Crypto

Local media reported that the stolen 320 Bitcoin was returned to a wallet controlled by authorities, with the unknown hacker seemingly having a sudden change of heart. South Korean prosecutors say they recovered more than 320 Bitcoin that disappeared from government custody in 2025 after the cryptocurrency was returned to an official wallet this week, local media reported. The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office said it unexpectedly recovered 320.88 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $21.3 million at the time of writing, local media outlet The Chosun Daily reported on Thursday. Prosecutors confirmed to the outlet that the unknown hacker returned the stolen Bitcoin to the authorities’ cryptocurrency wallet on Tuesday, and it was later transferred to a secure domestic digital exchange wallet also controlled by authorities. The Bitcoin went missing from prosecutors’ custody during an investigation in August 2025, authorities said at the time. Prosecutors later discovered the loss during a routine inspection of seized f...

Bitcoin and ether tick higher, but weak altcoin breadth, heavy liquidations and elevated options hedging suggest traders remain cautious.

YouGov survey published by Coinbase and BVNK also found that 71% of users would use a stablecoin-linked debit card as a means of spending them.

Bitmine’s top holders continued to increase exposure, showing steady institutional demand for the largest Ether treasury company from Wall Street heavyweights. The largest shareholders of Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) stock increased their investments in the leading Ethereum treasury company in the fourth quarter of 2025 despite a wider crypto market crash and poor stock price performance. Morgan Stanley, the top reported holder, increased its position by about 26% to more than 12.1 million shares, valued at $331 million at quarter end, according to its Form 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. ARK Investment Management, the second-largest holder, increased its stake by about 27% to more than 9.4 million shares worth $256 million, its filing shows. Several other top institutional holders also increased exposure. BlackRock increased its BMNR holdings by 166%, Goldman Sachs by 588%, Vanguard by 66% and Bank of America by 1,668%. Read more

Bitcoin’s grip on the crypto market is tightening again, and the numbers behind that shift help explain why a broad basket of altcoins is unlikely to beat the top crypto. Data from CoinMarketCap indicate that Bitcoin's dominance is edging upwards towards 60% of the total crypto market capitalization. In comparison, altcoins' dominance has been trending […] The post A $1.2T shift toward Bitcoin may be starting — and one grim index says altcoins may never rally appeared first on CryptoSlate.

ETF capital flight mirrors private wallet stress, suggesting institutions and individuals are reacting to the same pressure worldwide now.

Optimism's OP token sank after Base announced it's moving away from the OP Stack to a unified, self-operated tech stack.

M, HASH, and ZEC have plunged the most in the past 24 hours.

The Bitcoin lender reportedly packaged thousands of Bitcoin-backed consumer loans into rated bonds, giving investors a new way to take crypto‑linked risk without holding BTC. Bitcoin-backed loan platform Ledn sold about $188 million of bonds tied to Bitcoin‑collateralized consumer loans into the mainstream asset‑backed securities (ABS) market, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.  In a first-of-its-kind deal, one of the two tranches — the investment‑grade portion — was reportedly priced at a spread of about 335 basis points over a benchmark rate, implying that investors are demanding 3.35 percentage points in extra yield to hold crypto‑linked credit risk rather than conventional consumer ABS. The deal is structured through Ledn Issuer Trust 2026‑1, which securitizes a pool of 5,441 short‑term, fixed‑rate balloon loans extended to 2,914 US borrowers, backed by 4,078.87 Bitcoin (BTC) held as collateral, according to S&P Global Ratings’ preliminary documentation on Feb. 9. Rea...

US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs have shed $238 million this week, potentially setting up the first five-week outflow streak since March 2025. US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to bleed on Wednesday as market sentiment remained negative and BTC briefly dipped below $66,000. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $133.3 million in net outflows on Wednesday, bringing weekly losses to $238 million, according to SoSoValue data. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led outflows, with over $84 million exiting. Trading volumes remained subdued at less than $3 billion, highlighting a persistent lack of activity even as analysts had previously noted potential inflection points amid the slowdown in outflows. Read more

Analysts are expecting a volatile near-term future for BTC, with some questioning whether new lows are on their way.

Crypto lender packages more than 5,400 bitcoin collateralized loans into first asset backed securities transaction of its kind.

U.S. spot crypto ETFs saw broad-based redemptions led by bitcoin and ether funds, while Solana products drew fresh inflows, signaling selective institutional rotation rather than a full retreat from digital assets.

The longer Bitcoin remains rangebound, the more likely it is to fall further as the bear market deepens. 

[PRESS RELEASE – Denver, Colorado, February 18th, 2026] CoinFello, an AI agent capable of interacting directly with smart contracts, will be introduced to ETHDenver attendees during the conference’s opening ceremonies. The debut provides attendees with early access to CoinFello through a special preview application called BuffiBot, created by the CoinFello team. For ETHDenver, CoinFello developed […]

[PRESS RELEASE – Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 18th, 2026] ICON Amsterdam today announced that it closed 2025 with its strongest financial performance to date, marking a milestone year following a period of internal restructuring and operational realignment. The company also confirmed that it is preparing to explore expansion into the United States in 2026. According to […]

Address poisoning works by cluttering your transaction history with fake entries, tricking you into sending funds to a scammer’s address by mistake. Address poisoning exploits behavior, not private keys. Attackers manipulate transaction history and rely on users mistakenly copying a malicious lookalike address. Cases such as the 50-million-USDT loss in 2025 and the 3.5 wBTC drain in February 2026 demonstrate how simple interface deception can lead to massive financial damage. Copy buttons, visible transaction history and unfiltered dust transfers make poisoned addresses appear trustworthy within wallet interfaces. Read more

A new UNESCO report projects steep revenue losses for music and screen creators as lawyers say the fair use doctrine is buckling under AI’s scale.

Selling pressure across altcoins has continued to build, with net outflows now matching levels last seen in 2021

Research is casting prediction markets as policy-relevant forecasting tools just as state regulators escalate efforts to curtail their use.