Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

February 16 — Standard Chartered Bank analysts on Thursday revised their cryptocurrency outlook, slashing year-end price targets for several major tokens after a brutal sell-off in the market this February. The bank cut its 2026 year-end target for XRP by 65%: from a prior forecast of $8 to $2.8. It also reduced targets for other top cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin from $150,000 to $100,000, Ethereum from $7,000 to $4,000, and Solana from $250 to $135.

Feb. 16 – Bank of America’s (BofA) latest Foreign Exchange (FX) & Interest Rate Sentiment Survey shows U.S. dollar (USD) positioning is the most negative in over 14 years, with short positions now at their highest since January 2012 (the earliest recorded data point). Fund managers’ USD exposure has fallen below last April’s low. While concerns over the Federal Reserve’s independence eased after former President Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair, the move failed to lift USD demand or brighten outlooks for U.S. assets. Respondents identify further deterioration in the U.S. labor market as the key downside risk for the greenback.

On February 16th, multichain lending protocol ZeroLend officially announced: After three years of building and running the protocol, the team has made the difficult decision to wind down operations gradually. Despite the team’s ongoing efforts, the protocol’s current state is no longer sustainable. Over the past period, several chains ZeroLend initially supported have become inactive or seen a sharp drop in liquidity. In some cases, oracle providers have also stopped supporting the protocol, making it increasingly hard to reliably run markets or generate sustainable revenue. Meanwhile, as the protocol has scaled up, it has drawn more attention from malicious actors—including hackers and scammers. Combined with the lending protocol’s thin profit margins and high-risk nature, this has left the protocol in a long-term deficit. The team’s top priority now is ensuring users can withdraw their assets safely. It’s strongly recommended that all users withdraw any remaining funds from

February 16: X (formerly Twitter) is currently gradually recovering from the outage.

On Monday, February 16, Bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet released its fiscal 2025 financial report (ended December 31), posting a net loss of 95 billion yen ($619 million)—a sharp swing from the 4.44 billion yen ($28.9 million) net profit it reported for fiscal 2024. The loss stemmed primarily from a 102.2 billion yen ($665.8 million) valuation loss on its held Bitcoin holdings, which the company classified as a non-operating expense with no impact on cash flow or core operations. Despite the profit swing, Metaplanet emphasized its robust capital structure. The firm noted its balance sheet remains strong, with a 90.7% equity ratio—meaning even an 86% drop in Bitcoin prices would fully cover its liabilities and preferred stock obligations. As of December 31, key metrics included: - Liabilities: 46.7 billion yen ($304.2 million) - Net assets: 458.5 billion yen ($2.99 billion) - Held Bitcoin value: 481.5 billion yen ($3.1 billion) On the operational front, the company sa

On February 16, the X platform (formerly Twitter) experienced an outage. Per network status monitoring site DownDetector, 6,424 users in the UK and 11,266 users in the US have reported issues with the social media platform.