The XRP Ledger has climbed to sixth place among blockchain networks by tokenized real-world asset value, surpassing Solana and approaching BNB Chain, according to the latest RWA league table data.

The ledger added $354 million in tokenized assets over the past 30 days, according to ETHNews. The growth occurred despite downward pressure on XRP’s market price during the period.

The network’s total RWA value, excluding stablecoins and combining distributed and represented assets, now exceeds that of Solana, which holds a slightly lower total in tokenized RWAs, according to the data.

The XRP Ledger currently ranks behind BNB Chain in total tokenized assets. The network would need to add additional tokenized value to overtake BNB Chain and secure fifth position globally, according to the rankings.

The increase in tokenized asset value on the XRP Ledger occurred while the token’s price declined during the broader market downturn. The divergence between price performance and on-chain asset growth indicates infrastructure development on the network, the report stated.

If the current rate of RWA issuance continues, the ledger could challenge BNB Chain’s position among leading tokenization networks, according to the analysis.

The legal challenges from state governments against certain aspects of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi received a sharp rebuke from U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Mike Selig, who is arguing that his federal agency has jurisdiction — not the states.

“To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court,” Selig said in a video statement posted Tuesday on social media site X. He said his agency filed a legal brief in court to back up the federal role as the leading regulator over this corner of the derivatives markets.

“The CFTC has regulated these markets for over two decades,” he said. “They provide useful functions for society by allowing everyday Americans to hedge commercial risks like increases in temperature and energy price spikes, they also serve as an important check on our news media and our information streams.”

Selig did not mention sports bets in his list of examples, though that’s where many of the legal disputes are focused. States have gone after event-contract platforms with accusations they’ve breached sports-betting laws at the state level, such as in Nevada, Massachusetts and New York. A federal judge in Nevada concluded in November that the state authorities were correct and that the contracts aren’t properly the business of the CFTC, though that ruling is under appeal.

Coinbase, the top U.S. crypto exchange, has also sought to enter the prediction markets sector, and it’s currently suing Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan over those states’ attempts to regulate sports betting as gaming.

That’s the setting that Selig is weighing into as he declares “exclusive jurisdiction over these derivative markets.” But until the return to Washington of President Donald Trump, the agency had fought against these companies and some of their contracts, claiming that the sites’ political bets were unlawful and “contrary to the public interest.” But courts had gone against the CFTC in its legal fight with Kalshi, and when Trump’s administration overhauled the agency’s leadership, the fight was abandoned.

In early 2025, the president’s son, Don Trump Jr., joined Kalshi as a strategic adviser. In August, he then joined Polymarket’s advisory board.

In October, Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), which owns President Donald Trump’s social platform Truth Social, said it was getting into the prediction markets business.

Within weeks of his confirmation by the Senate, Trump nominee Selig said that his agency was resetting its prediction markets approach and would pursue new policies on that front. He said the CFTC “will advance a new rulemaking grounded in a rational and coherent interpretation of the Commodity Exchange Act that promotes responsible innovation in our derivatives markets in line with Congressional intent.”

In the hours after Selig’s Tuesday statement, Utah Governor Spencer Cox responded with his own challenge.

“Mike, I appreciate you attempting this with a straight face, but I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds,” he wrote in a response on X. “These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling — pure and simple. They are destroying the lives of families and countless Americans, especially young men. They have no place in Utah.”

While Utah hasn’t been among states leading legal challenges against the prediction markets, there is a legislative effort there that seeks to target certain sports contracts. Cox advised Selig he’d use every power to “beat you in court.”

And U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, argued that Selig is undermining state powers.

“President Trump’s CFTC Chair is trying to strip states of their authority to regulate gambling within their borders and hamstring their ability to protect Americans from getting ripped off,” she said in a statement. “The CFTC should focus on ensuring our derivatives markets don’t blow up the economy again, not helping corrupt political insiders cash in.”

UPDATE (February 17, 2026, 17:59 UTC): Adds response from Utah governor.
UPDATE (February 17, 2026, 21:30 UTC): Adds statement from Senator Warren.

Nakamoto (NAKA) has signed definitive agreements to acquire media and events firm BTC Inc and asset management firm UTXO Management.

The all-stock deal is — NAKA will issue 363. million shares for the purchase — is valued at approximately $107.3 million and expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, according to a Tuesday press release.

BTC Inc runs several high-profile bitcoin media properties, including Bitcoin Magazine, The Bitcoin Conference, and the enterprise-focused Bitcoin for Corporations program. UTXO, meanwhile, advises 210k Capital, a hedge fund allocating capital into bitcoin-related public and private markets.

“We intend to operate a portfolio of companies across media, asset management, and advisory services that can scale with Bitcoin’s long-term growth,” said David Bailey, CEO of Nakamoto. “This transaction signifies the first step of the company we intend to build, and we’re just getting started.”

The transaction has raised eyebrows among some market watchers due to the steep discount between the original pricing and the current execution. One user on X pointed out that Nakamoto was originally set to pay over $400 million based on the agreed $1.12 share price, but with the stock now trading below 30 cents, the acquisition is closing at roughly $107 million.

Bailey, who also leads BTC Inc, is central to all three companies involved, making this a related-party transaction. A special committee of independent directors approved the deal with input from outside legal and financial advisers.

NAKA shares are flat on Tuesday, trading at just $0.30 versus the roughly $2.00 level prior to converting to a bitcoin treasury strategy (when the company was named Kindly MD).

TLDR:

• Bitcoin open interest peaked at 381,000 BTC across all exchanges during the October 2025 cycle top.

• Binance recorded a 20.8% open interest drop between October 6 and 11, with Bybit and Gate.io falling 37%.

• Post-peak declines have persisted monthly, with Binance down an additional 39.3% since the market top.

• Shrinking derivatives exposure signals active risk reduction, making a sustained Bitcoin rally difficult.

Bitcoin’s price recovery has stalled, and the derivatives market may hold the answer. Open interest data across major exchanges shows a sustained and deepening contraction since the latest cycle peak.

Speculative activity that once fueled Bitcoin’s climb has now reversed course entirely. The data suggests that the collapse in derivatives positioning is playing a central role in keeping Bitcoin’s price under pressure.

A Record Build-Up Followed by a Sharp Collapse

Bitcoin’s derivatives market expanded aggressively throughout this cycle. On Binance, Bitcoin-denominated open interest peaked at 120,000 BTC in October 2025, compared to 94,300 BTC after the November 2021 high. That growth reflected an enormous build-up in speculative exposure heading into the cycle top.

Across all exchanges combined, open interest reached 381,000 BTC at the peak, up from 221,000 BTC in April 2024.

Analyst Darkfost noted on X that “speculation during this cycle reached unprecedented levels, and both novice and professional investors have paid the price.”

The unwind began swiftly after the October sell-off. Between October 6 and October 11 alone, Binance recorded a 20.8% drop in open interest. Bybit and Gate.io saw even steeper declines of 37% each during that same five-day window.

That rapid contraction removed a large volume of leveraged positioning from the market. Without that speculative support, Bitcoin lost a key structural driver that had been pushing prices higher throughout the cycle.

Why the Derivatives Slump Keeps Price Recovery Out of Reach

The contraction has not stopped at that initial sell-off. Since then, declines have continued in nearly every subsequent month across major platforms. Binance has fallen an additional 39.3%, while Bybit is down 33% and BitMEX has dropped 24%.

Darkfost pointed out that the derivatives market “was definitely a primary driver during this cycle, but it has also become a key force behind the decline.” As open interest shrinks, so does the fuel needed to sustain upward price momentum.

Traders are either voluntarily reducing exposure or being forced out through liquidations. Either way, the result is the same; fewer active positions mean less buying pressure and thinner market participation overall.

Under these conditions, any price rally lacks the depth to hold. Without a meaningful recovery in open interest, Bitcoin remains vulnerable to further selling pressure.

Derivatives data continues to serve as one of the clearest indicators of where market sentiment truly stands.

Doing crypto taxes this year is going to suck.

For the past decade, the IRS has treated cryptocurrency as property rather than currency, treating every sale and exchange as a taxable event. However, despite blockchains being public ledgers, tax compliance rates have always been low. The gap between what the IRS expects and what crypto users actually pay in taxes has been growing for years.

That gap is about to close significantly.

We are entering the crypto tax ‘enforcement era’

The shift didn’t happen overnight. In 2021, the IRS launched Operation Hidden Treasure to target deliberate concealment of crypto income. By 2022, it had hired agents with specialized blockchain expertise and secured court orders for data from major exchanges, including Coinbase. The message was clear: the era of lax enforcement was ending.

Now, in 2026, we’re seeing authorities take this a significant step further. This marks what I’d call the beginning of the end for crypto tax avoidance, not just in the US, but worldwide.

Forty-eight countries, including the U.S., U.K., EU members and Brazil, have agreed to implement the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). All crypto-asset service providers must now report user transaction data to authorities. In the U.K., HMRC recently issued 650,000 nudge letters to crypto investors who owed tax, a 134% increase compared to last year.

In the U.S., the shift is even more concrete. For the first time, cryptocurrency exchanges will issue Form 1099-DA, a new document that declares your cost basis and proceeds directly to the IRS. It’s similar to the 1099-B used for stocks, and brokers had to issue them by February 17, 2026, covering all sales and exchanges from 2025. From the 2026 tax year onward, brokers will also report cost basis, giving the IRS an unprecedented view of investor gains and losses.

This represents a fundamental shift from self-disclosure to automatic reporting. The IRS can now easily compare what brokers report with what taxpayers file, making errors, omissions and under-reporting easier to detect.

I keep seeing crypto investors on X and Reddit saying the government will eventually remove taxes on crypto. They won’t. Users need to stop waiting for that to happen.

The Problem: rules are written by people who don’t use crypto

The Form 1099-DA was clearly drafted by legislators who know nothing about crypto, which is unfortunate.

These regulations treat cryptocurrency like stocks, but crypto behaves nothing like stocks. Real crypto users don’t just buy and hold on Coinbase. They move assets between multiple wallets, bridge across chains, interact with DeFi protocols, provide liquidity, stake tokens and use complex trading strategies across dozens of platforms. Many of these activities involve transactions outside centralized exchanges. This is where the new reporting framework falls short.

The new rules are going to be a real burden for anyone who uses crypto the way it was designed to be used. That’s a problem that goes beyond mere annoyance for individuals and will have significant repercussions for the industry as a whole.

If interacting with DeFi creates a huge tax compliance problem, fewer people will use it. If moving assets to self-custody means drowning in paperwork, people will leave their funds on exchanges. Though these regulations were inevitable and well-intentioned, they risk pushing users back to centralized systems that crypto was meant to replace.

The real headaches are just beginning

I spend a lot of time engaging with the crypto community online, and I’ve seen countless users try to file their taxes manually, hit a wall and then give up.

If you haven’t filed crypto taxes in the past, now is the time. We have users constantly messaging us, needing to file multiple past years. I’ve even seen investors trying to report on four or more tax years at once. They’ve probably never filed before, and now they’re scrambling because they know enforcement is ramping up.

The trick is to pull your records constantly, not just during tax season. Many trading platforms delete historical data after a certain period, but the IRS sees large flows when you offramp and wants to know where that money originated. Without those trading records, you can’t prove your cost basis or show losses.

What’s next for crypto tax reporting?

It’s clear we’re entering a new phase of crypto tax reporting. It’s shifting from being a vague, regulatory gray area to transparency and much tighter enforcement.

The crypto industry needs to adapt to this reality now, rather than fight or ignore it. The message for investors is clear –get compliant now. Gather documentation for all purchases, sales and transfers across wallets and exchanges. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.

The challenge for the crypto industry is different: we need to continue developing tools that are agile and can adapt to the fast pace at which enforcement is introducing these rules. Ultimately, we need to make tax reporting as easy as possible for investors, so the industry can continue to thrive.

HIVE Digital Technologies delivered a record fiscal third quarter despite weaker Bitcoin prices, suggesting that its expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing is offsetting broader crypto-market headwinds.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025, HIVE reported $93.1 million in revenue, a 219% increase from a year earlier. Gross operating margin expanded more than sixfold year over year to $32.1 million, representing about 35% of revenue.

The strong performance came even as Bitcoin (BTC) prices declined about 10% during the quarter and network difficulty rose about 15%, conditions that have pressured mining margins across the industry following the 2024 halving.

HIVE generated 885 Bitcoin during the period, a 23% quarter-on-quarter increase, while scaling its installed hashrate to 25 exahashes per second (EH/s).

Beyond mining, the company continues to build out its AI and high-performance computing (HPC) business. In February, HIVE signed a two-year, $30 million contract to deploy 504 Nvidia B200 GPUs for enterprise AI cloud services.

The deal is expected to add about $15 million in annual recurring revenue and lift HIVE’s HPC annualized revenue run rate by about 75%.

The company is targeting $140 million in annual recurring AI cloud revenue by the fourth quarter of 2026, as part of a broader plan to scale total HPC revenue to $225 million as it expands GPU cloud and colocation capacity.

Related: Bitcoin mining’s 2026 reckoning: AI pivots, margin pressure and a fight to survive

HIVE’s expansion beyond Bitcoin mining gains traction

HIVE was among the early publicly listed Bitcoin miners, but it began pivoting toward HPC infrastructure several years ago as management anticipated increasing competition and margin compression in the mining sector.

That diversification has become increasingly relevant. Mining profitability deteriorated sharply after the 2024 halving reduced block rewards, while rising network difficulty and volatile Bitcoin prices added further pressure. The environment intensified after Bitcoin retraced from its October 2025 highs, forcing many miners to reassess capital allocation and infrastructure strategy.

HIVE’s “dual-engine” model, using Bitcoin mining as a cash-flow generator while building recurring AI and HPC revenue, reflects a broader shift among publicly traded miners seeking stability beyond Bitcoin’s price cycles.

Several other Bitcoin miners, including IREN and TeraWulf, have shifted toward AI workloads, reflecting a growing view among analysts that the next infrastructure “supercycle” will be powered by artificial intelligence rather than crypto.

Related: Paradigm reframes Bitcoin mining as grid asset, not energy drain