Crypto World
HOOD falls another 7% on Q4 revenue miss
Robinhood (HOOD) said revenue from crypto-related transactions fell 38% year over year in the fourth quarter, highlighting how lower digital asset prices continue to curb trading activity even as platforms push deeper into the sector.
The trading app reported $221 million in revenue from crypto trades, down from $358 million a year earlier, according to its latest earnings report. The decline came despite Robinhood’s efforts to make crypto a bigger part of its business.
Over the past year, the company has rolled out new crypto features and expanded its offerings. Robinhood launched crypto transfers across more regions, allowing users to move assets on and off the platform. It also added a large slate of new trading tokens, expanding beyond the small set of major coins it once limited customers to. The company has pitched these moves as steps toward becoming a broader gateway into digital assets rather than a simple trading app.
That strategy has yet to shield crypto revenue from market swings. Lower prices tend to dampen trading, especially among retail investors who drive much of Robinhood’s volume.
The crypto slowdown stood in contrast to Robinhood’s broader business. Overall transaction-based revenue reached $776 million, a 15% increase from the year prior. Gains in equity and options trading helped offset the drop in crypto, pointing to a more balanced revenue mix than in past cycles.
The company reported EPS of $0.66 in the fourth quarter, topping Wall Street estimates for $0.63, but revenue of $1.28 billion fell short of forecasts for $1.33 billion.
Shares are lower by 7.7% in after-hours trading, continuing a plunge that began around the time crypto topped in early October 2025. Trading at $79, the stock’s now down nearly 50% from that record high.
Competitor Coinbase (COIN) is set to report earnings on Thursday. Analysts expect it to post lower trading volume and weaker revenue, reflecting the same market conditions that hit Robinhood’s crypto business. COIN is lower by 1.6% after hours on the HOOD results.
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Alphabet’s debt sale keeps getting bigger.
The company is close to finalizing a global bond issuance in excess of $30 billion, according to two people familiar with the deal, an increase from the $20 billion it raised on Monday.
On Tuesday morning, Alphabet went to the European market to raise roughly $11 billion in sterling and Swiss francs, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are private. Bloomberg reported earlier that Alphabet raised almost $32 billion.
Investors are showing heightened demand for high-quality paper from tech heavyweights that are leading the charge in artificial intelligence, one source said.
In its earnings report last week, Alphabet said it expects to shell out up to $185 billion in capital expenditures this year, more than double its 2025 capex. The group of hyperscalers, which also includes Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, are projected to collectively spend close to $700 billion in 2026. With tech companies pouring money into high-priced chips, large facilities and networking technology, analysts expect free cash flow to plummet this year.
Oracle was the first large tech company to test the debt market in 2026, with its $25 billion dollar offering last week. Meta is preparing a large debt offering in first part of this year, as it looks to accelerate its data center push across the U.S., the sources said.
Alphabet held a $25 billion bond sale in November. Its long-term debt quadrupled in 2025 to $46.5 billion. CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on last week’s earnings call that as the company considers its total investment, “we want to make sure we do it in a fiscally responsible way, and that we invest appropriately, but we do it in a way that maintains a very healthy financial position for the organization.”
Alphabet didn’t respond to a request for comment.
— CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.
WATCH: Alphabet’s bond sale
Crypto World
Vatican Bank makes first foray into equity indexes, setting stage for potential ETF launches
Gabriel Bouys | AFP | Getty Images
The Vatican Bank Tuesday launched two equity indexes tracking stocks that align with Catholic values. Its first foray into thematic investment products sets the bank up to potentially roll out other financial products, including ETFs in the future.
The bank, which reports to the Committee of Cardinals and the Pope, said Tuesday in a statement that the Morningstar IOR Eurozone Catholic Principles Index and the Morningstar IOR U.S. Catholic Principles Index include 50 medium and large-cap firms deemed to be consistent with Catholic ethical criteria, including prioritizing human bonds and social justice.
“Having benchmarks built in accordance with recognized Catholic ethical criteria allows us to make our performance assessment and reporting processes even more rigorous and transparent,” Giovanni Boscia, Vatican Bank deputy director general and CFO, said in the statement. “This initiative reaffirms our commitment as a financial institution serving the Church, further strengthening the role of the [Vatican Bank] as a reference point for the Catholic world.”
The Eurozone fund counts semiconductor supplier ASML Holding and telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom among its top holdings, while the US-based index’s largest holdings include Meta Platforms and Amazon.
Their rollouts also open up the possiblity the indexes could be licensed for use in an exchange traded fund.
The debut comes as investors’ appetite for ETFs and other thematic investment products grows. The global ETF market increased nearly 30% to top $14 trillion in 2024, per PricewaterhouseCoopers. And, the combined value of those funds could hit as much as $30 trillion by 2029, according to a PwC report dated March 2025.
Meanwhile, investment products rooted in social responsibility and other themes are appealing to certain slice of investors. The Ave Maria Mutual Funds, a fund family that allocates capital in accordance with Catholic teachings, said it had $3.8 billion in assets under management as of last year, per its website.
The Vatican Bank has been working to reform its image after a series of scandals. The Holy See-linked financial institution has faced several allegations of money laundering and ties with organized crime, particularly after the collapse of Milan-based Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. In 2021, former Vatican Bank president Angelo Caloia was found guilty of money laundering and embezzling millions of euros in connection with his role at the institution.
Bitcoin mining stress deepened as difficulty fell 14% and Puell dipped below 0.8, even as Cango sold $305M in BTC.
Bitcoin mining conditions tightened sharply in late January and early February after network difficulty fell 14% over three weeks and publicly traded miner Cango disclosed a $305 million BTC sale over the weekend.
The combination of falling profitability metrics and selective balance sheet sales shows pressure spreading across the mining sector, even as broader on-chain data shows no signs of disorderly selling.
Difficulty Drops as Miners Cut Capacity
According to a February 10 brief published by on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr., Bitcoin’s network difficulty dropped by a combined 14.1% between January 22 and February 6, following two consecutive downward adjustments of 3.3% and 11.2%. Such back-to-back cuts usually occur when less efficient mining equipment is taken offline, often during periods of weak price action.
During the same window, the price of BTC fell about 25%, briefly touching $60,000 before rebounding toward $70,000. At the time of writing, the flagship cryptocurrency was trading at around $69,000, down nearly 1% in the last 24 hours and more than 12% over the past week, based on CoinGecko data.
The asset has also lost 24% of its value over the past month and about 29% year over year, underperforming earlier-cycle expectations and keeping mining margins tight.
Against this backdrop, Cango confirmed it sold 4,451 BTC for approximately $305 million, citing balance sheet strengthening. The sale, approved by the company’s board, drew an immediate reaction from equity investors, with Cango shares closing 8% lower on the first trading day after the disclosure.
Adler described the transaction as a point event rather than evidence of widespread forced liquidation, noting that aggregate miner flows to exchanges are still holding steady.
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Data from miner exchange inflows supports that view, with the 30-day moving average of daily miner transfers hovering near 82 BTC, only slightly lower than mid-January levels and well within recent norms, according to the market watcher. Furthermore, he reported that there have been no sustained spikes that would suggest broad reserve dumping.
Profitability Pressure and What Comes Next
Profitability metrics still point to strain. For instance, Adler pointed out in his brief that the Puell Multiple, which compares daily miner revenue to its annual average, slipped to a 30-day average of 0.77 in early February, down from 0.86 in mid-January. He added that spot readings briefly fell to around 0.61, levels historically associated with miner stress and capacity exits.
The analyst noted that miners earning below their annual average tend to prioritize liquidity, increasing the chance of selective reserve sales rather than aggressive expansion. According to him, completion of this stress phase typically requires a reversal in difficulty adjustments and a recovery in the Puell Multiple toward the 0.85 to 0.90 range.
For now, the data suggests the adjustment is playing out mainly through hashrate reductions instead of heavy selling. The risk, in Adler’s opinion, is a renewed price drop below $60,000, which could push profitability metrics lower and prompt similar sales from other public miners.
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Crypto miner and manufacturer Canaan fell 6.9% on the Nasdaq on Tuesday despite reporting a 121.1% year-on-year increase in revenue to $196.3 million in the fourth quarter, driven by an increase in hardware sales and stronger mining performance.
Canaan reported that its Bitcoin (BTC) mining revenue rose 98.5% year-on-year to $30.4 million, helping boost its Bitcoin treasury to a record 1,750 BTC, valued at nearly $120 million, while the company also increased its Ether (ETH) holdings to 3,950 ETH, worth $7.9 million.
The revenue figure is Canaan’s highest quarterly posting in three years, and was also driven by Bitcoin mining machine sales, with the company shipping a record 14.6 exahashes per second (EH/s) of computing power during the quarter.
Canaan said computing power sales were supported by a “milestone order” from a US-based institutional miner, helping it set a new quarterly record for computing power sales and achieve a 60% year-on-year increase.
On the mining front, the Singapore-based company said it expanded its installed hashrate to 9.91 EH/s, with 7.65 EH/s operational during the quarter.
Bitcoin network hashrate has fallen from a record 1,150 EH/s in mid-October to 980 EH/s as miners continue to unplug unprofitable machines and pivot to AI and high-performance computing.
Despite the strong Q4 performance, Canaan (CAN) shares tanked another 6.87% to $0.56, Google Finance data shows, making it one of the lowest performers among the 15 largest Bitcoin miners by market cap.
Canaan’s risk of Nasdaq delisting worsens
At its current price of $0.56, the company is now down 18.1% year-to-date and 70.2% over the last 12 months.
On Jan. 16, Canaan said it received a letter from the Nasdaq warning that it must increase its share price to above $1 to meet the stock exchange’s minimum bid rule or risk being delisted.
Related: Bitcoin ETFs extend rebound as $145M in fresh inflows hit market
The Nasdaq gave the Singapore company 180 days, until July 13, to regain compliance with the rule, which requires its closing bid price to hit at least $1 for a minimum of 10 consecutive trading days. Canaan last closed above $1 on Nov. 28, 2025.
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Ethereum remains in a cyclical downswing after the recent capitulation leg that drove the price from the mid-$2,000s into the $1,800 demand region. The structure across higher timeframes is still dominated by a well-defined descending channel, with lower highs since late 2025 and momentum readings in oversold territory now attempting to stabilize.
Current conditions, therefore, reflect a market in the process of digesting a sharp repricing, where the next impulse will likely be defined by how the price reacts to the nearest resistance band around $2,700 and the reclaimed support zone near $1,800–$2,000.
Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
The daily chart shows Ethereum trending within a broad downward channel, with the latest sell-off driving the asset into the lower boundary and the horizontal demand region between roughly $1,800 and $1,700. This zone has produced an initial reaction, but the sequence of lower highs and lower lows remains intact, and the bearish fair value gap around $2,300–$2,400 now acts as the first short-term resistance cluster.
Daily RSI has also bounced from deeply oversold readings but still resides in a bearish regime, indicating that any recovery for now is best classified as a corrective rebound within a dominant downtrend. Yet, a sustained move back above $2,400–$2,500 and the channel midline would be required to argue for a more durable trend change.
ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart
On the 4-hour timeframe, the market displays a short-term basing attempt after the steep decline. The price carved out a descending leg that terminated near the $1,800 demand zone while the 4-hour RSI formed a clear bullish divergence, signalling seller exhaustion and prompting the current consolidation above the support zone at $1,800 and below the resistance level at $2,100.
This range now defines the tactical battlefield: holding above $1,800 would keep the developing recovery structure valid and open the door for a retest of the $2,200 short-term resistance level, whereas a decisive breakdown below $1,800 would indicate that the relief phase has failed and expose the lower daily supports closer to $1,600.
On-Chain Analysis
The Exchange Supply Ratio for Ethereum has continued to trend lower and currently sits near the lowest levels of the displayed series, around 0.135, implying that an increasingly smaller fraction of the total ETH supply is held on centralized exchanges. This persistent decline, even as prices have sold off toward the $2,000 area, suggests that a significant portion of the supply has migrated to self-custody or staking and is less immediately available for sale, reducing structural spot sell-side liquidity.
In the short term, this configuration can amplify volatility, with sharp downtrends driven by derivatives and forced selling facing relatively thin spot order books. But from a medium-term perspective, a depressed exchange supply ratio combined with already realized downside often characterizes late-stage phases of a corrective cycle, where additional marginal supply becomes progressively harder to source if demand begins to recover.
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Justin Tallis | Afp | Getty Images
Throughout its history, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been subject to significant price fluctuations, whether that’s due to larger macro factors impacting all asset classes or during “crypto winters” tied to industry concerns.
But with a crypto-friendly Trump administration and expectations for passage of a cryptocurrency market structure bill, many onlookers expected another bull run in digital assets to start 2026. However, it’s been the exact opposite. Bitcoin is down more than 21% so far this year, and it fell to $60,062.00 last week — its lowest level in roughly 16 months. That marked a drop of nearly 50% from its record back in October 2025.
What is driving this latest decline? Rather than a single event, Galaxy founder and CEO Mike Novogratz said at the CNBC Digital Finance Forum on Tuesday in New York City that it’s a reflection of a larger industry shift. When bitcoin fell 22% in less than a day back in November 2022 following the collapse of FTX, there was a “breakdown in trust,” Novogratz told CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos at the event. “This time, there’s no smoking gun,” he said. “You look around like, what happened?”
Bitcoin price since the start of 2026
Novogratz did note the wipeout that occurred in October 2025 as a significant event, when more than 1.6 million traders suffered a combined $19.37 billion erasure of leveraged positions over a 24-hour period, a situation that he said, “wiped out a lot of retail and market makers” and put plenty of pressure on prices.
“Crypto is all about narratives, it’s about stories,” he said. “Those stories take a while to build and you’re pulling people in … so when you wipe out a lot of those people, Humpty Dumpty doesn’t get put back together right away,” he said.
But Novogratz also sees something more lasting he expects to come out of the current downturn, saying the recent era of crypto investing, “the age of speculation,” will be phased out going forward as the crypto industry has brought in “institutions where people have a different risk tolerance.”
“Retail people don’t get into crypto because they want to make 11% annualized,” he said. “They get in because they want to make 30 to one, eight to one, 10 to one.”
Some traders will always speculate, Novogratz says, but overall, “it’s going to be transposed or replaced by us using these same rails, these crypto rails, to bring banking [and] financial services to the whole world. And so, it’s going to be real world assets with much lower returns.”
He also pointed to tokenized stocks as assets that will have “a different return profile.”
Sigalos asked Novogratz if the eventual passage of the CLARITY Act could be a catalyst for the industry, with the stall in the crypto market structure bill’s momentum on Capitol Hill at least a short-term headwind. He is confident a crypto market structure bill will eventually become law.
“I talked to [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer two nights ago and he said ‘We’re going to pass the goddamn CLARITY Act,’” Novogratz said. “The Democrats want to pass the act, and the Republicans want to.”
Novogratz said the crypto industry needs the bill for “a lot of reasons,” but notably, “We need it for spirit back in the crypto market.”
At the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos, crypto was no longer framed as a parallel financial system. Instead, it appeared as emerging institutional infrastructure—regulated, operational, and increasingly shaped by legislation, market structure, and real deployment timelines.
Across CNBC House and Bloomberg House, the conversation shifted decisively away from hype. The focus was execution: what can realistically ship in 2026, under which rules, and with what return on capital.
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Why Davos Matters for Crypto in 2026
Davos is less about announcements and more about institutional alignment. This year’s theme, “A Spirit of Dialogue,” reflected crypto’s transition from ideology to negotiation—between regulators, market operators, and incumbents.
Crypto repeatedly surfaced in discussions around financial infrastructure modernization, settlement efficiency, tokenization of regulated assets, and market resilience. The signal was clear: crypto is now being judged on compliance, governance, and measurable outcomes, not narratives.
CNBC House: Stablecoins and Tokenization, Narrowed
CNBC House debuted in 2026 as a curated venue for C-suite and policy-level discussions. Its tone was pragmatic. Conversations with Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse positioned 2026 as an execution year, not a speculative cycle.
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Stablecoins emerged as the most deployable use case—where institutional demand, technical readiness, and regulatory attention already overlap. Tokenization, meanwhile, was framed less as a sweeping transformation and more as a targeted efficiency upgrade: faster settlement, improved collateral mobility, lower operational risk, and better auditability.
Crypto’s challenge at Davos was attention. It now competes directly with AI, cybersecurity, and operational resilience for executive capital. The bar in 2026 is ROI.
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Bloomberg House: Legislation as the Bottleneck
If CNBC House captured intent, Bloomberg House captured constraints.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong focused on US legislation, particularly the stalled Clarity Act. In early 2026, Coinbase withdrew support for the Senate market structure bill, arguing its latest draft could restrict tokenized equities, DeFi, and stablecoin rewards—putting crypto firms at a disadvantage to banks.
His opposition delayed the bill’s markup and highlighted a key reality: policy details, not technology, are pacing adoption. Stablecoins sit at the center of that debate, with yield, consumer protection, and financial stability now active fault lines.
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Tokenization at Bloomberg House was framed as market structure competition. Moves toward 24/7 trading and blockchain-based rails suggest the battle is no longer about feasibility, but about who controls standards, fees, and distribution.
What Davos Made Clear
Crypto’s next phase is defined by integration, not disruption. Stablecoins are the leading institutional wedge. US legislation sets the tempo. Tokenization is becoming incremental, regulated, and competitive.
Davos sent a clear message: crypto’s future will be decided less by narratives—and more by who can deliver institution-grade infrastructure under real-world rules.
This article was contributed by Ionut Gaucan, an independent industry expert reporting from Davos. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of BeInCrypto.
Coinbase is being quietly eclipsed by Hyperliquid, whose trading volume is nearly double that of Coinbase.
The prominent decentralized perpetual futures exchange, Hyperliquid, has surpassed Coinbase in terms of trading volume, according to Artemis. The data revealed that Hyperliquid recorded $2.6 trillion in trading volume, compared with Coinbase’s $1.4 trillion within the same timeframe.
This represents nearly double the notional volume of Coinbase.
Hyperliquid vs. Coinbase
Findings shared by Artemis also disclosed that the year-to-date price performance highlights a stark contrast between the two platforms. Hyperliquid has gained 31.7% so far in 2026, while Coinbase has declined by 27.0%. This resulted in a divergence of 58.7% over just a few weeks.
Coinbase is one of the most established centralized exchanges in the world, while Hyperliquid is still an emerging decentralized player in the space. Following the significant gap in both trading activity and asset performance, Artemis described it as a sign that the market is paying attention to the decentralized perpetuals exchange’s rapid growth.
Throughout 2025, the platform generated $822 million in revenues. So far this year alone, it recorded $79.1 million in revenues.
Meanwhile, open interest on Hyperliquid, over the past 24 hours, stood at $4.1 million.
Amid rapid growth, Ripple announced that its Ripple Prime brokerage platform will now support Hyperliquid. This would allow institutional clients to access Hyperliquid’s on-chain derivatives while cross-margining exposure across other assets, including cleared derivatives, OTC swaps, fixed income, forex, and digital assets, under a single counterparty.
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Michael Higgins, international CEO of Ripple Prime, said the integration merges decentralized finance with traditional prime brokerage, improving liquidity access and trading efficiency. The move comes as Hyperliquid continues to see billions in daily volumes, as the platform sees growing influence in the decentralized perpetual futures market.
HYPE Shorting Controversy
Hyperliquid’s popularity has not been without controversy. In December, the exchange confirmed that a former employee, dismissed in early 2024 for insider trading, was behind large short positions in its native HYPE token. On-chain analysis verified that the wallet responsible executed leveraged shorts totaling over $223,000, including $180,000 in HYPE at 10x leverage.
The platform reiterated its zero-tolerance policy for insider trading and said employees and contractors are prohibited from trading HYPE derivatives.
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BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) options have surged to new heights, surpassing gold ETFs in both open interest and trading volume. As of February 10, IBIT options reached a total of 7.33 million active contracts, positioning it as the ninth-largest options market in the U.S. This marks a significant shift, as Bitcoin gains momentum over traditional assets like gold.
The surge in IBIT options highlights a growing interest in cryptocurrency. This uptick has coincided with Bitcoin’s strong performance, outpacing gold in recent trading sessions. As Bitcoin continues to rise, the surge in IBIT options reflects broader market trends, with investors responding to changing global risk sentiment.
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF’s Growing Dominance in the Options Market
The rise of IBIT options points to a shifting preference towards Bitcoin-based assets. With 7.33 million IBIT contracts now open, Bitcoin has solidified its position in the options market, surpassing even gold ETFs like SPDR Gold Shares (GLD). By contrast, GLD options currently sit at 6.44 million, showing a distinct advantage for Bitcoin in this space.
IBIT options have recorded impressive trading volumes, with over 284 million shares traded, resulting in more than $10 billion in notional value. This represents a notable increase from the previous record set in November. The growing volume and interest reflect a clear trend of Bitcoin gaining ground in the financial market.
The put/call ratio for IBIT options is currently 0.64, indicating a more balanced market outlook compared to gold’s ratio of 0.50. As Bitcoin continues to rise, its options market is becoming increasingly influential, while interest in gold begins to wane. This shift signals a broader change in market sentiment, with Bitcoin gaining prominence over gold.
Bitcoin Options Outpace Gold Amid Global Market Shifts
Bitcoin options have experienced significant growth, while the price of gold has weakened. A resurgence in global risk appetite has caused gold prices to ease, as equity indices show positive performance. This shift in sentiment has been attributed to anticipation surrounding upcoming U.S. economic data, including jobs reports and CPI inflation figures.
Despite expectations that gold could hit new highs in the coming years, Bitcoin continues to outperform it in terms of market sentiment. BNP Paribas has projected that gold could reach $6,000 by 2026, but Bitcoin has maintained a stronger position in the current market. This shift in favor of Bitcoin reflects a reassessment of traditional safe-haven assets.
As market conditions change, the growing focus on Bitcoin-based assets like IBIT may continue to challenge traditional investments such as gold. With Bitcoin rising in prominence, it could represent an increasing share of investor portfolios, reshaping the landscape for safe-haven investments.
Bitcoin’s Performance in the Face of Increased Volatility
Despite a 30% crash in the market recently, Bitcoin has shown remarkable resilience. This volatility has sparked ongoing debates regarding Bitcoin’s future, especially in comparison to gold. However, some analysts believe that Bitcoin’s volatility could attract more investors if market conditions continue to favor riskier assets.
JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou noted that Bitcoin’s volatility relative to gold has decreased to a record low of 1.5. This reduced volatility ratio makes Bitcoin more attractive to investors looking for higher returns. As Bitcoin’s volatility continues to drop, it may attract a new wave of interest from risk-seeking investors.
With this shift in market dynamics, Bitcoin’s recognition as a significant asset is growing. Many experts suggest that Bitcoin’s price may rally toward $266,000 once the current negative sentiment dissipates. This potential for growth signals that Bitcoin could become even more appealing to investors in the near future.
Spot Bitcoin ETF Sees Record Inflows Despite BlackRock ETF Redemptions
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) has seen a surge in options activity, but its overall performance has been mixed. On February 6, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $144.9 million in net inflows, signaling renewed interest in cryptocurrency. This marks a positive reversal after a period of outflows, demonstrating a shift in sentiment towards Bitcoin.
However, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF faced redemptions of $20.9 million, signaling a less favorable outlook for the ETF itself. Despite this, the IBIT ETF remains an influential player in the market. The growing activity in Bitcoin options, along with fluctuating ETF inflows and outflows, suggests that Bitcoin’s role in traditional financial markets is evolving.
This discrepancy between inflows and redemptions highlights the complexity of investor behavior in the cryptocurrency space. While Bitcoin options gain in popularity, the ETF market remains volatile. Nonetheless, the rise in Bitcoin options is a strong signal that Bitcoin is establishing itself as a dominant asset in global financial markets.
Alongside its permissionless blockchain, the firm also revealed investments from Citadel Securities and ARK Invest.
LayerZero, a cross-chain interoperability protocol, has announced the launch of a new Layer 1 blockchain, dubbed Zero, that aims to address “long-standing scalability challenges” in blockchain, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.
The new blockchain — backed by heavyweight collaborators including Citadel Securities, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and Google Cloud — is positioned as core infrastructure for financial markets, rather than just another platform for crypto apps, the developers said.
Alongside the launch, LayerZero said Citadel Securities, a multi-billion-dollar market maker, is making a strategic investment in the network’s ZRO token. ARK Invest is also coming on board as a holder of LayerZero equity, as well as its native token.
The Defiant reached out to LayerZero to clarify the funding terms, but didn’t receive a response by press time.
Citadel Securities is exploring how Zero could be used across trading, clearing, and settlement workflows, per the announcement. Meanwhile, DTCC said it’s looking into using the new network for tokenized securities and large-scale collateral management.
ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, said it’s also evaluating using Zero as it adapts its infrastructure for 24/7 tokenized markets. Meanwhile, Google Cloud will be joining as a partner “to explore how to enable AI agents to make micropayments,” per the press release.
LayerZero said it has also formed an advisory board that includes ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood, alongside current and former executives from ICE and BNY Mellon.
Earlier today, stablecoin giant Tether also announced a strategic investment in LayerZero, though the funding size wasn’t disclosed.
How Zero Works
At the technical level, the team behind Zero says the network employs a different approach from many blockchains, especially around consensus. Rather than requiring “every node to replicate the same work,” by validating transactions and updating the blockchain ledger, Zero uses zero-knowledge proofs to separate transaction execution from verification.
That design, combined with what the team describes as advances in compute, storage, and networking, allows Zero to potentially reach as many as 2 million transactions per second (TPS) across multiple “zones,” which the team describes as permissionless environments owned and governed by the network itself.
For context, Ethereum currently operates at around 20-30 TPS, while Solana boasts over 3,000 TPS.
According to the press release, Zero will be launched with three initial zones, including a general-purpose Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment, a privacy-focused payments setup, and a trading-oriented zone covering multiple asset classes. The network will be permissionless, with LayerZero’s native token used for governance.
ZRO is currently trading around $1.80, flat today but up about 21% in the past 30 days.
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