Ethereum Gas Fee Continues to Drop, Now at 0.352 Gwei

Feb. 18 (CoinDesk) — A survey from crypto tax platform Awaken Tax finds over 50% of U.S. crypto investors are worried about facing IRS penalties this year. New regulations require brokers like Coinbase to report all digital asset transactions to the IRS via Form 1099-DA for 2025, aimed at combating tax evasion. For the first time, the IRS will access exchange internal data and cross-reference it with taxpayer filings. Awaken Tax founder Andrew Duca noted the rule treats crypto assets like stocks, but real-world use is far more complex: Users often transfer assets across multiple wallets, interact with DeFi, and brokers only report sale proceeds (not cost basis), leaving submitted forms incomplete. Taxpayers must supplement cost information using Form 8949. Currently, the crypto tax compliance rate is under 20%.

On February 18, US-listed Hyperscale Data announced a strategic silver reserve plan targeting 100,000 ounces of silver acquisitions over time—part of a long-term effort to strengthen its balance sheet, similar to its Bitcoin holdings strategy. The company’s total Bitcoin holdings now stand at ~600 BTC: 554 held by wholly owned subsidiary Sentinum, and 46 acquired via open market purchases by affiliate ACG.

February 18th — Per Coinbob Popular Address Monitoring (via https://t.me/Coinbob_track_CN), the "neoyokio.eth" whale (0x152) added to its position again last night and this morning. This comes after the whale opened a 2x-leveraged ASTER spot position on January 28th. Currently, its 4x-leveraged ASTER long position has grown to $14.9 million, with an average entry price of $0.6188 and an unrealized profit of ~$1.86 million (50%). It’s now the largest on-chain ASTER long position. The whale’s associated sub-address (0xfb5...) previously held ~$2 million in ASTER long positions but has since closed all of them. It currently holds no relevant positions. This whale also built a $20 million, 1x-leveraged XPL long position at an average price of $0.69 on September 24th — right before XPL’s sharp price surge. It became the largest on-chain XPL long position during XPL’s main uptrend, with a peak unrealized gain of over $16 million. That sparked insider trading suspicions around XPL.

February 18, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took to social media to address the question: “Why is Coinbase always misunderstood or underestimated by Wall Street?” He stated: “I do think Coinbase is a misunderstood company—this is a classic ‘innovator’s dilemma.’ On one hand, the savviest traditional financial institutions are fully embracing the crypto industry. Five Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs) have already partnered with Coinbase, and many large financial firms are hiring crypto talent. As regulations become clearer, roughly 50% of major financial institutions are actively leaning into this trend. On the other hand, the other half are still lagging and resisting. The world’s most disruptive innovations have followed a similar pattern—think Uber, Airbnb, self-driving tech, AI applications, or SpaceX’s impact on NASA. Since the crypto industry directly disrupts Wall Street, it’s no surprise some on Wall Street misunderstand crypto and Coinbase. The smart ones will em

On February 18, a Fortune report noted that Hyperliquid has launched the Hyperliquid Policy Center — a lobbying organization led by Jake Chervinsky — with the Hyperliquid Foundation set to provide $28 million worth of HYPE as initial funding.

February 18: White House National Economic Council Chair Hassett said, "We think the Fed still has plenty of room to cut interest rates." (Forex Live)