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Tinubu launches new regulatory framework for Nigeria’s digital asset market
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has unveiled a new regulatory framework for the country’s digital asset sector, centered on the creation of the Virtual Asset Regulatory Council (VARC).
Under the regime, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Revenue Service will jointly oversee non-security virtual assets through the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, while the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission will continue regulating digital assets classified as securities. The framework clearly separates security and non-security tokens, including stablecoins and payment tokens.
All local and offshore platforms must register and comply with strict KYC and cybersecurity standards. In return, firms gain formal recognition, improved banking access and eligibility for regulated partnerships. A regulatory sandbox will also allow supervised testing as licensing rules are phased in.
The Tinubu administration sees the move as part of its broader push to strengthen Nigeria’s digital economy and attract investment, though its impact will depend on effective implementation.

Binance releases 39th Proof of Reserves: BTC up 2,614, ETH down 162,469, USDT down $1.16B
Binance has published its 39th Proof of Reserves (PoR) report, with a snapshot date of Feb. 1, showing mixed changes across major assets held by users.
User BTC holdings stood at approximately 639,000 BTC, marking a 0.41% increase from the Jan. 1 snapshot — an addition of 2,614 BTC over the past month.
In contrast, user ETH balances declined by 3.74% to around 4.18 million ETH, a decrease of 162,469 ETH compared to the previous report.
Meanwhile, user USDT holdings fell 3.07% to roughly 36.8 billion USDT, representing a drop of about $1.16 billion month-over-month.
Binance publishes its Proof of Reserves report on a regular basis to provide transparency into on-platform assets and demonstrate that user deposits are fully backed.

Bitcoin search interest in the United States has climbed back to its highest level in five years, even as the price has fallen roughly 50% from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000 to the mid-$60,000 range.
This unusual divergence — rising attention during a price decline — suggests retail investors may be re-engaging with the market after lagging institutional participation earlier in the cycle. Google Trends data shows U.S. search interest rebounding more strongly than global interest, though worldwide searches are also trending upward.
The key question is whether this surge in attention signals fresh buying demand or reflects defensive behavior, with investors reassessing risk amid macro uncertainty, ETF outflows, and elevated options hedging activity.
On-chain data from Glassnode identifies a key demand zone between $60,000 and $72,000, with deeper support near $55,000, while overhead supply sits between $82,000 and $97,000. Meanwhile, Standard Chartered has lowered its end-2026 forecast to $100,000 and warned of a possible dip toward $50,000 before recovery.
Overall, rising search interest may increase market volatility. Whether that attention converts into sustained buying or continued hedging will likely determine Bitcoin’s next major move.

Binance reported that its exposure to sanctioned entities has dropped by 97% since January 2024, amid allegations of sanctions violations and internal dismissals of compliance staff.
A Fortune report claimed that investigators were terminated after flagging over $1 billion in transactions linked to Iranian counterparties, largely involving USDT on the Tron blockchain. It also said several senior compliance employees had recently left the company. Separately, Elliptic noted that wallets tied to Iran’s central bank accumulated more than $500 million in USDT, highlighting the growing use of stablecoins to bypass banking restrictions.
In response, Binance said its compliance program is “best-in-class” and continues to strengthen. The exchange stated that sanctions-related exposure fell from 0.284% of total trading volume in January 2024 to 0.009% in July 2025. Direct connections to four major Iranian crypto exchanges also declined by over 97%. Binance added that it processed more than 71,000 law enforcement requests in 2025 and supported over $131 million in asset seizures.
The company denied wrongdoing, arguing that recent reports were based on incomplete information. It said the entities mentioned were not on sanctions lists at the time and did not trigger industry-standard monitoring alerts. Binance also rejected claims that it fired staff for raising compliance concerns, stating that certain employees left after internal reviews found breaches of data protection and confidentiality rules. Former CEO Changpeng Zhao dismissed the allegations as driven by anonymous and potentially biased sources.

XRP Ledger’s public activity metrics have plunged between 50% and 80% within weeks, with sharp declines in active users, payment volume, and unique sending accounts, according to market watcher Arthur. However, he argues the drop may not reflect weakening demand but rather a structural shift following the activation of XLS-81 on February 18, which introduced a permissioned decentralized exchange for regulated institutions. Transactions conducted through these restricted pools do not appear on public dashboards, potentially masking institutional flows.
Arthur also cautioned against viral price predictions, stressing that liquidity conditions and macroeconomic factors matter more than social media optimism.
At the same time, XRP has continued to struggle in price performance, trading around $1.39 and remaining significantly below its 2025 peak. Analysts noted sideways movement in Bitcoin limiting broader altcoin momentum, while over 31 million XRP moved to Binance in a single day—potentially signaling sell pressure.
On-chain data from Santiment shows XRP recently recorded its largest realized loss spike since 2022, a pattern that previously preceded a major rally, though no repeat is guaranteed. Valuation metrics (MVRV) currently rank Ethereum as the most undervalued among major assets, followed by Bitcoin and then XRP, suggesting mixed long-term signals.

An initiative overseen by Donald Trump known as the “Board of Peace,” aimed at rebuilding the Middle East, is exploring the creation of a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin for Gaza, the Financial Times reported, citing five people familiar with early-stage discussions.
The proposed stablecoin would serve as “a means to allow Gazans to transact digitally,” according to one source cited in the report.
Gaza remains at the center of the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, which escalated sharply after Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel responded with airstrikes and ground operations targeting Hamas. The conflict has resulted in significant casualties, widespread destruction, and a severe humanitarian crisis.
Access to cash in Gaza is extremely limited, with many ATMs destroyed or closed and new cash deliveries reportedly blocked by Israel, pushing residents toward digital payment alternatives.
The stablecoin effort is being led by Israeli tech entrepreneur Liran Tancman, working alongside the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and other partners, according to the FT.
The “Board of Peace,” launched last month, is a coalition of entities organized outside the United Nations. Membership is by invitation and carries a $1 billion fee. The group is chaired by Trump and partly led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner. It held its first meeting last week in Washington, D.C., where Tancman said the NCAG was developing a “secure digital backbone” — an open platform for e-payments, financial services, e-learning, and healthcare, with user control over data.

Trump has increasingly embraced stablecoins in recent years. He signed the first federal stablecoin bill into law over the summer and, along with his family, is involved in the crypto venture World Liberty Financial, which issued the USD1 stablecoin. Some lawmakers have raised concerns about national security risks and potential conflicts of interest as broader crypto regulation continues to be debated in Washington.

Ethereum Foundation forms DeFi unit, appoints key leads
The Ethereum Foundation has launched a dedicated DeFi unit under its App Relations team to support new protocol development across the ecosystem.
As part of the initiative, Charles St. Louis — former CEO of DELV and governance architect at MakerDAO — has been appointed DeFi Protocol Specialist. Ivan (ivangbi), co-founder of Gearbox Protocol, will serve as DeFi Coordinator.
The foundation said it aims to advance a “DeFipunk” vision of decentralized finance — permissionless, censorship-resistant, privacy-first, self-custodial, and open-source. The goal is to foster financial systems that could not exist without Ethereum, rather than incremental improvements on traditional finance.
The new team will support both existing DeFi projects and emerging concepts such as user-controlled AI, high-throughput on-chain derivatives markets, futarchy DAOs, and zero-knowledge-powered private lending. It will also contribute to protocol security research, application design, and create clearer communication channels between DeFi builders and the foundation.
The move is part of the Ethereum Foundation’s broader efforts over the past year to better allocate resources and clarify Ethereum’s long-term mission.

Australian police charge suspect in AUD 5 million crypto scam
Australian police have charged a 42-year-old man over an alleged crypto investment scheme that defrauded more than 190 elderly and vulnerable victims of AUD 5 million ($3.5 million). He has been granted conditional bail and is due to appear in court on March 17.
Investigators allege that since November 2025, scammers posing as investment advisers directed victims to deposit funds into a platform called “NEXOpayment.” The funds were then funneled through multiple crypto wallets and exchanges in a pattern consistent with money laundering. A 36-year-old man was also arrested and remains under investigation.
Authorities said investment scams are Australia’s largest category of cybercrime losses, as regulators continue tightening oversight of the digital asset sector.

Bitcoin could rebound sharply as roughly $7.8 trillion parked in U.S. money market funds enters a new opportunity window following the Federal Reserve’s rate-cut cycle, which began on September 18, 2024.
Historically, 500–1,000 days after the Fed starts cutting rates, liquidity tends to rotate out of money market funds and into risk assets. With yields compressing — the effective federal funds rate falling to 3.64% and money market yields easing toward 3.58% — the incentive to stay in cash is weakening.
However, the $7.791 trillion in money funds is not passive capital. Much of it is institutional cash used for operations, meaning flows may be gradual and first move into bonds and credit before equities or crypto. Even so, small percentage shifts matter: a 5–10% rotation would equal $390–779 billion, and just 0.5% flowing into crypto would represent about $39 billion.
Three scenarios shape the outlook: slow and cautious rotation, faster cuts triggering broader risk allocation, or recession-driven hoarding before eventual stimulus. Across all paths, the key driver is incentives — falling yields force investors to reassess where returns can be found.
If money begins skipping bonds and moving directly into risk assets, Bitcoin — supported by stablecoin liquidity and U.S. spot ETF inflows — could see sharp, discontinuous price moves driven by marginal capital flows.

Crypto exchange Backpack is offering users direct ownership in the company by allocating 20% of its equity to those who stake its token for at least one year. Users who lock their tokens for 12 months can exchange them for company shares at a fixed ratio, according to founder Armani Ferrante, who said the model aims to solve the incentive misalignment common in many token launches.
Ferrante criticized traditional token structures as unenforceable promises tied to centralized teams, often leading to hype cycles and heavy selling after token unlocks. Backpack’s equity-linked staking model is designed to create long-term alignment between the company and token holders, rather than relying on additional token emissions or yield incentives.
The initiative builds on Backpack’s previously announced tokenomics framework, which seeks to avoid insider “dumping” on retail investors and promote what the firm calls “progressive decentralization.” Although Ferrante acknowledged the model remains partially centralized, he framed it as a long-term commitment to shared success.
Backpack, a centralized crypto exchange focused on tokenized assets and regulated market infrastructure, reached a $1 billion valuation earlier this year and previously partnered with SEC-registered transfer agent Superstate to bring tokenized stocks onchain.

Vitalik Buterin has resumed selling ETH, offloading 1,869 ETH worth about $3.67 million over two days, during which ETH fell more than 5% from $1,980 to $1,850. The move follows a similar earlier sale of 6,958 ETH worth $14.78 million that coincided with a sharper 22% drop.
Since February 2, wallets linked to Buterin have sold over 8,000 ETH. He previously said he plans to liquidate 16,384 ETH to fund ecosystem development, open-source projects, and infrastructure support as the Ethereum Foundation enters a period of “mild austerity.”
Despite the recent sales, Buterin still holds more than 224,000 ETH valued at roughly $429 million, with his wealth largely tied to ETH’s price performance. Meanwhile, ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees has been buying back ETH after previously selling a large portion.
Market analysts warn that ETH is approaching a critical support level near $1,750 after a 41% sell-off and a break below a long-term trend line. Thin liquidity could amplify further downside if support fails to hold.

Based raises $11.5 million to expand into AI-driven “agentic commerce”
Based, a web3 trading and payments app built on Hyperliquid infrastructure, has raised $11.5 million in a Series A round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and Karatage.
Co-founder and CEO Edison Lim said the round was structured as an equity investment with token warrants. Pantera also received a board observer seat. The company declined to disclose its valuation.
Based positions itself as a consumer-facing web3 “SuperApp,” integrating perpetual futures trading, prediction markets, wallet services, on- and off-ramps, and a crypto-linked Visa card into a single interface. Lim said Hyperliquid serves as the trading engine, while Based provides the product layer designed for everyday users through a mobile-first experience.
Eight months after launch, Based reports more than 100,000 registered users and 30,000 monthly active users across five regions, with approximately $40 billion in cumulative trading volume and nearly $14 million in revenue to date. Revenue primarily comes from builder code fees on trades executed via Hyperliquid and Polymarket, as well as card-related fees such as interchange, membership and foreign exchange.
Beyond its main app, Based is expanding through “Based Cloud,” enabling partners to deploy customized perpetual trading frontends and wallet experiences. One example is HyENA, a Hyperliquid-native perpetuals venue that has processed over $1.5 billion in trading volume within months of launch.
Looking ahead, Based plans to focus on AI-driven “agentic commerce,” developing AI-powered personal financial agents capable of identifying opportunities across prediction markets and perpetuals, executing trades and facilitating payments. Headquartered in Singapore, the 15-person team plans to double its headcount, particularly hiring AI engineers and payments-focused legal experts as it expands into North America.

Strategy, a Bitcoin treasury company, purchased an additional 592 BTC for about $39.8 million at an average price of $67,286 between Feb. 17 and Feb. 22, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The acquisition brings its total holdings to 717,722 BTC, worth roughly $47.5 billion, acquired at an average price of $76,020 per coin for a total cost of around $54.6 billion. The company now controls more than 3.4% of Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply and is sitting on approximately $7.1 billion in unrealized losses.
The latest purchases were funded through at-the-market sales of its Class A shares (MSTR). Despite continued accumulation, Michael Saylor acknowledged the market is in a “crypto winter,” though he described it as milder and shorter than previous cycles, expressing strong long-term optimism. He reiterated his bold stance: “If it’s not going to zero, it’s going to a million.”
Meanwhile, data shows 193 public companies now hold Bitcoin as a treasury asset. However, many digital asset treasury firms are under pressure as Bitcoin’s price decline has sharply reduced their share valuations. Analysts warn that continued market weakness could lead to further corporate selling and potential consolidation within the sector.

Former Chainlink legal executive joins SEC crypto task force
Taylor Lindman, former deputy general counsel at Chainlink Labs, joined the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday as chief counsel of the agency’s crypto task force.
Lindman succeeds Michael Selig, who previously held the role before becoming chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. During more than five years at Chainlink, Lindman served in several senior legal positions, focusing on oracle networks and smart contract data infrastructure for institutional finance.
The SEC established its crypto task force last year following the departure of former Chair Gary Gensler, amid broader policy shifts under President Donald Trump. Under Gensler, the agency brought multiple enforcement actions against crypto firms, largely tied to registration issues, and argued that most cryptocurrencies qualified as securities.
Since its formation, the task force has hosted roundtable discussions on regulating key areas of the industry, including tokenization and decentralized finance. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the group, welcomed Lindman’s appointment on X, saying she expects “great things.”

USD1 briefly dips below peg amid alleged coordinated attack
USD1, the stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, briefly fell to $0.99707 on Monday morning. Such a 0.01%–0.03% deviation is generally not considered a depeg unless it persists for an extended period.
World Liberty, a crypto initiative backed by President Donald Trump and his family, said it faced a “coordinated attack.” The company alleged that hackers gained unauthorized access to several co-founders’ X accounts, paid influencers to spread FUD, and opened large short positions in $WLFI to profit from the volatility.
The firm stressed that the incident did not involve wallets or protocol infrastructure. No smart contracts were affected, and USD1 remains fully backed 1:1 by reserves held with BitGo, including short-term U.S. Treasuries. The token has since returned to trading close to its $1 peg.
Meanwhile, WLFI, the project’s freely traded token, fell about 3% on the day.

South Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management has entered into a strategic partnership with the Jito Foundation to explore and develop JitoSOL-based exchange-traded products (ETPs) in the domestic market.
According to an announcement on Monday, the two parties will collaborate on building the technical and regulatory groundwork necessary to launch regulated ETPs tied to JitoSOL — a liquid staking token operating on the Solana blockchain.
A Hanwha representative stated that JitoSOL is an innovative asset that offers both high yield and liquidity, positioning it as an attractive alternative investment for retirement pension investors seeking portfolio diversification.
The partnership will focus on integrating JitoSOL into ETP structures, validating compliant custody solutions, establishing risk management frameworks, and coordinating with South Korean regulators on compliance matters. A key priority is incorporating JitoSOL’s dual-yield mechanism — combining standard staking rewards with maximal extractable value (MEV) rewards — into products suitable for the local market.
The move reflects broader global trends. Last month, 21Shares launched the Jito Staked SOL ETP (JSOL) on Euronext. In the United States, VanEck filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a JitoSOL ETF, which remains under review.
As of mid-2025, Hanwha Asset Management managed approximately 6.4 trillion won ($4.44 billion) in assets. The partnership signals that major financial institutions in South Korea are positioning themselves ahead of anticipated regulatory clarity for digital asset products.
South Korea’s proposed Digital Asset Basic Act is expected to establish a clearer legal framework for digital assets and potentially allow domestic institutions to launch crypto ETPs. However, disagreements over stablecoin issuer eligibility — particularly proposals to restrict licensing to banks — have delayed the legislation beyond its original 2025 timeline.

Arthur Hayes reveals his current investment portfolio
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, shared details of his current investment portfolio in a post on X, outlining allocations across traditional assets, crypto, and physical gold.
According to Hayes, his stock holdings include gold, silver, copper, and uranium miners, major oil companies, defense stocks, and Latin American energy firms. On the crypto side, he holds BTC, ETH, ZEC, and HYPE. He also owns physical gold.
“Stonks – gold silver copper uranium miners, oil majors, merchants of death, LatAM energy names
Crypto – $BTC, $ETH, $ZEC, $HYPE
And physical gold.
Watchu got fam?” Hayes wrote, inviting followers to share their own portfolios.

John Deaton, a prominent crypto attorney and U.S. Senate candidate, has strongly rejected any possibility of a pardon for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. His remarks came after SBF published a post claiming that FTX may have been solvent and could have reached a projected net asset value of $78 billion by 2025 if bankruptcy had not been filed in November 2022.
SBF supported his claim with modeled charts showing FTX’s net asset value rising from $16.5 billion at the time of the bankruptcy petition to a hypothetical $78 billion, based partly on projected valuations of token holdings such as SRM and FTT.
Deaton dismissed these projections as revisionist and irrelevant, arguing that court verdicts and the real financial losses suffered by creditors outweigh any theoretical recovery scenarios. He labeled SBF a fraudster and criticized what he described as a “two-tiered justice system,” questioning why SBF’s parents have not faced similar legal consequences.
Legal experts also remain skeptical of the modeled asset valuations, noting that they rely heavily on illiquid tokens with limited real-world market depth. As the 2026 political cycle approaches, Deaton’s firm stance signals that parts of the crypto industry are unwilling to accept narratives that downplay the severity of the FTX fraud.

XRP Ledger developers are preparing follow-up actions after a bug was discovered in the proposed batch amendment just before activation. The issue was identified through the XRP Ledger Foundation’s Bug Bounty program, and validators were urged to veto the amendment. Although the network remains safe and unaffected, a new XRP software update is expected next week to formally deprecate the current batch amendment.
A fixed version of the amendment is being developed and undergoing additional validation, with another software update likely to follow. The batch transactions feature—designed to enable atomic execution of multiple transactions and support on-chain revenue-generating applications—was highly anticipated by the community.
Additionally, a related bug was found in the fixbatchinnersigs amendment. Separately, Ripple has rotated the GPG key used to sign rippled packages, requiring users to update and verify the new key to avoid potential upgrade issues.

Missouri Introduces Bill to Establish Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund
The 103rd General Assembly of Missouri has introduced House Bill 2080, sponsored by State Representative Ben Keathley, to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund under Chapter 30 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo).
Under the proposal, the fund would be managed by the State Treasurer and authorized to accept Bitcoin donations or bequests from Missouri residents. The Bitcoin must be securely held for at least five years before it can be transferred, sold, or converted into other assets.
The bill explicitly prohibits any foreign or illegal involvement. The state may work with U.S.-based crypto partners to assist with custody and security. It also mandates biennial public reports detailing holdings and security measures.
Additionally, the legislation establishes a streamlined donation process along with a recognition program for contributors, and requires government agencies to accept approved cryptocurrency payments.