CryptoPulseElite

The Bank of Russia is preparing to study the feasibility of launching a domestic Russian stablecoin in 2026, signaling a major pivot from its longstanding opposition to fiat-pegged digital assets.
First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Chistyukhin announced the regulator will reassess risks and prospects this year, citing evolving international practices. The shift comes as Western sanctions intensify, with the EU's 20th package targeting Russian crypto transactions and the \$500 million ruble-b

Fintech innovator Figure Technology Solutions has begun marketing 4.23 million shares of its blockchain-native common stock, a first-of-its-kind offering that lets equity trade on its Provenance Blockchain-based alternative trading system rather than traditional exchanges like Nasdaq.
The Feb. 14 announcement, timed with preliminary Q4 earnings showing 131% loan volume growth, arrives alongside confirmation of a customer data breach where hacking group ShinyHunters leaked 2.5 gigabytes o

Cryptocurrency transactions linked to suspected human trafficking services surged 85% year-over-year in 2025, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars across identified networks, according to Chainalysis' 2026 Crypto Crime Report.
The growth is concentrated in Southeast Asia-based operations, where Telegram-facilitated escort services, labor placement agents tied to scam compounds, and child sexual abuse material vendors increasingly rely on stablecoins and sophisticated money laundering

Sam Bankman-Fried, the incarcerated FTX founder serving a 25-year sentence for fraud, has filed a motion requesting a new trial, claiming newly discovered evidence and witness intimidation could overturn his 2023 conviction.
The legal maneuver arrives alongside a striking revelation: early investments SBF made before FTX's collapse—including stakes in Anthropic, Solana, and Robinhood—would today be worth approximately \$80 billion had they not been seized by authorities. For the crypto i

Tomasz Stanczak is stepping down as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation at the end of February 2026, just nine months after assuming the role alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang. Bastian Aue will step in as interim co-executive director, working alongside Wang to guide the organization through its next phase.
The leadership transition comes as Ethereum navigates an increasingly complex landscape involving Layer 2 scaling, AI integration, and institutional adoption, with Stanczak expres

Bitcoin surged toward \$69,000 on Feb. 14 after January's US Consumer Price Index came in softer than expected, with headline inflation printing at 2.4% versus the anticipated 2.5%.
The relief rally offered a brief reprieve for crypto bulls watching key resistance levels, though market expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts remain surprisingly low. For crypto traders, this inflation reading reinforces the delicate dance between macro data and risk asset appetite, with Bitcoin's react

In a landmark move for decentralized finance, Grayscale Investments has submitted an S-1 application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to convert its AAVE Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund.
The filing, submitted on February 13, 2026, aims to list the proposed Grayscale AAVE ETF on the NYSE Arca with Coinbase serving as custodian. This development follows Bitwise's December filing for an AAVE strategy ETF and arrives as Aave dominates the DeFi lending sector with over 51

El Salvador’s national Bitcoin treasury has lost nearly \$300 million in value since October 2025, falling from \$800 million to approximately \$504 million as BTC trades 50% below its all-time high. President Nayib Bukele continues purchasing one Bitcoin per day despite the drawdown, a policy that now strains negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over the stalled \$1.4 billion loan program.
The second IMF review has been frozen since September 2025, and credit default swaps

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood unveiled a provocative new investment thesis at Bitcoin Investor Week in New York on February 12, 2026: Bitcoin is not merely an inflation hedge—it is the ultimate hedge against deflationary chaos unleashed by exponential artificial intelligence.
With AI training costs falling 75% annually and inference costs plunging up to 98% per year, Wood warned that the Federal Reserve and traditional banks are dangerously unprepared for a productivity shock that will driv

Crypto markets are bracing for a volatility double-header on February 13, 2026, as \$3 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expire alongside the US CPI inflation print. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has plunged to 5—its lowest reading since the 2022 bear market—signaling capitulation-level sentiment.
Yet beneath the panic, a divergence is unfolding: Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) added \$90 million in Bitcoin while BitMine expanded its Ethereum treasury to 4.3 million ETH, now

A single percentage point shift in Asian household wealth allocation would inject nearly \$2 trillion into cryptocurrency markets—equivalent to 60% of the current global digital asset capitalization, according to BlackRock’s head of APAC iShares, Nicholas Peach.
Speaking at Consensus Hong Kong on February 12, 2026, Peach framed the calculation as “fun math” with sobering implications: Asia holds \$108 trillion in household wealth, and model portfolios are increasingly recommending a 1% c

Cardano has secured the largest interoperability expansion in its history, integrating LayerZero's omnichain messaging protocol to gain direct access to over 400 tokens and \$80 billion in omnichain assets across 160+ blockchains.
Founder Charles Hoskinson delivered the announcement at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, alongside confirmed timelines: USDCx lands by late February, and the privacy-focused partner chain Midnight goes live on mainnet in the final week of March. The CME Group simultan

Ripple stands at the most consequential regulatory inflection point in its history. The company holds conditional OCC approval for a national trust bank charter—pending final sign-off—while the CLARITY Act, stalled since January with over 130 amendments, faces a White House-imposed March 1 deadline for banking and crypto industry consensus.
Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty described recent negotiations as “productive” and urged the industry to move “while the window is still open.” CE

BlackRock increased its stake in Bitmine Immersion Technologies by 165.6% in Q4 2025, now holding 9.05 million BMNR shares valued at \$246 million, betting on Bitmine’s rapidly growing Ethereum treasury, which holds 4.3 million ETH—3.5% of total supply—plus nearly \$10 billion in combined assets.
Yet the institutional endorsement arrives as Ethereum itself trades at \$1,958, just 5% above critical support, with whales offloading 160,000 ETH in nine days. The contradiction captures crypto

David Schwartz, Ripple’s Emeritus Chief Technology Officer, ignited a fresh crypto civil war on February 12, 2026, by declaring Bitcoin a “technological dead end” that now relies entirely on adoption and network effects rather than innovation.
His remarks came during a heated exchange over XRP Ledger decentralization, where Schwartz pointed to Bitcoin’s 2010 and 2013 coordinated rollbacks as proof that no blockchain is truly immune to governance intervention. Hours later, XRP community influ

World Liberty Financial will host its inaugural World Liberty Forum at Mar-a-Lago on February 18, 2026, assembling 300 global leaders including Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
The gathering comes as the Trump family’s crypto venture has generated \$1.4 billion in 16 months—more than Trump’s real estate empire produced in eight years—through WLFI token sales, a \$500 million UAE stake acquisition, and a rapidly growing USD

London Stock Exchange Group announced plans to build the LSEG Digital Securities Depository, an on-chain settlement system connecting traditional securities markets with multiple blockchain networks.
The platform will enable institutional investors to trade and settle tokenised bonds, equities and private market assets while maintaining interoperability with existing infrastructure. Backed by major UK banks and facing activist pressure from Elliott Management, LSEG’s move signals that bl