TLDR:

• Bitmine acquired 51,162 ETH in a single week, pushing total holdings to 4.42M tokens worth $8.6 billion.
  
• Vitalik Buterin sold over 9,715 ETH in February 2026, totaling more than $21M as ETH fell below $2,000.
  
• Tom Lee cited tokenization, AI adoption, and the creator economy as key reasons to buy ETH during the dip.
  
• Bitmine’s staking operations now generate $171M annually, with projections reaching $249M at full MAVAN scale.

Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies made a bold move last week, acquiring 51,162 ETH amid a broader market pullback.

While Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was offloading millions in ETH, Lee’s company was buying aggressively.

The contrasting strategies have caught the attention of crypto market watchers globally as ETH continues trading below $2,000.

Tom Lee Doubles Down on ETH While Prices Slide

Tom Lee, serving as Bitmine’s Chairman, publicly addressed the current crypto downturn in a recent company statement.

“In the midst of this ‘mini crypto winter,’ our focus continues to be on methodically executing our treasury strategy and steadily acquiring ETH,” said Lee. Rather than pulling back, Bitmine moved forward with one of its most aggressive single-week purchases to date.

Lee made his conviction on Ethereum clear, pointing to three fundamental drivers he believes are gaining traction.

“Wall Street and their efforts at tokenization, AI and agentic-AI using smart blockchains, and the emerging creator economy’s desire to use blockchains for verification,” he outlined. These factors, in his view, make the current dip a buying window rather than a warning sign.

“In the past week, we acquired 51,162 ETH,” Lee confirmed. “Bitmine has been steadily buying Ethereum, as we view this pullback as attractive, given the strengthening fundamentals.”

He added that “the price of ETH is not reflective of the high utility of ETH and its role as the future of finance,” reinforcing the company’s long-term position.

Vitalik Buterin’s Selling Spree Puts Pressure on ETH Price

As Bitmine was accumulating, a very different story was unfolding on the other side of the market. Crypto analyst Crypto Patel flagged the activity on social media, writing, “After a 2-week break, Vitalik Buterin just withdrew 3,500 ETH worth $6.95M from Aave to sell.” Buterin then proceeded to sell 571 ETH shortly after the withdrawal.

This followed an earlier sale on February 5, when Buterin offloaded 9,144 ETH at approximately $2,170 per token, collecting $19.84 million.

Patel noted in his post, “Total Sold in Feb: 9,715+ ETH (~$21M+),” as ETH slipped below $2,000 during the selling period. The timing amplified negative sentiment around ETH at an already sensitive moment in the market.

Patel’s post openly questioned the motive behind the moves, asking, “Is the Ethereum co-founder losing confidence… or does he know something we don’t?”

The post drew sharp reactions across the crypto community, with many debating whether the sales reflected routine portfolio management or something more telling. Either way, the activity added pressure to an asset already struggling to hold key price levels.

Bitmine’s Staking Strategy Keeps Revenue Flowing Despite the Dip

Even as prices soften, Bitmine’s staking operations continue generating steady income. “Annualized staking revenues are now $171 million,” Lee stated, adding that Bitmine’s own staking operations generated a seven-day yield of 2.89%, above the broader Composite Ethereum Staking Rate of 2.81%. The company currently has 3,040,483 ETH staked, valued at approximately $6 billion.

Lee further noted that “at scale, when Bitmine’s ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners, the ETH staking rewards is $249 million annually.”

MAVAN, the Made in America Validator Network, remains on track for an early 2026 launch. Bitmine is currently working with three external staking providers as it prepares for full deployment of the platform.

Bitmine’s total holdings, including $691 million in cash, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $17 million position in Eightco Holdings, bring the overall portfolio to $9.6 billion.

With Lee buying aggressively while Buterin sells, the two figures now represent opposite ends of the current Ethereum narrative.

ICP adds 20% revenue-funded burns and usage-based node rewards to align supply with demand.

The revenue allocation directs a portion of funds to token burns, creating a demand-linked supply reduction mechanism as network adoption increases. The majority of revenue will flow to infrastructure operators to incentivize capacity provision and service reliability, the foundation stated.

Similar usage-based token economic models have been implemented in other compute-oriented blockchain networks, industry observers noted.

The transition aligns network incentives with usage while introducing a structural supply reduction mechanism tied to adoption levels, according to the foundation’s announcement.

TLDR:

• The SEC issued an exemptive order on Feb. 23, 2026, allowing WisdomTree’s digital MMF to trade at $1 intraday.
  
• The order grants relief from Section 22(d) and Rule 22c-1, bypassing the standard next-calculated NAV pricing requirement.
  
• Registered broker-dealers with dealer agreements can now sell Covered Fund shares at a stable $1.00 on a principal basis.
  
• Rule 17d-1 Relief also permits WisdomTree’s affiliated dealer to transact with the fund under terms consistent with the Act.

WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund has received a landmark exemptive order from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The order allows investors to trade the fund’s shares at a fixed $1.00 price with a dealer on an intraday basis.

This approval marks a notable shift in how digital money market fund shares can be bought and sold, regardless of the fund’s end-of-day net asset value (NAV).

SEC Grants Pricing Relief for Intraday Transactions

The Division of Investment Management issued the order on February 23, 2026. It covers WisdomTree Digital Trust, WisdomTree Securities Inc., WisdomTree Digital Management Inc., and WisdomTree Transfers Inc.

Together, these entities filed the original application on May 8, 2025. An amendment followed on January 16, 2026.

The exemptive order grants relief from Section 22(d) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Rule 22c-1 under the Act. Under normal rules, fund shares must be sold at the next-calculated NAV. This order creates an exception specifically for digital money market fund shares.

Under the new structure, registered broker-dealers who enter a dealer agreement with a Covered Fund can trade shares at $1.00 on a principal basis.

This means individual and institutional investors alike can transact at a stable price throughout the trading day. The fixed price applies regardless of what the NAV calculates to at day’s end.

The SEC posted the development publicly, noting the order permits investors to trade shares at $1 with a dealer on an intraday basis.

Rule 17d-1 Relief Permits Affiliated Dealer Participation

Beyond the pricing relief, the SEC also granted Rule 17d-1 Relief under Section 17(d) of the Act. This portion of the order addresses transactions between the fund and its affiliated dealer, WisdomTree Securities Inc. Without this relief, such arrangements would be prohibited under the Act.

The Commission found that the affiliated dealer’s participation in these transactions is consistent with the Act’s provisions, policies, and purposes.

It also determined the arrangement is no less advantageous than participation by other parties. Both orders took effect immediately upon issuance.

A public notice of the application was issued on January 26, 2026. Interested parties had an opportunity to request a hearing, but no such request was filed. The Commission then moved forward without ordering a hearing.

The relief also extends beyond the Applicant Fund. It applies to any series of the Applicant Trust or other registered open-end management investment companies meeting specific criteria.

This broader scope means other digital money market funds could potentially benefit from the same pricing structure in the future.

Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest publicly traded company holding bitcoin, made a small BTC acquisition last week, adding 592 coins for $39.8 million.

That’s an average purchase price of $67,286 per bitcoin, with the buys completely funded via sales of common stock, according to an SEC filing.

The company now holds 717,722 bitcoin acquired for $54.56 billion, or an average price of $76,020 per coin. With bitcoin currently trading just above $66,000, the position represents an unrealized loss of roughly $10,000 per coin, or about $7 billion in total.

This morning’s news is a milestone of sorts. According to a cheeky X post by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, it was Strategy’s 100th announcement of a bitcoin purchase since the company (then named MicroStrategy) began acquiring BTC in August 2020.

MSTR shares are down 2.5% in pre-market action and more than 50% year-over-year.

Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas, one of that country’s richest individuals, hasn’t been shaken by the recent crash in the price of bitcoin.

“Take advantage and buy now while it’s down,” said Salinas in a Sunday X post. “Investing in Bitcoin is protecting your money against inflation and keeping it out of the hands of those who want to steal it from you.”

The comment from the longtime bull came following bitcoin’s plunge in recent months to its current level of $66,000. Salinas shared the message alongside an older clip of him defending bitcoin’s ability to support freedom, doubling down on a stance he’s held for years.

Salinas, whose estimated net worth is around $4.9 billion, has been one of Latin America’s most vocal bitcoin advocates. In past interviews, he’s described fiat currency as a “fraud” and called bitcoin “the only way out” for preserving purchasing power.

In an interview last year, he said 70% of his liquid assets were linked to bitcoin. The remaining 30% was in gold and shares of gold mining firms.

The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Friday, but the trade tax turmoil is far from over. Fallout over the ruling is already threatening to further strain global trade relations, and the U.S. economy is likely to suffer, economists told CNBC.

In 6-3 decision, the high court ruled that President Trump did not have the legal authority to implement his sweeping tariffs imposed last April under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.

Trump later leveled new tariffs up to 15% effective immediately on an array of U.S. trading partners, further escalating global trade tensions. European Union leaders expressed dismay over the new tariffs, arguing that the U.S. policy shift would upend trade deals already reached with the EU as well as the U.K. last year. On Monday, the EU again postponed a key vote on its deal with the U.S.

The pushback against the latest U.S. tariff threat underscores deep frustration over the president’s erratic trade policies, and could push foreign governments to scale back U.S. trade and lead businesses to curb expansion, investment and hiring.

The result might hobble the U.S. economy. “It shifts how trade is done with the largest economy in the world, and that has economic consequences,” Mike Reid, head of U.S. economics at Royal Bank of Canada told CNBC, referring to the Supreme Court ruling and new tariff push.

Downside

The trade war drama is likely to contribute to a climate of caution among businesses and foreign governments alike, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, leading to “nothing but downside,” for the U.S. economy.

“Businesses don’t know” what’s going to happen next, Zandi told CNBC. “They’re going to invest less, they’re going to hire less, they’re going to be less aggressive in their expansions,” limiting U.S. growth.

Foreign governments could react similarly amid rising uncertainty, leading them to “continue to pull away from the U.S,” according to the economist.

“They’ve got to be pulling their hair out over all of this,” Zandi said. “Perceptions of the U.S. are increasingly that we’re a poorly managed economy, and objectively speaking, they’re right. It’s a bit of a mess that feels like it’s getting messier.”

That perception could lead to efforts to divert trade away from the U.S. to a variety of other trading partners, including China.

China’s exports grew 6.6% in U.S. dollar terms last December compared to the same month a year earlier, topping analyst expectations and sending the nation’s annual trade surplus to a record, according to Chinese customs data. Imports increased at their fastest pace in three months, the same data showed.

Trump trade taxes

The Trump administration will continue implementing its trade policy, and now plans to use a variety of sections in the Tariff Act of 1974, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

President Trump is pointing to section 122 of the Tariff Act to justify his new tariffs enacted this weekend, although that section limits their effectiveness to 150 days, until mid July, after which they would have to be approved by Congress.  

But the administration is likely to use sections 232 and 301 of the Tariff Act to supplement its new section 122 tariffs, meaning the U.S. could continue to impose tariffs against its foreign trading partners over the next few years, at least.

Others say neither investors nor economists shouldn’t sound the alarm just yet.

The implementation of the new trade taxes “implies little change in the effective tariff rate or our inflation forecasts in the near term,” Citigroup economist Veronica Clark said in a note to clients.

“Eventual Section 301/232 tariffs could have an impact on certain goods prices in the future, but details are still highly uncertain,” Clark wrote. “While a 10% Section 122 tariff would likely have lowered the effective tariff rate by 3-4 [percentage points], a 15% tariff should keep the effective tariff rate essentially unchanged (if anything, lower by ~1pp or so).

While the total impact of the new tariffs remains uncertain, a few things are clear, Zandi said.

“The U.S. is pulling away from the world, and the rest of the world is now pulling away from the U.S.,” the economist said. “Deglobalization is a weight on the economy, and ultimately, the end state is a weakened economy.”

— With additional reporting provided by CNBC’s Alex Harring

Based, a Web3 consumer app for trading and spending crypto, has raised $11.5 million in a Series A round led by Pantera, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and Karatage.

The company said the fresh capital will be used to expand into new markets and build out its onchain financial infrastructure.

Launched eight months ago, Based combines perpetuals trading, prediction markets and real-world crypto spending into a single interface. Built natively on Hyperliquid’s execution environment, the platform seeks to pair institutional-grade speed and liquidity with a consumer-focused experience.

Beyond its app, Based is also extending its technology stack to power third-party venues such as HyENA, a Hyperliquid-native perpetuals platform.

“Most crypto products today are built for traders or builders, not for everyday people who want a complete financial life onchain,” said co-founder and CEO who goes by Edison, in a press release shared with CoinDesk. “We’re building Based so anyone, anywhere can access global markets and also use those funds to purchase things they actually need without jumping through hoops.”

Read more: Bitcoin will ‘massively’ outperform gold over 10 years, says Pantera’s Dan Morehead

Standard Chartered still expects the stablecoin market to reach $2 trillion by the end of 2028, which should translate into around $1 trillion in new Treasury bill demand, the bank said in a Monday report.

As of early 2026, the total stablecoin market capitalization is roughly $300-$320 billion.

“This will result in c. $0.8-$1.0 trillion of fresh demand for T-bills (for use as reserves) from stablecoin issuers over that period,” wrote Geoff Kendrick, head of digital asset research, and U.S. rates strategist John Davies.

Combined with $1-$1.2 trillion in projected Federal Reserve buying, total new T-bill demand could hit about $2.2 trillion through 2028, the report said. That compares with roughly $1.3 trillion in net new supply if bills’ share of total debt remains unchanged, implying a potential shortfall of $0.9 trillion.

Stablecoin issuers such as Tether and Circle (CRCL) have become major buyers of short-term U.S. government debt, holding tens of billions of dollars in Treasury bills as reserves backing tokens such as USDT and USDC.

Tether alone has disclosed T-bill holdings that rival those of mid-sized sovereign investors, while Circle also keeps a significant share of its reserves in short-dated Treasuries via money market funds.

As the stablecoin market grows, issuers typically park new inflows into T-bills to earn yield while maintaining liquidity, effectively channeling crypto-driven capital into U.S. government financing and reinforcing demand at the front end of the yield curve.

The Treasury said in its February 4 Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA) that it “is monitoring SOMA purchases of Treasury bills and growing demand for Treasury bills from the private sector,” a trend Standard Chartered expects to intensify.

The analysts said the projected excess demand gives Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent scope to lift T-bills’ share of issuance. Raising that share by 2.5 percentage points over three years would create about $0.9 trillion in additional bill supply, offsetting the gap.

Reallocating that amount from longer-dated bonds could effectively suspend 30-year auctions for three years and ease upward pressure on long-term yields, according to the report.

While not its base case, the bank expects the 10-year yield to reach 4.6% by end-2026, as the analysts warned of rising risks of front-end scarcity.

Stablecoin growth has recently stalled just above $300 billion, up from $238 billion in April 2025, as crypto prices weakened and post-GENIUS Act issuance slowed. Bitcoin has fallen more than 50% from its $126,000 October 2025 peak, dampening trading-driven demand. Standard Chartered views these headwinds as cyclical and maintains that stablecoins could add nearly $1 trillion in incremental T-bill demand by 2028, reshaping U.S. rate markets.

Read more: Standard Chartered sees bitcoin sliding to $50,000, ether to $1,400 before recovery

ProCap Financial, (BRR), which calls itself the first publicly traded agentic finance firm, has begun its share repurchase program aimed at closing the discount between its stock price and net asset value (NAV).

The company said it bought 148,241 BRR shares in the open market on Feb. 20. That implies a purchase price in the area of $2.30 per share, for a total amount of roughly $341,000. It’s not exactly a mammoth purchase, given the company has raised more than $750 million from investors and currently holds more than 5,000 bitcoin worth about $335 million on its balance sheet.

The company further said the shares were purchased at roughly a 35% discount to the net asset value of the bitcoin it holds.

“We were able to buy $1.00 of our stock for approximately $0.65 last week,” said
Chairman and CEO Anthony Pompliano. “We plan to aggressively buy as much of our stock as we can as long as the market will sell us shares at a substantial discount to NAV.”

BRR shares are modestly outperforming other bitcoin treasury companies in U.S. Monday morning trade, rising 3% to $2.42.