The dual-token structure seeks to sidestep US restrictions on yield-bearing stablecoins by separating returns from the stable unit itself.
The crypto exchange finalized a 30-day plan to convert its stablecoin-backed user protection fund into 15,000 BTC, reinforcing bitcoin as its long-term reserve asset.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent pullback may be less about crypto‑specific weakness and more about macroeconomic fears, according to André Dragosch, Bitwise’s Head of Research for Europe. In a social media post published Wednesday, Dragosch argued that the world’s largest cryptocurrency appears to be pricing in a potential deep US recession. If that downturn ultimately fails to materialize, he suggested, Bitcoin could be positioned for a significant rebound. Is Bitcoin Facing A Quantum Risk Premium? Dragosch described Bitcoin as fundamentally a macro‑driven asset. Historically, he estimates that roughly 90% of its performance can be explained by broad economic forces such as growth expectations, global liquidity conditions and monetary policy trends. However, he acknowledged that there are periods when Bitcoin temporarily decouples from these drivers. In his view, the market may currently be in one of those transitional phases. Related Reading: UNI Rallies 10% As BlackRock Brings Treasury‑Backed BUIDL Token To Uniswap Part of the recent divergence, he noted, may stem from concerns unrelated to traditional macro factors. Some market participants have pointed to what Dragosch referred to as a “quantum discount.” This narrative suggests that long‑term holder selling and speculation about the eventual emergence of quantum‑resistant cryptography could be weighing on Bitcoin’s valuation. He observed that Bitcoin’s relative underperformance compared with Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which is perceived to have a clearer near‑term roadmap for quantum resilience, may reflect that line of thinking. By his rough estimate, markets could be assigning as much as a 25% probability to quantum‑related risk, whereas he believes a more realistic discount would be closer to 5%, given that any meaningful “Q‑Day” threat likely remains far in the future. Rare Macro Mispricing Opportunity More recently, Dragosch said Bitcoin’s sensitivity to macroeconomic developments has begun to increase again. That shift has coincided with weakness in software equities, adding further downward pressure to the cryptocurrency. In his assessment, the latest correction has produced one of the largest macro mispricings in Bitcoin’s history. He pointed to residuals between forward‑looking economic indicators and Bitcoin’s implied growth pricing, noting that the current gap is even more pronounced than during the COVID‑19 recession in 2020. In practical terms, Dragosch believes Bitcoin’s current valuation reflects expectations of a deep US recession. Should such a downturn fail to occur, he argues that the resulting setup could represent one of the more asymmetric risk‑reward opportunities seen in Bitcoin to date. Related Reading: Strategy Unfazed By Bitcoin Crash, Michael Saylor Vows Quarterly Purchases He also emphasized that macroeconomic signals are not uniformly negative. Industrial commodity markets are showing early signs of renewed momentum, while US ISM data has returned to expansion territory. Leading indicators such as Germany’s Ifo survey and Taiwanese semiconductor export data are trending upward. Additionally, global rate‑cutting cycles have historically preceded stabilization in forward growth expectations. Taken together, these factors suggest that global growth prospects may not be deteriorating as sharply as some fear. Such an environment, Dragosch noted, typically supports risk assets like Bitcoin while diminishing relative demand for gold. He highlighted that the BTC-to-gold ratio currently sits near levels that historically signal dislocation, which he views as another potential sign of undervaluation. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $67,591, which is about 46% below the all-time high of $126,000 reached during last year’s rally in October. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
The issuer cleared a key regulatory hurdle as it prepares to roll out GBPA, a fully backed sterling stablecoin targeting institutional use.
Ark bought around 2.1 million BLSH shares in the past nine trading days, valued about $58.8 million based on the stock's closing price each day.
Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) has announced plans to launch a new forex trading platform called World Swap, expanding its presence in the global foreign exchange market. The new platform will be built around its dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1, as the company continues to grow its digital finance ecosystem. WLFI Announced World Swap Forex Platform Speaking …
Israeli prosecutors indicted an IDF reservist and a civilian for allegedly using classified military information to place bets on Polymarket.
From ETFs to stablecoins to AI infrastructure, Solana’s pitch in Hong Kong was clear: less memecoin mania, more internet capital markets.
On Feb. 11, Uniswap announced that BlackRock's $2.2 billion USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) would trade on UniswapX via a partnership with Securitize. The integration enables BUIDL holders to swap into USDC via an on-chain request-for-quote system that settles atomically with quotes from allowlisted market makers, including Flowdesk, Tokka Labs, and Wintermute. Additionally, BlackRock […]
The post Uniswap is bringing BlackRock’s $2.2 billion BUIDL to DeFi, but the trade access comes with a catch appeared first on CryptoSlate.
The UK appointed HSBC Orion for its DIGIT pilot to explore blockchain bonds, aiming to improve efficiency, cut costs and boost security.
Thailand just opened the door for Bitcoin in its regulated derivatives market. The Thai Cabinet approved changes to the country’s Derivatives Act that allow digital assets like Bitcoin to be used as underlying assets for futures and options contracts. The country’s crypto market is already valued at $3.19 billion, with an average daily trading volume …
An OKX-commissioned Pollfish survey finds 13% of Gen Z have paid for dates with crypto, while many non-users cite a lack of a direct way to do so.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has sold more than $550 million worth of company shares over the past year, according to publicly available data. Figures highlighted by VanEck’s Head of Digital Assets Research, Matthew Sigel, show Armstrong sold over 1.5 million Coinbase (COIN) shares between April 2025 and January 2026. Key Share Sales Details Total shares …
Moscow's communications watchdog is simultaneously restricting Telegram, as the Kremlin doubles down on its push for a homegrown "super app."
ZRO, the native token of the omnichain interpretability protocol LayerZero, has skyrocketed more than 40% on the past day following the announcement of its new Layer-1 (L1) blockchain backed by major institutional players. Related Reading: XRP Positioned For Major Structure Shift As Price Tests Critical Level LayerZero Unveils Zero Blockchain On Tuesday, LayerZero Labs announced a new L1 blockchain, Zero, aimed at institutional financial markets. According to the announcement, it is set to launch in fall 2026, with three initial “zones,” described as permissionless environments fully owned and governed by the underlying network. Moreover, ZRO will serve as the network’s native token, providing interoperability between Zones and across the 165+ blockchains it connects. Designed to “eliminate the long-standing scalability challenges of decentralized networks,” Zero is set to process 2 million transactions per second (TPS) per Zone and charge near-zero fees by targeting four primary bottlenecks. “By leveraging Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs to decouple execution from verification, Zero transitions the network from redundant replication to a heterogeneous architecture,” LayerZero Labs explained on X. “This structural shift allows for two distinct validator classes: lightweight Block Validators capable of running on low-grade consumer hardware and optional higher performance Block Producers,” it continued. Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, affirmed that Zero’s architecture advances the industry’s roadmap by at least a decade. “We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy onchain with this technology. Our mission is to build permissionless infrastructure for a better world – this is the beginning of that world,” he added. Zero Receives Major Institutional Backing The rollout was backed by key institutional players, including Citadel Securities, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), ARK Invest, Google Cloud, and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Notably, Citadel Securities is collaborating to evaluate how its technology could apply to trading, clearing, and settlement workflows. Additionally, it made a strategic investment in ZRO. ARK Invest is becoming a shareholder of LayerZero equity and ZRO. Meanwhile, Cathie Wood, the company’s CEO and CIO, joined LayerZero’s new advisory board alongside Michael Blaugrund, VP of Strategic Initiatives at ICE, and Caroline Butler, former head of digital assets at BNY Mellon. “This is a historic opportunity at the intersection of finance and the internet. I am thrilled to join LayerZero’s advisory board and help accelerate the adoption of Zero by the largest markets and companies in the world,” Wood said in a statement. DTCC will investigate the Zero blockchain architecture to enhance the scalability of the DTC Tokenization Service and collateral management, while ICE will examine it for 24/7 trading and tokenized collateral. Moreover, Google Cloud partnered to explore how to enable AI agents to make micropayments and trade resources instantly. Tether also announced a separate strategic investment in LayerZero Labs on Tuesday. ZRO Price Skyrockets Following the news, ZRO soared more than 40% in the last 24 hours, hitting a four-month high of $2.59 on Wednesday morning. The cryptocurrency had been trading between the $1.50 and $2.00 area over the past few weeks, reaching a local low of $1.35 during last week’s crash. Now, the recent momentum has pushed LayerZero back above the $2.00 area and toward a major resistance area. The cryptocurrency has been unable to reclaim the $2.60 mark since June, being rejected from this area after each retest. Related Reading: Bitcoin Could See New Drop To $60,000 Despite Bounce – Here’s The Level To Defend If ZRO reclaims $2.60, it could target the next major resistance, located at around $3.00. Analyst Crypto Tony affirmed that if the cryptocurrency clears this level, “we are good for $3.30. Wave 3 is beginning.” As of this writing, ZRO is trading at $2.45, a 36.5% increase in the weekly timeframe. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
The Hong Kong-based DePin company beat out 11 other finalists with its identity verification solution aimed at bringing DeFi to the mainstream.
Binance has completed the $1 billion transition of its SAFU reserves into bitcoin, confirming the fund holds 15,000 BTC.
The American Bankers Association (ABA), the largest banking lobby in the United States, has asked the OCC to immediately pause national bank charter reviews for crypto firms. Ripple, Coinbase, Circle, and several others are directly affected. In a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the ABA said the process should be …
Issuing blockchain-based sovereign bonds could "significantly accelerate" transaction settlement times, HSBC said.
The American Bankers Association pressed the OCC to delay new national trust bank charters for crypto and stablecoin firms until the GENIUS Act framework is fully in place.
Binance completed its $1 billion Bitcoin conversion for its emergency user fund as crypto sentiment hit record lows and smart money traders increased short exposure.
Data shows the social media sentiment around Bitcoin has remained deeply bearish despite the recovery that the cryptocurrency’s price has made. Social Media Data Suggests Retail Still Fearful About Bitcoin In a new post on X, analytics firm Santiment has discussed about how the Positive/Negative Sentiment for Bitcoin has developed on social media following the recent recovery surge in the asset’s price. Related Reading: Ethereum Whale Selloff Continues As Supply Share Drops Under 75% The Positive/Negative Sentiment refers to an indicator that tells us, as its name suggests, how the positive and negative sentiments related to a given asset compare on the major social media platforms. The metric works by putting social media posts/threads/messages containing mentions of the asset through a machine-learning model to differentiate between positive and negative comments. Then, it counts up the number of posts in each category and finds their ratio. When the value of the indicator is greater than 1, it means the asset is observing more bullish messages than bearish ones. On the other hand, the metric being under this threshold implies the dominance of a negative sentiment. Now, here is the chart shared by Santiment that shows the trend in the Positive/Negative Sentiment for Bitcoin over the last few months: As is visible in the above graph, the Bitcoin Positive/Negative Sentiment rose to a notable level when the asset saw its rally in January. This suggests that retail traders on social media became greedy. What eventually followed the market greed was a top in the cryptocurrency and a reversal to the downside. As this drawdown took BTC back to the $60,000 level, the Positive/Negative Sentiment plummeted, meaning that fear now dominated social media platforms. Just like how the greedy sentiment led into a top, this bearish mentality paved way for a rebound instead. This is a pattern that has been witnessed with digital asset markets time and time again, with prices tending to move against the expectations of the crowd. Interestingly, even though BTC has climbed back into the high $60,000 levels since its low, the Positive/Negative Sentiment has continued to be at low levels. “Historically, while FUD is high, price rebounds have a heightened probability,” noted the analytics firm. It now remains to be seen how Bitcoin will develop in the near future, given the current bearish sentiment. Related Reading: Bitcoin Giant Awakens: 2,043 BTC Moved After 7-Year Slumber In some other news, the stablecoin market cap has dipped recently, as Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards has highlighted in an X post. Edwards has pointed out that the stablecoin market cap has historically only fallen in bear markets. If the recent trajectory of the combined USDT and USDC market cap is to go by, capital may once again be leaving this side of the sector. BTC Price Bitcoin recovered above $70,000 earlier, but the coin has since retraced a bit as its price is now trading around $67,700. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has completed the integration of Ripple USD (RLUSD) on the XRP Ledger. The integration comes at a time when demand for regulated and reliable stablecoins is growing. Binance confirmed that RLUSD deposits are now live, while withdrawals will be enabled soon. Binance Enables RLUSD on XRP Ledger Ripple’s senior …
Bitcoin sentiment has weakened as the market continues its correction after reaching nearly $120,000. Since that peak, BTC price has struggled to regain strength, and many analysts believe the decline may not be over. Unlike previous bull markets that ended with sharp spikes and sudden crashes, this cycle has been different. Instead of a dramatic …
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest bought nearly $50 million of Robinhood, Bullish and Circle shares as Bitcoin dipped and US spot BTC ETFs saw $276 million in outflows.
Every crypto exchange saw liquidations during the Oct. 10 liquidation event, Richard Teng told the crowd at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong.
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought more Bullish and Circle shares on Wednesday through its exchange-traded funds.
This follows the Thai Cabinet's approval of a proposal to align the derivatives market with international standards.
Bitcoin is printing on-chain loss-taking on a scale last seen during the Luna/UST meltdown, but at a radically different price point, a distinction that changes what the signal likely means for this drawdown. Axel Adler Jr. said Bitcoin’s Net Realized Profit/Loss has sunk deep into negative territory, with the 7-day moving average falling to -$1.99 billion on Feb. 7 before improving slightly to -$1.73 billion by Feb. 10. That places the current regime among the most severe loss-dominant stretches on record. Adler described it as “the second deepest negative reading in the entire history of observations,” exceeded only by June 18, 2022, when the metric hit -$2.24 billion amid the Luna/UST crash and cascading liquidations. The key detail, Adler argues, is persistence. Net Realized Profit/Loss has stayed below roughly -$1.7 billion for five consecutive days, forming what he framed as a sustained cluster of seller pressure, the kind of multi-day compression that typically marks capitulation behavior rather than a single shock print. In Adler’s framing, the mechanic is straightforward: realized losses are dominating realized profits on moved coins, and the market is working through the supply owned by participants forced or willing to sell below their cost basis. Related Reading: These Three Catalysts Could Spark Bitcoin’s Next Rally, According To Wintermute “The depth and duration of the current negative regime point to massive capitulation of participants who bought coins at higher levels,” he wrote. “The key reversal trigger is the return of Net Realized Profit/Loss above zero, which would signal the market’s transition from loss dominance to profit dominance. As long as the metric remains in deeply negative territory, seller pressure persists.” Bitcoin Losses Match Luna Crash Scale The companion chart, Bitcoin Realized Loss (7DMA), shows realized losses rising to about $2.3 billion on Feb. 7 and holding near that level through Feb. 10, another rarity in historical context. Adler called it “one of the highest smoothed levels in the entire history of observations,” explicitly comparing it to June 2022. He also emphasized that the 7-day smoothing understates peak stress in real time. At the height of the 2022 episode, Adler noted, single-day losses were roughly three times higher than the weekly-smoothed figure. In the current window, he pointed to a single-day realized loss of $6.05 billion on Feb. 5, the second-largest one-day loss in Bitcoin’s history, according to his note. The headline comparison, however, is not just magnitude but setting. In 2022, a similar realized-loss regime occurred with bitcoin trading around $19,000. This time, Adler says, the losses are being crystallized around $67,000 after a pullback from $125,000, a context he frames as a correction that is flushing out late entries rather than an ecosystem-wide failure cascade. Related Reading: Bitcoin Chart Screams 2022 Bear Market, Until You Notice What’s Missing “Back then, Realized Loss at $2.7B was occurring at a price of $19K,” Adler wrote. “Now, comparable loss volumes are being locked in at a price of $67K, which suggests not a systemic crash but rather a flushing out of late bull-cycle entries. This is capitulation of local top buyers, not a fundamental loss of network value.” Adler’s playbook puts two markers front and center. The first is a sustained move of Net Realized Profit/Loss (7DMA) back above zero for multiple weeks, which he frames as the transition from loss dominance to profit dominance. The second is a decline of Realized Loss (7DMA) below $1 billion, which would indicate that the wave of forced or pain-driven selling is fading. The risk, in his view, is that the market’s “cleansing stress” shifts into something more final if price weakness compounds. Adler flagged the sub-$60,000 area as a line where continued growth in realized losses alongside further price decline could turn a correction into “full-blown capitulation”, not because the current prints are small, but because the regime could extend and deepen. For now, Adler’s core claim is that Bitcoin is producing Luna-sized loss signals without Luna-like structural damage. Same order of magnitude on-chain, different story in the tape. At press time, BTC traded at $67,924. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
The companies are joining forces to introduce an RWA-backed stablecoin on OKX’s Ethereum-compatible layer-2 blockchain, X Layer.