CoinPhoton

Bitwise and GraniteShares file for election prediction market ETFs
Bitwise and GraniteShares have filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch exchange-traded funds tied to event contracts based on US election outcomes.
Bitwise submitted a prospectus for a new ETF lineup branded PredictionShares, consisting of six prediction-market-style ETFs to be listed on NYSE Arca. The structure includes:
Two funds tied to the 2028 US presidential election (one per major party winner)
Two funds tied to the 2026 Senate election outcome
Two funds tied to the 2026 House election outcome
Each fund will invest at least 80% of net assets in binary event contracts traded on exchanges regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These contracts settle at $1 if the specified outcome occurs and $0 if it does not, meaning a fund could lose nearly all its value if the predicted result fails.
GraniteShares filed for six similar ETFs with the same binary outcome structure tied to US elections.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart commented that the “financialization and ETF-ization of everything” is continuing. He also noted that this is not the first such filing, pointing to similar prediction-market ETF proposals previously submitted by Roundhill.

Pump.fun shifts rewards model to favor memecoin traders over creators
Pump.fun has introduced a new feature that redirects rewards toward memecoin traders instead of token deployers, revising a fee model that once generated more than $15 million in a single day at peak activity.
Under the update, token creators must choose before launch between traditional Creator Fees or a new Trader Cashback model using “Cashback Coins.” The decision is permanent. Previously, creators automatically received 0.3% of all trading fees from tokens they launched. The platform said many memecoins succeed without a formal team, making fixed creator rewards less justified.
Cashback Coins are generated with every trade and can only be accessed through Pump.fun’s built-in trading interface, Terminal. The change aims to let market participation determine who gets rewarded.
The rollout comes as platform fee revenue declines. Pump.fun recorded $31.8 million in fees in January, down 75.6% year over year, with February tracking lower so far. Onchain data shows only a small share of participating wallets have achieved meaningful profits, while most retail traders posted losses.
Analysts at Santiment recently said memecoins may be showing bottoming signals based on broad market capitulation sentiment.
In a related move, Coinbase shut down its Creator Rewards program on Base earlier this month as part of a shift toward focusing solely on tradable assets.

Arthur Hayes warns of AI-driven credit crisis, says money printing could send Bitcoin higher
Arthur Hayes says the recent divergence between Bitcoin and technology stocks may be signaling an artificial intelligence–driven credit crisis that could force central banks to restart large-scale money printing.
In his latest blog post, Hayes described Bitcoin as a “global fiat liquidity fire alarm,” arguing that it is the most responsive freely traded asset to changes in fiat credit supply. He warned that the growing divergence between Bitcoin and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index is a red flag pointing to a potential credit destruction event.
According to Hayes, when two previously correlated asset classes decouple, it often indicates deeper stress in dollar liquidity and credit conditions, raising the risk of deflationary pressure across the financial system.
He argues that AI adoption could lead to significant white-collar job losses, weakening borrowers’ ability to service consumer credit and mortgage debt. Using a rough model, Hayes estimates that if 20% of the 72 million U.S. knowledge workers lose their jobs, it could result in about $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage losses — equivalent to roughly a 13% write-down of U.S. commercial bank equity.
Hayes expects weaker regional banks would be hit first, followed by deposit flight and tightening credit markets, eventually forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with renewed money printing measures.
Under that scenario, he believes expanded fiat credit creation would push Bitcoin sharply off its lows and potentially drive it to a new all-time high as markets price in further monetary easing.
Hayes also noted that his firm, Maelstrom, plans to deploy excess stablecoin reserves into Zcash and Hyperliquid if the Fed pivots back to looser policy. He added that this is not his first money-printing thesis, having previously predicted liquidity-driven rallies tied to central bank interventions.

Moonwell DeFi oracle misconfiguration on Base causes $1.78M bad debt
Moonwell DeFi reported an oracle misconfiguration in its cbETH market on Base that priced cbETH at about $1.12 instead of roughly $2,200, allowing bots to liquidate collateral at artificially low values and generate approximately $1.78 million in bad debt limited to that market.
The team said the issue was detected within minutes on Feb. 15, 2026, and risk controls were immediately tightened by reducing supply and borrow caps to 0.01 to prevent further exposure. Other markets and networks, including Optimism, were not affected.
A governance proposal to fix the oracle configuration is now in progress and subject to a five-day voting and timelock period. Community responses have raised trust and compensation questions, while the team plans to publish a full postmortem with detailed loss spreadsheets.

85% of 2025 token launches are underwater as VC returns decline
About 85% of tokens launched in 2025 are currently trading below their initial listing prices, with many VC-backed projects barely breaking even or posting significant losses. The presence of a “top VC” on the cap table is no longer a strong market catalyst as it once was.
Data from Galaxy Research shows a sharp cooldown in crypto venture capital activity:
VC ROI has been trending downward since 2022
The number of new crypto funds has fallen to a five-year low
Latest quarterly fundraising totals only about 12% of Q2 2022 levels
In Q2 2022 alone, crypto VCs raised nearly $17 billion across 80+ new funds
Although VC investment reached $8.5 billion last quarter, up 84% quarter-over-quarter, most of that capital is believed to come from funds raised in 2022 rather than new inflows. Total capital deployed from 2023 to 2025 is roughly equal to what was raised in 2022 alone.
The traditional playbook of raising a round, launching a token, and selling into retail demand is fading. Market momentum is shifting toward projects with real users, real revenue, fairer launches, and product-focused development.

StarkWare is integrating Nightfall — a zero-knowledge privacy solution developed by Ernst & Young — into the Starknet Layer 2 network to enable confidential institutional transactions on public blockchain infrastructure.
The integration addresses a key barrier to enterprise adoption: public blockchain transparency that exposes balances, counterparties, and strategies. Nightfall allows private-by-default transactions with selective disclosure, so institutions can execute B2B payments, treasury operations, tokenized asset transfers, and DeFi activities while still meeting compliance and audit requirements.
Built with zero-knowledge rollups and compatible with Ethereum, Nightfall links blockchain addresses to enterprise certificates to support regulatory controls alongside transaction privacy. StarkWare says this will support use cases such as private cross-border payments and confidential treasury management.
CEO Eli Ben-Sasson called the move a milestone for institutional blockchain adoption, while EY’s blockchain lead Paul Brody described privacy as the missing component for large-scale onchain enterprise payments.

Nakamoto acquires BTC Inc to expand Bitcoin media and investment arm
Nakamoto (Nasdaq: NAKA), the Bitcoin treasury firm founded by David Bailey, has agreed to acquire BTC Inc. — owner of Bitcoin Magazine and The Bitcoin Conference — along with UTXO Management.
The all-stock deal is priced at $1.12 per share and values the transaction at over $107 million. The acquisition adds recurring revenue and expands Nakamoto into media, asset management, and advisory services beyond its core treasury strategy.
NAKA shares traded roughly flat around $0.30 after the announcement. Bailey said the company does not plan to sell its Bitcoin holdings and expects consolidation among digital asset treasury firms in the coming months.

Dragonfly closes $650M fourth crypto venture fund amid bear market
Dragonfly Capital has closed its fourth crypto-focused venture fund at $650 million, exceeding its original $500 million target by about 30% despite ongoing bear market conditions. The new Dragonfly Fund IV matches the size of the firm’s 2022 vintage fund.
Managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said the raise comes during a period of weak sentiment and elevated fear in crypto markets, but noted the firm’s prior funds were also launched during downturns and later produced strong vintages.
Recent deployments include leading a $75 million Series C round for payments network Mesh in January, alongside Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures and PayPal Ventures. The firm also co-led a $36 million Series A for cross-border payments startup Conduit in 2025, and previously backed MyShell and Fantasy.top.
The new fund follows the resolution of a potential U.S. regulatory issue tied to Dragonfly’s 2020 investment in PepperSec, developer of Tornado Cash. U.S. authorities later stated the firm and its principals were not investigation targets, while Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm was convicted in 2025.

LI.FI launches LiFI Composer for one-click multi-step DeFi transactions
LI.FI has launched LiFI Composer, a new transaction orchestration tool that lets users bundle multiple DeFi actions — including swaps, bridging, deposits, and staking — into a single on-chain transaction with a unified execution overview.
The company said the tool simulates each step in complex, multi-stage flows to improve predictability and reduce failed transactions, aiming to simplify cross-chain and self-custodial DeFi usage. LiFI Composer is also part of the firm’s broader push this year to expand product offerings for its 800+ partners and streamline user workflows.
Backed by CoinFund and Multicoin Capital, the startup was founded in 2021. Last December, it added a $29 million Series A extension led by Multicoin, bringing total capital raised to $51.7 million.
LI.FI reported strong growth, with monthly volume rising 595% year over year to about $8 billion in October 2025, up from $1.15 billion in October 2024.

Bridge wins conditional OCC approval for national bank charter
Stablecoin platform Bridge — acquired last year by Stripe — has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a federally chartered national bank, joining a growing group of crypto firms seeking federal oversight.
If finalized, the charter would allow Bridge to custody crypto, issue stablecoins, and manage stablecoin reserves under a federal regulatory framework. The company said the status would help enterprises, fintechs, crypto companies, and financial institutions build digital-dollar products with clearer regulatory backing.
Other crypto firms that have received conditional OCC approval include Ripple, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. So far, Anchorage Digital Bank remains the only crypto-native firm to have received a national trust charter outright, first granted in 2021.
Bridge added that its compliance framework is designed to align with the GENIUS stablecoin law signed by President Donald Trump, with federal regulators now working on implementation rules.

Abu Dhabi funds hold over $1B in BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF
Two Abu Dhabi-based funds held more than $1 billion worth of shares in the leading spot Bitcoin ETF from BlackRock at the end of last year, according to new regulatory filings.
Mubadala Investment Company reported ownership of 12,702,323 shares of the IBIT ETF, valued at about $631 million. Government-linked Al Warda Investments disclosed holdings of 8,218,712 shares worth roughly $408 million in a separate filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mubadala increased its IBIT position by about 46% compared with the previous quarter, after holding more than 8 million shares for much of last year.
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF is the largest of its kind, with around $58 billion in assets under management, though its value has declined alongside Bitcoin’s recent price weakness.
Form 13F filings are submitted quarterly by institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets and disclose long positions in U.S. equities and related options, offering only a partial snapshot of total portfolio exposure.

BitGo shares slip despite Mizuho outperform rating
Shares of BitGo fell Tuesday after Mizuho initiated coverage with an outperform rating and a $17 price target, saying the firm is well positioned to benefit from rising demand for regulated digital asset infrastructure.
Analysts expect BitGo’s recurring custody and staking revenue to help cushion earnings compared with more trading-dependent crypto firms during market downturns. More than 80% of the company’s revenue is tied to custody and staking services rather than volatile transaction activity.
Mizuho also said expanding stablecoin issuance and tokenized asset growth could drive sustained increases in assets held on BitGo’s platform over the next several years. The firm currently safeguards over $100 billion in client assets and is viewed by analysts as a security-focused, institution-grade custodian.
The stock is trading near $10.15, down roughly 44% from its $18 IPO price on the New York Stock Exchange, as post-listing momentum faded alongside broader weakness in crypto-linked equities. Analysts note ongoing risks from market volatility and intensifying competition from both crypto-native and traditional financial institutions entering custody.

Ethereum’s tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market has surpassed $17 billion on its mainnet, rising more than 300% year over year and confirming its lead as the primary blockchain for tokenized finance. The network now represents roughly one-third of total onchain RWA value, while Ethereum-based stablecoins exceed $175 billion in market cap.
Growth is being driven by major institutions such as BlackRock and JPMorgan, which are launching tokenized Treasury and money-market products onchain. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund has become the largest tokenized money-market vehicle and recently expanded to direct onchain trading through DeFi infrastructure.
Momentum is also spreading beyond Treasuries into tokenized commodities, including gold, with institutional trading firms entering the segment. Large banks and investment firms project the tokenized asset market could grow into the multi-trillion-dollar range over the next decade, with Ethereum expected to capture the majority of issuance.

Zora launches attention markets product on Solana
Zora, a crypto social platform closely tied to the Base ecosystem, has announced a new product launch on Solana called “attention markets.”
The feature lets users speculate on which online topics, memes, and trends will gain traction, effectively enabling SocialFi traders to take long or short positions on social media virality. Users can create markets around any emerging idea or moment, attach related links, and build positions across multiple paired themes.
According to Zora’s product description, markets and pairs move together based on user activity and attention. Traders can track PNL in real time and exit positions at any time.
A promotional demo shows markets built around the “longevity” trend paired with tokens like $redlight, $coldplunge, $shrooms, and $peptides. The interface also highlights several fast-rising attention markets, though current trading volumes appear relatively limited.
Zora is known for experiments at the intersection of crypto and the creator economy, including early NFT tooling and creator-linked tokens. Other startups are entering the attention markets segment as well, including Noise, which recently raised a $7.1 million seed round led by Paradigm.

TON Foundation partners Banxa to bring stablecoin payments to APAC SMEs
TON Foundation has partnered with Banxa to roll out stablecoin payment processing for small and medium-sized enterprises across the Asia–Pacific region using infrastructure from The Open Network.
The integration combines Banxa’s global fiat–crypto on- and off-ramp network with TON’s blockchain rails and merchant infrastructure from OSL Group. The setup is designed to support B2B settlements, C2B payments, and cross-border transactions throughout APAC, leveraging Banxa’s licensed operations across multiple global markets.
The move follows the recent launch of TON Pay, a payment SDK that enables Mini Apps on Telegram to accept Toncoin and USDT directly in-app, with sub-second settlement and average fees below $0.01. OSL Group recently closed a $200 million equity financing round in early 2026 after raising $300 million in 2025.

Tokenized US Treasury assets are approaching the $11 billion mark, but competition between blockchains is shifting from simple issuance to real distribution, usage, and financial utility. What matters now is where yield tokens are actually held, how often they move, and whether they are integrated into stablecoin settlement and collateral workflows.
XRP Ledger recently showed two important signals: a planned partnership between Aviva Investors and Ripple to tokenize traditional fund structures, and data showing most of OpenEden’s TBILL token supply sits on XRPL. However, actual TBILL transfer activity is still overwhelmingly concentrated on Ethereum and layer-2 networks, not XRPL.
This creates a gap between where tokens are issued and stored versus where they are actively traded and used. XRPL shows growing RWA and stablecoin balances, but secondary trading and collateral usage remain limited so far.
The key question for the next 30–90 days is whether XRPL can convert supply concentration into real on-chain activity and settlement flows. If transfer volumes and institutional product launches follow, XRPL could become a true RWA venue. If not, it may remain mainly an issuance and custody endpoint while liquidity and collateral gravity stay on Ethereum and its layer-2 ecosystem.

The article examines the claim that there is “almost no cash on the sidelines” and explains why the reality is more nuanced. Several indicators suggest investors are already heavily deployed. Retail investors are holding lower-than-average cash levels in their portfolios, equity mutual funds are maintaining very thin liquidity buffers, and professional managers — based on surveys from Bank of America — are carrying near-record low cash allocations. This combination means that in a sharp market selloff, there may be less immediate buying power available to stabilize prices, which increases short-term fragility.
At the same time, the broader financial system is not short on cash. Instead, large amounts of capital have moved into money market funds and short-term instruments, where investors can earn yield while staying defensive. These funds collectively hold trillions of dollars, acting as a reserve of optional liquidity. The key question is not whether cash exists, but what incentives will cause it to rotate back into risk assets. Interest rate trends are central: if short-term yields fall, some of this capital may gradually shift into stocks, bonds, and crypto; if yields remain attractive, the money may stay parked.
For crypto markets, liquidity conditions are especially important. Research from BlackRock shows Bitcoin has historically been sensitive to real interest rates, while macro analysis by Lyn Alden frames Bitcoin as a long-term reflection of global liquidity cycles. That means crypto could benefit if financial conditions ease and cash rotates outward, but it could also be pressured if a macro shock forces investors to reduce risk broadly. The core conclusion: positioning across many investor groups is tight, cash is concentrated rather than gone, and the next move in rates and macro conditions will likely determine market direction more than the headline narrative about “empty sidelines.”

Aave has introduced a governance proposal that would route 100% of Aave-branded product revenue to its DAO treasury, formalize brand and IP protection, and focus development on Aave V4. The framework signals a shift toward a token-centric, business-style operating model where the DAO captures and allocates real protocol revenue.
The proposal is based on the view that US regulatory pressure on crypto is easing. Enforcement activity by the SEC has declined, priorities have shifted, and several high-profile cases have been dropped, suggesting a more flexible environment for token value accrual mechanisms.
Aave’s plan goes beyond tokenomics, outlining a full operating structure in which the DAO manages budgets, product lines, and brand strategy, while collecting revenue from interfaces, apps, cards, and institutional products. Estimated annualized revenues from existing Aave products already exceed $100 million.
The trend is not isolated. Protocols like Uniswap and others are reactivating fee switches, buyback-and-burn programs, and treasury routing models. With better regulatory clarity and on-chain revenue data, DeFi tokens are increasingly being positioned as assets with measurable value capture rather than governance-only instruments.
The main risk: if enforcement tightens again, protocols may be forced to pause or redesign these value-accrual models. The core question is whether the current regulatory “thaw” will last long enough to make this shift permanent.

Global crypto funds see fourth straight week of outflows
Global crypto investment products recorded a fourth consecutive week of net outflows, with $173 million withdrawn last week and $3.74 billion pulled over the past four weeks, according to data from CoinShares.
The pace of redemptions has slowed compared with earlier in the month but has not reversed. Exchange-traded product trading volume also cooled to $27 billion from $63 billion the prior week, indicating reduced speculative activity alongside weaker flows. Major issuers in the segment include firms such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and Bitwise.
Regional data showed a sharp divergence. U.S.-listed products posted $403 million in weekly outflows, while Europe and Canada together attracted $230 million in inflows, led by Germany, Canada, and Switzerland.
By asset class, bitcoin funds saw the largest redemptions at $133 million, while ethereum products lost $85.1 million. Despite the broader risk-off trend, several altcoin-focused products still recorded selective inflows, showing pockets of relative resilience.

deBridge launches Model Context Protocol for AI-driven cross-chain transactions
Cross-chain protocol deBridge has launched a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI agents and developer tools to execute swaps, bridging, and multi-step onchain transactions across EVM-compatible networks and Solana.
The MCP server is designed to support tools such as Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, offering deterministic execution, MEV-aware routing, and reliable quoted outcomes. Users retain custody of funds while the protocol abstracts wallet orchestration, chain switching, and transaction retries behind a single interface.
Potential use cases include AI trading assistants rebalancing portfolios across chains, bots running multi-step strategies, consumer apps embedding cross-chain execution, and developer tools converting natural language into onchain actions.
The rollout follows December’s launch of deBridge Bundles, an intent-based execution model that removes chain-level complexity by letting users specify desired outcomes while the protocol handles execution. Founded in 2022, deBridge runs a zero-TVL, solver-based architecture and supports 24 blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, and Tron, with backing from investors such as Animoca Brands and ParaFi Capital.