Gate.io Launches INIT Perpetual Contract Pre-trading

On February 24, AI firm Anthropic announced its Claude Code platform can automate COBOL system modernization—sparking market concerns about impacts to traditional IT consulting and software business models. In response, IBM’s stock plummeted 11% intraday, becoming the latest target of AI disruption. Market risk appetite dipped simultaneously, pushing U.S. major indexes broadly lower. Cryptocurrency assets also faced pressure: Bitcoin fell ~5% to ~$64,000 in 24 hours, with Ethereum and Solana posting similar declines. Related stocks—Coinbase Global Inc., MicroStrategy, Circle Internet Financial, Galaxy Digital—dropped 4% to 7%. Bitcoin mining firms focused on AI infrastructure showed relative resilience, however: IREN, Cipher Mining, CleanSpark, and Hut 8 posted slight gains. Safe-haven assets strengthened too: Gold rose 3.2%, silver 6.5%.

**February 24th** Coinbase is actively lobbying in Washington to protect a key revenue stream, per Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) analysis. Under the **Genius Act** framework, Coinbase’s stablecoin-related revenue could jump 2 to 7x if stablecoin adoption in payment use cases accelerates. BI analysts Paul Gulberg and Samuel Radowitz note that by 2025, stablecoin revenue could make up roughly 19% of Coinbase’s total revenue—with future growth hinging on further clarity and rollout of industry-related legal rules. U.S. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in July of this year. The analysis identifies clarity around the stablecoin regulatory framework, paired with expanded payment use cases, as Coinbase’s most flexible revenue growth lever.

On February 24, IoTeX announced it would offer a 10% white-hat bounty (roughly $440,000) to the attacker of its ioTube cross-chain bridge—with the condition that ~$4.4 million in stolen assets be returned within 48 hours—and pledged not to pursue legal action. The hack occurred on February 21, stemming from a leaked validator private key on ioTube’s Ethereum side, which granted unauthorized access to the bridge contract. IoTeX emphasized the issue was a cross-chain bridge operational security flaw, not impacting its Layer 1 mainnet or smart contracts themselves. IoTeX co-founder and CEO Raullen Chai said the team sent a non-liability statement to the attacker via on-chain messages, adding they’d traced related fund flows—including ~66.6 BTC (worth ~$4.3 million) across multiple Bitcoin addresses. Recharge addresses for affected exchanges have also been flagged and frozen. Security firm PeckShield estimated the incident involved over $8 million in assets, with some converted to

On February 24th, Taylor Lindman—former Deputy General Counsel of Chainlink Labs—officially joined the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Chief Legal Advisor to the Crypto Asset Working Group. He succeeds Michael Selig, who was previously promoted to Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Lindman spent over five years at Chainlink, overseeing legal matters related to the project’s oracle networks and smart contract data infrastructure. The SEC’s Crypto Asset Working Group, established last year, is currently led by Commissioner Hester Peirce and focuses on regulatory framework discussions for areas including tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi). During former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s tenure, the agency took enforcement actions against multiple crypto firms over registration compliance issues.

February 24: After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected former President Trump’s prior emergency tariff measures, Trump announced the reinstatement of up to 15% temporary tariffs under other trade laws—ramping up trade uncertainty and pressuring risk appetite in the crypto market. Data from crypto options platform Deribit shows a sharp jump in open interest for Bitcoin put options with strike prices of $58k, $60k, and $62k—signaling traders are hedging against potential downside by buying puts. Put options are commonly used to protect against price declines. Market analysts say the tariff policy, paired with macro uncertainty, could keep pressuring risk assets—including crypto.

On February 24, Canadian venture capital firm Framework Ventures struck a deal to acquire a roughly 10% stake (valued at ~$45 million) in publicly traded mortgage lender Better.com. The move aligns with Better.com’s plan to enter asset tokenization, with intentions to launch tokenized products backed by $5 billion in mortgages and other loan assets. Sources indicate the retail-focused token could be named “Home Token.” Better.com noted initial tokens will be restricted to accredited investors, with plans to expand access to a broader user base over time. Founder and CEO Vishal Garg stated tokenization cuts intermediary steps, lowering financing costs and enabling lower-interest mortgage products for consumers. The company is collaborating with DeFi ecosystem Sky, which uses real-world assets (RWA) to back stablecoins—its current ecosystem capital totals ~$18 billion. Framework Ventures is also a key supporter of Sky. Better.com had targeted a 2021 IPO with a $7.7 billion valuation,