Stretch (STRC), the perpetual preferred equity issued by Strategy (MSTR) the world’s largest corporate bitcoin holder reclaimed its $100 par value during Wednesday’s U.S. session for the first time since mid-January.

STRC trading at or above par enables the company to resume at-the-market (ATM) offerings to fund further bitcoin acquisitions. STRC last hit the $100 level on Jan. 16 when bitcoin hovered near $97,000; however, as the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization retreated to as low as $60,000 by on Feb. 5, STRC dipped to a low of $93 before its recent rebound.

Positioned as a short-duration, high-yield credit instrument, STRC currently offers an 11.25% annual dividend distributed monthly. To mitigate volatility and incentivize trading near par, Strategy resets this rate monthly, recently hiking it to the current 11.25% yield.

MSTR common stock faced pressure, sliding 5% on Wednesday to close at $126, as bitcoin hovers around $67,500.

Editor’s note: Juspay has announced its expansion into the Middle East with the launch of its regional headquarters in Dubai International Financial Centre. The move is aimed at supporting enterprise merchants, banks, and financial institutions as digital commerce accelerates across the GCC. By establishing a local presence, the company plans to deepen partnerships and address growing payment complexity linked to multiple currencies, regulations, and local payment methods. The DIFC base signals a long-term commitment to building regulated, enterprise-grade payment infrastructure in the region, at a time when cross-border commerce and scalable financial rails are becoming critical for large businesses operating across global markets.

Key points

• Juspay opens its Middle East regional headquarters in DIFC to support enterprise payment demand.
• The expansion targets merchants and banks facing complex, multi-currency and multi-regulatory environments.
• The company will offer its payments orchestration and infrastructure solutions locally.
• Juspay plans to work closely with regional banks, acquirers, and ecosystem partners.

Why this matters

The Middle East is seeing rapid growth in digital commerce, putting pressure on payment systems to scale reliably across borders and regulatory frameworks. Juspay’s entry into DIFC reflects rising demand for enterprise-grade payment infrastructure that can handle volume, compliance, and localization at once. For large merchants and financial institutions, access to proven orchestration and real-time payments technology can improve authorization rates, reduce operational friction, and support expansion across GCC and global markets. For the region, it reinforces Dubai’s role as a hub for fintech infrastructure.

What to watch next

• Growth of Juspay’s regional team in business development, engineering, and partnerships.
• New collaborations with Middle East banks, acquirers, and payment networks.
• Adoption of Juspay’s platform by regional enterprise merchants.

Disclosure: The content below is a press release provided by the company/PR representative. It is published for informational purposes.

Dubai, February 10th, 2026 – Juspay a global leader in payment infrastructure solutions for enterprises and banks, today announced its expansion into the Middle East with the opening of its regional headquarters in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). This move marks an important step in Juspay’s international expansion, deepening its focus on serving enterprise merchants, banks, and financial institutions in the Middle East. The DIFC headquarters will support closer engagement with existing partners as enterprise payment demand continues to scale.

With digital commerce accelerating in the GCC region, rapidly scaling enterprises in sectors such as airlines, hospitality, e-commerce, and financial services face increasing complexity driven by multiple regional currencies, evolving regulations, and diverse local payment methods.

To address this complexity, Juspay’s payments orchestration platform provides a unified & reliable payments stack, helping organizations optimize authorisation rates and costs, simplify compliance and scale seamlessly across GCC and global markets with institutional-grade reliability.

Establishing operations in DIFC highlights Juspay’s long-term commitment to the Middle East, with a focus on building , regulated, and enterprise-grade payments infrastructure in the region. As a leading global financial hub, DIFC provides a strong regulatory environment, robust infrastructure, and access to high quality talent. Juspay plans to leverage this and work closely with regional banks, acquirers, networks, and ecosystem partners to deliver scalable and reliable payment solutions tailored for enterprises operating across global markets.

Commenting on the expansion, Sheetal Lalwani, Co-founder & COO of Juspay, said: “Juspay has been building foundational payments infrastructure for large-scale, mission-critical commerce globally for over a decade. We are excited to bring these learnings to the Middle East and partner with merchants, banks, networks, and the broader ecosystem to build secure, scalable payments infrastructure that supports the region’s rapidly evolving digital economy.”

Salmaan Jaffery, Chief Business Development Officer at DIFC Authority said: “We are pleased to welcome Juspay to the Middle East, Africa and South Asia’s most significant fintech and financial services ecosystem. As a global leader in payment infrastructure, Juspay’s presence strengthens our growing digital economy, reinforces DIFC’s role as a catalyst for financial innovation and cements Dubai’s position as a top four global FinTech hub.”

With more than a decade of experience in scaling payment infrastructure, Juspay powers 500+ enterprise merchants and banks globally including Agoda, Amazon, Flipkart, Google, HSBC, IndiGo, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto & more. It offers a comprehensive suite of payment solutions that spans full-stack payment orchestration, authentication, tokenisation, reconciliation, fraud solutions and more. The company also provides end-to-end, white-label payment gateway and real-time payments infrastructure tailored for banks. Together these capabilities enable merchants and banks to deliver seamless, reliable and scalable payment experiences to the end-consumers.

Speaking about Juspay’s regional focus, Nakul Kothari, head of Middle East & APAC said, “By establishing our presence in the Middle East with DIFC, we continue our mission of building innovative payment solutions rooted in deep local market understanding. The region holds tremendous potential, and we are investing in long-term partnerships with merchants and banks to help them build future-ready payment stacks that can scale across markets.”

This expansion reflects Juspay’s long-term vision of enabling open, interoperable, and accessible payments worldwide. With a team of over 1,500 payment experts solving payment complexities across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe, UK, and North America, Juspay is strategically positioned to reshape the Middle Eastern payments landscape. The company plans to grow its regional team, specifically targeting growth in business development, solution engineering, and partnerships.

About Juspay

Juspay is a leading multinational payments technology company, redefining payments for 500+ top global enterprises and banks. Founded in 2012, the company processes over 300 million daily transactions, exceeding an annualized total payment volume (TPV) of $1 trillion with 99.999% reliability. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Juspay is powered by a global network of 1500+ payment experts operating across San Francisco, Dublin, São Paulo, Dubai, and Singapore.
Juspay offers a comprehensive product suite for merchants that includes open-source payment orchestration, global payouts, seamless authentication, payment tokenization, fraud & risk management, end-to-end reconciliation, unified payment analytics & more. The company’s offerings also include end-to-end white label payment gateway solutions & real-time payments infrastructure for banks.These products help businesses achieve superior conversion rates, reduce fraud, optimize costs, and deliver seamless customer experiences at scale.
To learn more about Juspay, visit: www.juspay.io

About Dubai International Financial Centre

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is one of the world’s most advanced financial centres, and the leading financial hub for the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA), which comprises 77 countries with an approximate population of 3.7bn and an estimated GDP of USD 10.5trn. With a 20-year track record of facilitating trade and investment flows across the MEASA region, the Centre connects these fast-growing markets with the economies of Asia, Europe, and the Americas through Dubai. DIFC is home to an internationally recognised, independent regulator and a proven judicial system with an English common law framework, as well as the region’s largest financial ecosystem of 46,000 professionals working across over 6,900 active registered companies – making up the largest and most diverse pool of industry talent in the region.Comprising a variety of world-renowned retail and dining venues, a dynamic art and culture scene, residential apartments, hotels, and public spaces, DIFC continues to be one of Dubai’s most sought-after business and lifestyle destinations.For further information, please visit our website: difc.ae

Input Output CEO and founder Charles Hoskinson announced a deal to get LayerZero ported over to the Cardano blockchain during a keynote speech at Consensus Hong Kong on Thursday.

LayerZero is a blockchain aimed at powering institutional-grade markets that received investment from Citadel Securities on Wednesday.

The announcement comes alongside the rollout of Midnight’s mainnet, which was also revealed on Thursday morning.

Hoskinson, who was comically wearing a McDonalds uniform in a nod to the recent market downturn said: “The industry is not healthy. S*** is getting real. Twitter is a nuclear dumpster fire. Sentiment is at an all time low.”

But he insisted it was a micro downturn, and “the macro remains bullish.”

“And to prove it, I’m excited to announce our partnership with LayerZero,” he said. “We’re bringing USDCx to Cardano with a launch date set, complete with broad wallet and exchange support. This means stablecoins with true privacy and immutability, powered by zero-knowledge tech. It’s institutional-grade, and it’s happening now — alongside Midnight’s mainnet rollout. Get ready, folks. This changes everything.”

UPDATE (Feb. 12, 2026, 02:21 UTC): Adds additional information and commentary from Charles Hoskinson.

Peer-to-peer crypto exchange Paxful has been ordered to pay $4 million after admitting it knowingly profited from criminals who used the crypto platform due to its lack of anti-money laundering checks.

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that Paxful was sentenced to pay the fine after pleading guilty in December to conspiring to promote illegal prostitution, knowingly transmitting funds derived from crime, and violating anti-money laundering requirements.

“Paxful profited from moving money for criminals that it attracted by touting its lack of anti-money laundering controls and failure to comply with applicable money-laundering laws, all while knowing that these criminals were engaged in fraud, extortion, prostitution and commercial sex trafficking,” said Andrew Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Prosecutors said that from January 2017 to September 2019, Paxful facilitated over 26 million trades worth nearly $3 billion in value and collected more than $29.7 million in revenue.

The Justice Department said Paxful had agreed that the appropriate criminal penalty was $112.5 million, but prosecutors determined the company didn’t have the ability to pay more than $4 million.

Paxful made millions from illegal prostitution ads

The Justice Department said Paxful marketed itself as a platform that didn’t require customer information and presented fake anti-money laundering policies that it knew “were not implemented or enforced.”

According to prosecutors, one of Paxful’s customers was the classified advertising site Backpage, which authorities shut down due to hosting ads for illegal prostitution.

“Paxful’s founders boasted about the ‘Backpage Effect,’ which enabled the business to grow,” the Justice Department said, adding that Paxful’s collaboration with Backpage and a similar site between 2015 and 2022 saw the crypto platform earn $2.7 million in profits.

Related: Crypto scam mastermind gets 20 years for $73M pig butchering scheme

Paxful shut down its operations in November and, in a now-deleted blog post in October, said the decision was due to “the lasting impact of historic misconduct by former co-founders Ray Youssef and Artur Schaback prior to 2023, combined with unsustainable operational costs from extensive compliance remediation efforts.”

Youssef said in response to Paxful’s post that the company “should have closed down when I left the company two years ago.”