U.S. Senator: If Powell Is Fired by Trump, It Will Trigger a Market Collapse

February 21st – Community user dasha recently proposed phasing out the current Ethereum gradually via fragmentation (such as Layer 2s and application-specific chains) and rebuilding a pure cypherpunk chain from scratch based on RISC-V. Vitalik Buterin pushed back against the idea of the current Ethereum “dying slowly.” Instead, he plans to build a “cypherpunk-in-spirit, non-ugly Ethereum” as a tightly coupled extension of the existing system. The goal is to enable seamless interoperability and migrate the current system via smart contracts within 5 years. Vitalik stressed that after the earlier “Merge” upgrade, there will be 4 subsequent major upgrades: state tree optimizations, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, and VM changes. These upgrades aim to enhance censorship resistance, ZK-friendliness, and simplicity.

On February 21, 2026, Sonic Labs released its 2026 Ecosystem Update (Part 1), announcing the departures of CEO Mitchell Demeter and Business Lead Evan Owens. The company’s board of directors is overseeing operations on an interim basis while it searches for a permanent CEO. Sonic noted its development fund has established a long-term operational reserve, with no pressure to unlock investments and asset allocations including the S token, stablecoins, and government bonds. **Strategic Updates**: - Sonic Strategy holds approximately 127 million S tokens (under multi-signature custody with no selling restrictions). - The firm has terminated its partnership with the CMCC Resonance Fund. **Product & Incentive Shifts**: - The AI smart contract generation platform Spawn is in internal testing. - FeeM has allocated over 2.6 million S tokens to developers to date; future rebates will shift from a 90% flat rate to a tiered structure. - Sonic is discontinuing its Meme Season and

Per Onchain Lens monitoring, the Pump.fun team’s associated address has sold a total of 3.376 billion PUMP tokens over the past two days, netting 7.23 million USDC. It now holds just 373.49 million PUMP—valued at roughly $788,000.

**February 21 – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) updated its Q&A on Rule 15c3-1 (the Net Capital Rule) on February 19, clarifying haircut treatment for broker-dealers calculating net capital for proprietary positions in payment stablecoins.** **Per the guidance, if a broker-dealer designates its proprietary payment stablecoin holdings as having a “ready market” under Rule 15c3-1, SEC staff will not object to applying a 2% haircut to the larger market value of its long or short proprietary positions when computing net capital.** **SEC Crypto Policy Director Hester Peirce (often called the “SEC Crypto Czar”) promptly issued a statement backing the update. She emphasized stablecoins are a critical component of blockchain payment and trading infrastructure, and the appropriate capital treatment will help broker-dealers more effectively leverage stablecoins for custody, settlement, and tokenized securities-related activities. Peirce noted the 2% haircut aligns better

As of February 21st, per Farside Investors data: U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a net inflow of $88.1 million yesterday, with IBIT accounting for $64.5 million of that total. Ethereum ETFs saw zero net inflows or outflows over the same period.

February 21 — Official sources confirm Fabric has launched its ROBO airdrop registration page. Users must complete registration between February 20 and 24, during the 3:00 UTC window. The portal only shows eligibility status; specific claiming instructions and token allocation amounts will be announced later. In a prior announcement, Fabric — the open network for general-purpose robots backed by OpenMind — unveiled its native token, ROBO. The token sale kicked off January 26 on the Kaito Capital Launchpad: the public sale valued ROBO at $4 billion, with a $2 million fundraising goal, selling 0.5% of total supply (all released at TGE). Yesterday, Coinbase said ROBO is joining its listing roadmap.