Today's top news highlights:

The United States and Israel have launched a military strike against Iran.

OpenAI announced it has secured $110 billion in new funding at a valuation of $730 billion , and is considering an IPO when the time is right.

A press release from the South Korean National Tax Service inadvertently revealed a mnemonic phrase, leading to the theft of approximately $4.8 million in seized cryptocurrency.

Tether's secondary market valuation could reach as high as $375 billion, potentially making its largest shareholder richer than Warren Buffett.

Vitalik Buterin outlines his short-term and long-term plans for Ethereum scaling.

Reminder: The White House has set March 1st as the deadline for resolving the stablecoin rewards controversy and advancing the Clarity Act.

Paradigm plans to raise up to $1.5 billion for a new fund, expanding into areas such as AI/robotics.

Citibank plans to launch an institutional-grade Bitcoin custody service later this year.

Macro & Regulatory

The US PPI rose 0.5% month-on-month in January, below the expected 0.30%; the PPI rose 2.9% year-on-year in January, below the expected 2.60%.

According to Jinshi News, the US PPI rose 0.5% month-on-month in January, below the expected 0.30%, and the previous value was revised from 0.50% to 0.4%. The US PPI rose 2.9% year-on-year in January, below the expected 2.60%, and the previous value was 3.00%.

Trump confirms military strike against Iran

US President Trump: The United States recently launched a major military operation in Iran. Iran is attempting to rebuild its nuclear program; Iran must never possess nuclear weapons. Iran is developing long-range missiles that threaten the United States and other countries. Our goal is to protect the American people by eliminating the imminent threat posed by the Iranian regime. We will destroy Iran's missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. We will ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. We will completely destroy Iran's navy. The United States has taken every possible measure to minimize the risks to US personnel stationed in the region. Americans may suffer losses; we may have casualties.

Earlier reports indicated that Israel declared a state of emergency and announced a preemptive strike against Iran ; the US and Israel had been planning the attack on Iran for months, with the launch date set weeks prior ; Iranian officials stated that Tehran was preparing retaliatory measures, the response of which would be devastating . Later reports indicated that Israel named its operation against Iran "Operation Roaring Lion" ; and Iran established a National Crisis Management Headquarters .

A press release from the South Korean National Tax Service inadvertently revealed a mnemonic phrase, leading to the theft of approximately $4.8 million in seized cryptocurrency.

According to South Korea's Asia Economy, the South Korean National Tax Service released a press release on February 26th detailing on-site searches of 124 individuals who habitually default on large tax payments. The release included photos of the seized Ledger cryptocurrency wallet's mnemonic phrase, without any blurring or blurring. Blockchain data expert Jaewoo Cho stated that shortly after the mnemonic phrase was leaked, the 4 million PRTG tokens stored in the wallet were transferred to an unidentified wallet in the early hours of February 27th, with an estimated loss of approximately 6.4 billion won (about US$4.8 million). Analysis shows that the thief initially deposited a small amount of Ethereum into the wallet for transaction fees, then transferred all the tokens in three separate transactions.

Trump orders: All federal government agencies to immediately stop using Anthropic

US President Trump: I have instructed every federal agency of the US government to immediately cease using Anthropic technology. We don't need it, we don't want it, and we will no longer do business with them! For agencies like the Department of War that use Anthropic products, there will be a six-month phase-out period. Anthropic had better behave itself and provide assistance during this phase-out period, or I will use all of my presidential power to force them to comply and they will face significant civil and criminal consequences. US Secretary of Defense: Effective immediately, any contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the US military is prohibited from engaging in any commercial activities with Anthropic. According to AXIOS, a source familiar with the matter said that a key US Senate defense leader was privately urging Anthropic to resolve its dispute with the Pentagon on Friday.

Reminder: The White House has set March 1st as the deadline for resolving the stablecoin rewards controversy and advancing the Clarity Act.

According to Cointelegraph, the White House has set March 1 as the deadline for resolving the stablecoin rewards controversy and advancing the Clarity Act.

The District of Columbia Fraud Center's special task force has seized and frozen $580 million in crypto assets.

According to Decrypt, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced that the Fraud Center Task Force has frozen and seized over $580 million in cryptocurrency from Southeast Asian criminal networks. Attorney Jeanine Pirro stated that the task force has made "significant progress" in freezing, seizing, and confiscating crypto assets from fraud networks in countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, and said it will return these funds to victims through legal procedures as much as possible. The Fraud Center Task Force, established in November 2025, is coordinated by multiple government agencies including the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Treasury Department, with the goal of combating transnational criminal networks profiting from "pig butchering" scams. These scams use social engineering to lure victims into buying cryptocurrency, then transfer the funds through fake investment domains and applications.

A US judge rejected Binance's request to resolve customer claims through arbitration.

According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter in Manhattan ruled on Thursday to dismiss Binance's request to resolve customer claims through arbitration. These customers accused Binance of illegally selling unregistered tokens that had significantly depreciated in value. The judge held that Binance failed to adequately inform users that the terms of claims arising before February 20, 2019, had been amended to mandate arbitration and waive the right to class action, therefore the claims could proceed in court. The judge noted that there was no evidence that Binance had "published" the arbitration terms, and that the class action waiver in its 2019 Terms of Use was vague and unenforceable. A Binance spokesperson responded that they would actively defend the remaining valid claims in the case. Founder Changpeng Zhao is also a defendant. Customers filed the lawsuit against Binance for losses on seven tokens, including ELF and EOS, accusing the company of failing to warn of significant risks as required by securities laws.

Project Updates

Tether says it has frozen approximately $4.2 billion in USDT related to illicit activities, and this week assisted in freezing $61 million related to a "pig butchering" scam.

According to Reuters, Tether stated that it has frozen approximately $4.2 billion in USDT "linked to illicit activities," with about $3.5 billion of that occurring since 2023. This week, it assisted the U.S. Department of Justice in freezing nearly $61 million in USDT related to "pig-butchering" scams. Tether claims it can remotely freeze USDT in users' wallets upon request from law enforcement.

YZi Labs alleges that 10X Capital failed to disclose its potential 5% or more stake in BNC, and has requested the SEC's intervention.

According to a statement from YZi Labs, based on the disclosure documents of CEA Industries (BNC), 10X and its affiliates may have exceeded 5% of the shares by the end of 2025 due to the exercise of a large number of warrants, triggering the 13D filing threshold, but no corresponding disclosure has been seen; and questioned whether the board's "poison pill" and other concerted actions and related relationships constitute an undisclosed "group", and requested that it immediately supplement the disclosure to the SEC.

Uniswap launches multi-chain fee sharing voting, which may significantly increase UNI holding rewards.

According to DL News, the Uniswap community has entered into a final vote on activating protocol fee switches on eight blockchains: Base, Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, World Chain, X Layer, Celo, Soneium, and Zora. The proposal suggests allocating at least one-sixth of transaction fees from these networks' revenue to liquidity providers, injecting it into a "token jar" for holders to claim by burning an equivalent amount of UNI. Since fee sharing began at the end of last year, Ethereum mainnet v2 and some v3 pools have generated approximately $3.3 million in revenue. This proposal also plans to cover the remaining Ethereum v3 pools, potentially doubling that revenue.

Sam Altman: OpenAI Reaches Agreement with War Department to Deploy Models on Secret Network

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman posted on X that OpenAI has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of War to deploy its models on its classified network. The agreement explicitly prohibits their use for domestic mass surveillance and emphasizes that any use of force (including potential autonomous weapons systems) must adhere to the principle of "human responsibility." OpenAI stated that it will build technical security safeguards for the deployment, run the models only on its cloud network, and deploy FDEs to participate in model security work. OpenAI stated that it has called on the Department of War to offer similar terms to other AI companies, replacing legal and regulatory conflicts with agreements.

OpenAI fires employee involved in prediction market "insider trading"

According to WIRED, OpenAI recently dismissed an employee for trading on prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi based on insider information. The report states that the employee used non-public information obtained while employed by OpenAI to place bets on related contracts, potentially constituting insider trading and violating the company's compliance policy.

Karpelès proposes a Bitcoin hard fork to recover nearly 80,000 BTC stolen from Mt. Gox in 2011.

Former Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpelès proposed a one-time hard fork of Bitcoin: adding consensus rules that would allow the use of a "Mt.Gox recovery address" to sign off on approximately 79,956 BTC (about $5.2 billion) spent from the 2011 hacker address 1Feex…sb6uF to return to creditors. He acknowledged the need for a coordinated network-wide upgrade and the potential for fork controversy.

Citibank plans to launch an institutional-grade Bitcoin custody service later this year.

According to Crowdfund Insider, Citigroup announced plans to launch a Bitcoin custody solution for institutional clients later in 2026, embedding Bitcoin directly into its core banking operations. The new platform will extend traditional tax reporting, regulatory compliance, and risk management processes to Bitcoin holdings, allowing investors to manage their Bitcoin positions within a unified system just like they would manage stocks or bonds. The platform supports 24/7 operation, SWIFT global transfers, and API connectivity, and is designed for institutional participants such as pension funds and insurance companies. The bank will build its own technology stack, including the Citigroup Integrated Digital Asset Platform, initially launching core custody functionality and gradually expanding to advanced services that enhance asset segregation and collateral management.

Vitalik Buterin outlines his short-term and long-term plans for Ethereum scaling.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined Ethereum's short-term and long-term scaling plans on social media. In the short term, the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade will introduce a block-level access list for parallel verification and ePBS functionality. It will also introduce a multi-dimensional gas mechanism, adding a "state creation gas" dimension, which will not be included in the approximately 16 million transaction gas cap, allowing for the creation of larger contracts. The EVM will maintain two invariants and handle multi-dimensional gas consumption through a "reserve pool" mechanism. In the long term, the focus will shift to a multi-dimensional pricing model. Long-term scaling includes ZK-EVM and Blobs. Regarding Blobs, PeerDAS will continue to iterate, aiming to achieve a data processing capacity of approximately 8 MB/s. In the future, Ethereum block data will directly enter Blobs.

Progmat migrates Japan's largest security token platform to Avalanche L1

Progmat, a Japanese security token platform incubated by MUFG, announced a partnership with Ava Labs to migrate its current Corda Enterprise Edition ledger-based system to the Avalanche L1 blockchain by the end of June 2026. Meanwhile, its existing interoperability partner, Datachain, will continue to support the issuance of security tokens on non-Avalanche chains and provide delivery versus payment (DvP) and payment versus payment (PvP) settlements based on various stablecoins.

Morgan Stanley applies for a national trust bank license in the United States to expand its crypto custody and staking business.

According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley has filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a new national trust bank to custody digital assets and provide cryptocurrency trading and staking services for investment clients. The new entity will be headquartered in Purchase, New York, but will operate nationwide.

Barclays is considering using a blockchain platform for payments and deposits.

According to Bloomberg, Barclays is planning to build a blockchain platform for banking services such as payments and deposits. The bank has sent Requests for Information (RFIs) to potential technology vendors to evaluate use cases including stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Sources indicate that Barclays expects to select a partner as early as April this year.

xAI co-founder Toby Pohlen has left the company, bringing the total number of departing 12 founding members to 7 within three years.

According to Bloomberg, Toby Pohlen, co-founder of Elon Musk's AI company xAI, announced his departure today. He stated on social media platform X, "Today is my last day at xAI," and jokingly remarked that "no one on the team can stay up all night better than you guys," adding that he plans to "get more than eight hours of sleep first." This is the fourth xAI co-founder to publicly resign in the past three months. Since the company's founding in 2023, seven of the 12 founding members have confirmed their departure, including former Google scientist Tony Wu, University of Toronto professor Jimmy Ba, and Groq founding member Greg Yang.

The Ethereum Foundation announced the launch of Project Odin to build a sustainable project support funding system.

The Ethereum Foundation has announced the launch of Project Odin, a structured support mechanism designed to help critical infrastructure teams establish diversified and sustainable funding sources and reduce their reliance on a single funding channel. Initiated by ecosystem participants, Project Odin is positioned as a 12-month structured support program. Its core mechanism involves assigning selected teams an embedded strategic advisor to intervene in sustainable planning from an early stage, covering funding path research, business model validation, collaboration expansion, and implementation. This helps teams establish at least one repeatable "revenue-like" funding source, such as support contracts, service agreements, or training partnerships. The first pilot team for the program is reportedly the Foundation for Verified Software.

PayPal, MoonPay, and M0 jointly launched PYUSDx, enabling applications to create their own stablecoins.

According to Cointelegraph, payment giant PayPal, in partnership with MoonPay and stablecoin platform M0, has launched PYUSDx, designed to help developers create USD-pegged stablecoins backed by PayPal USD (PYUSD) for use within specific applications, platforms, or ecosystems. The product is scheduled to launch next month. PYUSDx is a tokenization and issuance framework provided by MoonPay Digital Assets, independent of the native PYUSD. Developers can use this framework to quickly launch branded, cross-chain-enabled stablecoins with reserve transparency without building monetary infrastructure from scratch. Currently, DeFi protocol USD.ai has become the first developer to build a dedicated stablecoin for AI infrastructure on the platform.

Grvt releases 2026 roadmap: Full token economic model to be announced in March.

Hybrid crypto exchange Grvt has released its 2026 roadmap, planning to build a unified system around a single programmable balance, allowing a single deposit to simultaneously earn yield, serve as margin, and maintain spot exposure. The roadmap outlines four core layers: yield layer, investment layer, trading layer, and payment layer, all supported by a unified margin system. Grvt will extend its connectivity with Layer 1 protocols through ZKsync Atlas and begin integrating DeFi liquidity sources such as Aave starting in March. The platform plans to launch a native prime broker lending market based on smart contracts. On the trading front, it will expand to perpetual contracts for global stocks, forex, and commodities, with the spot market launching in phases. The payment layer will introduce P2P payment and deposit/withdrawal services. The complete economic model for the GRVT token will be released in March, including distribution details, vesting schedule, and allocation mechanism.

ZKsync plans to shut down ZKsync Lite on May 4th and shift its focus to the Era ecosystem.

According to The Block, ZKsync has announced that it will completely cease operation of ZKsync Lite (formerly ZKsync 1.0) on May 4, 2026. At that time, the network will stop producing blocks and permanently freeze its final state to ensure that balances are not altered after the shutdown. ZKsync Lite was launched in June 2020, primarily supporting token transfers and NFT minting, but lacking smart contract functionality. With the maturation of the ZKsync Era and ZK Stack ecosystem, which feature zkEVM functionality, the project decided to concentrate resources on developing subsequent systems. Users are advised to withdraw their assets before May 4th. After the shutdown, a read-only API will be provided for at least one year for data access, and unwithdrawn funds can still be claimed at that time.

Coinbase will launch Robo Token (ROBO) perpetual futures trading.

According to a Coinbase Markets announcement, perpetual futures trading for Robo Token (ROBO) will launch on February 27th. Subject to liquidity requirements, the ROBO-PERP market will open in supported trading regions. Retail traders can trade perpetual futures through Coinbase Advanced in selected jurisdictions, while institutional clients can access it directly through Coinbase International Exchange.

Analysis & Opinions

Analysis: Bitcoin options traders are betting on a price rebound to $90,000, suggesting the market is showing initial signs of bottoming out.

According to The Block, analysis from on-chain derivatives platform Derive shows that Bitcoin options traders are building positions, betting on a market bottom and a potential rebound to $90,000. Sean Dawson, Head of Research at Derive, noted that the market is showing signs of stabilization after weeks of uncertainty. Bitcoin volatility has fallen back to the 50% range, typically associated with consolidation rather than panic selling. The 25-delta skewness indicator for options sentiment has rebounded significantly from -15% in late February to around -7%, indicating that traders' defensive sentiment is weakening. Options fund flows show a large accumulation of call options with strike prices of $80,000 and $90,000 expiring on March 27, suggesting that traders expect prices to rebound to the $85,000 to $95,000 range.

Analysis: Bitcoin faces resistance at the $70,000 mark, and its five-month losing streak may be difficult to end in March.

According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin is facing its fifth consecutive month of decline, with a 14% drop in February. The price is currently fluctuating around $67,720, facing resistance at the psychological level of $70,000. Bitcoin faces a triple resistance cluster on the weekly chart, including the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA) around $68,330, the all-time high of $69,000 in 2021, and the $70,000 mark. Analyst Captain Faibik believes that if the weekly chart closes above the 200-week EMA, a rebound to $80,000 is possible. Furthermore, a break above the 18-24 month holder cost baseline of $74,500 could signal the end of the bear market.

Investment and Financing

OpenAI announced it has secured $110 billion in new investment at a valuation of $730 billion.

According to Jinshi News, OpenAI announced the completion of a record $110 billion funding round at a valuation of $730 billion. Amazon stated that it has invested $50 billion in this round. OpenAI announced that SoftBank Group and Nvidia each invested $30 billion.

Later reports indicated that OpenAI founder Altman stated they would consider an IPO at the appropriate time ; an OpenAI executive stated that ChatGPT's daily active users have exceeded 900 million, with 50 million paid subscribers .

JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen stablecoin, has completed a Series B funding round of approximately $12 million, led by Asteria.

According to Ledger Insights, JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen stablecoin, has completed its Series B funding round, raising approximately 1.78 billion yen (about US$12 million). The round was led by Japanese IT solutions provider Asteria, with the majority of the funding coming from Japanese companies and investment funds, and BitFlyer Holdings also participating. JPYC is scheduled to launch in October 2025 under Japan's money transfer regulatory framework and is currently the only onshore yen stablecoin.

SpaceX is reportedly filing for an IPO as early as March, with a potential valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion.

According to Bloomberg, sources say SpaceX plans to file a confidential filing with the U.S. SEC as early as March 2026, potentially paving the way for a June IPO; the IPO valuation could exceed $1.75 trillion and the fundraising size could reach $50 billion, though details may still be subject to change.

Paradigm plans to raise up to $1.5 billion for a new fund, expanding into areas such as AI/robotics.

According to The Wall Street Journal, crypto venture capital firm Paradigm is seeking to raise up to $1.5 billion for its next fund, expanding its investment scope from crypto to "cutting-edge technologies" such as AI and robotics, while continuing to invest in the crypto sector.

mechanism

Block disclosed that it increased its holdings by 340 bitcoins in Q4, worth $22 million.

According to The Bitcoin Historian, Block, Inc., the payment company owned by Jack Dorsey, just disclosed that it acquired an additional 340 bitcoins, worth $22 million, in the fourth quarter of 2025.

World Liberty Finance deposited 11.4 million WLFI tokens into OKX, equivalent to approximately US$1.31 million.

Matrixport deposited 750 BTC, equivalent to approximately $50.89 million, into Binance.

BlackRock withdrew 4,082 BTC from Coinbase 9 hours ago, bringing its total BTC withdrawals over the past 3 days to approximately $717 million.

Important data

Tether's secondary market valuation could reach as high as $375 billion, potentially making its largest shareholder richer than Warren Buffett.

According to Forbes, secondary market trading suggests that stablecoin issuer Tether could be valued at as much as $375 billion, placing its owners among the world's richest people. Industry sources indicate that Tether is trading in the range of $350 billion to $375 billion on the secondary market. Based on conversations with cryptocurrency investors and executives, Forbes currently values Tether at approximately $200 billion, still significantly higher than its $50 billion valuation a year ago.

Data: Addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC have increased their holdings by approximately 152,000 BTC in the past 30 days.

Bitfinex released a report indicating that Bitcoin has been declining steadily since reaching an all-time high of $126,000 in October 2025, briefly touching $60,000 on February 5, 2026, a drop of over 50%. This is the most severe sell-off since the FTX crash in 2022. However, while the market is experiencing violent fluctuations, there is an undercurrent of capital. Data shows that "super whales" holding 10,000 BTC or more have been steadily increasing their holdings as Bitcoin fell from $90,400 to $74,500 and below. In addition, whale addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC have added approximately 152,000 BTC in the past 30 days, bringing their total holdings to 3.2 million BTC, the highest level since 2024.

Domestic gold jewelry prices exceed 1600 yuan/gram

Today's domestic gold jewelry price comparison shows that most gold shops are selling gold jewelry for over 1600 yuan/gram, an increase of about 32 yuan/gram compared to yesterday. The highest price reached 1608 yuan/gram.

The number of crypto funding deals has fallen back to 2017 levels.

The number of monthly funding deals for crypto VCs (by round) has fallen to levels close to those of 2017, reflecting a significant cooling in funding activity in recent months.

"Maji" has made his 162nd rollover long position after repeated failures, with the liquidation price for this round of ETH long positions at approximately $1938.

Changpeng Zhao: BNB is now available for trading on RAKBANK in the UAE

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