TLDR:

• xStocks surpass $25B in total transaction volume, reinforcing global market leadership.
• Over $3.5B in onchain activity involves 80,000 unique holders across blockchains.
• Eight of the top eleven tokenized equities by holders now use xStocks.
• xStocks support cross-chain, permissionless trading on Solana, Ethereum, and TON.

Bitcoin and crypto markets are seeing growing integration with traditional finance as xStocks reaches a major milestone. Kraken’s tokenized equities platform has surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume across centralized and decentralized exchanges. 

The milestone reflects strong adoption, with over 80,000 onchain holders and $3.5 billion in recorded onchain activity. This growth signals that tokenized equities are moving beyond experimental infrastructure toward real, scalable markets.

xStocks Sets Benchmark for Tokenized Equity Adoption

According to a blog post, xStocks now holds the largest market share in tokenized equities globally. 

Eight of the top eleven tokenized equities by unique holders are xStocks, while 68% of the top twenty-five stocks also use the framework. The platform integrates across multiple blockchains, including Solana, Ethereum, and TON, with additional networks planned. 

Users can access, trade, and transfer assets seamlessly through exchanges, wallets, and DeFi protocols.

Each xStock remains fully backed 1:1 by the underlying stock or ETF. Custodians hold assets in bankruptcy-remote structures, ensuring ownership security. 

This model supports transparent trading and sustained liquidity across venues. The ecosystem now reports nearly $225 million in aggregate onchain assets under management.

Integration extends to both centralized exchanges like Bybit and Gate.io and decentralized platforms. This enables thousands of retail investors, professional traders, and institutions to participate globally. 

xStocks are structured for cross-chain mobility and always-on markets, reinforcing interoperability standards. The framework’s expansion continues with new assets listed monthly and growing alliance participation.

Transaction volume highlights the platform’s rapid adoption. Within under eight months, xStocks surpassed $25 billion across minting, redemption, and secondary market activity. 

Onchain adoption accounts for over $3.5 billion, emphasizing broad engagement across wallets and DeFi applications. Market participants now treat tokenized equities as live markets, not experimental infrastructure.

Driving Global Capital Market Interoperability

xStocks Alliance promotes open and permissionless tokenized equity standards. Members can move assets across platforms and chains without friction, fostering deeper liquidity. 

The alliance’s approach encourages repeated engagement, network effects, and resilient market structures. Cross-chain integration positions xStocks as a foundation for the next generation of digital capital markets.

Adoption trends demonstrate growing confidence in fully collateralized tokenized models. Retail and institutional participation continues to expand, as more platforms integrate xStocks. 

Interoperable assets reduce fragmentation and increase real-world utility. The milestone illustrates the evolving intersection between traditional U.S. capital markets and blockchain technology.

The platform’s onchain ecosystem now includes over 80,000 unique holders. Active trading across multiple blockchains highlights global demand. 

xStocks combine regulatory transparency with crypto-native infrastructure. The milestone signals maturation of tokenized equities as scalable market solutions.

AAVE is holding the $120 demand zone as real-world asset deposits on Aave cross $1 billion, indicating rising institutional demand.

Aave (AAVE) was trading at $123 at press time, up 0.6% in the past 24 hours. The token sits near the middle of its weekly range between $110.29 and $131.29.

It has gained 10% over the past week, though it is still down 21% in the last 30 days. The larger trend has been corrective since December highs near $200.

Spot activity cooled slightly. Trading volume reached $280 million in the last 24 hours, down 21% in the last day. In derivatives markets, CoinGlass data shows futures volume down 31% to $274 million, while open interest rose 2.53% to $203 million.

Rising open interest alongside softer volume suggests traders are building positions carefully rather than chasing momentum.

RWA deposits double as institutional interest grows

On Feb. 19, Aave revealed that deposits of real-world assets on its Horizon market surpassed $1 billion. According to posts from Aave and founder Stani Kulechov, deposits have doubled since January. This makes Aave the first lending protocol to cross the $1 billion mark in tokenized real-world assets.

Real-world assets include tokenized bonds and treasury-like products. Their rise shows that more institutional players are entering decentralized finance. For Aave, more RWA deposits can mean more borrowing and higher fees.

Revenue has grown sharply. In 2025, Aave DAO’s revenue surged to $142 million, exceeding the sum of the last three years prior. With more funds in its treasury, the DAO can invest in development, improve risk controls, and support token holders.

There is also a proposal called “Aave Will Win.” It would send all revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO treasury. In exchange, Aave Labs would receive funding to build Aave V4 and hand over intellectual property to the community. If approved, the structure could tighten alignment between builders and token holders.

In addition, Grayscale Investments has filed to convert its Aave Trust into an exchange-traded fund listed on NYSE Arca. If approved, the move could expand access to traditional investors.

Aave also handled more than $450 million in liquidations between Jan. 31 and Feb. 5 without creating bad debt. That performance supported confidence in the protocol’s risk controls during volatile market conditions.

Aave price technical analysis

On the daily chart, AAVE is attempting to stabilize above the $115 to $120 demand zone. A recent dip toward $105 was quickly bought, forming a long lower wick. Price then reclaimed $115, which suggests buyers absorbed supply in that area.

The broader structure is still bearish. Lower highs and lower lows remain intact. A confirmed reversal would require a daily close above the $135 to $140 zone, which marks the most recent lower high.

Bollinger Bands show price moving back toward the middle band near $119 to $120 after touching the lower band around $103 to $105. The bands are starting to tighten, often a sign that volatility may expand soon.

The relative strength index dropped to near 30 during the recent selloff, but has recovered to around 45. Momentum has improved, but RSI has not crossed above 50. That level would signal stronger buyer control.

If AAVE holds above $120 and breaks $135, the next targets sit near $150 to $175. If $120 fails, price could revisit $105, with $95 to $100 as the next support area.

Bitcoin mining difficulty has climbed to 144.4 trillion (T), up 15%, the largest percentage increase since 2021, when the China mining ban led to a major disruption, which followed a 22% upward adjustment as the network stabilized.

Difficulty adjustments measure how hard it is to mine a new block on the network. It recalibrates every 2,016 blocks, roughly every two weeks, to ensure blocks continue to be produced about every 10 minutes, regardless of changes in the hashrate.

The adjustment follows a 12% decline in difficulty after a drop in the bitcoin hashrate, which is the total computational power securing the network. Mining activity suffered its sharpest setback since late 2021 after a severe winter storm in the United States forced several major operators to scale back operations.
In October, when bitcoin reached an all-time high of around $126,500, the hashrate also peaked at 1.1 zettahash per second (ZH/s). As prices fell to as low as $60,000 in February, the hashrate dropped to 826 exahash per second (EH/s). Since then, the hashrate has recovered to 1 ZH/s while the price has rebounded to around $67,000.
At the same time, hashprice, the estimated daily revenue miners earn per unit of hashrate, remains at multi-year lows ($23.9 PH/s), squeezing profitability.

Despite this profitability pressure, large-scale operators with access to low-cost energy continue to mine aggressively. The United Arab Emirates, for example, is sitting on roughly $344 million in unrealized profit from its mining operations.

Well-capitalized entities that can mine efficiently are helping keep the hashrate elevated and resilient, even amid subdued bitcoin prices.

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.

“Post FTX DeFi spot lending leverage never really came back in the same way, it changed, morphed into something we understood less,” he said, adding that on-chain activity changed in a way he never understood.

NFT sales reached about $5.63 billion in 2025, a 37% drawdown from the $8.9 billion recorded in 2024. Average sale prices also declined year over year, falling to $96 from $124, according to CryptoSlam data.

“Quite the ride,” Parsec says

Parsec, which had received investment from major industry players such as Uniswap, Polychain Capital, and Galaxy Digital, launched in early January 2021, just months before Bitcoin (BTC) surged from around $36,000 to $60,000 by April. 

The company added in its X post that it is “eternally grateful to those that traversed the ups and downs on-chain.” 

“It was quite the ride,” Parsec said.

Alex Svanevik, the CEO of on-chain analytics platform Nansen, said that Parsec “had a great run.”

Crypto industry may be heading for consolidation

It comes just weeks after crypto start-up Entropy announced it is closing down and returning funds to investors, citing scaling issues and a struggle to find product-market fit.