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Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest reversed its recent selling activity by purchasing roughly $15.2 million worth of shares in Coinbase Global, adding stock across multiple actively managed ETFs. The firm acquired tens of thousands of shares as Coinbase’s stock experienced a sharp rally, closing the trading session up more than 16% at $164.32 before edging higher after hours. Alongside Coinbase, ARK Invest also expanded its position in Roblox Corporation, whose shares closed near $63.17 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The renewed buying followed a notable reduction in ARK’s Coinbase exposure earlier in the month, when the firm sold more than $39 million in shares across consecutive trading days while increasing its position in Bullish. The move comes against the backdrop of Coinbase’s weaker financial performance, including a $667 million net loss in the fourth quarter of 2025, declining revenues, and reduced transaction activity amid broader crypto market weakness. Despite generating significant transaction revenue early in the first quarter, the company signaled expectations of softer subscription and services revenue. Source
A shortened trading week is expected to bring heightened volatility as investors focus on key US macroeconomic events. Markets are closed Monday for President’s Day, but attention quickly shifts to employment data, retail sales, durable goods orders, fourth-quarter GDP, and especially the Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation report. The release of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes and multiple central bank speaker appearances may offer further signals on monetary policy. Despite softer CPI figures showing easing inflation, expectations for rate cuts remain low, with the CME FedWatch Tool indicating a high probability of unchanged rates. Economists at Goldman Sachs revised their PCE outlook upward, citing rising technology-related prices influenced by global component shortages tied to AI infrastructure demand.
Crypto markets have already surrendered last week’s gains, with total market capitalization declining and major assets pulling back. Bitcoin briefly moved above 70,000 before retreating toward the high-68,000 range, continuing its recent sideways behavior. Ether experienced sharper losses, falling back below 2,000, while altcoins extended their broader decline. Persistent geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainty are contributing to fragile market sentiment, reinforcing expectations of increased price swings throughout the week. Source
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt argued that banks should not view stablecoin yield programs as a threat, emphasizing that financial institutions can offer similar products and compete on equal footing with crypto platforms. He described the ongoing dispute over stablecoin rewards as an unnecessary obstacle in negotiations surrounding the CLARITY market structure bill, noting that revenue-sharing models do not undermine traditional banking. Witt suggested that banks are already moving in this direction, with many pursuing charters through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to expand into crypto-related services, and predicted that collaboration rather than resistance will ultimately prevail.
The debate over stablecoin yield has contributed to delays in advancing the CLARITY Act, which seeks to define regulatory responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission while introducing a formal asset classification framework. Witt warned that political uncertainty tied to the 2026 midterm elections could jeopardize the bill’s passage, echoing concerns raised by Scott Bessent about shifting congressional control. He stressed that the White House Crypto Council is working to secure the legislation before election dynamics disrupt regulatory progress established under Donald Trump. Source
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that advancing the Clarity Act would help stabilize crypto markets following recent price turbulence. He characterized much of the market’s downturn as “self-induced,” arguing that opposition from segments of the industry has contributed to uncertainty. Bessent stressed the importance of moving the legislation forward quickly, noting bipartisan interest in establishing a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets and suggesting that regulatory clarity would provide reassurance to investors.
Tensions surrounding the bill have intensified, particularly after Coinbase withdrew support over provisions restricting stablecoin yield programs. CEO Brian Armstrong publicly criticized the current draft, reflecting broader industry divisions. Bessent also warned that shifting political dynamics, including the possibility of Democrats gaining control of the House, could derail progress. Prediction markets such as Polymarket currently assign the bill a moderate probability of becoming law by the end of 2026. Source
Several governments, including Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, are exploring tokenized debt instruments and the use of blockchain technology for distributing social benefits. Julie Myers Wood, CEO of Guidepost Solutions, highlighted that digital delivery of government benefits can significantly improve efficiency, accelerate payments, and create an auditable record of transactions. Her firm advised the Marshall Islands government on regulatory compliance and sanctions frameworks for its USDM1 bond, a tokenized debt instrument backed one-to-one by short-term US Treasuries. The country also launched a Universal Basic Income program that distributes quarterly benefits directly to citizens through mobile wallets, demonstrating how blockchain can modernize public financial infrastructure.
As tokenized government debt markets expand, compliance considerations remain a central challenge. Anti-money laundering requirements, sanctions compliance, and know-your-customer obligations are identified as major regulatory risks for governments issuing onchain bonds. Despite these hurdles, the broader tokenized Treasury market has experienced rapid growth since 2024, reflecting increasing institutional and governmental interest. Industry projections, including those from Taurus SA co-founder Lamine Brahimi, suggest the tokenized bond market could scale substantially, driven by reduced settlement times, lower transaction costs, and asset fractionalization, all of which enhance accessibility to global financial systems. Source
Blockstream CEO Adam Back has criticized Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, arguing that the attempt to curb Ordinals-style data usage could damage Bitcoin’s credibility more than the perceived spam itself. The proposal, introduced by developer Dathon Ohm, would temporarily limit how much arbitrary data can be embedded in transactions, aiming to reduce non-financial content such as images and media files. While a portion of nodes running Bitcoin Knots has signaled support, Back contends that spam is merely an annoyance rather than a security threat and warns that implementing a consensus-level change without broad agreement risks undermining confidence in the network. The debate follows Bitcoin Core’s earlier decision to remove the OP_RETURN size limit, a move that accelerated disagreements over acceptable transaction use.
Back also raised concerns that BIP-110 could theoretically freeze funds by making certain outputs unspendable, though Ohm maintains that safeguards were designed to avoid disrupting legitimate use cases. Supporters of Ordinals and Runes, including Leonidas, argue that non-financial transactions have generated substantial fee revenue for miners, helping offset declining block subsidies. However, data from Dune Analytics indicates that inscription-related fees have fallen sharply since their peak, weakening the argument that such activity can sustainably support network security. The discussion reflects a broader philosophical divide over Bitcoin’s role, balancing its function as sound money against evolving use cases enabled by protocol flexibility. Source
Figure Technology confirmed that it experienced a customer data breach after an employee was compromised through a social engineering attack. The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility, stating that the company declined to pay a ransom and that stolen data totaling 2.5 gigabytes was published. Reports indicate the exposed files included sensitive personal information such as customer names, home addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers. Figure said it moved quickly to block the unauthorized activity and engaged a forensic firm to determine the scope and impact of the incident. The breach highlights ongoing security risks tied to social engineering, a tactic where attackers manipulate employees into granting access.
Founded in 2018, Figure operates a blockchain-based lending platform built on Provenance, primarily offering home equity lines of credit, and went public in September 2025. The company stated it is notifying affected individuals, coordinating with partners, and providing complimentary credit monitoring services. The incident occurred amid broader concerns about rising cybercrime and data breaches, with industry reports pointing to escalating losses driven by AI-powered scams and widespread security incidents across sectors. Despite the breach disclosure, Figure’s stock closed higher on the day, even as shares have seen significant volatility in recent weeks. Source
The Premium One subscription is presented as a comprehensive upgrade designed to enhance online business and marketing capabilities within the Markethive ecosystem. Priced at $49.95 per month, it unlocks the platform’s full inbound marketing system, including capture pages, broadcasting tools, autoresponders, tracking features, blogging, video channels, and conference rooms. The upgrade emphasizes efficiency, expanded reach, and monetization opportunities, supported by Markethive’s native cryptocurrency, Hivecoin. Subscribers receive increased wallet transfer allowances, referral bonuses, premium data insights on profile visitors, extended network visibility, automated newsfeed posting, advanced text formatting, and discounted access to platform services such as advertising and promotions.
The subscription also highlights financial incentives and engagement-driven rewards, including higher micropayments and monthly interest earned by staking Markethive credits in the Vault. Additional features include monetizable Supergroups functioning as storefronts and campaign hubs, cross-group broadcast posting, a full video channel system with multi-platform distribution, time-limited posts, bookmarking tools, and expanded messaging capabilities beyond direct connections. Premium branding elements, such as a membership badge, reinforce credibility within the network. Overall, the offering positions Premium One as a multifunctional business, marketing, and crypto-earning upgrade aimed at entrepreneurs seeking greater visibility, automation, and revenue potential. Source
Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, argues that excessive transparency in most cryptocurrencies is a major barrier preventing their widespread use as a payment method. He explains that fully visible transactions make it impractical for businesses and institutions to operate onchain, since sensitive financial information becomes publicly accessible. A simple example is payroll: if a company pays employees using onchain crypto transactions, anyone could inspect wallet addresses and see individual salaries. Zhao also notes, in discussions on the All-In Podcast with Chamath Palihapitiya, that transparency raises physical security concerns by exposing users’ financial activity, echoing broader cypherpunk ideals that originally emphasized privacy and protection from surveillance. His comments arrive amid renewed debate over financial privacy, alongside warnings from figures like Ray Dalio about the risks of systems with limited privacy.
Industry participants reinforce the argument that privacy is essential for institutional adoption. Avidan Abitbol, formerly associated with the Kaspa project, highlights that transaction data can reveal trade secrets, business relationships, operational patterns, and indicators of a company’s financial health. Such exposure can weaken negotiation positions, increase risks of corporate espionage, and attract scammers. Eran Barak of Shielded Technologies adds that advances in AI will intensify these vulnerabilities, as increasingly sophisticated AI-assisted attackers become better at analyzing and exploiting publicly available data. In this context, privacy-focused onchain technologies are framed not as optional features but as necessary infrastructure for safeguarding valuable financial and corporate information. Source
Bitcoin developers have advanced preparations for a post-quantum future by merging BIP 360 into the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals repository, moving the idea into formal review rather than activating it. The proposal introduces Pay-to-Merkle-Root, a new output structure designed to remove a quantum-vulnerable element of Taproot by disabling key-path spending, which exposes public keys when coins are spent. According to co-author Ethan Heilman, this design preserves Bitcoin’s upgrade flexibility while addressing a specific weakness that could be exploited by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer using Shor’s algorithm. The core concern is that once a public key is revealed, a quantum attacker could theoretically derive the corresponding private key and steal funds.
Opinions differ sharply on how soon such a threat might materialize. Thomas Rosenbaum suggested fault-tolerant quantum systems could emerge within five to seven years, pointing to recent advances reported by California Institute of Technology and IBM involving qubit stability and entanglement. Others remain more cautious, with Heilman emphasizing the unpredictability of long-term forecasts and Jameson Lopp arguing that cryptographically relevant machines may still be many years or decades away. Guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which sets post-quantum migration targets into the mid-2030s, reflects a similarly measured outlook. Beyond hardware timelines, Lopp highlighted a different challenge: the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus for protocol changes in a decentralized network. Source
Stani Kulechov, CEO and founder of Aave, envisions a $50 trillion market of “abundance assets” being tokenized onchain by 2050, which could transform decentralized finance by providing new forms of collateral. He highlighted solar energy as a major opportunity, potentially accounting for $15 to $30 trillion of this market, and suggested that tokenizing such assets would enable capital to be more efficiently deployed across projects. While existing tokenized real-world assets are mostly scarce assets like US Treasury bonds, stocks, commodities, private credit, and real estate, Kulechov argues that abundance assets such as solar, energy storage, robotics, vertical farming, and lab-grown food could drive both higher returns and better alignment with sustainability goals.
Kulechov illustrated how tokenization could make capital deployment more flexible, using the example of a $100 million solar project where $70 million could be borrowed and redeployed into new initiatives, giving onchain depositors access to scalable, low-risk yields. He emphasized that unlike traditional infrastructure investments, which lock up funds for decades, tokenized abundance assets can be continuously traded, allowing the same capital to finance multiple projects over time. According to him, abundance-backed products could outperform scarce assets in profitability, risk profile, and market appeal, providing a strong incentive for broader adoption within DeFi ecosystems such as Aave, which currently has $27 billion in total value locked. Source
Animoca Brands has obtained a Virtual Asset Service Provider license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, enabling the Hong Kong-based Web3 investor and platform developer to expand its crypto operations in the Middle East. The license permits the company to offer broker-dealer and investment management services related to virtual assets from Dubai, excluding the Dubai International Financial Centre, primarily targeting institutional and qualified investors. According to Omar Elassar, managing director for the Middle East at Animoca Brands, the license strengthens the company’s ability to engage with Web3 foundations and global institutional clients within a regulated framework.
The move aligns with Dubai’s broader push to attract regulated crypto businesses, following similar approvals for companies like BitGo in 2025. Animoca Brands supports blockchain platforms and Web3 ecosystems including The Sandbox, Open Campus, and Moca Network, and its investment portfolio spans over 600 projects. Recent acquisitions, such as gaming and digital collectibles company Somo, enhance its offerings in blockchain-based digital assets. By securing the VARA license, Animoca Brands positions itself to serve institutional investors more broadly in Dubai while operating under clear regulatory oversight. Source
Bitcoin traders are increasingly taking on leverage as they anticipate a price rebound, even as the cryptocurrency continues to trade sideways between $62,000 and $71,000. The three-month futures basis has widened from 1.5% to 4% since February 13, reflecting heightened derivatives activity and a speculative appetite for long positions. Funding rates on major exchanges have also risen, signaling that long-position speculators are dominating the market. Retail investors, particularly on Coinbase, are showing resilience by buying the dip, with many maintaining or increasing their balances despite market uncertainty. This increased leverage and retail participation suggest growing optimism for a breakout rally, though the market has yet to see a decisive move.
Options market data shows reduced demand for downside protection, hinting at growing bullish conviction, but experts warn that this optimism comes with risks. Analysts note that retail traders often enter late and can suffer during sudden unwinds, making the current setup potentially vulnerable to an over-leveraged shakeout. Trading volumes remain insufficient to support the current sentiment, creating a high-risk environment where sudden declines could trigger forced liquidations and mass exits. Bitcoin’s recent dip of nearly 2.5% to $68,600 underscores the fragile balance between a healthy recovery and investor apathy. Source
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued that prediction markets should shift focus from short-term betting to providing price stability for consumers. He expressed concern that current markets are over-converging into speculative products that prioritize quick profits rather than long-term utility. Buterin proposed integrating on-chain prediction markets with large-language models to create personalized hedging tools, allowing individuals and businesses to offset the impact of rising costs on goods and services. By using price indices for different categories of goods and services, users could hold tailored baskets of prediction market shares to manage their expected future expenses and protect against inflation.
Supporters of prediction markets emphasize their value as crowdsourced intelligence platforms that can provide insights into global events and financial trends while allowing risk hedging. Experts note that these markets can be more accurate than traditional polls and should be treated as a public good. In the US, regulators have considered restricting prediction markets, but platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi offer alternatives to centralized information sources, providing independent insights that are less susceptible to manipulation. Source
OpenAI has appointed OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger to lead its development of personal AI agents, positioning multi-agent systems as a central focus for the company’s next product phase. Steinberger plans to turn OpenClaw into a foundation-run open-source project supported by OpenAI, enabling the platform to remain a hub for developers and users who want control over their data. These AI agents are designed to perform tasks autonomously on behalf of users, connecting to external tools, executing multi-step instructions, and managing activities across apps. Steinberger emphasized that partnering with OpenAI is the fastest way to make these open agents widely accessible while keeping the project aligned with an open-source governance model similar to Chrome and Chromium.
OpenClaw has rapidly gained traction by supporting persistent agents that operate locally and interface with messaging platforms and external services, attracting contributions and integrations from a growing community. Industry observers have expressed concern over whether OpenAI’s backing can sustain momentum, noting that open-source projects often rely heavily on a small group of core contributors. Despite trademark disputes with companies like Anthropic and intense scrutiny from major players, OpenClaw continues to ship updates and expand its ecosystem with new features, security improvements, and third-party extensions, positioning it as a potential cornerstone of OpenAI’s personal AI agent strategy. Source
Grayscale has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to convert its trust tracking the Aave token into an exchange-traded fund, which it plans to list on NYSE Arca under the ticker GAVE. The fund will charge a 2.5% fee, with Coinbase serving as custodian and prime broker. The move signals Grayscale’s confidence in continued Wall Street interest in altcoins, even amid a broader market downturn, and aims to provide investors with direct exposure to Aave, the largest decentralized finance protocol by total value locked.
Grayscale is the second company, after Bitwise, to seek regulatory approval for a US-based Aave ETF. While Bitwise’s proposed ETF would hold a mix of AAVE tokens and other securities, Grayscale’s fund would hold the tokens directly. These filings come as part of a growing trend of ETFs tied to popular altcoins, joining overseas products such as 21Shares’ Aave exchange-traded product in Sweden and Global X’s similar product in Germany. The AAVE token has seen a significant decline from its all-time high of nearly $662 in May 2021, trading recently around $126, highlighting both risk and potential opportunity for investors. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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