Cointelegraph.com
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Cointelegraph.com - 12:46 Feb 20, 2026
House Democrats are pressing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over World Liberty Financial’s push for a national trust bank charter, citing systemic risk. Democrats in the US House of Representatives are pressing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over how regulators are handling World Liberty Financial’s bid for a national trust bank charter to issue a dollar-backed token. In a letter on Thursday, 41 House Financial Services Committee Democrats led by Representative Gregory Meeks cited systemic risk, foreign ownership and potential political pressure on the bank chartering process. They asked Bessent to explain what safeguards exist to prevent foreign government officials or politically connected investors from using the charter process to gain leverage over the US financial system. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:33 Feb 20, 2026
Tether’s USDT is nearing its largest monthly supply drop since the collapse of FTX, with whales and smart money traders continuing to reduce their USDT holdings. Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest US dollar-pegged stablecoin, is heading for its steepest monthly supply decline in years as big holders step up redemptions, according to blockchain data. The circulating supply of USDt (USDT) has fallen by about $1.5 billion so far in February, following a $1.2 billion decrease in January, according to Artemis Analytics data reported by Bloomberg. This puts USDT on track for its biggest monthly drop in three years, since the weeks following the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in November 2022. The USDT supply logged a $2 billion decrease in December 2022 after the collapse of FTX and its 150 subsidiaries sent shockwaves through the crypto industry. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:22 Feb 20, 2026
Spot Bitcoin ETFs are approaching a five-week outflow streak, with $2.7 billion in net redemptions year-to-date, as BTC posts one of its weakest starts to a year. Selling pressure in US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs continued Thursday, with analysts noting the cryptocurrency is on track for one of its worst yearly starts. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs saw $165.8 million in outflows Thursday, bringing weekly losses to $403.9 million, according to SoSoValue data. The redemptions moved the funds closer to a possible five-week outflow streak, with year-to-date (YTD) losses totaling $2.7 billion. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 09:51 Feb 20, 2026
Metaplanet’s Simon Gerovich addressed critics who accused the company of hiding losses and key details of its Bitcoin bets, as investor anger over leveraged Bitcoin treasuries spreads. Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich pushed back against accusations from what he called “anonymous accounts” that the company misled investors about its Bitcoin strategy and disclosures. Critics on X have argued that Metaplanet delayed or withheld price‑sensitive information about large Bitcoin (BTC) purchases and options trades funded with shareholder capital, obscured losses from its derivatives strategy and failed to fully disclose key terms of its BTC‑backed borrowings. In a detailed X post on Friday, Gerovich argued that Metaplanet promptly reported all Bitcoin purchases, option strategies and borrowings, and that critics were misreading its financial statements rather than uncovering misconduct. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 09:43 Feb 20, 2026
Lawmakers criticize South Korea’s Financial Services Commission after Bithumb mistakenly credited 620,000 BTC and the probe faces delays. South Korean lawmakers are stepping up pressure on financial regulators after crypto exchange Bithumb mistakenly credited customers with Bitcoin it did not hold, an error that briefly sparked a rush to sell and renewed questions about oversight of the country’s fast-growing digital-asset market. Lawmakers said the Financial Services Commission (FSC) failed to detect critical flaws in Bithumb’s internal systems despite at least three inspections since 2022, The Korea Times reported Thursday. Representative Kang Min-guk of the main opposition People Power Party said the incident was more than a technical mishap, claiming structural weaknesses in the crypto market, including gaps in regulation and oversight. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 06:04 Feb 20, 2026
The on-chain analytics firm‘s focus on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens had fallen out of step with the industry‘s current trajectory. On-chain analytics firm Parsec is closing down after five years, as crypto trader flows and on-chain activity no longer resemble what they once did. “Parsec is shutting down,” the company said in an X post on Thursday, while its CEO, Will Sheehan, said the “market zigged while we zagged a few too many times.” Sheehan added that Parsec’s primary focus on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) fell out of step with where the industry has now headed. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 05:18 Feb 20, 2026
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt reportedly refocused crypto and bank lobby talks on a crypto bill to allow stablecoin rewards tied to transaction activity. The White House has reportedly refocused talks between crypto and bank lobbyists on limiting how stablecoin rewards should be paid in the third meeting between the two groups over a crypto market structure bill. Crypto and banking industry representatives met at the White House on Thursday for the third time in 16 days to discuss stablecoin provisions that have stalled the crypto bill, which the Senate is looking to pass. No agreement was reached on Thursday, but executives at Coinbase and Ripple said progress was made, as one of the White House’s crypto advisers urged a trade-off that would let third parties, such as exchanges, offer stablecoin rewards only on transaction activity, not on balances. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:30 Feb 20, 2026
Bitdeer has launched its second-ever convertible senior note offering, which has seen its shares tumble 29% so far this year. Shares in Bitdeer Technologies Group took a hit on Thursday after the Bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence infrastructure firm announced a $300 million convertible senior note offering. Bitdeer said that it intends to offer a “principal amount” of $300 million in convertible senior notes with an option for purchasers to buy an additional $45 million in a private placement. It is the second convertible note offering from the firm, following a $150 million offering in April 2024 that also triggered an 18% stock slump. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:13 Feb 20, 2026
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari says crypto is “utterly useless” compared to AI, and that pro-stablecoin arguments are “a buzzword salad.” Neel Kashkari, the president of the US Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says that crypto is “utterly useless” in comparison to artificial intelligence and took a swipe at stablecoins, saying they don’t have many uses. Speaking at the 2026 Midwest Economic Outlook summit on Thursday, Kashkari drew comparisons between AI and crypto, saying the latter “has been around for more than a decade, and it's utterly useless.” “AI has not been around very long, and people are using it every day,” he added. “This is demonstrating to me that this thing is real and it has real long-term potential for the US economy as opposed to crypto.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 03:30 Feb 20, 2026
Sanctions evasion networks, guarantee marketplaces, and large-scale money laundering schemes dominated illicit stablecoin use, says TRM Labs. Illicit entities received around $141 billion via stablecoins in 2025, the highest level observed in the last five years, says blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. TRM said in a report released on Tuesday that the increase doesn’t reflect a broader growth in crypto-enabled crime, but does show a “deeper reliance on stablecoins within specific activity types where they offer clear operational advantages.” Stablecoins have been particularly used in sanctions-linked networks and large-scale money movement services, it said. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:58 Feb 20, 2026
Bitcoin developer Matt Carallo says Bitcoiners are looking to “blame something” for the asset’s sluggish price, dismissing quantum fears as the culprit. Bitcoin’s recent sell-off isn’t due to quantum computing fears, because if that were the case, Ether would be soaring, says Bitcoin developer Matt Carallo. “I strongly disagree with the characterization that Bitcoin's current price is materially, because of some kind of quantum risk,” Carallo told journalist Laura Shin on the Unchained podcast on Thursday. “If that were true, then Ethereum would be up substantially on Bitcoin,” he added. Ether (ETH) is down 58% since a major crypto market crash in early October, trading at $1,957 at the time of publication. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:20 Feb 20, 2026
Making Bitcoin quantum secure is the biggest challenge the protocol has ever faced. Here are the six biggest obstacles to be overcome. -
Cointelegraph.com - 01:45 Feb 20, 2026
Tech investor Jason Calacanis says he’s paying around $110,000 annualized to run an AI agent, more than most US salaries, and it’s not running at full capacity. The high costs of deploying and running artificial intelligence agents in the workforce may prevent them from replacing humans who can do the same work at lower cost, say two multimillionaire tech investors. Tech investor Jason Calacanis said on the All-In podcast on Saturday that he has been paying $300 per day for an Anthropic Claude AI agent to help run his businesses, despite the bot only operating at 10% to 20% of full capacity. “When do tokens outpace the salary of the employee?” Calacanis questioned, referring to the usage allowance, called tokens, that users must purchase to use most AI models. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:30 Feb 19, 2026
Bitcoin may stay capped under $70,000 as traders deploy bearish options strategies, and spot BTC ETF outflows point to a retest of the yearly low. Key takeaways: Professional traders are paying a 13% premium for downside protection as Bitcoin struggles to maintain support above $66,000. While stocks and gold remain strong, $910 million in Bitcoin ETF outflows suggest that institutional investor caution is rising. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:49 Feb 19, 2026
Blockchain-based versions of US stocks are drawing growing investor activity, with onchain wallets and cross-venue trading expanding rapidly. Kraken’s tokenized equities platform, xStocks, has surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume less than eight months after launch, underscoring accelerating adoption as tokenization gains traction among mainstream investors. Kraken disclosed Thursday that the $25 billion figure includes trading across centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, as well as minting and redemption activity. The milestone represents a 150% increase since November, when xStocks first crossed $10 billion in cumulative transaction volume. The xStocks tokens are issued by Backed Finance, a regulated asset provider that creates 1:1 backed tokenized representations of publicly traded equities and exchange-traded funds. Kraken serves as a primary distribution and trading venue, while Backed is responsible for structuring and issuing the tokenized instruments. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:32 Feb 19, 2026
Analysis by Bitcoin services company River forecasts a transaction surge as individuals and businesses experiment with AI agentic payments. Monthly transaction volume on the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network, a secondary layer for BTC that enables payment use cases, surpassed the $1 billion milestone in November 2025, according to a report from Bitcoin financial services company River. Transaction volume on the Lightning Network hit an estimated $1.1 billion in November, across 5.2 million transactions, according to a report shared by Sam Wouters, River’s director of marketing. The report said: However, the total transaction count in 2025 is lower compared with 2023, when monthly Lightning transactions peaked at 6.6 million in August of that year, which River attributed to experiments with micropayments in gaming and messaging apps. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:15 Feb 19, 2026
Bitcoin is on course to lock in another negative month, but one analyst says major differences in the current market structure could be a sign of a pending trend reversal. Bitcoin (BTC) is forming what may prove to be a fifth consecutive red monthly candle, which would be the longest losing streak since 2018. The silver lining is that data suggests that March may prove to be a profitable month for BTC. Historical price data from CoinGlass confirms Bitcoin is now facing its fifth consecutive red month, down 15% this month after closing the previous four months in the red. The last time this happened was in 2018, when it entered a bear market after reaching record highs in 2017. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:09 Feb 19, 2026
Paul Atkins and Hester Peirce spoke at ETHDenver on Wednesday on the future of regulation at the SEC and its response to crypto market volatility. Paul Atkins, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the agency’s crypto task force head, Hester Peirce, said Wednesday they would support efforts to clarify how “tokenized securities interact with existing regulation,” better positioning industry developers. Speaking to attendees at the ETHDenver conference on the future of regulation, Atkins and Peirce addressed concerns about volatility in many cryptocurrency prices and how the agency plans to move forward with digital asset regulation amid a potential market structure bill in Congress. In response to “falling crypto prices of late,” likely referring to the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) falling by more than 28% and 40%, respectively, in the previous 30 days, Atkins said: Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:06 Feb 19, 2026
A transaction-level analysis of 92 community banks found $78.3 million in net deposits moved to Coinbase over 13 months, with money market accounts losing most outflows. New analysis from banking data company KlariVis found that 90% of community banks in its sample had customers transacting with Coinbase. Across 53 banks where transaction direction could be determined, $2.77 flowed to the crypto exchange for every $1.00 returning, resulting in a net $78.3 million deposit shift over 13 months. The study reviewed 225,577 Coinbase-related transactions across 92 community banks and found that transfers were heavily concentrated in money market accounts, where 96.3% of identifiable transaction volume represented funds leaving banks for the exchange. "In general, community banks can be defined as those owned by organizations with less than $10 billion in assets," the Federal Reserve says on its website. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:15 Feb 19, 2026
The Bollinger Bands indicator has narrowed to its tightest level on record, a rare technical setup that analysts say is a sign of a pending directional move. A key volatility indicator for Bitcoin (BTC) has narrowed to its tightest measurement on record, a pattern that was followed by a multimonth rally in previous bull and bear markets. Will the Bollinger Bands indicator call the market bottom again? Analyzing the monthly Bitcoin chart, crypto analyst Dorkchicken noted that BTC’s Bollinger Bands are currently at their “tightest” level on record. Such conditions have repeatedly led to bullish breakouts, with the only prior downtrend from similar conditions occurring in 2022, during the drop to $16,000 from $20,000. Bollinger Bands measure price volatility, and extreme compression often leads to a sharp expansion. The analyst added that there are higher odds of an upside trend once expansion begins. Read more
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