Huobi HTX has launched AERGO perpetual contracts and kicked off a contract trading party.

February 18: Per Onchain Lens monitoring, a wallet linked to K3 Capital withdrew 20,000 ETH from Binance 6 hours ago—valued at roughly $40.08 million.

**Crypto Fear & Greed Index Drops to 8 on Feb 18, Deepening Extreme Fear** Per alternative data, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index hit 8 on February 18—down from 10 the prior day—pushing the market further into extreme fear territory. *Note: The index ranges from 0 to 100, with weighted components including:* - Volatility (25%) - Market Volume (25%) - Social Media Hype (15%) - Market Surveys (15%) - Bitcoin’s Market Dominance (10%) - Google Trends (10%) ### Key tweaks for American English/breaking news style: 1. **Conciseness**: Used "Feb 18" (casual, standard for quick updates), "prior day" (shorter than "yesterday" in some business contexts), "Crypto" (common abbreviation for "cryptocurrency"). 2. **Natural phrasing**: Replaced "exacerbating the market's 'extreme fear' sentiment" with "pushing the market further into extreme fear territory" (more idiomatic for market reporting). 3. **Clarity**: Split components into bullet points (easier to scan than a comma-s

Feb 18 — According to an SEC 13G filing, Peter Thiel has fully divested his stake in ETHZilla, the Ethereum Treasury Company, as of Dec 31, 2025. His holding dropped from a prior 7.5% (approximately 11.59 million shares) to 0%. Thiel was once a key endorser and major shareholder of ETHZilla. News of his investment previously drove a sharp rise in ETHZ’s stock price, and was viewed as a positive signal from Thiel for the Ethereum ecosystem. However, amid ongoing weakness in the cryptocurrency market, ETHZilla has successively announced plans to sell coins to repay debts, sell coins to acquire rocket engines for its leasing business, and explicitly stated that hoarding ETH in its treasury will no longer be its primary business model.

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).