Crypto World
Here’s why Ethereum price may hit $1,500 first before $2,500
Ethereum price was stuck below the important support of $2,000 today, February 16, as it erased the gains made during the weekend.
Summary
- Ethereum price may be at risk of falling to the key support at $1,500.
- It has formed a bearish pennant pattern on the daily timeframe chart.
- The bearish catalysts have outweighed the bullish one.
Ethereum (ETH) token was trading at $1,980, down substantially from its all-time high of $4,960. Technical analysis suggests the coin will likely drop to the key support at $1,500 before hitting the psychological $2,500 level.
Ethereum price technical analysis suggests a retreat to $1,500 is likely
The daily timeframe chart shows that ETH price remains in a technical bear market after falling by 60% from its all-time high. It is slowly forming a bearish pennant pattern, consisting of a vertical line and a symmetrical triangle.
It has completed forming the flagpole line and is now in the triangle section, whose two lines are about to converge. In most cases, a bearish breakout normally happens when these two lines are about to meet.
ETH price has remained below all moving averages and the 78.6% Fibonacci Retracement level. It has also moved below the strong pivot, reverse level of the Murrey Math Lines.
Therefore, the most likely ETH price prediction is bearish, with the initial target at the psychological $1,500 level, a few points above its lowest level in April last year.
The bearish outlook is also supported by a Polymarket poll, which places the odds of it falling to $1,500 this year at 72%.
ETH price to drop as demand wanes
The main reason why ETH price may crash to $1,500 first is that demand has remained thin in the past few months. A good example of the waning demand is the ongoing happenings in the futures market, where open interest has dropped to $23 billion, its lowest level since 2024. It has crashed from last year’s high of nearly $70 billion.
Spot Ethereum ETF outflows have continued this month. These funds have shed over $326 million in assets this month, the fourth consecutive month in the red. They have lost over $2 billion in assets in the last four months.
These bearish catalysts have outweighed the positive Ethereum news. For example, the staking queue has jumped to a record high, with the staking ratio hitting the key milestone of 30%.
The supply of ETH on exchanges has dropped to a record low, while transactions, fees, and active addresses have soared. Ethereum has also become the most preferred chain for the booming real-world asset tokenization industry.
XRPL users face coordinated scam surge, wallet founder says, as attackers deploy phishing, fake apps, and sign requests globally.
Xaman Wallet founder Wietse Wind has said that a “massive XRPL targeted scam effort” is underway, warning users about fake sign requests, phishing emails, and impersonation accounts.
His alert points to a rise in social engineering attacks aimed at crypto holders rather than flaws in the blockchain code.
A Multi-Pronged Attack on XRPL Users
Wind wrote on X on February 16 that he had spent the weekend adding new filters and alerts to Xaman Wallet after detecting coordinated attempts to trick users into signing malicious transactions.
He listed several methods seen in recent days, including scam NFTs that promise token swaps, fake desktop wallet apps, and direct messages posing as support staff. The official wallet account repeated the warning, telling users not to click links, respond to DMs, or connect wallets to unknown websites.
According to Wind, the attacks usually focus on manipulating users rather than breaching software, with the scammers expanding beyond social media and sending phishing emails even though Xaman does not store user email addresses, suggesting attackers are relying on leaked data from unrelated breaches.
The tricksters are also reportedly promoting fake “desktop wallets,” despite Xaman being a strictly mobile application. Some fraudulent projects are even promising free tokens in exchange for users’ secret keys.
Wind stressed that funds will stay safe if people avoid approving unknown transactions or sharing their keys.
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“No matter the amount of warnings, detection, filtering, alerts in the app and here on social: no scammer can get you if you don’t willingly / unknowingly interact with them,” he advised. “Your funds are perfectly safe in Xaman Wallet: just don’t sign any transaction you don’t trust, and don’t interact with anyone promising you free tokens.”
Scams Moving Beyond DeFi Exploits
The XRPL scam wave reflects a troubling industry-wide trend, with a PeckShield report from earlier in the year revealing that crypto scams and hacks drained more than $4.04 billion in 2025.
Of that total, $1.37 billion came from scams alone, a 64% increase from 2024. The firm said attackers are shifting toward tailored phishing campaigns that target individuals with large holdings instead of relying only on technical exploits.
Furthermore, the PeckShield report also found that centralized platforms and companies accounted for about 75% of stolen funds last year, up from 46% in 2024.
These high-value thefts tied to deception extend beyond software wallets. On January 17, 2026, blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that a victim lost about $282 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) through a hardware wallet scam. According to his findings, the attacker later moved the funds through THORChain and converted them to Monero (XMR).
Wind’s posts framed the latest campaign as a reminder that wallet security often depends on user decisions.
“This is a cat and mouse ‘game,’ and the scammers will not win,” he stated.
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Crypto.com says it has become the first digital asset platform to receive an international certification for artificial intelligence systems management amid its continued expansion into the sector.
The company said on Monday that it received ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification, an international standard governing the creation and implementation of an AI management system.
“Security and privacy continue to be a core focus for us, particularly as we scale our AI-driven infrastructure and services,” said Crypto.com information security chief Jason Lau, adding that the certification ensures “every AI system we develop and deploy is secure, transparent, and aligned with emerging regulatory expectations.”
Crypto.com co-founder and CEO, Kris Marszalek, said the certification was “an important step as we continue to leverage AI tools and technologies.”
Crypto.com recently leaned into offering AI services that tie in with its crypto offering, launching software development kits and tailored data services. It also recently launched the AI agent platform ai.com on Feb. 9, which it considers a core business.
The new website allows users to create AI agents that can perform everyday tasks such as trading and managing workflows.
Marszalek said the goal of the company was to accelerate the capabilities of AI “by building a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”
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Crypto executives and users have been enamored with AI, with companies rushing to offer AI services to keep up with the hype surrounding the technology.
Crypto-focused AI agents, which can conduct transactions without human intervention, have grown in popularity as traders look to gain an edge in the always-on market.
Rival crypto exchange Coinbase has also begun to offer services tailored to AI, launching crypto wallet infrastructure on Feb. 11 that allows AI agents to spend, earn and trade crypto.
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Crypto exchange Kraken has become the latest company to heed calls from US President Donald Trump to support his “Trump Accounts,” a savings plan aimed at American children under the age of 18.
The move was first announced by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis on Monday, with the Republican official stating that Kraken would provide funding toward all Trump Accounts created for newborns in the state of Wyoming.
“Grateful to Kraken for their commitment to Wyoming’s next generation and to the Cowboy State’s economic future,” she said.
Kraken’s co-CEO Dave Ripley said the firm chose to support Trump Accounts in Wyoming due to the positive regulatory climate in the state, home to the firm’s headquarters.
“We picked Wyoming as our global HQ because it leads with thoughtful, responsible crypto policy. We want to keep investing back in the community we call home. Starting early matters, and innovation should make long-term financial opportunity more accessible and affordable,” he said.
In a blog post, Kraken said that the Wyoming government enabled the firm to become the US’s first Special Purpose Depository Institution and praised it for its work on helping launch the Frontier Stable Token.
Trump Accounts are a new type of retirement account in the US that can be established by parents or legal guardians for children under 18. Under a pilot program, the federal government will seed Trump Accounts with $1,000 for any child born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028.
So far, traditional finance heavyweights such as JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have all put support behind Trump Accounts in varying degrees, alongside several other well-known names.
Kraken did not share how much funding it would contribute to each eligible newborn. Cointelegraph has reached out to Kraken for comment.
Crypto firms give back amid state support
This isn’t the only crypto-related firm to give back to its home state this month.
Last week, blockchain-based prediction market platform Polymarket opened a free grocery store in New York City and said it would donate 3 million meals across the five boroughs.
Related: CFTC adds Coinbase, Ripple execs to 35-member advisory committee
The store was open from Thursday to Sunday last week, followed by a food donation day on Monday, when people could donate food to be redistributed across the city.
The move from Polymarket followed a similar move by prediction market competitor Kalshi, with the platform offering a $50 grocery giveaway to over 1,000 Manhattan residents on Feb. 3.
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If Consensus Hong Kong 2026 had an unofficial theme, it wasn’t Bitcoin or regulation. It was artificial intelligence — and the scramble to figure out what it actually means for crypto.
AI surfaced in almost every context: main-stage keynotes, side-event panels, venture capital meetings, and even the post-conference mood. But the conversations weren’t uniform. They ranged from Hong Kong government officials endorsing the machine economy to venture capitalists declaring the AI hype cycle in crypto already over.
Enterprise AI Agents Are Already Deployed
At the Gate’s side event, Sophia Jin, Hong Kong Tech Director at Byteplus — ByteDance’s enterprise technology arm — revealed that multiple major crypto exchanges are already using the company’s AI agent products. She outlined three use cases in production: intelligent customer service that incorporates deep research and trading scenario matching; multi-agent research systems with parallel data collection; and AML workflow automation with human oversight at decision points.
The most notable detail was the safety architecture. Byteplus places guardrails outside the agent orchestration layer — a kill switch that can halt agents immediately if they breach defined boundaries. Jin projected that within two years, every exchange employee will have an enterprise-grade AI assistant, while onboarding new users will become dramatically easier through AI-powered personalized education.
Two Years Until AI Outthinks You
Ben Goertzel, CEO of decentralized AI marketplace SingularityNET, offered the conference’s most provocative timeline. He gave humans roughly two years before AI surpasses them in strategic thinking.
“The human brain is better at taking the imaginative leap to understand the unknown,” Goertzel said iat Consensus. It won’t last, though. “We should enjoy it for a couple more years.”
While his Quantium project can already predict short-term Bitcoin volatility with high accuracy, Goertzel noted that long-term strategic thinking remains uniquely human — for now. He described the current bear cycle as a “stress test” for infrastructure that will eventually host artificial general intelligence.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen offered a more grounded view. On a panel about agentic trading, she compared current AI trading bots to interns — faster and cheaper but requiring supervision. Historical data-driven models have never encountered events like the 10/10 liquidations, she noted, making human intervention essential in unfamiliar conditions. But within three to five years, she projected, AI could replace many human roles.
Saad Naj, CEO of agentic trading startup PiP World, countered that humans may not be the right baseline. “As humans, we are too emotional. We can’t compete with AI solutions,” he said, noting that 90% of day traders lose money.
Building the Payment Layer for Agents
If the main stage provided the vision, side events tried to build the plumbing.
At the Stablecoin Odyssey event at Soho House, the panel “Building Payment Blockchains for the Agentic Economy” focused on what infrastructure AI agents actually need. Nellie Tan, Payment Head at Monad, introduced Coinbase’s X402 protocol — an HTTP-native on-chain payment standard — and argued that agentic payments would generate transactions “at the speed of data,” requiring throughput of thousands to millions per second.
Eddie, CEO of payment middleware AEON, framed the shift as an interface transition. When consumers interact through AI agents rather than apps, every commercial interaction funnels through a single point — and the last mile is always a payment. His company processes what he described as 80% of crypto payments through partnerships with OKX, Bybit, and others.
The question of which blockchain AI agents would choose remained open. Mate Tokay, CMO of OP_CAT Layer, noted that no one yet knows whether agents will select chains based on training data, experience, speed, or security. The answer likely depends on the transaction — large asset transfers prioritize security, while consumer purchases prioritize speed.
Crypto as Currency for AI — or Just Another Hype Cycle?
The most striking endorsement came from outside the industry. Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po used his appearance to frame AI agents as an economic force that crypto is uniquely positioned to serve.
“As AI agents become capable of making and executing decisions independently, we may begin to see the early forms of what some call the machine economy, where AI agents can hold and transfer digital assets, pay for services and transact with one another onchain,” Chan said.
Binance CEO Richard Teng pushed it further. “If you think about the agentic AI, so the booking of hotels, flights, whatever purchases that you would make, how you think that those purchases will be made — it’ll be via crypto and stablecoins,” he said. “So, crypto is the currency for AI, if you think about it.”
But venture capitalists poured cold water on the broader “AI + crypto” narrative. Anand Iyer of Canonical Crypto described the moment as a trough. “We went through a frothy period. Now it’s about figuring out where the real strength lies,” he said. Both Iyer and Kelvin Koh of Spartan Group criticized overinvestment in GPU marketplaces and attempts to build decentralized alternatives to OpenAI or Anthropic — projects that require capital far beyond what crypto can muster.
Instead, both see potential in purpose-built solutions that start with a specific problem. Proprietary data, regulatory edges, or go-to-market advantages now matter more than technical novelty. Koh’s advice to founders was blunt: “Twelve months ago, it was enough to have a wrapper on ChatGPT. That’s no longer true.”
What’s Forming
Conversations among industry participants pointed toward a framework taking shape: stablecoins serving as value rails for agent transactions, prediction markets handling information pricing, AI systems executing trades and operations, and physical robotics extending the loop into the real world. It’s not a single project or protocol — it’s a thesis about where crypto and AI intersect productively, without relying on the speculative cycles that drove previous bull runs.
A parallel thread runs through decentralized AI. Current systems are centralized and opaque. The idea of transparent, verifiable, community-governed AI networks aligns with crypto’s founding principles — and Goertzel, among others, pointed to the growth of such projects at the event as evidence that convergence is underway.
The pure speculation cycle may not return. But at Consensus Hong Kong, the argument that AI gives crypto a reason to exist beyond trading was made simultaneously from the government podium, the exchange boardroom, and the venture capital meeting. That’s a different kind of consensus.
The post Crypto’s AI Pivot: Hype, Infrastructure, and a Two-Year Countdown appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Users of crypto hardware wallets Ledger and Trezor are again reporting receiving physical letters aimed at stealing their seed recovery phrases — the latest attack on users exposed across numerous data leaks over the past six years.
Cybersecurity expert Dmitry Smilyanets was one of the first to report receiving a spurious letter from Trezor on Feb. 13, which demands users perform an “Authentication Check” by Feb. 15 or risk having their device restricted.
Smilyanets said the scam includes a hologram along with a QR code that takes users to a scam website. The letter is made to appear signed by Matěj Žák, who is described as the “Ledger CEO” (the real Matěj Žák is the CEO of Trezor).
A Ledger user reported receiving a similar letter last year in October, with the letter claiming recipients must complete mandatory “Transaction Check” procedures.
Scanning a malicious QR code for “mandatory” checks
The QR code reportedly takes the victim to a malicious website made to look like Ledger and Trezor setup pages, tricking users into entering their wallet recovery phrases.
Once entered, the recovery phrase is transmitted to the threat actor through a backend API, enabling them to import the victim’s wallet onto their own device and steal funds from it.
Related: Phishing scammers spoof Ledger’s email to send bogus data breach notice
Legitimate hardware wallet companies never ask users to share their recovery phrases through any method, including website, email, or snail mail.
Not the first time letters have been sent
Ledger and its third-party partners have suffered multiple large-scale data breaches over the past few years, resulting in leaks of customer data, including physical addresses used for postal purposes, and physical threats.
Meanwhile, Trezor flagged a security breach that exposed the contact information of nearly 66,000 customers in January 2024.
In 2021, scammers mailed counterfeit Ledger Nano hardware wallets to victims of the 2020 Ledger data breach.
Physical letters prompting victims to scan QR codes were sent in April 2025, while in May, hackers used fake Ledger Live apps to steal seed phrases and drain crypto from victims.
Ledger alerted users to the physical mail phishing scam on its website in October.
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XRP price jumped after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse joined the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Global Markets Advisory Committee, a move seen as strengthening Ripple’s regulatory standing in Washington.
Summary
- XRP surged after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse joined the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, signaling stronger regulatory engagement.
- On-chain data shows a recent spike in XRP Ledger active addresses above 30,000, pointing to renewed network activity and speculative interest.
- Technically, XRP trades near $1.46, with resistance at $1.60 and $1.74, while support stands at $1.35 and $1.20.
However, the token has since pulled back and is trading lower at press time.
Ripple CEO’s CFTC role sparks market reaction
Executives from Coinbase, Ripple and Solana were named to the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, a group focused on digital asset policy, market structure and emerging financial technologies.
The development signals deeper engagement between major crypto firms and U.S. regulators at a time when the industry is pushing for clearer oversight frameworks.
For XRP (XRP) investors, Garlinghouse’s appointment is being interpreted as a constructive step toward regulatory normalization following years of legal scrutiny.
On-chain data supports the renewed interest. The XRP Ledger active addresses chart shows notable spikes in network activity in recent weeks, including a sharp surge above 30,000 active accounts in early February.
While activity has since cooled toward the 16,000–18,000 range, the earlier spike coincided with heightened price volatility, suggesting speculative participation and renewed user engagement.
What XRP price analysis suggests
At press time, XRP is trading near $1.46 on the daily chart. The token recently rebounded from a sharp drop toward the $1.20 region but remains under technical pressure.
The Supertrend indicator (10,3) remains in bearish territory, with the trend line positioned around $1.74, signaling that the broader trend has not yet flipped bullish.
Meanwhile, the Awesome Oscillator, although still below the zero line, is printing rising green bars. This indicates bearish momentum is fading and a potential shift could be forming if buyers maintain pressure.
Immediate resistance sits near $1.60, followed by the stronger Supertrend barrier around $1.74. A daily close above that level could open the door toward the $1.90–$2.00 region.
On the downside, support lies near $1.35, with the recent swing low around $1.20 acting as critical structural support. A breakdown below $1.35 could expose XRP to another retest of that lower zone.
For now, XRP appears to be stabilizing, but a confirmed trend reversal will require a break above key resistance levels.
Russia’s cryptocurrency market is experiencing a surge in transactional activity, with daily trading volumes reaching an estimated 50 billion rubles, roughly $640 million, according to Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov.
Summary
- Russia’s Finance Ministry says crypto trading volumes have reached 50 billion rubles ($640 million) per day, or roughly $129 billion annually, much of it outside formal oversight.
- Lawmakers are preparing a sweeping regulatory framework that would introduce mandatory exchange licensing by 2027 and stricter supervision of crypto platforms.
- Proposed rules include potential retail investment caps, asset approval controls by the central bank, and penalties for unlicensed operators, while keeping the ban on crypto payments in place.
Booming crypto trade meets regulatory push
Speaking at the Alfa Talk forum on digital assets, Chebeskov said this “turnover of more than 10 trillion rubles annually” highlights the depth of crypto involvement among Russians, much of it occurring outside formal regulatory oversight.
“We’ve always said that millions of citizens are involved in this activity, representing trillions of rubles in terms of use and savings. One example is the daily cryptocurrency turnover in our country—around 50 billion rubles. That’s a turnover of more than 10 trillion rubles per year, which is currently occurring outside the regulated zone, outside our control,” the deputy minister explained.
Officials note that millions of citizens are participating in crypto trading, investing and savings, but most of these transactions currently take place through unregulated channels, leaving them beyond the attention of authorities.
Against this backdrop, Russian regulators are pushing to bring much of the crypto market under formal scrutiny. Lawmakers plan to present a comprehensive crypto regulation bill to the State Duma by June 2026, with the aim of adopting a legal framework that would take effect by July 1, 2027.
Under the draft legislation, all cryptocurrency exchanges would need licenses, and operating without approval could be penalized similarly to illegal banking. Retail investors would face annual limits on crypto purchases — proposed at about 300,000 rubles (≈ $4,000) — and qualification tests before they can trade.
Privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies could be restricted, and the central bank would have discretion over which assets are approved for legal trading beginning in mid-2027.
Major Russian exchanges, including the Moscow and St. Petersburg exchanges, have been preparing to launch regulated crypto trading platforms once the legal foundation is finalized. These efforts reflect broader policy shifts aimed at moving users away from “gray market” activity toward licensed, transparent venues.
The proposed rules also keep the long-standing ban on using crypto for domestic payments but open regulated trading as an investment vehicle. The combined push from the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Russia, and the State Duma signals a strategic effort to balance market growth, investor protection and financial stability while reining in unregulated activity.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says retail users kept buying Bitcoin and Ethereum on price dips, with most Coinbase client balances in February at or above December levels.
Summary
- Coinbase internal data shows retail users increased BTC and ETH purchases during recent dips.
- Most Coinbase client crypto balances in February stayed equal to or higher than December levels.
- Analysts say resilient retail demand contrasts with softer institutional flows and may impact near-term market structure.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reported that retail investors increased cryptocurrency purchases during recent market declines, according to internal company data.
Armstrong stated in a post on social media platform X that individual investors on Coinbase demonstrated buying activity during price drops for Bitcoin and Ethereum. The executive cited internal trading data showing increased retail trading volume correlating with price declines.
“According to our data, individual users on Coinbase have been quite resilient in these market conditions: they took advantage of the dips to buy,” Armstrong stated. “We saw increases for retail users across Bitcoin and Ethereum.”
The Coinbase chief executive noted that retail investors exhibited holding behavior during short-term price volatility. Armstrong reported that most client cryptocurrency balances in February remained at or above December levels.
Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin markets experienced sharp declines in recent weeks, with recovery attempts ongoing, according to market data.
Market analysts noted the contrast between retail buying activity and slower institutional fund inflows during the period. The divergence represents a significant factor in short-term supply and demand dynamics, according to industry observers.
Analysts stated that additional market catalysts would be needed for increased retail demand to shift broader market trends, given current macroeconomic conditions and derivatives market structure.
Coinbase operates as a cryptocurrency exchange platform serving retail and institutional clients.
Crypto and stock markets face a packed macro week, with CPI, PCE, Fed minutes and spending data set to test rate‑cut bets after mixed inflation and rising tensions.
Summary
- January CPI eased to its lowest core reading since 2021, briefly lifting crypto before gains faded.
- Markets now focus on retail sales, durable goods, PCE and Fed minutes to gauge rate‑cut timing.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum stay volatile as geopolitical risks and macro uncertainty cap risk appetite.
Financial markets are preparing for several key economic data releases this week that could influence cryptocurrency and stock prices, following mixed signals from last week’s inflation data.
January’s Consumer Price Index came in slightly below expectations, with headline inflation at 2.38% year-on-year and core CPI at 2.5%, marking the lowest level since early 2021, according to government data. The figures initially boosted stock and cryptocurrency markets on Friday, though cryptocurrency gains retreated over the weekend.
Traditional U.S. markets will be closed Monday for the President’s Day holiday. The ADP employment update is scheduled for Tuesday, followed by the January Retail Sales report. Wednesday will bring consumer spending data with the delayed December Durable Goods Orders numbers, along with Federal Reserve meeting minutes and 10 central bank speaker events.
The December Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation report, considered a key indicator by the Federal Reserve, is expected to be released later this week. Goldman Sachs raised its PCE outlook following the January CPI data, estimating that the core PCE price index rose 0.40% in January, according to reports. The economists attributed the projection to rising consumer electronics and IT prices, which carry heavier weighting in PCE calculations than in CPI. A global shortage of RAM and storage components, driven by AI data center demand, has contributed to increased computer and component prices.
The CME Fed Watch Tool shows a 90% probability that interest rates will remain unchanged at the Federal Reserve‘s March meeting, according to current market pricing.
Cryptocurrency markets have declined in the past 24 hours, with total market capitalization falling. Bitcoin retreated from recent highs during early Asian trading on Monday and has remained rangebound for the past ten days. Ethereum prices have fallen sharply, while alternative cryptocurrencies have continued to decline.
The Kobeissi Letter noted that geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainty remain elevated, cautioning that volatility could continue this week.
Consensus Hong Kong 2026 was, by many accounts, an RWA conference that happened to be about crypto. Across main stages, side events, and sponsored panels, real-world asset tokenization dominated the conversation — but not in the way it did a year ago.
The pitch decks have given way to genuine disagreements about architecture, regulation, and what tokenization actually solves. Here’s what’s actually being argued.
Stablecoins Are RWA — and Everyone Now Agrees
One of the clearest points of consensus was that the most successful RWA already exists. “The most successful RWA is USDT,” said CJ Fong, Managing Director and Head of APAC and EMEA Sales at GSR, during a panel at the main conference.
At the Gate’s side event, Chunda McCain, co-founder of Paxos Labs, described surging demand for PAXG, the firm’s gold-backed token, as evidence that stablecoins are expanding beyond dollar pegs into commodities and treasuries. Paxos secured its OCC conditional license in December and holds regulatory approvals in Singapore, Finland, and Abu Dhabi — a multi-jurisdictional strategy built around the assumption that stablecoins and tokenized assets are converging.
Brian Mehler, CEO of payment blockchain Stable, reinforced the point from the infrastructure side. His company’s USDT Zero system eliminates gas fees entirely — send 100 USDT, and 99.999 USDT arrives. At the Stablecoin Odyssey side event, Mehler compared the goal to Swift: the user shouldn’t know they’re on a blockchain.
The implication is that the stablecoin-RWA boundary is increasingly artificial. As stablecoins back themselves with T-bills, gold, and structured products, and as RWA platforms settle in USDC, the two categories are merging into a single tokenized finance layer.
The Architecture War: Permissioned vs Permissionless
The sharpest disagreement at the conference came from two companies that nominally do the same thing.
At the Consensus mainstage session “Tokenizing the Planet,” Graham Ferguson, Head of Ecosystem at Securitize, and Min Lin, Managing Director of Global Expansion at Ondo, laid out fundamentally different visions.
Securitize advocates for native token issuance under a permissioned framework. Ferguson argued that wrapper models — where an existing off-chain asset is wrapped into an on-chain token — create distance between the underlying asset and the investor, weakening protection. With BlackRock’s BUIDL fund surpassing $1 billion in AUM, he pointed to the track record of issuing securities directly on-chain with compliance built in.
Ondo takes the opposite path: permissionless wrappers that prioritize DeFi composability and global distribution. Min Lin argued that the model integrates more quickly with existing DeFi protocols and removes gatekeepers, an advantage particularly relevant for reaching investors across Asia. The company is actively expanding into Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.
In a follow-up interview with BeInCrypto, Ferguson questioned whether wrapper models can provide adequate investor protection. He also detailed Securitize’s plans to expand DeFi partnerships while maintaining its permissioned architecture.
The binary may already be outdated, though. At Stablecoin Odyssey’s RWA panel, Conflux CSO Forgiven described a live hybrid case: renewable energy assets packaged by a financial company and wrapped into a DeFi protocol. It’s a permissionless distribution of a regulated, real-world asset — a structure that doesn’t fit neatly into either camp.
Settlement Speed: The Argument That Keeps Winning
If one claim was repeated most across venues, it was that tokenization’s killer feature isn’t access or transparency — it’s speed.
Conflux’s Forgiven offered the most concrete benchmark: deposit USDC, receive immediate confirmation; request redemption, get USDC back within one hour. “Faster than T+0,” he noted, against traditional settlement cycles that can stretch to days.
The composability argument extends this further. Multiple panelists across sessions noted a limitation in traditional finance. Buying an asset and using it as collateral immediately is structurally impossible. On-chain, it’s native functionality.
Stable’s Mehler highlighted a practical pain point that bridges theory and reality: during the recent market selloff, ETH gas price volatility doubled transaction costs for businesses moving stablecoins. His fixed-cost USDT transfer model eliminates that variable, which matters when enterprises are processing thousands of transactions daily.
Physical Assets: Where the Narrative Meets Friction
The precious metals session at HashKey Cloud’s event provided a reality check. Ronald Tan, Director of Silver Times Limited, walked through the logistics of the silver market: warehouse costs, transportation challenges, and US-China export restrictions that don’t vanish when a token is minted.
This is the gap between financial RWA and physical RWA. Treasuries and fund shares can settle instantly because the underlying asset is already recorded in the ledger. Metals, energy, and real estate require verification that the physical asset exists and is properly custodied.
Paxos’s PAXG experience — gold tokens backed by allocated bars in London vaults — shows it can work at scale, but McCain acknowledged the company is committing additional resources to meet surging demand. The infrastructure for physical-asset tokenization is real, but far from trivial.
Asia as the Center of Gravity
Across all sessions, Asia — and Hong Kong specifically — emerged as the gravitational center of the RWA narrative.
Ondo is targeting Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan for expansion. Securitize’s Ferguson told BeInCrypto that the company would prioritize jurisdictions with regulatory clarity, naming the same cities. Paxos already holds a Singapore MAS license. HashKey, as both an event host and a market participant, anchored multiple panels on Hong Kong’s positioning.
Forgiven of Conflux described its company as a rare Chinese blockchain project using real names. Its renewable energy RWA product was designed specifically for the Hong Kong market.
The subtext is clear: while US regulatory battles over stablecoin legislation and the Clarity Act continue — a point Anthony Scaramucci made forcefully in his own Consensus appearance — Asia is building the infrastructure and establishing the precedents.
What’s Actually at Stake
The RWA conversation at Consensus Hong Kong revealed an industry that has moved past the question of whether tokenization will happen. The arguments now center on how—permissioned or permissionless, financial or physical, institutional or retail-first—and the answers are diverging by asset class, jurisdiction, and business model.
The stablecoin-RWA convergence may prove to be the most consequential shift. If the most successful tokenized assets are stablecoins, and stablecoins are increasingly backed by real-world assets, the entire framing of RWA as a separate sector may not survive 2026.
The post The RWA War: Stablecoins, Speed, and Control appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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