Monad Foundation Hires Several New Executives, Strengthens Mainnet Post-Launch Institutional Strategy

On February 18, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart noted that BlackRock has released the latest filing for its Ethereum staking ETF (ticker: ETHB). The filing includes an expense ratio of 0.25%. Additionally, BlackRock will retain 18% of total Ethereum staking rewards as a staking fee.

On February 18, Eric Trump announced on X (formerly Twitter) that American Bitcoin—the Trump family’s cryptocurrency mining firm—has been listed on Nasdaq for under six months, with Bitcoin reserves exceeding 6,000 BTC.

### Official Update: Pump.fun Launches "Cashback Coins" (Feb 17) Per official sources, Pump.fun rolled out its new "Cashback Coins" on February 17. Key rules for the token type: - **Pre-issuance choice mandatory**: Token issuers must pick one option *before* launching the token: 1. Reward traders with cashback, or 2. Cover the issuer’s own fees. - **Cashback mechanics**: Cashback tokens refund *all* issuer fees to traders. Once issued, the chosen option is **permanently locked in**. - **Difference from Creator Fee Tokens**: Cashback Coins cannot undergo a CTO and will permanently reward traders and holders. This format aligns with U.S. English brevity, clear bullet-pointed details, and natural phrasing (e.g., "rolled out" instead of "announced the launch of," "mandatory" for emphasis, "locked in" for clarity).

Per Quiverquant data as of February 17th: - Financial firm Jane Street boosted its IBIT holdings by 7,105,206 shares in Q4 2023, valued at $276 million at the time. As of now, the firm holds 20,315,780 IBIT shares, worth approximately $790 million. - Community rumors had circulated previously that Jane Street was alleged to use high-frequency trading (HFT) to depress Bitcoin prices daily at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. - Also in Q4 2023, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley collectively increased their IBIT holdings by more than 2.37 million shares.

On February 17th, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Mike Selig told Fox News in an interview that the cryptocurrency market structure bill is “about to” be signed into law. “We aim to ensure the crypto legal framework can adapt to future growth,” he said. “We can’t let another Gary Gensler come in and mess everything up.”

On February 17, The Block reported that StarkWare is integrating Nightfall—an open-source zero-knowledge privacy layer built by Big Four accounting firm EY—into its StarkNet to enable confidential on-chain institutional transactions on public blockchain infrastructure. The integration allows institutions to execute private B2B payments, fund operations, and tokenized asset transfers on public blockchains while keeping sensitive transaction details private. StarkWare noted that Nightfall natively supports transaction privacy, plus selective disclosure and compliance mandates like Know Your Customer (KYC)—features tailored to institutional users’ needs.