Singapore's largest money laundering case suspect Wang Shuiming may be extradited to China, with his accomplice being the mastermind behind the Hong Kong crypto platform scam AAX.

On February 18, Fortune reported that Novig—a sports-focused prediction market platform—has closed a $75 million Series B funding round led by Pantera Capital, valuing the company at $5 billion post-money. Founded in 2021, Novig targets modern sports bettors with a consumer-friendly platform, where its key differentiator is a peer-to-peer transaction model. The firm is currently seeking a license from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), with approval expected within six months. Unlike Kalshi and Polymarket, Novig’s product design and brand are solely focused on sports—aligning more closely with everyday sports fans’ usage habits.

February 18 Saudi-backed AI firm Humain has invested $3 billion in Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, taking a key minority stake in the company. The investment came shortly before Musk’s aerospace firm SpaceX acquired xAI—with Humain’s stake set to convert into SpaceX shares. Founded last year to turn Saudi Arabia into an AI powerhouse, Humain and SpaceX plan to build a 500-megawatt data center in the kingdom. Source: Jinse

On February 18, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes wrote in a new post that Bitcoin’s ongoing drop—paired with the Nasdaq 100’s relative stability—could be an early warning sign of U.S. dollar credit tightening and an impending broader credit crisis. Rising default rates would push banks to tighten lending, slowing economic cash flow further. Vulnerable banks could face insolvency as liquidity dries up. The Federal Reserve may ultimately step in with large-scale intervention to avoid a full-blown crisis—but such moves could erode confidence in the traditional monetary system, making scarce digital assets like Bitcoin more appealing. Hayes outlined two scenarios: 1. Bitcoin’s $126k→$60k drop already prices in the slowdown, with stocks following later. 2. Bitcoin keeps falling, and stocks then price in credit risk. Either way, the end result will likely be massive system-wide liquidity injections to head off a banking crisis. This response could reverse Bitcoin’s decline and pus

February 18th — Per Coinglass data, Coinbase’s Bitcoin Premium Index has stayed in negative territory for 34 straight days, currently at -0.0545%. This streak surpasses the roughly 30 consecutive days of negative premium seen during the “1011 Crash.” The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index tracks the gap between Bitcoin’s price on Coinbase and the global market average. A negative premium typically signals U.S. market selling pressure, lower investor risk appetite, heightened risk aversion, or capital outflows.

On February 18th, per OnchainLens data, a BlackRock-associated wallet address transferred 2,494.6 BTC to a Coinbase wallet address, valued at roughly $168.39 million.

February 18: Binance founder CZ unfollowed crypto influencer EnHeng (@EnHeng456) on X.