
   “We try to teach that Bitcoin is a tool that can literally empower you. That’s Bitcoin for everyone. First, what is money? And then what is the history of the Indonesian Rupiah? Why are you feeling so poor? And how Bitcoin can be one of the tools that can help people to achieve true financial freedom.”
   
   By teaching people financial literacy, they become inoculated against Ponzi schemes and other crypto scams, which have ravaged the country and seeded broad skepticism in the public towards this industry. Teaching people about the history of money and specifically their local currency helps them understand why Bitcoin can help them rise and break the cycle of fiat collapse. 

The Bitcoin Indonesia circular economy has been supported by HRF, OpenSats, Block.xyz, and Mike Petersoin of Bitcoin Beach fame.

This post From 40 Meetups a Month to Nationwide Freedom: Bitcoin Indonesia’s Real-Life Comeback first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

French Energy Giant Engie Eyes Bitcoin Mining at Brazil Mega Solar Project

French utility giant Engie is exploring the installation of battery storage systems or bitcoin mining data centers at its newly launched Assu Sol solar plant in Brazil, as it looks to offset mounting curtailment losses and improve project economics, according to Reuters reporting. 

Speaking to reporters, Eduardo Sattamini, Engie’s country manager in Brazil, said the company is evaluating potential “offtakers” that could absorb excess generation from the 895-megawatt-peak facility — the largest solar project in Engie’s global portfolio.

According to Engie, the company is 23.64% owned and 33.20% controlled by the French government, and it typically focuses on low-carbon energy transition.

Located in Brazil’s northeast, Assu Sol entered full commercial operation this month but has already been impacted by grid-imposed curtailments. The restrictions, designed to stabilize Brazil’s power system, force renewable plants to scale back output when supply exceeds demand.

Curtailment has become a growing challenge for solar and wind operators in Brazil since 2023, as a wave of new renewable capacity collides with sluggish demand growth, transmission bottlenecks and rapid expansion in distributed generation, particularly rooftop solar. The result has been billions of reais in lost revenue across the sector.

To mitigate the issue, Engie is considering on-site battery storage or hosting energy-intensive data centers dedicated to bitcoin mining — a strategy that would effectively convert otherwise stranded power into a monetizable asset. Sattamini cautioned, however, that any such initiative would take years to materialize.

“That’s not coming next month,” he said. “It will take a couple of years for us to implement.”

Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI

All this is happening as a growing number of bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI. As margins tighten and block subsidies trend toward zero, these bitcoin miners are repurposing their infrastructure to tap into the artificial intelligence boom. 

Data centers originally built for ASIC-powered SHA-256 hashing are being retrofitted to host high-performance GPUs optimized for AI training and inference workloads.

Large operators are leading the charge. Bitfarms has publicly outlined plans to wind down its Bitcoin mining operations through 2026–27 and convert its Washington State facility into an AI-ready GPU-as-a-Service hub, complete with liquid-cooled Nvidia GB300 hardware backed by a $128 million upgrade deal. 

Other mining firms like IREN have locked in multibillion-dollar GPU cloud agreements with major tech partners like Microsoft, signaling that traditional mining power capacity can be redeployed into stable, contracted AI compute revenue.

Also, Bitdeer Technologies has fully liquidated its corporate bitcoin treasury, reporting zero BTC held as of Feb. 20 after an eight-week drawdown from roughly 2,000 BTC at year-end 2025, including the sale of 189.8 BTC produced during the latest week and its remaining 943.1 BTC in reserves. 

The company said they are moving into AI infrastructure, rolling out NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems in Malaysia and switching several of their sites from crypto mining to AI data centers.

This post French Energy Giant Engie Eyes Bitcoin Mining at Brazil Mega Solar Project first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy (MSTR) Makes 100th Bitcoin Purchase, Adds 592 BTC as Bitcoin Price Falls

Strategy has completed its 100th bitcoin acquisition since adopting the cryptocurrency as its primary reserve asset in 2020, purchasing 592 BTC for roughly $39.8 million at an average price of $67,286 per coin.

The purchase was funded through the sale of 297,940 shares of its Class A common stock via its at-the-market offering program between February 17–22, generating $39.7 million in net proceeds, according to a company statement. 

Including this latest acquisition, Strategy now holds 717,722 bitcoin, acquired for an aggregate $54.56 billion at an average price of $76,020 per bitcoin, making it the largest corporate bitcoin treasury in the world.

The company still has $37.4 billion in securities available for future issuance under its at-the-market program, including $7.8 billion of MSTR stock and $20.3 billion of STRK stock. 

Strategy maintains a public dashboard detailing its bitcoin holdings, purchases, and market prices in compliance with Regulation FD.

The timing of the purchase coincides with renewed weakness in bitcoin, which dropped from around $68,000 over the weekend to near $66,000, putting pressure on MSTR shares. The stock has fallen more than 2% to around $128 in premarket, reflecting the strong correlation between Strategy’s bitcoin exposure and its share price.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, hinted at the purchase on X, posting the company’s bitcoin tracker with the caption “The Orange Century,” signaling the milestone 100th acquisition.

Last week, Strategy purchased $168.4 million in bitcoin, adding 2,486 BTC to bring its total holdings to 717,131 bitcoin at the time. 

Strategy isn’t selling any bitcoin

Earlier this year, Michael Saylor defended Strategy’s approach of regularly buying bitcoin, insisting the company has no plans to sell its holdings even during prolonged market downturns. 

He argued that fears about leverage and liquidity pressures were unfounded, noting the company has sufficient cash to cover dividends and debt for over two years. 

“We’re not going to be selling; we’re going to be buying bitcoin,” Saylor said. “I expect we’ll buy bitcoin every quarter forever.”

At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading near $66,000 and shares of Strategy are at $127.90 in pre-market. 

According to BitcoinTreasuries.net’s January 2026 report, Strategy accounted for over 90% of net new corporate purchases, acquiring 40,150 BTC and ending the month with 712,647 BTC.

Its buying made up 93% of public-company gross purchases and 97.5% of net additions, single-handedly bringing sector-wide accumulation back to late-summer levels.

This post Strategy (MSTR) Makes 100th Bitcoin Purchase, Adds 592 BTC as Bitcoin Price Falls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Missouri Advances Second Attempt to Establish State Bitcoin Reserve

Missouri House Bill 2080, introduced in January by Representative Ben Keathley, has been referred to the House Commerce Committee, where it awaits a public hearing and committee vote. The measure would create a “Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Fund” for the state.

It would authorize the treasurer to acquire, hold, and manage Bitcoin under defined statutory guidelines.

The proposal follows a failed 2025 effort by Keathley, whose prior bill stalled in committee and did not reach a floor vote. This year’s version arrives with revised committee placement and a more structured custody framework.

Under HB 2080, the state treasurer would be permitted to accept gifts, grants, donations, bequests, or devises of bitcoin from Missouri residents and governmental entities. The bill also authorizes the treasurer to purchase and hold bitcoin using state funds, though the framework emphasizes voluntary contributions as the primary funding source.

Bitcoin acquired for the reserve must be placed in cold storage and held for a minimum of five years from the date it enters state custody. During that period, the assets cannot be sold, transferred, or converted. 

After the five-year threshold, the treasurer may sell, transfer, appropriate, or convert the holdings into another cryptocurrency authorized under the bill.

The legislation defines bitcoin as a decentralized digital asset operating on a peer-to-peer network without centralized control. It also codifies “cold storage” as an offline method of securing private keys in a protected physical environment. By embedding definitions into statute, lawmakers seek to establish a legal foundation for custody and risk management.

HB 2080 requires the treasurer to develop formal custody policies and authorizes the use of a qualified, independent, United States-based third-party entity to assist in securing and administering the reserve. The bill mandates biennial public reporting and oversight procedures designed to provide transparency into the fund’s holdings and activity.

A separate provision would allow Missouri state agencies, with approval from the Department of Revenue, to accept cryptocurrency for taxes, fees, penalties, and other state obligations. Transaction costs may be borne by the payer.

If the Commerce Committee advances the bill, it will move to the full House for debate and vote. Approval there would send it to the Senate for committee review, floor consideration, and final passage. 

The measure would then proceed to Governor Mike Kehoe for signature or veto. The bill carries a proposed effective date of Aug. 28, 2026.

Missouri eliminates state capital gains

Last year, Missouri House Bill 594 (HB594) cleared the Missouri House and was signed into law by Mike Kehoe. The measure has since been implemented, eliminating Missouri’s state capital gains tax by allowing residents to deduct 100% of federally reported capital gains from their state adjusted gross income — meaning Missourians owe no state tax when selling or spending bitcoin.

Effective Jan. 1, 2025, Missouri became the first state to fully repeal state income taxes on capital gains for individuals. The 100% deduction applies to both short- and long-term gains derived from assets such as stocks, real estate and cryptocurrency, though it does not extend to distributions from retirement accounts.

This post Missouri Advances Second Attempt to Establish State Bitcoin Reserve first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitdeer (BTDR) Dumps Bitcoin Treasury After Eight-Week Drawdown, Holds Zero BTC

Bitdeer Technologies has fully liquidated its corporate bitcoin treasury, reporting zero BTC held as of Feb. 20 and completing an eight-week drawdown from roughly 2,000 BTC at 2025 year-end.

In its latest weekly production update, the Singapore-based miner disclosed that it produced 189.8 BTC during the period and sold the entire amount. It also offloaded its remaining 943.1 BTC in reserves in a single week, wiping out its balance sheet holdings. The figures exclude customer deposits.

The move marks a sharp break from the traditional public miner strategy of accumulating bitcoin as a treasury asset. With the liquidation, Bitdeer becomes the largest publicly traded miner by self-mining hashrate to hold no bitcoin on its balance sheet.

The selloff caps a steady reduction in holdings that accelerated this month. Bitdeer held about 1,530 BTC at the end of January before cutting that figure to 943.1 BTC by Feb. 13. The final week’s transactions eliminated the remaining balance entirely.

The decision comes as mining economics tighten. Bitcoin network difficulty recently jumped 14.7%, while hashprice has fallen below $30 per PH/s/day. Bitdeer’s gross margin declined to 4.7% in the fourth quarter, down from 7.4% a year earlier, reflecting mounting operational pressure following the halving and rising competition.

At the same time, the company is raising capital to fund expansion beyond core mining. Bitdeer recently priced a $325 million convertible notes offering and a $43.5 million equity placement, earmarked for data center buildouts, ASIC development and growth in high-performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services.

Bitdeer’s stock was trading near $7.75 in pre-market trading.

Bitdeer: Bitcoin selling not a concern

In a post on X, the company said the decision to sell and the liquidation should not be interpreted as a signal about Bitcoin’s long-term prospects. Instead, it framed the decision as a liquidity measure tied to evaluating multiple powered land acquisition opportunities and scaling infrastructure.

“Our decision to sell Bitcoin should not be a concern for the broader market,” Bitdeer said.

Operationally, Bitdeer’s mining output has increased. The company mined 668 BTC in January, up 430% year over year, and expanded its self-mining hashrate to 63.2 EH/s, with total proprietary hashrate reaching 65.1 EH/s. Rather than retaining coins, however, the firm is converting production into cash to support capital expenditures.

The zero-BTC position sets Bitdeer apart from peers that continue to hold significant reserves. MARA Holdings maintains a treasury of roughly 53,250 BTC, while Riot Platforms holds around 18,000 BTC. Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, remains the largest corporate holder with more than 717,000 BTC on its balance sheet.

Across the sector, miners are increasingly reallocating capital toward AI and HPC infrastructure, which can offer contracted revenue streams less directly tied to bitcoin price cycles. Bitdeer has begun rolling out NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems in Malaysia and is converting select sites in the United States and Europe from crypto mining facilities into AI data centers.

The company has not indicated whether it intends to rebuild its bitcoin position in the future.

All this is happening as the Bitcoin price plunged more than 5% on Sunday evening EST, sliding below $65,000 with most of the move unfolding in a sharp two-hour sell-off driven by large holders sending coins to exchanges and recent buyers exiting at a loss. 

The drop pushed Bitcoin near $64,500, down roughly $3,500 on the day, after a weekend breakdown from the $67,000 range that snapped a period of tight consolidation and accelerated into thin liquidity. 

The decline also marks Bitcoin’s first stretch of six consecutive negative weekly closes, six straight closes below its 100-week moving average, and three consecutive weekly closes beneath its 2021 high.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading slightly above $66,000.

This post Bitdeer (BTDR) Dumps Bitcoin Treasury After Eight-Week Drawdown, Holds Zero BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

A $7.8 trillion cash pile sits in US money market funds, earning, rolling, waiting. The Federal Reserve began this easing cycle on Sept 18, 2024, and it's now been 522 days since that first cut.

Looking at historical market movements, we're entering a window whereby funds have typically started to rotate back into riskier assets. Bitcoin analyst Matthew Hyland made exactly this claim on X over the weekend.

Historically around 500-1000 days after the FED begins rate cuts the liquidity begins to leave the money market funds and flow out into the markets.

The calendar supports the setup, but the incentives will decide the outcome.

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Feb 16, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The latest weekly read from the Investment Company Institute puts total money market fund assets at $7.791T for the week ended Feb 18, 2026, with $6.405T in government funds, $1.242T in prime funds, and $0.144T in tax exempt funds, a distribution that tells you where the demand has preferred to sit, close to Treasurys and close to daily liquidity.

We can view this as “cash on the sidelines,” a reserve that can stampede into risk assets once the Fed turns the corner.

However, the cash is a yield product; it has incentives, mandates, a monthly statement, and a reason it accumulated here in the first place. Rates rose, yields followed, and cash found a home with fewer questions attached, and now rates are stepping down, and the question shifts from size to direction.

The effective federal funds rate sits at 3.64% in the January 2026 monthly print, down from 4.22% in September 2025, a simple compression of return that changes what “safe” pays.

You can see it in money fund yield tracking as well. Crane’s index sits around 3.58% for the week ended Jan 2, 2026, a quieter yield that narrows the gap between waiting and reaching. The cash pile still looks tall on a chart, and the path under it is a slope, and slopes create motion.

The easy reservoir that used to sit in the Fed’s overnight reverse repo facility has already drained down to almost nothing, $0.496B on Feb 20, 2026, so the next “liquidity story” lives in portfolio choices rather than a mechanical facility unwind.

The cash can stay where it is, roll into duration, move into credit, drift into equities, or leak into crypto rails, and each path has a different set of consequences.

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Feb 19, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

The cash pile has a job, and the job shapes the exit

Money market funds hold more than one kind of money. ICI’s weekly split shows $3.082T in retail money market funds and $4.709T in institutional funds, and institutional cash carries a different posture, it pays vendors, it backs credit lines, it covers payroll cycles, it sits there as policy, and those policies move slower than memes.

That composition sets the baseline for the flow math. A 1% move in total money market assets equals about $78B, a 5% move equals about $390B, a 10% move equals about $779B, and those numbers get interesting even before you argue about where they land, since they tell you how large the gear is that the rate path is trying to turn.

The incentive lever is yield, which follows the Fed’s path.

Morgan Stanley frames it in the plain language investors actually live with, money market yields track the Fed, cuts compress returns, and investors reevaluate where they sit as the path evolves. The forward-looking part is simple: the more the path points down, the more the ledger begins to ask, “What else pays,” and the answer changes by risk tolerance and by mandate.

Macro liquidity watchers will also keep one eye on the Treasury’s own cash balance and the Fed’s balance sheet, since both shift the waterline in reserves and financing.

The Fed’s balance sheet, WALCL, stands at $6.613T, and the Treasury General Account weekly average sits around $912.7B for the same week, both series that traders read like gauges, each movement a reminder that cash is a system with valves.

Rotation paths, duration first, risk later, crypto as a thin rail

A rate-cutting cycle creates a menu, and the first courses look like duration and credit. Morgan Stanley points out that in prior easing windows, investment-grade bonds beat cash equivalents between the end of hikes and the end of cuts, providing a grounded alternative to the idea that money-market outflows automatically become equity or crypto inflows.

That detail is important for Bitcoin, since it depends on marginal flow, and marginal flow depends on which bucket investors choose first. In a world where cash rolls into bonds, the rotation still exists, and the risk bid looks more measured. Though when cash skips the bond aisle and reaches for risk, the rotation becomes a discontinuity.

Crypto has its own liquidity mirror. The stablecoin market stands at $308B, with USDT at $186B, a balance sheet for on-chain “cash” that can expand when risk appetite rises, and contract when the system tightens.

Stablecoins carry a different role than money market funds, and the comparison helps; each is a wrapper for short-term value storage, and each wrapper moves when the opportunity cost shifts.

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Feb 21, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

Bitcoin also has a relatively new intake pipe in US spot ETFs. Inflow and outflow totals become a ruler for the money market scenario math, since you can compare a hypothetical $39B shift to a realized $61.3B of ETF intake, and you can see how quickly the scale begins to matter.

Three scenarios, one cash pile, different consequences

1. Sticky cash, cautious Fed, slow drift. Inflation progress stays uneven, and policy makers stay alert to upside inflation risks, an attitude reflected in the Financial Times' coverage that even included discussion of the possibility of hikes as a risk scenario.In this path, money market yields slide slowly, operational cash remains operational, and outflows run small, roughly 0 to 2% over 12 months, about $0 to $156B, with much of that moving into bond ladders and high-grade duration as return differentials shift.Bitcoin’s path in this scenario follows broader risk sentiment and the steady cadence of ETF demand, and the “cash wall” stays mostly a photograph.
2. Soft landing, faster cuts, search for return. The Fed’s own projections provide a map for how that could look. The December 2025 Summary of Economic Projections shows a median federal funds rate at 3.4% by the end of 2026 and 3.1% by the end of 2027, a longer slope that compresses the yield earned by waiting.In this path, the trigger looks like another step down in money fund yields, and Crane’s index becomes a weekly gauge for how quickly the incentive changes.Outflows land in a wider set of buckets, and the range grows, 5 to 10% over 12 months, about $390B to $779B. A split that keeps faith with institutional behavior can still send the majority into bonds and credit, and a smaller slice into equities, and a thin slice into crypto rails, and even a 0.5% share of total money market assets translates to about $39B.

   In this scenario, Bitcoin becomes a flow instrument, and the story shifts toward market microstructure, incremental supply meets incremental demand, and price tends to respond in jumps rather than in steps.

3. Recession cut, flight to safety first, policy relief later. Rate cuts arrive with a darker macro soundtrack, and risk assets wobble, and cash demand rises as investors rebuild buffers.In that world, money market funds can grow, and a 3 to 8% increase in AUM becomes plausible, about +$234B to +$623B, and the rotation story flips into a hoarding story, at least for the first phase.Bitcoin’s response in this path looks like a whipsaw, drawdown risk first, recovery potential later, and the timing becomes the dominant variable.

Across all three scenarios, the common denominator is incentive. The Fed began cutting on Sept 18, 2024, with a 50 basis point move to a 4.75 to 5.00% target range, and the calendar since then has moved faster than the cash has moved, which leaves the market watching the yield slope and the allocation choices.

The global backdrop, and what to watch each week, the gauges that move first

Macro stories age well when they rest on a durable context.

The IMF’s January 2026 update projects 3.3% global growth in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027, a baseline that supports a soft-landing narrative even as regional risks remain, and that matters for risk assets, since growth expectations influence allocation behavior as much as yields do.

Meanwhile, the plumbing gauge that powered many liquidity stories earlier in the decade, the Fed’s ON RRP facility, has already drained close to zero, which shifts attention back to the slower gears, money market composition, institutional constraints, and the relative return of bonds, equities, and alternative assets.

It also explains why the “cash on the sidelines” framing feels both true and incomplete. The cash exists, but its exit is not mechanical. It requires decisions, and those decisions follow incentives.

To track that process, a small set of recurring gauges matters more than headlines:

• Money market assets and composition: ICI’s weekly report provides the base map, total AUM, government vs. prime share, and the retail–institutional split.

• Money fund yields: Crane’s index offers a compact read on the incentive to stay put.

• The rate path: The effective federal funds rate shows what “cash” actually earns.

• Forward guidance: The Fed’s projected destination in the SEP anchors expectations.

• System plumbing: ON RRP, WALCL, and WTREGEN indicate how reserves and liquidity are shifting.

• Crypto’s internal cash: Stablecoin supply, plus daily and cumulative Bitcoin ETF flows, show how much of that rotation is reaching digital rails.

Taken together, these gauges offer a cleaner way to talk about “liquidity,” and keep us anchored when the market tries to turn it into a slogan.

The market has a way of turning a calendar into destiny, and a cash pile into a prophecy.

The better read comes from the incentives and the pipes, yields that slide, wrappers that reprice, mandates that loosen or hold, and a set of flow rails that turn small percentages into large numbers when they meet an asset built for marginal demand.

The post Bitcoin can rebound fast and hard as $7.7T in “sidelined funds” enter new opportunity window appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's weekend selloff led to about $100 billion in crypto market value losses during the reporting period and was triggered by a sudden burst of tariff policy uncertainty.

Over the last 24 hours, BTC price had slipped below $65,000, pulling the broader crypto market down with it. The top digital asset had recovered above $66,000 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate's data.

Notably, liquidations amplified the move. CoinGlass data showed that more than $500 million in crypto positions were wiped out during the swing, with the largest single liquidation reported on HTX’s BTC-USDT pair at about $61.51 million.

These losses represent the kind of forced unwind that can turn a macro headline into a fast, self-reinforcing move in crypto.

As a result, the crypto market sentiment also cracked. According to Alphractal's data, the crypto Fear and Greed Index fell to 5, labeled “Extreme Fear,” a level not seen since 2019.

Whether traders treat that as a contrarian signal or a warning sign, it fit the tape as investors were de-risking first and asking questions later.

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A court ruling set off a chain reaction, then the policy path changed again

The immediate trigger of this market rout was political and legal.

On Feb. 20, the US Supreme Court struck down a broad swath of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Reuters later reported that US Customs and Border Protection said it would halt collection of those IEEPA tariffs at 12:01 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 24, more than three days after the ruling, while also providing no immediate guidance on refunds.

That alone would have been enough to create confusion. Instead, the White House moved quickly to replace the struck-down tariffs with a new framework.

On Feb. 20, President Donald Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and imposed a 10% ad valorem temporary import surcharge for 150 days, effective Feb. 24. He later revised the numbers to 15%.

He wrote on Truth Social:

“I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been “ripping” the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level. During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again.”

That sequence matters for crypto because the issue was not just the tariff level. It was the pace and unpredictability of the changes.

Markets had to process a court decision, a delayed agency implementation, a new executive workaround, and then a higher rate, all in the same news cycle.

For a market that trades around the clock and uses leverage heavily, that is a volatility event.

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The real macro transmission was uncertainty, not just tariffs

The crypto market selloff occurred in a macro environment already fragile.

The US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index on FRED printed 706.97 for Feb. 19, a sharp jump that captured how quickly policy noise had become a tradable macro factor.

The separate FRED categorical Trade Policy Uncertainty index was already elevated at 3,027.14433 in December 2025.

In other words, crypto was not hit from a calm baseline. It was hit in an environment that was already primed for disorderly repricing.

There is also a second layer to the shock, the fiscal and balance-sheet overhang created by the court decision.

Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that reversing the IEEPA tariffs could generate up to $175 billion in refunds.

It also said IEEPA receipts had been running at about $500 million per day under the prevailing tariff schedule.

Those numbers are large enough to affect Treasury cash flow assumptions, importer balance sheets, and, by extension, the risk premium investors demand in leveraged or cyclical assets.

That is a direct channel into crypto. When macro uncertainty rises, investors cut leverage, reduce optional risk, and move toward liquidity.

Crypto feels that quickly because it is often the first market where positioning is light enough to trim and liquid enough to exit.

Meanwhile, the tariff story also does not automatically translate into a clean inflation unwind.

US banking giant Goldman Sachs reportedly advised consumers not to expect prices to fall quickly even after tariffs are lifted, because companies tend to raise prices faster than they cut them.

Goldman estimated tariff passthrough had lifted core PCE by about 0.7% through January, with only about 0.1% additional impact expected for the rest of 2026.

That reinforces the idea that the dominant market variables here are uncertainty and margin pressure, not a fresh inflation surge in itself.

Cross-asset signals lined up with that interpretation. Reporting on the tariff reversal and replacement described the dollar weakening and gold rising while BTC fell.

This is a familiar pattern when investors move toward traditional defensive assets and treat crypto as a risk vehicle rather than a safe haven.

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Trade policy continuity, not clarity, kept risk appetite under pressure

If the Supreme Court ruling was supposed to calm markets, the follow-through did the opposite.

Reuters reported that US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said countries with existing trade deals were not moving to withdraw and that the administration would maintain policy continuity, while also rebuilding its trade strategy through other legal tools, including Section 301 and Section 232.

He also said Trump raised the temporary tariff to 15% because of the “urgency of the situation.”

That posture helped preserve tariff policy, but it did not reduce uncertainty.

The European Commission responded by demanding “full clarity” from Washington and insisting that “a deal is a deal,” after Trump moved from the court setback to a temporary 10% tariff and then to 15% within a day.

Reuters also noted that the EU’s comparative advantage appears to have narrowed because countries without a deal may now face the same 15% headline rate.

For markets, that is the problem in one frame. Policy continuity exists, but policy clarity does not.

And when clarity is missing, capital tends to shorten duration and reduce risk. That is what crypto traded like over the weekend.

Bitcoin is now back at the levels where positioning can accelerate the next move

Inside crypto, the macro shock hit a market that was already technically sensitive.

According to CryptoSlate data, $65,000 was already a key support area for the top crypto, with a break below potentially accelerating the decline towards $60,000. However, a recovery back could help shift the tone and push the flagship asset above $70,000.

Meanwhile, the market had also seen an increase in options hedging and downside protection clustered around $60,000, which can make that level more important if spot weakens again.

That setup explains why the weekend move felt larger than the headline alone. Tariff uncertainty hit macro sentiment, forcing liquidations to accelerate the drop, and the market landed near levels where options positioning can start to shape short-term price action.

So, the next phase will likely depend less on one more tariff headline and more on whether the policy path becomes easier to map over the next 150 days.

A grinding base case is possible, with a temporary surcharge in place, recurring legal and administrative noise, and crypto stuck in a wide, volatile range. A relief rally is also possible if refund guidance improves and the market begins to believe there are real boundaries around the tariff regime.

However, the risk scenario is still the one macro traders will watch most closely, a shift from temporary surcharge politics into a broader, longer trade conflict that deepens risk-off positioning across assets.

For crypto, the signal to watch is not one green candle. It is whether policy volatility remains elevated and whether investors continue treating digital assets as the first to cut when macro noise rises.

The post Bitcoin rebounds after $100B tariff whiplash — but $60k options price target hints at bigger risk appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitdeer, the largest Bitcoin mining company by hashrate, wiped its BTC ledger clean this week.

Its corporate Bitcoin treasury now shows 0 BTC as the company sold 189.8 newly mined BTC and pulled 943.1 BTC from reserves.

A mining business usually carries Bitcoin like pressure in a pipe, some flows out as revenue, some stays behind in its treasury as a store of value/buffer, and the buffer tells you how management thinks about the next bend in the line.

Bitdeer’s buffer reached zero in one stroke, and that invites a question; what does the operator need the cash for, and what does the operator believe the next quarter looks like?

In mining, the bills arrive in fiat, power, hosting, payroll, parts, and the coins arrive in bitcoin, so every treasury policy becomes a statement about timing, risk, and access to capital.

There is also a second layer to this week’s printout. Bitdeer’s balance sheet already showed a visible Bitcoin inventory at year-end, and the company disclosed “Bitcoins held: 2,017” as of Dec 31, 2025.

The move from a four-digit stash to a weekly update that reads zero becomes a story about pacing, cash conversion, governance, and mining as a business that keeps changing its shape.

Put those together, the weekly update shows a company choosing certainty, converting a declining dollar-valued reserve into operating liquidity, and setting its risk profile closer to a utility than a stash account. This is where the word capitulation enters the room as a description of what happens when the margin gauge sits near its red line, and the treasury turns from strategy into fuel.

Using the weekly numbers, Bitdeer sold about 1,132.9 BTC in total, 943.1 from reserves plus 189.8 newly mined. Using a $60,000 to $70,000 band, a range around the Bitcoin price shown on Bitdeer’s Mining Insights page, that represents roughly $68 million to $79 million of liquidity, enough to matter inside a miner’s cash cycle, and enough to signal a change in posture.

A treasury line item meets a financing calendar

The BTC sale sits alongside a capital markets week that appears to be a deliberate reshuffle. Bitdeer announced the pricing of an upsized $325.0 million 5.00% convertible senior notes offering due 2032, and a registered direct offering priced at $7.94 per share.

The intended uses were a capped call transaction, repurchasing $135 million of its 2029 converts, and funding datacenter expansion, HPC and AI, ASIC development, and working capital.

This stack tells you where the money wants to go and what kind of risk the company wants to carry along the way.

Converts and capped calls are financial plumbing; they wrap volatility, they trade upside for runway, and they aim to keep the gears turning while the revenue line breathes. A miner that empties its BTC line item in the same window it raises and refinances debt is broadcasting a preference for controlled funding channels, and a preference for building capacity that generates invoices, compute, and contracts.

That framing fits a broader 2026 narrative, miners increasingly present themselves as energy to compute businesses, with Bitcoin as one revenue stream and AI and HPC as another capital intensive destination.

VanEck’s 2026 outlook argues the mining pivot creates both opportunity and strain, and it anticipates consolidation as balance sheets absorb the cost of growth.

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Hashprice sets the tempo, and the forward curve sets expectations

Mining economics rarely fail with a bang, they drift, they squeeze, they force small decisions that add up to one large decision. The sector’s margin gauge is hashprice, the revenue per unit of hash, and recent readings highlight why treasuries become liquid.

Luxor’s latest Hashrate Index roundup, puts USD hashprice around $34.05 per PH per day, down about 4% week over week, and it notes that hashprice sits close to breakeven for many miners depending on costs and machine type.

The forward market prices average about $28.73 per PH per day over the next six months, a lower expectation that pulls on every treasury policy like gravity.

Difficulty is the second dial, it moves the denominator, and it can swing quickly when weather, downtime, or curtailment knocks rigs offline.

Bitcoin saw a record 11.16% difficulty drop to 125.86T, followed by a record surge to 144.40T in the last adjustment. The next adjustment is projected to be lower in early March. This pattern looks like whiplash for operators who plan capex and liquidity in weeks and months.

Bitdeer’s own dashboard reflects the same neighborhood, Bitdeer lists network hashrate around 1,022 EH/s and difficulty around 144.4T, and it displays “daily earnings” of $0.0289 per terahash. The operator has to live within those numbers and chooses where to absorb the volatility: inside the treasury, inside the debt stack, or inside the growth plan.

Capitulation arrives as accounting, then as consolidation

When traders talk about capitulation, they picture a waterfall, a sudden flush that cleans the book. Mining tends to capitulate in ledger entries and financing terms, coins sold, reserves trimmed, converts priced, equity issued, and weaker operators forced into mergers or shutdowns.

Bitdeer’s week fits a scenario where treasury liquidation acts as a financing bridge, a conversion of BTC into cash that supports a broader buildout and a reshaping of liabilities. This included machinery, proceeds directed into capped calls, repurchases of existing converts, and funding for datacenters, HPC and AI, ASIC development, and working capital. A business following that script uses Bitcoin as inventory that can be turned into concrete, chips, and contracts.

Luxor’s Hashrate Index forward market pricing around $28.73 per PH per day implies continued pressure on margins, and that pressure tends to push miners toward one of three exits, selling BTC, selling equity, or selling the business.

VanEck’s outlook places 2026 in a consolidation frame, and it points directly at the financing choices, dilutive converts, treasury sales into weakness, and the split between operators who can fund two tracks, Bitcoin mining and AI compute, and operators who can fund one.

That is why Bitdeer's sale of its reserves could be a canary in the coal mine. The event serves as a case study and a warning label. A miner can maintain exposure to Bitcoin through operations while holding fewer coins, and it can reframe itself as infrastructure with Bitcoin-priced risk managed elsewhere.

Across the sector, repeated versions of this trade would reduce the pool of miners that accumulate BTC on balance sheets, and it would increase the sensitivity of miner flows to short term profitability.

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What we watch from here

First, the persistence of the policy, a one-week liquidation can be a timing choice, a multi-month pattern becomes a new treasury doctrine. The most useful signal is the next set of weekly updates, with the same “BTC holdings” line, and the same separation between corporate holdings and customer deposits.

Second, the cost of capital. The convert and equity terms show a company building runway, and that runway becomes a competitive weapon when hashprice compresses. In a stressed regime, the miner with cheaper money buys time, and the miner with expensive money sells coins, sells shares, or sells assets.

Third, the margin backdrop. Luxor’s Hashrate Index frames hashprice near breakeven for many operators, the difficulty whipsaw shows how quickly the denominator can swing, and the network is still adjusting. Miners build on these moving floors, and their treasuries become shock absorbers.

The cleanest read on this week is procedural, miners follow incentives, and incentives flow through hashprice, difficulty, and financing terms.

Bitdeer turned its reserve into cash, and it did so in a week where it also tuned its capital stack, and outlined spending priorities that sit squarely in datacenters, HPC, AI, and ASICs.

The sector can absorb one company clearing its treasury, and the sector also has to reckon with the pattern, a mining industry that treats Bitcoin as throughput, and treats balance sheet exposure as a variable to be dialed up or down depending on the cost of keeping the lights on.

The post Largest US Bitcoin miner dumps entire BTC stash as margin pressure intensifies appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The S&P 500 has a concentration problem, and crypto still rides the same plumbing

Ten companies have been carrying the S&P 500 like a heavy tool belt, and the weight shows up in one number: about 41% at the end of 2025.

As of press time, the top ten add up to about 37.3%, and Nvidia alone accounts for about 7.37% of the index.

That little drop matters as a signal worth tracking closely to determine whether it reflects normal operating pressure or a developing structural issue.

Global Markets Investor calls it a bubble, and the word fits the mood, yet the more useful framing comes from the way concentration behaves like a wrapper, it changes how risk travels through the pipes, it changes which valves can flood the room, and it changes what “the market” even means in practice.

Let's start with the simplest receipt, the index math, when the top ten are about 37.3% of the S&P 500, a uniform move in those ten flows straight into the benchmark at roughly 0.373 times the move, even before you argue about what the other 490 names are doing.

That part sits in plain sight, and still gets missed in daily commentary. The index reads like one tape, yet under the hood it behaves like a bundle of cables, with ten thick wires carrying a lot of current.

The deeper warning light comes from the way size gaps have stretched, the Goldman-linked chart below compares the largest stock to the 75th percentile stock, and the ratio sits above 700 times in recent readings, which is the kind of discontinuity engineers circle in red.

The ten largest companies climbed from about 19% of the index at end-2015 to nearly 41% by end-2025, which is a decade of passive flows, buybacks, and winner-take-most dynamics written into one line.

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When that kind of weight builds, the story investors tell themselves becomes part of the structure, “diversified exposure” turns into a promise made by packaging, and packaging starts to behave like leverage, even when the label reads “broad market.”

The interesting part of February 2026 is that the system showed a different pattern, concentration eased from its end-2025 high, and breadth started to show up in the performance split between cap-weighted and equal-weighted versions of the same index.

MarketWatch flagged the equal-weight S&P beating the cap-weighted S&P by the widest margin since 1992, which reads like a quiet vote, money moving from the thick wires into the thinner ones.

That is where the forward-looking question lives, the question is less about whether concentration looks extreme on a chart, and more about how it resolves, through catch-up, through catch-down, or through a longer period where the same handful of firms keep compounding, and the wrapper tightens again.

Three ways this resolves, catch-up, catch-down, re-acceleration

Goldman’s historical work gives a useful map, it looked across roughly a century of concentration episodes, and it found a pattern where markets often rallied in the 12 months after peak concentration, and where “catch-up” breadth tended to show up more often than “catch-down” collapses.

Goldman also kept the caution lights in view, 1973 and 2000 sit in the history as moments when concentration peaks aligned with cycle turns, and when leadership concentration turned from a feature into a fault line.

From here, three scenarios carry most of the usable risk ranges.

1. Catch-up broadening. The leaders grind sideways, the rest of the index lifts, concentration eases, and the market stays intact while the internal plumbing improves. Goldman’s framing supports this as a common resolution path, and the early-2026 equal-weight outperformance reads like the first turn of that valve.
2. Catch-down unwind. Leadership breaks, and the index feels it through the mechanical weight of the top ten. With the top ten around 37.3%, a 10% drawdown in those names, with the rest flat, maps to roughly 3.7% down for the index, and a 20% drawdown maps to roughly 7.5% down, before second-order effects like risk-parity rebalancing, vol targeting, and sentiment spillovers even enter the room.
3. Re-acceleration. Concentration persists because the largest firms keep delivering, and the market keeps paying them for it. Goldman argued that the current era carries lower valuations than the 2000 setup and higher profitability than earlier concentration eras, which supports a path where the same names keep absorbing flows and the wrapper stays tight.

Those scenarios sound abstract, yet they map to decisions readers already live with, retirement allocations anchored to broad market ETFs, corporate treasuries tied to benchmark performance, and crypto portfolios that absorb the same global risk impulse, even when the thesis starts from a different story.

Why Bitcoin keeps feeling like a macro passenger

When equity leadership turns into a single-trade index, crypto traders end up watching the same gauges, liquidity, rates, earnings revisions, and volatility, and the reason sits in correlation regimes, not slogans.

NYDIG put receipts behind the idea, Bitcoin’s rolling three-month correlation with US equities has repeatedly risen into roughly 0.4 to 0.6 during stress, and gold’s correlation stayed around zero over the period it discussed, which frames BTC as a risk asset when markets tense up, and as a freer variable when the room relaxes.

That matters for this concentration cycle: a catch-down unwind in mega-caps offers a realistic path into a broader deleveraging moment, and BTC often rides that wave as higher-beta exposure, which can feel like the same plumbing with different stickers.

It also matters for the more constructive path, catch-up broadening tends to bring a different kind of risk appetite, the kind that supports smaller stocks, international equities, and speculative duration trades at the margin, and BTC can benefit from that shift through flow and sentiment, even while the narrative stays framed around halving cycles and on-chain supply.

Either way, the S&P concentration becomes a macro backdrop for crypto, the kind that changes the shape of drawdowns, and changes the timing of rebounds.

The earnings map offers a quieter explanation for deconcentration

One way concentration eases comes through a boring channel, profits broaden, and investors follow the ledger.

FactSet’s preview for calendar 2026 pointed to roughly 15% S&P 500 earnings growth, and it noted that two Magnificent Seven names sit among the top five contributors to that growth, which implies a path where earnings leadership spreads even if market-cap leadership remains clustered for a while.

That framing pairs well with the early-2026 breadth signals, it turns the concentration conversation from a fear trade into a sequencing trade, first the rest of the index starts carrying more earnings load, then the market starts pricing that load, then the index weight shifts.

FactSet also documented the earlier pattern, Magnificent Seven earnings growth running ahead of the rest of the index in Q3 2025 expectations, which helps explain why concentration stayed sticky into the end of 2025 in the first place.

In other words, concentration often sits atop fundamentals for a long time, and the market treats that as stability, right up to the moment the fundamentals change direction, or rates change the price of duration, or both.

Global context, the US runs an uncapped benchmark, Europe ships a limiter

Concentration also reflects index engineering, and that engineering differs across regions.

EURO STOXX 50 caps individual constituents at 10%, a built-in limiter that reduces the chance one stock becomes a dominant weight, and the rule sits inside the index methodology, like a pressure regulator bolted into the line.

The US benchmark tradition runs with fewer hard caps, and that design choice amplifies the impact of passive flows during winner-led cycles, which helps explain why US concentration became a global macro factor in recent years.

Early 2026 also points to international equities outperforming US stocks, which is important because relative performance changes the flow map, and flows change concentration over time.

BTC trades against the global pool of risk capital, and that pool responds to relative returns across regions, across sectors, and across duration, which means the next equity leadership regime can quietly rewrite the beta profile of everything linked to global risk.

For now, the cleanest way to understand the data is as a system under load, the S&P wrapper tightened for a decade, it reached a late-2025 peak near 41% in the top ten, and it started to loosen into late February 2026 with top-ten weight near 37%.

That loosening can evolve into a healthier distribution of returns, it can snap back into a leader-led regime, or it can turn into a drawdown event that ripples into every asset priced as risk, including Bitcoin.

The chart is the warning label, the forward signal lives in breadth, earnings, and correlation, and those are measurable.

The post 40% of the S&P 500 value sits in just 10 stocks — and Bitcoin could feel the shock next appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin search interest in the United States is finally climbing back toward its 2021 highs.

The move comes even as Bitcoin trades in the mid-$60,000s after topping $126,000 in October 2025.

That pairing, attention rising as price slides, is an unfamiliar noise pattern in crypto; the public is walking back toward the window as the market walks away from it, and the gap between the two is extremely interesting.

Retail has notoriously lagged institutional interest in Bitcoin this cycle, and Google searches have yet to reach 2021 levels.

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On Oct. 6, 2025, Bitcoin hit its all-time high, resetting everyone’s internal yardstick for risk and reward in a single day of tape.

Today, Feb. 23, 2026, the yardstick has flipped, and Bitcoin slid toward $64,000 under tariff uncertainty.

That is a drawdown of roughly half from the October peak, which changes behavior, it changes the tone of every dip, it changes the vocabulary of every rally, and it tends to summon the same two groups at once, investors looking for the on ramp, incumbents looking for the exits.

Search data sits in the middle of that human machinery, it is not price, it is not volume, it is a receipt for attention, the kind of attention that shows up before someone buys, after someone sells, and during the anxious hours when people try to name what just happened.

Bitcoin searches in the US rebounding to the highest level since the 2021 era, comes as the worldwide line turns upward too, but lags its 2024 peaks.

That gap matters less as a culture war, US versus world, and more as a map of where the narrative heat is building, and which pipes it can reach first.

Google Trends also carries a warning label in the math, each chart scales interest from 0 to 100 inside the chosen region and time window, which means the cleanest claim is relative, the US series is closer to its own prior peak than the worldwide series is to its own.

So the question becomes practical, what kind of attention is returning, and what kind of market does it connect to?

A search surge can be the sound of fresh demand arriving, it can also be the sound of stress testing, holders checking the rules, traders checking the exits, and everyone checking the same price level with different intentions.

The price decline into the low $60,000s happened in a macro moment that felt risk off; gold higher, the dollar weaker, and Bitcoin lower amid tariff legal uncertainty, and that cross-market sequencing matters because it shapes what newcomers learn about Bitcoin in real time.

Attention as a volatility valve

Academic work has spent years trying to formalize what traders say with a shrug, attention changes the distribution of outcomes.

A 2019 university paper modeled Bitcoin returns alongside Google Trends “Bitcoin” attention, and it links attention shifts to jumpier behavior, which fits the lived experience of this market, the more people stare at the pipe, the more pressure moves through it.

That framing helps separate two stories that can share the same chart.

In one story, rising searches are the first layer of a new bid, and the market absorbs the demand, with time, with patience, with a base that forms while the public learns the price again.

In the other story, rising searches are reactive, the public is reading the tape after a shock, and the flow that follows is defensive, hedges get bought, exits get tested, and the market stays choppy even when price stops falling.

Right now the plumbing reads mixed, attention is warmer, and parts of the institutional wrapper look heavy.

The cleanest daily window into that wrapper is US spot Bitcoin ETF flows, and the February tape has carried large red prints. That is the kind of distribution pattern that keeps rallies honest, and it is also the kind of pattern that makes retail attention more consequential, since fewer buyers are doing more work.

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The market’s map, demand below, supply above

Glassnode’s Feb. 11 weekly read gives the most useful map for a forward lens, a range that traders can point to without turning the article into prediction theater.

Its framing describes Bitcoin defending a demand corridor around $60,000 to $72,000, with realized price around $55,000 as a deeper gravity level if that corridor gives way.

On the upside, Glassnode flags overhead supply bands around $82,000 to $97,000 and $100,000 to $117,000, zones where prior buyers tend to become sellers, and where relief rallies often slow into negotiation.

It also describes a hedging posture that fits the feeling of this drawdown, front-end implied volatility jumping by about 20 vol points, and skew priced toward puts, with a heavy put premium in the one-month and three-month tenors.

That kind of options surface tends to appear when investors pay up for insurance, and it tends to keep the spot market reactive, since every sharp move pulls hedging flows behind it like a wake.

Street forecasts add another layer of range setting. Standard Chartered cut its end-of-2026 forecast to $100,000 from $150,000, and it discussed a path that includes a possible dip toward $50,000 before a recovery.

Forecasts are a narrative weight that shape how risk committees talk, and they shape how retail interprets a drawdown, since a $50,000 marker can become a magnet for limit orders, headlines, and fear.

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Three scenarios for what this search rebound can mean

1. Attention converts into steady bid. The ingredients here are observable, ETF flows shift from episodic green days into a run of consistent inflows, price holds inside Glassnode’s $60,000 to $72,000 corridor, and the options market relaxes as hedges unwind.In that world, the first durable test sits in the $82,000 to $97,000 overhead supply band, where a base either upgrades into a trend or stalls into another range.
2. The search spike reads as stress testing. Attention rises, ETF flows stay heavy, implied volatility stays elevated, and the market keeps paying for downside insurance.Under that setup, the $60,000 to $72,000 corridor carries the weight of a psychological floor, and realized price near $55,000 becomes the next key shelf that traders watch for capitulation behavior.Standard Chartered’s $50,000 discussion sits nearby as a narrative anchor, a number that can turn a drift into a rush if it starts to feel reachable.
3. US attention stays hot, worldwide attention stays cooler. That is a regionalized tape, US driven headlines, US driven pipes, and a market that trades more like a macro instrument than an adoption story.The Guardian’s tariff day framing fits this regime, Bitcoin sells off alongside risk, gold catches a bid, the dollar slips, and the crypto narrative follows the same macro calendar that drives every other chart.When inflation stays sticky, markets price every policy headline as a rate story, and crypto inherits the sensitivity through liquidity and discount rate expectations.

Across all three scenarios, the common thread is participation, search interest is a proxy for how many people are stepping back into the room.

The open question is conversion, how much of that attention turns into buying power, how much turns into hedging flow, and how much turns into a louder market that moves faster in both directions?

The research suggests attention itself can thicken volatility, which means the next leg can arrive with sharper edges even if the destination stays unclear.

The post Bitcoin interest hits 5-year high in the United States defying bear market price decline appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The cryptocurrency market is navigating a "perfect storm" of macroeconomic uncertainty and institutional caution today. As of February 23, 2026, Bitcoin ($BTC) has slipped below the critical $65,000 psychological support level, dragging the broader market into the red.

The primary catalyst for this downturn is a sudden shift in U.S. trade policy, which has reignited fears of global economic instability. While the "Fear and Greed Index" is flashing extreme panic—hitting lows not seen since the 2022 bear market—the underlying industry continues to push forward with significant regulatory and corporate milestones.

Market Snapshot: Major Assets Under Pressure

The global crypto market cap has retreated to $2.28 trillion, with major assets experiencing a 1.6% to 4.5% decline over the last 24 hours.

The “Tariff Whiplash” Effect

The market's bearish turn is largely attributed to "tariff whiplash." On Friday, February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of emergency authority to impose certain trade duties. However, President Trump countered over the weekend by proposing a new 15% global tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act.

This move has strengthened the U.S. Dollar (DXY) and sent risk assets—including Bitcoin and Ethereum—into a defensive crouch. According to CNBC, the uncertainty surrounding these replacement levies has forced investors to hedge their bets, leading to a significant rotation out of speculative digital assets and into safe havens like gold.

Institutional Sentiment: Outflows vs. The "Saylor" Strategy

For the first time since the landmark 2024 launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs, the market has recorded five consecutive weeks of net outflows, totaling approximately $4 billion in redemptions. This suggests that Wall Street is currently distributing exposure rather than "buying the dip."

However, not everyone is retreating. MicroStrategy (now Strategy Inc) remains unfazed. Michael Saylor announced this morning that the company acquired an additional 592 BTC for approximately $39.8 million at an average price of $67,286. Strategy Inc now holds over 193,000 Bitcoins, signaling long-term institutional conviction despite short-term price turbulence.

Infrastructure Maturity: Crypto.com and Ethereum Hegota

Despite the price slump, the industry’s structural foundation continues to mature:

• Crypto.com’s Banking Bid: The exchange has secured conditional approval from the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to charter a national trust bank. This is a massive step toward legitimizing the industry within the U.S. financial system, potentially allowing the firm to offer federally regulated custodial services.
• Ethereum "Hegota" Upgrade: Developers are finalizing the Hegota upgrade (slated for late 2026). This upgrade introduces FOCIL (Forward Inclusion Lists), a mechanism designed to hardwire censorship resistance directly into the protocol, ensuring Ethereum remains a neutral blockspace regardless of validator geography.

Conclusion: Is the Bottom In?

The market is currently range-bound and highly sensitive to macroeconomic headlines. If Bitcoin fails to hold the $63,300 mark, analysts warn of a potential "final flush" toward the $60,000 level. Conversely, with the Binance Buying Power Index at historic lows, contrarian investors are eyeing this "extreme fear" as a potential bottoming signal for a Q2 recovery.

Ethereum ($ETH) has reached a decisive "knife's edge" moment in late February 2026. After a sharp 6% decline over the last 24 hours, the second-largest cryptocurrency is currently fighting to maintain its position above the critical $1,800 support level. This price point is widely regarded by technical analysts as the final line of defense before a potential slide into the $1,500 territory. As selling pressure from the Ethereum Foundation intensifies, the market's focus has shifted entirely to whether the bulls can stage a defense at this psychological floor.

Can Ethereum Price Hold the $1,800 Support?

The short answer: It is under extreme threat. As of today, February 23, 2026, Ethereum is trading near $1,870, having briefly dipped to a low of $1,845. Technical indicators, including the ETH/USD price chart, suggest that a breach of $1,800 is highly probable if current sell volumes persist. A daily close below $1,800 would likely trigger automated stop-loss orders, potentially accelerating a move toward $1,570 or lower.

Defining "Support" in the Current Downtrend

In technical analysis, a support level is a price point where an asset tends to find buying interest, preventing the price from falling further. For Ethereum, $1,800 isn't just a number; it is a historical accumulation zone.

• Concept Clarity: If ETH holds $1,800, it confirms a "double bottom" or a consolidation phase.
• The Risk: If it fails, the "bear pennant" pattern observed on the weekly charts suggests a "measured move" downside target of $1,475.

Why $1,800 is the "Make-or-Break" Level

The significance of the $1,800 mark stems from several factors:

1. Psychological Weight: Round numbers act as natural barriers for retail traders.
2. On-chain Liquidations: Data indicates that a significant cluster of DeFi lending positions faces liquidation if ETH drops below $1,780.
3. Institutional Sentiment: Major buyers often set "buy walls" at these structural levels to prevent a full-scale market reset.

Vitalik Buterin and the Foundation: The Source of Pressure

The primary catalyst for the current test of $1,800 is the ongoing distribution of ETH by the Ethereum Foundation and co-founder Vitalik Buterin. In February 2026 alone, Buterin has offloaded approximately $16 million worth of ETH to fund "Glamsterdam" and "Hegotá" roadmap developments. While these sales represent only a fraction of daily volume, they significantly dampen investor confidence and signal a "risk-off" environment.

Furthermore, whale wallets (holding 100k–1M ETH) have sold nearly 1.43 million ETH ($2.7 billion) in the past two weeks, shifting the supply-demand balance in favor of the bears.

Ethereum Price Prediction: Support and Resistance Zones for ETH Coin

If you are looking to buy Ethereum or trade the volatility, keep these levels on your radar:

The RSI is currently at 20, indicating Ethereum is oversold. While a relief bounce back toward $1,950 is possible, the overall trend remains firmly bearish until a "higher high" is formed above $2,085.

Summary: The Path Ahead

Ethereum is currently in a high-stakes battle. Holding the $1,800 support is essential to avoid a deeper correction that could see prices return to early 2024 levels. While the fundamental 2026 roadmap (Glamsterdam upgrade) remains promising for the long term, the short-term technicals favor the bears.

Investors should remain cautious and consider using secure hardware wallets to manage their holdings during this period of "genuine distress."

In the global landscape of digital assets, energy is the ultimate currency. While most miners worldwide struggle with rising energy costs and hardware depreciation, Iran remains a global anomaly. As of early 2026, the cost to mine 1 $Bitcoin in Iran stands at a staggering $1,320, while the market price of $BTC holds steady around $68,000. This massive disparity has created a unique, high-stakes environment where geopolitical strategy and underground economics collide.

Can you Make Money Mining Bitcoin in Iran?

In short: Yes, but with significant risks. The 50x return on investment is driven by Iran's heavily subsidized electricity, which allows miners to produce Bitcoin at a fraction of the global average. However, this profitability is split between state-sanctioned operations that must sell to the central bank and illegal miners who risk raids to pocket the full profit.

Subsidized Mining Economics

Bitcoin mining is the process of using specialized hardware (ASICs) to solve complex mathematical puzzles, securing the network in exchange for block rewards. In most regions, electricity represents 80-90% of operational costs. In Iran, the government provides industrial electricity for as low as $0.005/kWh.

To produce one Bitcoin, an average setup requires roughly 2,000 to 3,000 MWh. At Iranian rates, this equates to roughly $1,320. In contrast, mining the same Bitcoin in Europe or the US can cost upwards of $40,000 to $100,000 depending on the local grid.

The Dual Economy: Legal vs. Illegal Operations

The Iranian government legalized mining in 2019 to generate foreign currency and bypass international sanctions. Yet, the sector is deeply divided:

1. Licensed Miners: These operations receive legal protection and cheap power but are mandated to sell their entire Bitcoin yield to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to fund national imports.
2. The Underground (90%): An estimated 90% of Iranian mining occurs illegally. These miners use stolen or subsidized household power to maximize ROI, often hiding rigs in schools, mosques, or rural farms.

Why the Government Allows It

For Iran, Bitcoin is more than a financial asset; it is a tool for sanction evasion. By converting local natural gas into Bitcoin, the state can pay for global goods without relying on the restricted SWIFT banking system. However, this has led to severe domestic issues, including frequent power grid failures and blackouts in major cities.

Comparing Global Mining Costs (2026)

To understand the scale of Iran's advantage, compare it to other popular mining hubs using the latest exchange comparison data:

Risk Management and Hardware

Miners in Iran often face equipment seizures during government "raids" aimed at stabilizing the power grid. To protect their assets, professional miners utilize high-end hardware wallets and sophisticated cooling systems to hide the thermal signature of their rigs.

Conclusion

The 50x ROI in Iran is a byproduct of unique geopolitical and economic pressures. While the entry cost is low, the operational risks—including jail time and asset forfeiture—remain high. As the global Bitcoin price continues to fluctuate, Iran’s role as a low-cost mining haven will likely persist as long as its energy subsidies remain intact.

The cryptocurrency market has always been defined by its relentless volatility, characterized by a rhythmic cycle of parabolic bull runs followed by grueling bear markets. For long-term investors, these swings are the price of admission for potential triple-digit gains. However, when a prominent asset like $XRP experiences a prolonged drawdown while the rest of the market evolves, whispers of a "death spiral" inevitably begin to surface.

Currently, the XRP price finds itself at a critical crossroads. After reaching an all-time high (ATH) of approximately $3.84 in early 2018, the token has struggled to reclaim those glory days. While it saw a massive resurgence in 2025 following major legal victories, the price has recently cooled significantly, drifting from those local highs to the current level of around $1.43. This 60%+ decline from the ATH has led some skeptics to ask the ultimate "black swan" question: Will XRP price crash to $0?

What is Ripple and What is XRP?

To understand the price action, one must first distinguish between the company and the asset. Ripple is a private technology company based in San Francisco that specializes in providing financial institutions with a global payment network. Its primary goal is to replace the aging SWIFT system with a faster, cheaper alternative.

XRP, on the other hand, is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger (XRPL). While Ripple uses XRP in its liquidity products—specifically On-Demand Liquidity (ODL)—the ledger is decentralized and open-source. XRP acts as a "bridge currency," allowing banks to move money across borders in seconds without the need for pre-funded Nostro/Vostro accounts.

The SEC Lawsuit: A Battle for the Ages

For nearly five years, the primary weight around XRP's neck was the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The lawsuit, which began in December 2020, alleged that Ripple's sale of XRP constituted an unregistered securities offering.

The legal saga reached a historic turning point in 2025. Following years of appeals and courtroom drama, a final settlement was reached under a shifting regulatory climate in Washington. The court reaffirmed that XRP itself is not a security when sold on public exchanges to retail investors. Ripple ultimately paid a significantly reduced penalty of $50 million—a fraction of the SEC’s original $2 billion demand—and the permanent injunction on its operations was largely dissolved. This provided the "regulatory clarity" that the market had craved for years.

XRP News Today: XRP in February 2026

As of February 22, 2026, the narrative around XRP has shifted from legal survival to institutional adoption. Despite the recent price correction to $1.43, the ecosystem is expanding:

• ETF Inflows: Following the approval of spot XRP ETFs in late 2025, institutional products have seen over $1.2 billion in cumulative inflows.
• RLUSD Stablecoin: Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, has surpassed a $1.3 billion market cap, driving more utility to the XRP Ledger.
• The CLARITY Act: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently expressed 90% confidence that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act will pass by April 2026, which would provide a permanent statutory framework for tokens like XRP.

Will XRP Crash to $0? The Hard Truth

The idea of XRP crashing to $0 is a sensationalist "zero-sum" theory that ignores the fundamental utility of the network. For an asset to hit zero, it must lose all liquidity, all utility, and all demand simultaneously.

• Network Utility: Unlike "meme coins" that rely on social media hype, XRP is integrated into the backend infrastructure of hundreds of financial institutions globally. Even if the price drops, the ledger continues to process transactions.
• Institutional Backing: With the launch of ETFs and the entry of major asset managers, XRP is now a "regulated" asset class in the eyes of many institutional desks.
• Market Cycles: A drop to $1.43 is a standard correction in the world of crypto. In previous cycles, assets like $Bitcoin and $Ethereum have crashed 80-90% before reaching new highs.

While a "crash to zero" is highly improbable given the current ecosystem, XRP still faces risks. Macroeconomic downturns, a potential failure in the passage of the CLARITY Act, or a lack of retail interest could keep the price suppressed. However, the "truth" is that XRP has more structural support today than it did when it was trading at $3.00.

Weekly Market Roundup: A Climate of "Extreme Fear"

The third week of February 2026 has been characterized by a palpable tension across the digital asset landscape. While the total market capitalization remains robust at $2.41 trillion, the sentiment has plunged into a state of "Extreme Fear," with the Fear & Greed Index hitting a low of 14.

Despite Bitcoin ($BTC) stabilizing around the $68,000 mark, institutional confidence appears to be wavering. Recent data confirms that crypto investment products have faced four consecutive weeks of outflows, totaling roughly $3.8 billion. This defensive posture is largely driven by a combination of macroeconomic uncertainty and specific "existential" concerns, including renewed debates over quantum computing's long-term impact on Bitcoin's scarcity.

What Impacted the Crypto Market?

Investors are currently navigating a "wait-and-see" period. The primary drivers of this week's volatility included:

• Massive ETF Outflows: US spot Bitcoin ETFs alone saw nearly $400 million in exits, signaling a shift in institutional appetite.
• Regulatory Friction: The White House roundtable on stablecoin yields ended without a clear agreement between banks and the crypto industry, delaying the progress of the CLARITY Act.
• Geopolitical Safe Havens: In contrast to global outflows, Bitcoin adoption surged in regions like Lebanon and Iran as a hedge against local fiat collapses.

Top Crypto Gainers and Losers: February 15 – 21

Top Gainers

Top Losers

Regulatory Watch: The "Heavyweight Rumble" of 2026

The fight for regulatory clarity has entered a "Round 2" phase. In Washington, the push for the CLARITY Act remains the focal point. According to reports from Reuters and other major financial outlets, the Trump administration has requested a compromise proposal on stablecoin yields by the end of this month.

Banks remain concerned that interest-bearing stablecoins will siphon off traditional deposits. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) continues to set the global gold standard, with the European Central Bank (ECB) preparing to launch pilot activities for the digital euro.

"The bell has rung for the real fight for regulatory clarity. Lawmakers are no longer asking if crypto belongs, but how to integrate it safely into global infrastructure." — Industry Analysis, February 2026.

Upcoming High-Impact Events: February 23 – March 1

The final week of February is packed with events that could dictate the market's direction heading into March.

• ETHDenver 2026 (Feb 23 - Feb 28): The world's largest Ethereum builder festival. Expect major announcements regarding Layer-2 scaling and the future of DeFi.
• USD.AI ICO (Feb 22 - Feb 23): A high-profile launch on CoinList featuring a synthetic dollar backed by real-world assets (RWA).
• Grass (GRASS) Token Unlock (Feb 28): A significant unlock of 13.15% of the supply, which may lead to increased short-term volatility.
• Crypto Expo Europe (Starts March 1): A major gathering in Bucharest focusing on European adoption and MiCAR compliance.

As the market approaches these milestones, ensuring your assets are secure is paramount. Check out our latest Hardware Wallet Comparison to find the best protection for your portfolio.

Someone fine-tuned an AI on the Jeffrey Epstein email dump. We ran it locally. It called us "goyim" and invited us to a party.

Prediction market Kalshi is trying to dissuade insider trading and market manipulation.

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger is enforcing a zero-crypto rule on the project's Discord as he joins OpenAI. Here's why.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went to India with a bold new defense of AI energy use: Humans are less efficient than data centers, when you really think about it.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has been selling ETH in the last few days as the second-largest crypto asset continues its fall.

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor has dismissed the "quantum threat" to Bitcoin as the latest in a long line of alarmist narratives, arguing that the network will naturally evolve through consensus.

Crypto news digest: Michael Saylor teases another BTC purchase; XRP Ledger transactions jump 40%; SHIB wraps up February with a $3.6 billion cap.

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci has presented an "intellectually defensible" bull case for Bitcoin.

Ripple's RLUSD has hit a $1.56B market cap as institutional adoption by Deutsche Bank and SBI Japan fuels a strategic $2B supply milestone targeted for Q2, 2026.

Dogecoin (DOGE) nears a golden cross signal against Bitcoin (BTC) for the first time in 2026 as the meme coin shows rare strength amid a massive downtrend.

TLDR

• Binance announced scheduled maintenance on the Ethereum network that will cause a brief service pause.
• The exchange confirmed that deposits and withdrawals will stop five minutes before the update begins.
• Binance stated that user funds will remain secure throughout the maintenance period.
• The platform said Ethereum trading will continue without any disruption during the update.
• The exchange plans to resume transfers once it verifies network stability.

Binance plans short maintenance on the Ethereum network today, and the exchange warns of a temporary service pause as work begins, and states that user funds remain secure throughout the update. The exchange sets the start time for 6:00 a.m. UTC, and it outlines clear steps to control traffic. This notice arrives as the market tracks recent price drops, and traders expect tighter conditions.

Ethereum Maintenance Schedule by Binance

Binance confirms that the update will run for 1 hour and that the exchange will pause deposits and withdrawals before the process starts. The platform says this step will help protect users and keep internal operations steady.

The exchange adds that trading for Ethereum tokens will continue, and it stresses that core market activity stays open. It explains that only transfer actions will stop briefly, and it also plans to restore them once network checks finish.

The exchange repeats that funds remain safe, and it highlights that all assets stay fully backed during the maintenance window. Binance says this assurance is key to trust, and it promises to track network conditions closely.

It states that the outage should end quickly, and it aims to confirm stability before reopening services. The team reports that internal systems are ready, and it expects no delays once the network stabilizes.

Binance also says users will receive updates through its official channels, and it encourages them to monitor alerts. It explains that this approach helps reduce confusion, and it also allows support teams to respond faster.

The exchange calls this operation routine, and it says similar tasks occur across supported networks. It explains that these steps improve performance, and they also prepare systems for future upgrades.

Market Conditions During Ethereum Downtime

Ethereum trades lower today, and the price reflects broader losses across major assets. Analysts report steady declines this week, and the asset continues to show pressure.

Data shows that crypto funds recorded outflows, and Ethereum appears among the affected entries. The shift mirrors weak sentiment, and it also limits near-term activity.

Some assets post small inflows, and XRP and Solana fall within that group. Their movement stays modest, and it offers limited contrast to Ethereum’s trend.

Market observers link the timing of maintenance to the wider downturn, and they track reactions across exchanges. Traders adjust positions carefully, and they shift focus to liquidity patterns.

Ethereum’s current value sits below recent highs, and its chart displays tighter moves. The market weighs short-term risks, and it also awaits fresh trading data.

Binance states that it will reopen withdrawals only after confirming full stability, and it continues to monitor the network. The exchange reinforces its timeline publicly, and it directs users to its updates for the latest information.

The post Ethereum Network Set for Maintenance as Binance Prepares Temporary Halt appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Binance cut sanctions-related exchange volume exposure by 96.8%, falling from 0.284% to just 0.009% by July 2025.

• Direct exposure to four major Iranian crypto exchanges dropped 97.3%, from $4.19M in 2024 to $110K by January 2026.

• Over 71,000 law enforcement requests were processed in 2025, with $131M in illicit funds confiscated by authorities.

• More than 1,500 Binance employees, roughly 25% of global headcount, are dedicated to compliance-related functions worldwide.

Binance has reported a 96.8% reduction in sanctions-related exposure between January 2024 and July 2025. The exchange made this disclosure in a formal statement addressing recent media coverage of its compliance practices.

Sanctions-related flows dropped from 0.284% of total exchange volume to just 0.009% over that period. The figures come alongside data showing over 71,000 law enforcement requests processed and more than $131 million in illicit funds confiscated in 2025 alone.

Sanctions Exposure Falls to Near-Zero Across Key Risk Categories

The 96.8% reduction in overall sanctions-related exposure marks one of the most measurable outcomes from Binance’s compliance push over the past two years.

The exchange credited expanded sanctions screening, enhanced transaction monitoring, and stronger wallet screening controls for driving those results.

These were not incremental updates but structural changes implemented across the entire compliance infrastructure.

Binance also narrowed in on Iranian cryptocurrency exchange exposure, a category that drew specific attention in recent reporting.

Direct exposure to the four major Iranian exchanges fell by more than 97.3%, moving from $4.19 million in January 2024 to $110,000 by January 2026. That figure represents a sharp and sustained decline across a defined two-year window.

The exchange further stated it outperformed 10 major global peers in managing exposure to those same Iranian platforms.

Binance positioned this as evidence that its controls were not just improving internally but performing ahead of broader industry benchmarks. The comparison was based on independent industry data rather than self-reported metrics.

A known technical constraint applies across this space. Public blockchains allow users to send funds to exchange deposit addresses without prior platform approval.

Because of this, no exchange operating on public blockchains can reduce sanctions exposure to absolute zero.

Binance addressed this directly, pointing to post-receipt monitoring, on-chain surveillance, and escalation procedures as the practical tools used to manage risk after funds arrive.

Compliance Infrastructure and Law Enforcement Collaboration Drive the Results

Binance now has 593 full-time employees within its compliance business unit. An additional 978 employees and contractors support compliance-related roles across technology, product, and customer-service functions.

In total, more than 1,500 individuals — approximately 25% of global headcount — are tied to compliance responsibilities in some capacity.

The exchange holds licenses, registrations, and authorizations in 20 jurisdictions. It also became the first crypto exchange to secure full authorization under Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority regulatory framework. These regulatory milestones run parallel to the operational compliance work happening internally.

Law enforcement collaboration forms another measurable layer of the program. In 2025, Binance processed more than 71,000 law enforcement requests from agencies worldwide.

Its teams also delivered over 160 training sessions to help law enforcement agencies build capacity for handling crypto-related investigations.

Beyond training and information sharing, the exchange supported authorities in recovering more than $131 million linked to illicit activity in 2025.

Binance also confirmed it launched a structured internal investigation in mid-2025 after receiving information from external law enforcement sources.

Accounts flagged during that process were eventually offboarded, and relevant findings were shared with appropriate regulatory and government stakeholders throughout.

The post Binance Compliance Data Shows 97% Sanctions Reduction Since 2024 Amid Media Scrutiny appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Sam Altman dismissed online claims about heavy AI water use and shifted the focus to growing energy demands.
• Altman compared AI training to raising children and said people should measure energy use per query after training.
• Sridhar Vembu criticized the comparison and said technology should not be equated with human beings.
• New off-grid data centers are expanding across multiple states, and many rely heavily on natural gas power.
• Researchers warned that rising energy use could challenge climate goals as data centers consume power on a national scale.

The discussion over AI power use expanded this week as new comments from Sam Altman drew fresh attention, and industry projects continued shifting toward private gas-powered data hubs, and regulators reviewed new off-grid systems across multiple states.

AI Training and Human Comparison Raise New Questions

Sam Altman dismissed water-use fears at an event in India, and he argued that modern facilities now use dry cooling systems, and he stressed that energy demand remains the central issue. He said online claims about heavy water use were “completely untrue,” and he pointed to new designs that run without water, and he urged quick movement toward nuclear, wind, and solar sources.

He also compared AI training to raising a child, and he said the process takes years of resource use, and he argued that people should judge energy per query after training. This comparison drew criticism, and Sridhar Vembu rejected linking people with technology, and he said he does not support framing humans in that way.

Researchers reported that data centers already use power on the scale of Germany or France, and they linked that rise to rapid AI expansion, and they cited new global projections. A recent study projected that cooling water demand could triple as computing increases, and it warned of future strain, and the findings circulated widely.

Expanding Off-Grid Projects and OpenAI

The GW Ranch project in Texas will span 8,000 acres, and it will run on gas and solar, and it will exceed Chicago’s power draw. Developers said the model avoids long utility delays, and they confirmed construction timelines, and they said capacity planning has begun.

Multiple states now host similar plans, and projects in Wyoming and New Mexico are already moving, while others in Ohio and Tennessee remain in review. Firms including Meta, OpenAI, Oracle, and Chevron support these efforts, and some states have simplified approval processes, and new filings show accelerated schedules.

Residents in West Virginia raised concerns over a project near Davis, and they said local oversight weakened, and they called the plan a “speculative gold rush.” Officials confirmed a gas plant that could power every home in the state, and they said the design meets current rules, and they expect a formal environmental review.

Gas-Powered Growth and Regulatory Action

Energy researchers warned that heavy dependence on gas could challenge climate plans, and they counted 47 off-grid proposals, and they urged updated standards. They noted that solar additions help, and they said output gaps still push sites toward gas, and they emphasized the need for a consistent supply.

Elon Musk built an off-grid Memphis site last year, and he used portable generators and he connected the system in months. The EPA later ruled the setup violated emissions rules, ordered permit updates, and set compliance deadlines.

Meta advanced two new off-grid projects, and one in Ohio will run two gas plants, and another in Texas will link hundreds of small generators. Local officials protested the Texas design, and they said they expected clean energy, and Meta said renewable credits would cover commitments.

Communities in Arizona and Texas pushed back on proposals, and Tucson residents stopped a large plan, and they cited water and billing concerns. San Marcos rejected a 1.5-billion-dollar center, and officials cited public pressure, and they closed the review process.

Electricity prices climbed on the PJM grid, and the rise covered 65 million customers. Regulators reviewed new generation requests. Federal and state leaders signed an agreement in January, and they required tech firms to fund new plants, and companies pledged 15 billion dollars for added capacity.

The post OpenAI CEO Sparks Debate by Likening AI Training to Decades of Raising Kids appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• ProShares recorded $17 billion in first-day trading volume for its new GENIUS money market ETF.
• The firm confirmed that internal fund allocations contributed to the early surge in activity.
• The GENIUS ETF follows federal rules for stablecoin reserve standards under the GENIUS Act.
• Analysts observed that the debut outpaced previous high-profile ETF launches across the market.
• Tokenized money market funds continued to gain traction as institutions explored blockchain settlement.

ProShares opened its GENIUS-branded money market ETF with heavy trading and strong early flows as firms continued exploring tokenized fund structures, and the launch drew wide market attention as cash-management demand persisted and blockchain rails expanded. The surge placed new focus on how issuers used internal allocations while investors assessed broader shifts. The event also advanced discussion around how digital cash products could interact with regulated funds.

GENIUS ETFs and Early Market Activity

ProShares reported $17 billion in first-day volume for its Genius Money Market ETF, and the firm confirmed internal transfers fueled much of the total. The company used cash from existing funds to support treasury operations, and this move highlighted how issuers managed liquidity across products.

Bloomberg tracked the debut and compared it with other launches, and analysts noted the sharp difference in volume. The debut exceeded the first-day totals of new crypto and ESG ETFs, and it shifted attention to cash strategies.

The GENIUS structure aligned with federal requirements for payment-stable assets, and the fund held short-duration government securities. The law set clear reserve and disclosure standards, and issuers applied these rules to maintain consistent oversight. Market observers watched activity closely, and early trading showed strong operational utility. The ETF advanced its role as a treasury tool, and issuers framed the approach as a way to streamline internal flows.

Tokenized Funds Enter Broader Use Cases

Tokenized money market funds gained traction as firms tested blockchain settlement, and the products offered yield while operating within compliance frameworks. Issuers presented them as interest-bearing complements to digital dollars, and adoption increased across institutional channels.

JPMorgan Chase strategists noted that tokenized fund shares could work as collateral, and they suggested the model preserved yield during transfers. One strategist said, “You can post money-market shares and not lose interest,” and firms continued building pilots.

The growth of tokenized vehicles aligned with rising stablecoin usage, and institutions explored both products for payments and custody. Funds positioned themselves as regulated alternatives, and issuers stressed transparency requirements. The Bank for International Settlements described tokenized money funds as fast-growing instruments, and the bulletin referenced their use in settlement trials. The report added context as markets evaluated new rails.

Regulatory Alignment and Current Developments

The GENIUS Act shaped how issuers structured reserves, and fund operators adopted those guidelines for liquidity portfolios. The law reinforced the role of high-quality assets, and managers applied these standards across new launches.

Firms also expanded product research, and issuers examined how tokenized versions might fit into custody systems. The approach strengthened administration flows, and providers continued monitoring regulatory updates.

ProShares used the GENIUS branding to reflect compliance, and the ETF’s early volume elevated attention on regulated cash tools. The debut arrived as digital asset firms explored new pathways, and issuers weighed operational benefits.

The post ProShares’ GENIUS ETF Sees $17B Surge as Tokenized Fund Models Expand appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• The new 15 percent tariff from the United States reshapes global trade dynamics and changes competitive positions across major economies.
• Brazil, China, and India gain relief as their trade-weighted rates fall under the flat tariff system.
• Several US allies, including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Singapore, face higher effective rates under the updated framework.
• European and Asian partners experience a shift toward the global average, which reduces earlier advantages.
• The Supreme Court ruling limits one tariff too,l but the administration still holds several trade authorities for continued action.

The new trade landscape shifts fast as the United States enforces its flat tariff policy, and the move changes global dynamics while shaping fresh pressure points across core alliances. The transition highlights widening gaps in current trade expectations.

Impact of the Flat Tariff Baseline on Global Partners and Rivals

The shift to a single 15% system reshapes trade flows as data shows new winners and losers across economies. Brazil gains the strongest relief as its average rate drops sharply under the revised policy.

China records a lower effective burden as its trade-weighted rate declines under the updated structure. India also benefits as its earlier exposure softens under the new framework applied by Washington.

The platform assessment states that “the flat baseline changes previous patterns,” and it shifts competitive pressure toward select allies. Yet the data shows that regional exporters such as Vietnam and Thailand also gain relative advantages.

US Tariff Pressure on Allies

Several long-standing partners now face higher effective exposure under the single-rate approach. The United Kingdom sees an increased rate that contrasts with its earlier position under the old structure.

Italy and Singapore confront similar pressure as their revised rates rise under the updated system. Trade analysts note that these partners lose earlier benefits once available during previous frameworks.

Other economies, such as Germany and France, now align closer to the global average under the new model. The same adjustment affects Japan and South Korea as their relative positions narrow.

The adjustment also touches the Netherlands and Switzerland as their former advantages fade. Ireland likewise sees its earlier gap shrink under the unified regime.

Powers Still Available After the Court Ruling on Tariff Authority

The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court restricts one channel of presidential tariff action. Yet other tools remain active and still shape current trade moves across multiple sectors.

Section 232 continues to support tariffs when national security claims apply, and it sustains duties on steel and aluminum. Section 301 stays central as it grants space for targeted actions when Washington identifies unfair trade practices.

Section 338 also remains available because it authorizes rates up to 50% against states judged discriminatory. The temporary surcharge announced on Truth Social and issued under Section 122 now runs for 150 days unless Congress votes otherwise.

A recent vote to block the tariff failed, and the measure stays active as investigations continue under the Section 301 framework. The policy shift stands as the latest development as trade partners adjust to the new baseline.

The post Trump’s 15% Tariffs Pressure US Allies as BRICS Gain Advantage in Trade Shift appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitwise Asset Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan took to social media to defend Bitcoin (BTC) against a wave of criticism, arguing that skeptics judging the asset as a failed store of value are ignoring the volatile “teenage phase” necessary for any new monetary asset to mature.

His comments were a direct challenge to a growing narrative, amplified by a nearly 50% drawdown from its all-time high and recent headlines questioning the cryptocurrency’s purpose.

Bitcoin’s Volatility Meets Institutional Impatience

The debate reignited after Bloomberg published a report framing the current market downturn as an “existential” struggle for Bitcoin, asking what the asset is actually for if it fails as a hedge, payment rail, or speculative vehicle.

Former Merrill Lynch trader Tom Essaye, quoted in the Bloomberg piece, added fuel to the fire, stating flatly that “Bitcoin is not replacing gold, it’s not digital gold” and dismissing its utility as an inflation or chaos hedge.

Hougan responded to these takes, rejecting the premise that Bitcoin must emerge from nothing as a fully formed, gold-like asset. He described Bitcoin in 2009 as “100% speculation,” projecting a future in 2050 where it is “0% speculation” and owned by central banks.

“You cannot travel from 100% speculation to 0% speculation without ticking every gradient in between,” Hougan posted. “The reason it doesn’t fit any individual box right now is it’s in the uncomfortable middle. But that’s a necessary part of the journey.”

His defense comes at a time when the price action of the king cryptocurrency is testing investor patience. The asset recently shed thousands of dollars off its value, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 10% temporary global tariff.

Meanwhile, Google searches for “Bitcoin is dead” have spiked to levels not seen since the FTX collapse in late 2022, a metric that some traders view as a contrarian signal that a bottom may be forming.

A Historical Precedent for Price Swings

Hougan’s argument is rooted in a historical parallel he first detailed in a 2018 Forbes article, which he recirculated amid the current debate. At the time, he pointed to gold’s performance after the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971.

Following Nixon’s decision, gold was set loose from its moorings, experiencing massive volatility as it fought to establish itself as an independent store of wealth. Furthermore, in 1974, the precious metal rose 73%, only to fall 24% in 1975. In 1981, it lost 33% of its value after being up 121% just two years prior.

“If you had asked someone in 1975 if gold was a store of value, they’d have pointed to that 24% drop,” Hougan implied in his prior analysis. He argued that Bitcoin is following the same trajectory: a rapidly appreciating price that slows over time, accompanied by high-but-declining volatility.

“Either you believe it’s literally impossible to create a digital store of value, or you have to imagine it passing through exactly this teenage state,” insisted the Bitwise CIO.

His framework suggests the current drawdown, which has seen BTC fall roughly 50% from its October 2025 peak near $126,000, fits the pattern of an asset class maturing rather than failing.

The post Matt Hougan: BTC Is Still in Its ‘Teenage State’ appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XRP Ledger activity has dropped steeply, with public metrics showing active users, payment volume, and sender accounts falling between 50% and 80% within weeks, according to market watcher Arthur.

The data has sparked debate over whether the network is weakening or simply shifting activity away from public dashboards after a new institutional trading feature went live.

Public XRPL Stats Fall

In a thread posted on X on February 23, Arthur said active users with tags fell to about 38,000 from more than 200,000, while payment volume dropped to roughly 80 million XRP from over 2.5 billion. Additionally, unique sending accounts slid to about 3,000 from above 40,000, with the analyst describing the figures as “bad” but arguing they may not reflect real network demand.

He linked the drop to the February 18 activation of XLS-81, a permissioned decentralized exchange system that allows regulated entities to trade inside restricted pools. Transactions routed through those channels do not appear on public trackers. Furthermore, he suggested the late-2025 spike in activity came from retail flows visible on-chain, whereas institutional flows could now be moving privately.

At the same time, the XRP advocate criticized viral price forecasts, such as a February 22 post from trader CryptoBull2020 predicting XRP could hit $15 by March and $70 by May. He argued that liquidity and macro conditions matter more than social media optimism.

The asset was trading near $1.39 at the time of writing, down about 2% in the last 24 hours, 5% in seven days, and 27% over the past month. Across the last year, it has fallen by more than 46% and is now more than 60% below its July 2025 peak of $3.65.

By comparison, Bitcoin (BTC) has mostly ranged sideways recently, according to pseudonymous analyst Darkfost, which they said has limited direction across altcoins.

Darkfost also reported that more than 31 million XRP moved into wallets on Binance in a single day, largely from large holders. They estimated the transfers could represent about $45 million in potential sell pressure if the funds reach the market.

Loss Data and Valuation Metrics Offer Mixed Signals

A recent report from Santiment adds longer-term context, saying XRP recorded its largest realized loss spike since 2022 after falling from about $3.60 to near $1.10 earlier this month. The firm noted that similar spikes previously came right before a 114% price rise within eight months, though it did not predict that pattern would repeat.

In another analysis, Santiment compared MVRV ratios to rank Ethereum as the most undervalued major crypto at -14.3%, followed by Bitcoin at -6.9%, with XRP at -4.1%. The metric measures whether holders are in profit or loss relative to their cost basis.

The post XRPL Metrics Drop 50–80%: Analyst Explains Why and Whether It Can Hurt XRP’s Price appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The latest developments on the tariff front stirred by US President Donald Trump seem to have negatively impacted the broader cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and many other well-known digital assets charting losses for the day.

However, the meme coin pippin (PIPPIN) defied the latest carnage by posting a double-digit increase for that timeframe.

Top Performer Again

The meme coin was the talk of the town at the start of the month, surging to an all-time high of around $0.76 on February 15. It then underwent a sharp correction, but the past 24 hours have delivered another notable upswing.

PIPPIN spiked by 20%, briefly exceeding $0.72 before stabilizing at around $0.71 (per CoinGecko’s data). Its market capitalization once again surpassed $700 million, bringing the asset back into the top 100 cryptocurrencies. As of press time, PIPPIN is the 81st-largest in the entire market and ranks seventh in the meme coin niche.

Some market observers believe the price may rally even more in the short term. X user Blockchainedbb recently predicted that the asset could experience enhanced volatility in the following weeks but eventually rise to as high as $1.20. They also described the zone around $0.50 as a “great” buying opportunity.

X user Satori chipped in, too, claiming that PIPPIN has become one of their “best plays lately.” According to the analyst, while maxis remained committed to BTC and waited for the next cycle to unfold, capital shifted elsewhere.

For his part, Sjuul | AltCryptoGems argued that the former resistance at $0.50 has turned into support, and expects the price to push back into its ATH zone again.

Of course, there are plenty of pessimists and critics who continue to voice their concerns. Crypto GVR, for instance, predicted that PIPPIN may soon fall below $0.10. Prior to that, X users va00sa and Shual warned that insiders control a large portion of the meme coin’s supply, allowing them to easily manipulate the price.

Is the Rally Sustainable?

Traders hoping to make fortunes overnight and considering whether to deal with PIPPIN should keep in mind that meme coins are infamous for their extreme volatility. Tokens in this category are often driven by pure hype speculation rather than solid fundamentals or real use cases, which means they can witness severe price drops in a very short period of time.

PIPPIN’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) also indicates that it might be time for a pullback. The technical analysis tool is often used by traders to spot possible trend reversals. It ranges from 0 to 100, and readings above 70 suggest the price has risen too much over a brief span and may be due for a correction. Conversely, values below 30 are considered bullish territory. As of this writing, the RSI stands at around 85.

The post Pippin (PIPPIN) Soars 20% Daily: What’s Next? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A key technical signal that has foreshadowed the final capitulation phase of previous Bitcoin (BTC) bear markets is flashing again.

According to chartist Ali Martinez, a “death cross” on the three-day chart could be confirmed in late February, potentially sending BTC to $40,000 or even $30,000.

The Death Cross Pattern and What History Shows

Martinez pointed to the three-day chart as a crucial timeframe for understanding Bitcoin’s macro structure, noting that the interaction between the 50 and 200 simple moving averages on this chart has reliably signaled the last major downside move since 2014.

“The death cross between these two moving averages on the 3-day chart has consistently preceded the final leg down of a bear market,” the trader wrote.

Following the 2013 top, Bitcoin dropped more than 72% before the death cross printed in December 2014, after which it fell another 52%. After the 2017 peak, the death cross appeared in November 2018, coming just before a final 50% decline. The signal emerged again in May 2022, following the 2021 top, which led to an additional 45% drop.

Bitcoin registered a new all-time high (ATH) in October 2025 when it went above $126,000, but the current price, which had recovered to just over $66,000 at the time of writing after earlier shedding about $4,000 in only a matter of hours, is nearly 48% below that ATH.

With a potential death cross projected for late February, Martinez warns that if history repeats even partially, a further 30% decline would place Bitcoin near $40,000, while a 50% drop could take it to $30,000.

However, the market watcher was quick to note that there were no guarantees the price drops would happen, even though the current structure matches up with historical setups that led to the last major downside moves before macro bottoms formed.

Market Reaction and On-Chain Divergence

Bitcoin is currently down about 2.5% in the last 24 hours and more than 4% over the past week. It has also lost nearly 27% of its value in the past month, a drop exacerbated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a 10% (later upgraded to 15%) temporary global tariff after the country’s Supreme Court struck down many of the previous tariffs the Trump administration had imposed under a 1977 emergency law.

As seen during past tariff-related volatility, the impact on Bitcoin wasn’t immediate but arrived once legacy futures markets opened. It also sparked a coordinated bearish impulse in the futures market, with data from analyst Axel Adler Jr. showing that taker sell volume spiked to $2.3 billion in a single hour, accompanied by forced long liquidations of approximately 1,247 BTC worth more than $81 million.

Santiment data confirmed the liquidation cascade, noting open interest dropped to $19.5 billion, which is less than half its January peak, leading to skyrocketing negative sentiment, and the Bitcoin market entering “FUD mode.”

The post Bitcoin ‘Death Cross’ Returns: Why BTC Could Tumble to $30,000 Next appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Shiba Inu’s price may have declined substantially over the past several months, but its community remains among the biggest ones in the crypto space.

That said, it is no wonder that scammers often target the so-called SHIB Army using various and sophisticated attacks.

The Latest Danger

Just hours ago, Shibarium Trustwatch (an X account dedicated to warning Shiba Inu users about potential threats) sounded the alarm about multiple fraud attempts involving the SOU NFT.

The team asserted that the non-fungible token in question will never be airdropped to users’ wallets, and that eligible claimants can do so only through Shiba Inu’s official website.

“Do not click on shared, shortened, or copied links. Scammers often create fake websites that look identical to the real one in order to steal funds. Always type the official address directly into your browser and verify you are on the correct domain before connecting your wallet. Never share your private keys or seed phrase with anyone under any circumstances,” the alert reads.

One person commenting on the post was LUCIE , the pseudonymous marketing strategist of Shibarium. They urged the SHIB Army to remain vigilant, warning that fake ads impersonating Uniswap have already led to substantial user losses. They added that crypto scams and exploits have siphoned off roughly $370 million in January alone.

What Is SOU NFT?

The security of Shiba Inu’s layer-2 scaling solution, Shibarium, was breached in September last year, with some reports suggesting the attacker used a flash loan to purchase 4.6 million BONE tokens.

The incident severely disrupted the protocol’s activity, with daily transactions collapsing from millions to only a few hundred. Some analysts have repeatedly argued over the past months that Shiba Inu’s price resurgence may heavily depend on Shibarium’s revival.

After the attack, Shiba Inu’s team created SOU (“Shib Owes You”) NFTs to compensate users for their losses. Each non-fungible token represents a verified claim recorded on Ethereum that shows the amount owed and the amount already repaid.

“You can hold the NFT and wait for repayment, or transfer it if you choose. Think of it like a digital IOU that lives forever on the blockchain instead of a promise in a spreadsheet,” the team recently explained.

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