Circle minted 250 million USDC on the Solana network 6 hours ago

Benchmark on Tuesday maintained a “Buy” rating on Metaplanet but slashed its price target by more than half, citing the Tokyo-listed Bitcoin reserve firm’s latest financial report highlighting the “outlook and risks” of its aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy. Analyst Mark Palmer cut the price target to 1,100 yen from 2,400 yen, noting recent performance underscores the “hope and danger” of Metaplanet’s Bitcoin-focused financial strategy. The stock trades on the U.S. OTC market under ticker MTPLF, currently around $2.20—after briefly falling to ~$1.85 earlier this month, near its lowest level since the firm launched its Bitcoin purchase strategy in April 2024. Metaplanet reported a $619 million net loss for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, driven primarily by unrealized non-cash valuation losses on its Bitcoin holdings from late-year price declines. Still, operating performance improved sharply: revenue and profit grew thanks to Bitcoin-related financial services. A key pil

February 18 — Investment bank TD Cowen said filling Democratic vacancies at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) could help advance negotiations on the U.S. Cryptocurrency Market Structure Bill. The firm noted the bill’s biggest obstacle isn’t its core framework — whether digital assets should be regulated as securities by the SEC or commodities by the CFTC — but a political dispute over conflict-of-interest rules. Democrats are pushing for a ban on specific crypto transactions by senior government officials and their families. TD Cowen noted this proposal would cover former President Donald Trump and his family, given his involvement in the crypto project World Liberty Financial. Bloomberg estimated last month Trump has made roughly $1.4 billion from the project; his family also holds a 20% stake in mining firm American Bitcoin. Democrats are unlikely to back down on the requirement, as the party has framed Trump’s

February 18 — Per Onchain Lens monitoring, the World Liberty Fi project team’s address withdrew 313.31 million WLFI from Binance over the past 11 hours, with the tokens valued at roughly $33.76 million.

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.