A whale transferred 1000 ETH to Binance after a year of hibernation

February 19: Public records show CZ attended the World Liberty Forum at Trump National Doral today but did not deliver a formal speech. A statement from CZ’s platform stated, “I gained a great deal from listening to the CFTC Chairman’s speech at the event.”

February 19 — Per LookOnChain monitoring, BitMine bought 15,000 ETH from FalconX 8 hours ago, valued at approximately $29.57 million. So far today, the firm has purchased a total of 35,000 ETH, worth roughly $69.37 million.

Feb. 19 (FinanceFeeds) — Russia plans to begin blocking foreign cryptocurrency exchange websites in summer 2026, aiming to direct crypto activity to local licensed platforms, cut capital outflow, and boost oversight. The move stems from new legislation set to advance this spring, with Roskomnadzor handling technical filtering. Russian participants carry out roughly 500 billion rubles in daily crypto trades, most of which occur overseas. Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board Chair Sergey Shvetsov noted Russian traders pay around $15 billion annually in commissions to global exchanges — a market local platforms are targeting to compete for. Experts warn fully blocking foreign platforms will be difficult and could push activity into unregulated, opaque channels.

On February 19th, Coinbase announced its on-chain staking loan product (offered via Morpho) has added XRP, DOGE, ADA, and LTC as collateral options. U.S. users in compliance can borrow up to 100,000 USDC without selling their holdings. The product operates on the Base network, with the four new assets carrying a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 49% and a liquidation threshold of 62.5%. (Source: The Block)

February 19th — Per The Block, Base, the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network, announced it is leaving Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem. The project is shifting to a unified, independently operated tech stack, dropping its reliance on the OP Stack, Flashbots, and Paradigm. The move aims to cut coordination overhead from multi-team code maintenance and simplify the system via optimizations built on open-source components like Reth — all while retaining Base’s “Stage 1” rollup status. Base will support the OP Stack in the short term, but future hard forks will require migration to its new native client. Upcoming forks include Base V1 (supporting Fusaka and transitioning to TEE/ZK proofs), with subsequent versions aligning with Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade. In its blog post, the team emphasizes protocol openness and welcomes alternative client implementations.

**February 19th** CoinDesk reports that South Korean VC firm Hanwha Investment & Securities has invested roughly $13 million in U.S. blockchain infrastructure company Kresus Labs. The funding will advance Kresus’s enterprise digital wallet technology and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform. The investment stems from a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed during December 2023’s Abu Dhabi Financial Week, which aims to expand Kresus’s on-chain financial workflows. Kresus specializes in building consumer and institutional digital asset tools—including “seedless” wallet recovery (no 12-24 word seed phrase), multi-party computation (MPC)-based secure systems, institution-grade wallet infrastructure, and a tokenization platform. Hanwha plans to leverage this tech to enhance its digital asset services and develop tokenized traditional financial products. The move underscores ongoing institutional interest in blockchain infrastructure, even amid cryptocurrency market volati