The path to making America the “crypto capital of the world” appeared to clear significantly on Wednesday as industry leaders and lawmakers announced a truce in the legislative battle over market structure.

CLARITY Act headed for the President’s desk

Appearing together at the World Liberty Forum, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Senator Bernie Moreno expressed newfound confidence that the CLARITY Act will pass by April 2026.

The optimism follows a rocky January where Coinbase famously “rug-pulled” its support for the bill over provisions that would have banned interest-bearing stablecoins. Armstrong clarified that his opposition wasn’t a “block,” but a call to return to the table.

“There is now a path forward where we can get a win-win-win outcome,” Armstrong said, noting that the smartest banks are now “leaning in” rather than fighting the inevitable.

Stablecoins as a tool for dollar dominance

Senator Moreno, a former crypto entrepreneur himself, argued that the bill’s focus on stablecoin rewards is essential for national security.

By allowing these assets to compete with traditional bank deposits, Moreno claimed the U.S. could effectively “dollarize the world” and reduce treasury borrowing costs by hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Unless you own a bank, you probably shouldn’t care,” Moreno told the audience, framing the debate as a choice between protecting outdated banking models or empowering consumers with faster, high-yield digital cash.

Addressing the “quantum threat”

The conversation also pivoted to technical risks, specifically the concern that quantum computing could “break” the blockchain.

Armstrong was quick to dismiss the threat as a “solvable engineering challenge,” revealing that Coinbase is already coordinating with major networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin to upgrade to post-quantum cryptographic standards.

The duo also cheered recent news from CFTC Chairman Mike Selig, who this week reaffirmed federal jurisdiction over prediction markets. Armstrong, whose “Everything Exchange” now includes these markets, praised the move as a vital check against state-level efforts to classify the sector as illegal gambling.

With the White House and the “Crypto Czar” David Sacks reportedly meeting daily with stakeholders, the “April milestone” has become the primary target for a industry eager to trade regulatory “word salad” for a clear, national standard.

CME Group, the world’s largest regulated derivatives marketplace, announced plans to begin 24-hour, seven-day-a-week trading of its cryptocurrency futures and options contracts on May 29, 2026, pending regulatory review.

CME Group adopts 24/7 crypto trading as competition heats up

The decision marks a significant step in aligning regulated digital-asset derivatives with the continuous nature of global crypto spot markets.

Under the new schedule, CME’s cryptocurrency products will trade continuously on its CME Globex platform, with a brief weekly maintenance window. Any trading conducted from Friday evening through Sunday evening will receive the following business day’s trade date for clearing, settlement and reporting.

CME said that client demand for regulated crypto risk-management tools is at an historic high, driven by record volumes in 2025 when its crypto futures and options saw $3 trillion in notional activity. Average daily volume and open interest have both climbed sharply year-over-year in 2026, underlining robust participation from institutional and professional traders.

The expansion builds on CME’s broader push into digital assets. In early February, the exchange successfully launched futures contracts for Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK) and Stellar (XLM), including both standard and micro sizes, broadening its altcoin derivatives lineup beyond Bitcoin and Ether. Market participants have viewed this as a key step in giving regulated access to a wider range of crypto assets.

However, CME’s push to modernize its markets has faced operational challenges. In November 2025 a cooling-system failure at a CyrusOne data center triggered a major outage that halted futures trading across cryptocurrencies, commodities, equities and FX, highlighting infrastructure risks as trading demand intensifies.

As crypto continues its integration into mainstream finance, round-the-clock regulated trading at CME could help close the gap between always-on digital markets and traditional exchange hours — offering traders more flexibility and risk management options around the clock.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari delivered a blistering critique of the cryptocurrency industry on Thursday, dismissing digital assets as “utterly useless” and characterized by “word salad” marketing rather than functional utility.

Speaking at the 2026 Midwest Economic Outlook Summit, Kashkari challenged the fundamental value proposition of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

During a fireside chat, he contrasted the tangible economic impact of Artificial Intelligence with the decade-long history of crypto, which he argues has failed to integrate into the real economy.

Kashkari’s crypto “grocery store” test

Kashkari was particularly skeptical of the claim that crypto excels at cross-border payments. Using a personal example, he described the hurdles of sending money to family in the Philippines. While proponents claim crypto offers “instant” transfers, Kashkari argued the logic falls apart at the point of sale.

“How does [a recipient] buy groceries with it?” Kashkari asked the audience.

“They still have to convert it to the local currency, and that is still expensive. What advocates are really saying is that if everyone in the world used the same platform, friction would disappear, but nations are not going to abandon their own monetary policies.”

Demanding clarity over “buzzwords”

The Fed official urged the public and policymakers to stop settling for vague explanations. He described much of the industry’s rhetoric as a “buzzword salad,” noting that most “innovations” offered by stablecoins are already handled efficiently by existing domestic tools like Venmo or Zelle.

“Ask the most basic questions and don’t settle for nonsense,” Kashkari warned. “Whenever I make people really explain how this thing actually works, there’s just nothing there.”

The remarks highlight a growing divide in 2026 between the central bank’s skepticism and the commercial sector’s expansion, coming just hours after the CME Group announced plans to move toward 24/7 crypto derivatives trading to meet institutional demand.

Another week has ended, and Friday has arrived, which means another batch of Bitcoin options contracts is expiring while spot markets remain sideways.

Around 30,600 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Feb. 20, with a notional value of roughly $2 billion. This event is a little smaller than last week’s expiry, so there is unlikely to be any impact on spot markets.

Crypto markets are in bear market territory, but have remained flat over the past week as volume and volatility dry up.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.59, meaning that there are more expiring calls (longs) than puts (shorts). Max pain is around $70,000, according to Coinglass, which is above current spot prices, so many will be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at $60,000 with $1.2 billion and $1 billion at $50,000 strike prices on Deribit as bearish bets increase. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been climbing this month and is at $36.5 billion.

“Positioning skews call heavy across both assets, with BTC showing the stronger upside skew,” said Deribit.

Meanwhile, derivatives analyst Laevitas observed that “downside protection remains in demand,” noting 2,140 BTC worth of puts at $58,000 recently bought.

🚨 Options Expiry Alert 🚨

At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, over $2.4B in crypto options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: ~$2.0B notional | Put/Call: 0.59 | Max Pain: $70K$ETH: ~$404M notional | Put/Call: 0.75 | Max Pain: $2,050

Positioning skews call heavy across both assets, with… pic.twitter.com/pgl2z4ZGJ6

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) February 19, 2026

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In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 212,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $404 million, max pain at $2,050, and a put/call ratio of 0.75. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $6.8 billion.

This brings the total notional value of crypto options expiries to around $2.4 billion.

Spot Market Outlook

Total market capitalization has been flat for the past 24 hours and since the beginning of the week, hovering around $2.37 trillion, down 46% from its peak. Bitcoin has slowly eroded since Monday, hitting a weekly low of $65,700 in late trading on Thursday before recovering to $67,290 at the time of writing on Friday morning in Asia.

Resistance is forming at $70,000, with support still just above $60,000, and this seems to be the closest target. There has been no movement in Ether prices, which have started to consolidate around $1,950. The rest of the altcoins remain flat at bear market bottoms.

Crypto prices firmed during Asia’s Friday morning session, with bitcoin climbing toward $68,000 after a choppy week that tested nerves across risk markets.

The bounce was broad. XRP, Solana’s SOL, DOGE$0.09897 and Cardano’s ADA added upto 2% while ether lagged with a small dip, hovering below $2,000 as traders treated the level as a line that needs defending rather than celebrating.

The move had the feel of a relief rally more than a clean turn. After weeks of sharp swings, the market has started reacting in waves. A quick push higher draws in dip buyers, then selling appears as soon as price reaches a level where trapped holders can exit with less pain. The difference this week is that each rebound has looked a little less fragile, suggesting forced selling is easing even if conviction buying has not returned in size.

Macro and geopolitics are doing their part to keep traders cautious. Gold steadied near $5,000 an ounce after two sessions of gains as investors priced rising Middle East risk.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he would allow 10 to 15 days for talks on a nuclear deal with Iran, while American forces reportedly built up in the region. That mix has supported haven demand and made it harder for risk assets to build momentum.

FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich framed the broader backdrop as bearish.. He said that given the market’s prior dynamics and the more cautious tone in US stocks, the odds increase of a retest of local lows, pointing to levels last seen in the second half of 2024.

On ether, he said the token is sitting on a long running support line that traces back to 2020 and lines up with the $2,000 area, but added that a true breakdown would need confirmation through a drop below recent lows around $1,500.

Under the surface, some indicators hint that big holders may be positioning to sell into strength. CryptoQuant says bitcoin inflows from large holders to Binance have reached record levels, a pattern that can precede heavier spot supply.

Research shop K33 has compared current conditions to the later stages of the 2022 bear market that gave way to a long, grinding consolidation.

The result is a market that can bounce, but struggles to turn rebounds into a trend until spot demand grows louder than the sellers waiting at the next round number.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) market structure shifted into a corrective phase after losing a key onchain valuation level in late January.

Glassnode data shows that BTC’s price is compressing within a 2024-era demand zone as liquidity conditions soften. At the same time, BTC’s supply is steadily shifting into long-term, retail-linked wallets while exchange activity has cooled.

This mix of technical and onchain data, along with the current capital rotation, may shape the next steps for Bitcoin price.

Bitcoin lost its active supply cost price, but holders defend $60,000

In its weekly “The Week On-chain” report, Glassnode said that BTC’s recent price dip accelerated due to breaking below its true market mean near $79,000 in January, which is the cost basis of the tracked active supply. 

Since then, the price has stabilized inside a dense $60,000 to $69,000 range, which is being defended by medium-term holders. One of the reasons this zone has been a strong support is because of the age of coins within this range for the majority of 2024.

Coins accumulated in that range have aged more than a year, placing a large cohort close to breakeven. This supply may be acting as a backstop on the current sell pressure. 

Market analyst Ardi pointed to a similar dynamic, writing on X:

“We’re trading inside the same $53-73K range that took 245 days to build last year. Think about how much volume went through this zone. This is the most contested zone on BTC’s entire chart right now.”

Glassnode also highlighted that, in past cycles, deeper bear phases have gravitated toward the realized price, which now stands near $54,900. The metric estimates the average acquisition cost of all circulating coins.

Bitcoin’s liquidity conditions also remain compressed. The 90-day realized profit/loss ratio has declined back into the 1–2 range, a level associated with limited capital rotation. A sustained move below 1 has aligned with stressed bear environments.

Related: Google searches for ‘Bitcoin going to zero’ at highest since 2022

BTC accumulation rises even as activity slows down

CryptoQuant data shows that the balances held by accumulating address cohorts have continued rising into early 2026. Total BTC held by these cohorts has expanded to over 4 million BTC, up from roughly 2 million BTC in early 2024, which reflects a steady supply absorption.

The retail-linked accumulation addresses have increased their holdings by 850,000 BTC, while the accumulating pattern wallets, addresses that steadily add BTC in recurring intervals with minimal outflows, increased their size to 1.27 million BTC. This expansion occurred even as the price dropped in 2026.

In contrast, the inflows from centralized-exchange addresses and highly active addresses have moderated. Compared with the 2023 to 2024 expansion phases, where inflow spikes frequently exceeded 1.2 million to 1.5 million BTC, the recent activity has remained significantly lower, averaging 300,000 BTC to 400,000 BTC.

The divergence shows that more BTC is being absorbed into long-term wallets while fewer coins are rotating through major exchanges. That reduces the liquid supply and slows down short-term trading activity.

Related: Bitcoin’s consolidation nears ‘turning point’ as $70K comes in focus: Analyst