U.S. credit card balances reached $1.28 trillion by the end of the fourth quarter, marking a $44 billion increase in debt over the three-month period, according to data released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The figures represent the highest level of credit card debt on record for American consumers. The quarterly increase reflects growing reliance on credit cards as household finances face continued pressure.

Year-over-year data showed balances climbed 5.5% compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York report.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York releases quarterly reports on household debt and credit as part of its ongoing economic monitoring activities. The data tracks various forms of consumer debt including mortgages, auto loans, student loans and credit card balances.

Credit card debt represents one component of total household debt in the U.S., which includes multiple categories of consumer borrowing tracked by federal banking authorities.

TLDR:

• ERC-8004 provides autonomous agents with persistent onchain identity that survives across sessions. 
• The standard enables agents to build verifiable reputation instead of resetting in each platform. 
• BNB Chain’s low fees and fast transactions make frequent identity verification economically viable. 
• Verifiable agent identity allows software to collaborate and transact with reduced human oversight.
  

ERC-8004 has been implemented on BNB Chain to provide autonomous agents with verifiable onchain identity. The standard addresses a growing need as AI-powered software moves beyond responding to commands and begins taking independent action.

Traditional login-based systems fail when agents operate across multiple platforms. This new identity framework allows software agents to carry reputation and history across different environments, enabling more reliable autonomous operations.

Building Identity Infrastructure for Agent-Driven Systems

The shift from platform-locked applications to autonomous software requires new identity mechanisms. Current AI tools typically reset between sessions, leaving no verifiable record of past performance. This limitation prevents agents from building trust or operating independently in open systems.

ERC-8004 creates a persistent onchain identity for software agents. The standard functions similarly to a passport, allowing agents to prove their identity across different platforms.

Unlike traditional account-based systems, this approach enables agents to maintain their operational history as they move between applications and services.

BNB Chain highlighted the development in a recent post, noting that agents need to prove who they are and carry their history rather than starting from zero in every application.

The announcement emphasized that while the design shift appears small, its practical applications are substantial. Agents can now operate more reliably across systems instead of being confined to single platforms.

The identity standard addresses three core requirements for autonomous operations. Agents gain persistent identity that survives between sessions.

They also receive verifiable records of past behavior and performance. Additionally, other agents and services can evaluate trustworthiness before deciding whether to interact.

Practical Implementation on Low-Cost Infrastructure

BNB Chain’s infrastructure makes frequent identity verification economically viable for autonomous agents. The network provides low transaction fees that support small, frequent interactions typical of machine-to-machine operations. Fast settlement times match the speed requirements of automated agent activity.

The combination of affordability and speed proves essential for practical deployment. High costs or slow confirmation times would render frequent identity updates impractical. BNB Chain’s architecture supports the volume and velocity needed for active agent economies.

Verifiable identity enables several downstream improvements for users. AI tools become more reliable when their historical performance can be checked onchain.

Services face increased competition as agents select partners based on verified reputation rather than brand recognition.

Users also gain greater control since agents can operate across platforms without being locked to a single provider.

The standard represents foundational infrastructure rather than a complete solution. Once agents establish verifiable identity, additional capabilities become possible.

Automated payments between agents, machine-verifiable work completion, and reputation-based selection all build on this identity layer.

The framework provides a base for an open agent economy where software can collaborate and transact with reduced human oversight.

Concerns that Strategy (MSTR) will be forced to sell bitcoin BTC$69,171.83 amid falling prices are “an unfounded concern,” chairman Michael Saylor said during a CNBC interview, affirming the company’s commitment to ongoing purchases.

“Our net leverage ratio is half the typical investment grade company,” Saylor said. “We’ve got 50 years worth of dividends and bitcoin, we’ve got two and a half years worth of dividends just in cash on our balance sheet … we’re not going to be selling, we’re going to be buying bitcoin. I expect we’ll be buying bitcoin every quarter forever.”

Last week, the company added 1,142 BTC to its holdings for roughly $90 million, at an average price of $78,815 per coin. The company’s total stack now stands at 714,644 coins, purchased for about $54.35 billion, bringing the average cost per bitcoin to $76,056 — well above the current price of around $69,000.

Saylor’s comments come as bitcoin has seen significant volatility (almost exclusively downward) over the past months, though he emphasized that swings are part of the asset’s design. “The key to keep in mind is that bitcoin is digital capital,” he continued. “It’s going to be two to four times as volatile as traditional capital like gold or equity or real estate. It’s got two to four times the performance this decade of traditional capital. It’s the most useful global capital asset in the world, you can put more leverage on it. You can trade it in more ways than any other kind of capital assets. So the volatility is the bug, but the volatility is the feature.”

Strategy reported an operating loss of $17.4 billion and a net loss of $12.6 billion for the fourth quarter, reflecting largely non-cash mark-to-market accounting tied to bitcoin’s price decline. The results highlight how swings in the cryptocurrency’s value continue to influence the company’s financial statements despite its long-term investment strategy.

Saylor also addressed the notion that bitcoin’s current price levels could represent a new form of market maturity, which he characterized as a good thing.

Strategy’s balance sheet and its digital credit business are central to its strategy, Saylor said. The firm’s digital credit structure has emerged as one of the most actively traded credit instruments of the decade, generating substantially higher cash flow than traditional fixed-income products and far exceeding the trading volume of preferred stocks.

“There isn’t any credit risk in the balance sheet of the company,” he said.

Saylor declined to offer a short-term bitcoin price prediction but reiterated confidence in long-term performance. “I don’t really make predictions over 12 months. I think that bitcoin is going to double or triple the performance of the S&P over the next four to eight years. And I think that’s the only thing we need to know.”

Shares of the company are down 3% on Tuesday, bringing the year-to-date decline to 15% and the year-over-year fall to 60%.

Crypto industry negotiators arrived at the White House on Tuesday ready to talk about a legislative deal on stablecoin yields, but their banking counterparts brought further demands for a ban on such rewards in the Senate’s crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the talks.

The fight over whether stablecoins should be able to offer rewards — a lobbying battle between Wall Street bankers and crypto insiders — is one of the chief headwinds keeping the Senate Banking Committee from advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. It’s now been a sticking point for months, and the banking side held their ground on prohibiting the rewards activity and more, according to a principles document circulated by the bank negotiators, despite the White House’s insistence last week that both sides come with ideas for compromising.

The document called for a general prohibition on stablecoin yield, according to a copy obtained by CoinDesk, suggesting a ban on “any form of financial or non-financial consideration to a payment stablecoin holder in connection with the payment stablecoin holder’s purchase, use, ownership, possession, custody, holding or retention of a payment stablecoin.”

The crypto team at the table was said to include executives from Coinbase, Ripple, a16z, the Crypto Council for Innovation and the Blockchain Association, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House sought to pare down the numbers of participants in the most recent gathering there last week, which hadn’t produced significant progress on the question of stablecoin rewards programs that are a key component of crypto platforms’ business models.

Despite the lack of significant progress, crypto representatives struck a hopeful note in statements about the meeting.

“We’re encouraged by the progress being made as stakeholders remains constructively engaged on resolving outstanding issues,” said Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, who was said to participate in the meeting.

“The important work continues,” said Ji Kim, the CEO of CCI, in a statement after the meeting, saying his group “appreciates the banking industry for their continued engagement.”

Banking groups involved in the meeting, including the Bank Policy Institute and American Bankers Association, issued a statement after the meeting, though it included no details about next steps on the legislation.

“As we noted during the meeting, that framework can and must embrace financial innovation without undermining safety and soundness, and without putting the bank deposits that fuel local lending and drive economic activity at risk,” the group said in the combined statement.

The document they were said to have shared insisted that stablecoin activity “must not drive deposit flight that would undercut Main Street lending.” It asked that the requested ban come with an enforcement stick for regulators, and the document suggested a study by regulators that examines the effect of stablecoin activity on deposits.

After two White House meetings on the topic and no significant movement of the line on yields, the matter may return to the discretion of lawmakers working on the bill.

Before the Senate can approve a bill, the banking panel needs to clear it through a majority vote. The legislation already has its necessary backing from the Senate Agriculture Committee, and a similar bill with the same name won a vote in the House of Representatives last year. But bankers have raised their concerns about the threat to deposits at the core of their industry.

However, stablecoin yield isn’t the only major sticking point. Senate Democratic negotiators have demanded that the effort include a ban on deep crypto involvement from senior government officials, driven primarily by President Donald Trump’s personal crypto interests. The Democratic lawmakers have also insisted on greater protections against crypto’s use in illicit finance and also that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission get fully staffed by commissioners — including Democratic appointees — before it can get to work on crypto regulations.

While Trump’s crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, has predicted the negotiators will find common ground soon, he also told CoinDesk that the White House won’t support an effort that targets the president. Witt was said to lead the meeting on Tuesday, as he did the one last week.

The Clarity Act faces a number of practical challenges beyond the policy disputes, including the Senate’s ongoing friction over a last remaining budget issue: the funding of the Department of Homeland Security, which runs Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Senate is always a tough place to secure necessary floor time to move legislation, and the closer the chamber gets to the lengthy breaks before the midterm elections this year, the more difficult it is to find enough time to handle a major crypto bill.

Read More: Crypto industry, banks not yet close to stablecoin yield deal at White House meeting

UPDATE (February 10, 2025, 23:16 UTC): Adds comment from the bank lobbying groups.

UPDATE (February 10, 2025, 00:12 UTC): Adds details about the bankers’ document stating their principles on yield.

As decentralized finance (DeFi) matures, users are turning to alternative platforms, such as onchain options, to generate higher yields.

Onchain options activity reached all-time highs over the last two weeks, with $44 million of volume in the first week of February and $28 million during the last week of January.

More than 80% of the total onchain options volumes are concentrated in leading protocols, Ithaca and Derive. Over the last week, Ithaca processed $26 million in volume and Derive recorded $11 million, while the third-busiest protocol, Overtime, recorded just $2 million.

While the exact catalyst for the growth isn’t clear, it could be a combination of traditional lending platforms like Aave offering lower yields than in prior years, and also potentially some anticipation of Hyperliquid’s upcoming HIP-4 markets, which will allow users to trade binary outcomes that function similarly to options.

Just yesterday, a popular DeFi trader known as Route 2 Fi posted on X, “Where are people getting yield these days? 2% APR on USDT at Aave isn’t exactly sexy.” The post gained significant traction online, indicating that many DeFi participants are also seeking new, lucrative yield sources.

Ether (ETH) struggled to hold prices above $2,000 on Tuesday, and against this backdrop, analysts noted that Ether’s 31% decline in 2026 fits a familiar price fractal from previous bull markets.

Key takeaways:

• ETH’s recent dip to $1,736 may mark only the first of many lows in a larger consolidation phase.

• Onchain cost-basis data clusters from $1,300 to $2,000, reinforcing this range as a potential demand zone.

ETH fractal hints at a longer base-building phase

A long-term fractal comparison between the 2021-2022 and 2024-2025 cycles suggests that Ether’s sharp sell-off mirrors a pattern in which an initial bottom is formed before the price revisits lower levels due to further market weakness.

On the weekly chart, ETH’s drop toward the $1,730 region resembles its “first low,” rather than a definitive market floor.

In 2021, ETH spent 12 months consolidating around the first low ($1,730) and a lower support band ($885), allowing leverage to reset and spot demand to rebuild. 

Applying this framework, ETH may continue ranging from about $1,300 to $2,000, with downside tests toward the $1,500–$1,600 zone possible before a sustained base is formed.

Onchain cost basis data cites $1,300–$2,000 as a demand zone

Ether’s UTXO realized price distribution (URPD) data underlines the chances of an extended consolidation. Large supply clusters remain above current prices, with $2,822 accounting for 5.86% of the ETH supply and $3,119 holding 6.15%, forming heavy overhead resistance. 

Below current spot prices, notable clusters appear at $1,881 (1.58 million ETH) and $1,237, suggesting potential demand zones if the price continues to retrace.

Structurally, $1,237 stands out as a potential cycle floor, followed by intermediate support near $1,584 and stronger acceptance around $1,881, where the realized supply concentration increases.

Derivatives data aligns with this view. The liquidation heat map shows cumulative long liquidations at risk of $4 billion to $6 billion, ranging to $1,455 from $1,700, and these are levels that may still be targeted by sellers. 

However, more than $12 billion in short liquidity is stacked up to $3,000, implying that once downside liquidity is absorbed, the directional bias may shift higher in the coming months.

Related: Analysts debate whether Ether has capitulated or has further to fall

What is giving Ether structural support?

Data from CryptoQuant shows Ether withdrawals from exchanges have surged to their highest level since October 2025, with net outflows exceeding 220,000 ETH. Binance recorded daily net outflows of about 158,000 ETH on Thursday, the largest since August 2025. 

These flows coincided with ETH trading from $1,800 to $2,000, suggesting accumulation or risk-off repositioning at these levels.

MNCapital founder Michaël van de Poppe highlighted a similar dynamic, noting that price often lags network and narrative growth.

Stablecoin transaction volume on Ethereum has risen about 200% over the past 18 months, even as the ETH price remains about 30% lower, a divergence that may lead to a parabolic repricing for the altcoin.

Related: Ethereum Foundation teams up with SEAL to combat wallet drainers