Circle reported strong fourth-quarter results, and it widened the measurable gap in the regulated stablecoin market. The company posted sharp revenue growth, and USDC circulation reached new highs. Meanwhile, Ripple’s RLUSD operates from a far smaller base, and the contrast highlights shifting scale dynamics in dollar-backed tokens.

USDC Expands Revenue Base and On-Chain Footprint

Circle Internet Group increased total revenue and reserve income by 77% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025. The company generated $770 million, and reserve income accounted for $733 million of that figure. Moreover, reserve income rose 69% from the prior year, even as yields moderated.

USDC’s average circulation doubled during the period, and that expansion supported higher aggregate reserve balances. However, reserve yield declined to 3.8%, reflecting a 68 basis point drop. Even so, larger balances offset lower yields, and overall income continued to grow.

Distribution costs without revenue climbed 136% to $309 million, yet margins improved to 40%. Net income from continuing operations reached $133 million, and adjusted EBITDA rose 412% to $167 million. As a result, Circle strengthened its operating profile while scaling distribution.

USDC closed 2025 with $75.3 billion in circulation, marking a 72% annual increase. In addition, on-chain transaction volume hit $11.9 trillion in the fourth quarter alone. That figure represented a 247% surge, and it underscored rising usage across exchanges and payment channels.

Circle issues USDC as a regulated dollar-backed stablecoin, and it holds reserves in cash and short-duration instruments. The company positions USDC as a compliance-focused alternative within the stablecoin sector. Consequently, growth in circulation directly expands reserve income capacity and reported earnings power.

RLUSD Operates from Smaller Capital Base

Ripple introduced RLUSD to expand its stablecoin presence within global payments and exchange markets. However, RLUSD’s market capitalization stands at $1.56 billion. Daily trading volume remains around $124 million, and that scale limits reserve income potential compared with USDC.

Unlike Circle, Ripple remains privately held, and it does not publish detailed quarterly financial statements. Therefore, direct profitability comparisons remain limited by available disclosures. Even so, the difference in circulating supply creates a clear quantitative contrast.

Stablecoin economics rely on reserve balances and prevailing yields, and larger supplies generally produce higher income. Because RLUSD circulates at a fraction of USDC’s size, its reserve base remains smaller. As a result, operating leverage and reported earnings capacity trail behind USDC’s scale.

Ripple integrates RLUSD into its broader payments network, leveraging established exchange relationships. The company built its reputation on cross-border settlement infrastructure, and RLUSD extends that model into dollar liquidity. Nevertheless, current data show that adoption levels remain significantly lower than those of USDC.

Market observers previously speculated about potential consolidation within the stablecoin segment, including reports about possible acquisition discussions. However, no confirmed transaction has reshaped the competitive landscape. Instead, current standings reflect organic growth and differing starting points.

USDC’s dominance rests on circulation size, reserve economics, and transparent reporting metrics. Meanwhile, RLUSD operates within Ripple’s global framework but from a narrower capital base. The competitive gap, therefore, reflects measurable differences in supply and income rather than structural capability constraints.

The Korean bid is becoming altcoin holders’ best friend these days, as Korean traders pile into new listings on the country’s leading centralized exchanges (CEXs).

Over the last week, South Korean CEXs Bithumb and UpBit listed two mid-sized altcoins, Centrifuge’s CFG and Espresso’s ESP, and both tokens surged. CFG rallied 177% from $0.088 to $0.24, and ESP jumped by 103% to $0.195.

The Bithumb and UpBit effects have become common at this point, and Korean CEXs have been responsible for plenty of one-time pumps in small- to mid-sized altcoins. While these CEX traders are happy to jump in and speculate on new listings, the effect usually wears off in a few days to weeks as volumes return to their pre-listing levels.

Korean CEX Bithumb also made headlines earlier this month after accidentally sending more than 200 users 2,000 BTC, worth $140 million at the time, instead of 2,000 WON.

The “airdrop” resulted in BTC dropping 18% below the actual market price on Bithumb as recipients rushed to sell the tokens and offramp the funds; however, the exchange successfully froze “most” of the accounts before funds could be withdrawn.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has shared a long-term plan, dubbed the “strawmap,” that outlines how Ethereum could evolve over the rest of the decade, with goals including faster transactions and higher capacity.

The roadmap lays out several possible changes across Ethereum’s core layers. If completed, it would mark the biggest evolution of the network since The Merge in 2022, which moved Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

The plan underscores how Ethereum developers are preparing the network for more users and more activity by gradually improving speed, security, and reliability. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described the roadmap as a “very important document” in a post on X.

Ethereum is currently the world’s largest smart contract blockchain, with more than $56 billion in total value locked (TVL) across decentralized finance, according to DefiLlama. Following the news, Ether (ETH) briefly moved higher. The token is currently trading at $2,030 – down about 2% on the day but still up more than 4% over the past week.

The Details

The strawmap outlines a long-term path with around seven forks through 2029. Justin Drake, a member of the EF Architecture team, explained in a post on X that the roadmap is built around five “north stars.”

These include making the main network faster through shorter block times and near-instant finality, increasing capacity to roughly 10,000 transactions per second on Layer 1, scaling Layer 2 networks to as much as 10 million transactions per second, introducing post-quantum cryptography, and adding native privacy through shielded ETH transfers.

“The strawmap is an invitation to view L1 protocol upgrades through a holistic lens,” Drake said. “By placing proposals on a single visual, it provides a unified perspective on Ethereum L1 ambitions.”

Meanwhile, Buterin described the roadmap as a gradual revamp of Ethereum’s core systems, in which slot times, consensus, and cryptography are replaced bit by bit rather than through a single large overhaul.

The new roadmap builds on Ethereum’s recent upgrades, including Fusaka, which launched in December 2025. That upgrade introduced the PeerDAS data availability system to help the network process more transactions while keeping fees low.

However, while the upgrade marked a major step in the network’s scaling strategy, cheaper transactions have also coincided with a rise in spam and address-poisoning attacks, The Defiant previously reported.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly rejected the Pentagon’s demand on Thursday. The Defense Department wants unrestricted military use of the company’s AI technology. The deadline, just hours away, could see the $380 billion startup expelled from the US military’s supply chain.

The showdown marks the first time a major AI company has publicly defied a US government threat to seize control of its technology.

The Standoff

In a blog post published on Anthropic’s website, Amodei called the Pentagon’s threats “inherently contradictory,” noting that one designates Anthropic as a security risk while the other treats Claude as essential to national security.

“Regardless, these threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Amodei wrote.

The dispute centers on two conditions Anthropic placed on military use of Claude. The company bars autonomous targeting of enemy combatants and prohibits mass surveillance of US citizens. The Pentagon views these as unacceptable limitations on lawful military operations.

Anthropic said the Pentagon’s “final offer,” received overnight Wednesday, failed to address its core concerns. “New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement, as reported by The Hill.

Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell issued a public ultimatum on Thursday. He gave Anthropic until 5:01 pm ET on Friday to grant unrestricted access to Claude Gov — or face termination of the partnership and designation as a supply chain risk.

“We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” Parnell wrote on X.

Timeline of Escalation

On Tuesday, Amodei met directly with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, during which Pentagon officials outlined three consequences for noncompliance. First, removal from military systems. Second, supply chain risk designation that would bar other defense contractors from using Anthropic products. Third, the invocation of the 1950 Defense Production Act to legally compel the company to hand over its technology.

Amodei argued in the blog post that the refusal is also grounded in technical reality. “Frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons,” he wrote, adding that without proper oversight, such systems “cannot be relied upon to exercise the critical judgment that our highly trained, professional troops exhibit every day.”

Republican Senator Thom Tillis criticized the Pentagon’s handling of the dispute. “Why in the hell are we having this discussion in public? This is not the way you deal with a strategic vendor,” Tillis told reporters.

What’s at Stake

For Anthropic, the immediate exposure is a $200 million military contract. But the supply chain risk designation carries far broader implications. It would force every defense contractor to verify that they don’t use Anthropic products in their operations.

The competitive landscape is shifting fast. Elon Musk’s xAI signed a deal to use Grok in classified systems, according to Axios, accepting the ‘all lawful purposes’ standard for classified work. OpenAI and Google are accelerating negotiations to enter the classified space. Anthropic, once the only AI company cleared for classified material, risks losing that first-mover advantage entirely.

Why Crypto Should Pay Attention

The Pentagon’s willingness to invoke the Defense Production Act against a technology company sets a precedent that extends beyond AI. If the government can legally compel an AI firm to remove safety restrictions on national security grounds, the same framework could, in theory, be applied to compel crypto companies to modify privacy features or weaken transaction safeguards.

The standoff also strengthens the case for decentralized AI development. A centralized AI provider can be pressured — or legally compelled — to strip away guardrails at a government’s demand. That validates the thesis that decentralized alternatives offer more resilient infrastructure against state coercion.

Anthropic’s rapid growth has already raised concerns for crypto markets. The company’s $380 billion valuation and AI-driven disruption of traditional software revenue are putting pressure on private credit flows that correlate closely with Bitcoin.

Anthropic also has a historical link to crypto: FTX’s bankruptcy estate held a significant early stake in the company, which it later sold to help fund creditor repayments.

The Friday deadline will pass, but the real question begins after: whether the Pentagon follows through, and what that means for every technology company drawing a line between government contracts and product integrity.

Decibel, a perpetual derivatives decentralized exchange (DEX) incubated by Aptos Labs, launched its mainnet today alongside its official points program.

The DEX is starting with perpetual markets, before expanding to spot and real-world assets (RWAs), similar to the progression taken by market leaders Hyperliquid and Lighter.

According to a press release shared with The Defiant, Decibel’s testnet generated “over 1 million user trades per day” across more than 130,000 daily active users (DAU).

So far, the DEX has processed $6.4 million in volume since its mainnet launch and hosts $57 million in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama.

The DEX is based on a central limit order book (CLOB) model, and hosts its risk engine onchain, ensuring functions such as auto-deleveraging are directly verifiable via the block explorer.

While Aptos Labs incubated Decibel and the DEX is built on the Aptos Layer 1, the DEX also uses X-chain accounts to enable deposits from Ethereum and Solana.

The perpetual market remains red hot, with more than $730 billion traded across all DEXs in February, roughly the same amount traded throughout all of 2023. Activity has cooled off since volumes peaked at $1.37 trillion in October, but the sector remains one of the most popular in DeFi.

Brylee Whatley, the Head of the Decibel Foundation, told The Defiant, “On the acquisition side, Decibel has invested heavily in aligning incentives with real usage. Season 1 of our Amps points program is live and is designed to reward genuine trading activity. But incentives only get users through the door.”

“What keeps traders is trust in the system they are trading on. Everything on Decibel is transparent – the infrastructure, risk approach and liquidation logic. We built an exchange where serious traders feel confident deploying real capital,” they added.

While a majority of DEXs offer tokenized equity and commodity offerings, only HyperUnit’s TradeXYZ, Lighter’s tokenized Korean stocks, and Ostium have found sustained liquidity and success.

Whatley also touched on the future vision for Decibel as it enters the highly competitive tokenized RWA trading space, citing Aptos’ existing success in the world of RWAs and the chain’s global go-to-market reach.

“Imagine using tokenized RWA holdings – treasuries, equities, commodities – as collateral to trade perpetuals, or using your crypto portfolio to margin equity positions. That kind of cross-asset capital efficiency is impossible at a traditional brokerage and isn’t available on other DEXs,” Whatley concluded.

• Bitcoin price trades around $67,500.
• The asset rose to near $70,000 but is facing key resistance.
• Analyst Rekt Capital warns that it’s “premature” to say the current bear market is over.

Bitcoin price is hovering around $67,500 after retreating from highs near $70,000.

The spike to intraday highs on Wednesday saw chatter across ‘Crypto Twitter’ shift to the potential for BTC to have bottomed out and prospects of a sharp uptick.

While bullish sentiment continues to permeate the crypto market, one analyst is cautioning against “premature” calls of the bear market being over.

This even as US spot Bitcoin ETFs take fresh inflows to cut year-to-date outflows to under $2 billion.

Bitcoin retreats from $70k as analyst warns of further declines

Macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds have meant Bitcoin has found it hard to break higher since recovering from lows near $60,000 reached in early February.

However, the bellwether crypto asset surged toward $70,000 ahead of Nvidia’s earnings report on Wednesday, February 25, 2026.

Like gains across equities, Bitcoin’s uptick benefited from anticipation around Nvidia’s earnings report.

But despite strong AI-driven results, stock futures stalled, and BTC pulled back, trading to around $67,500 as of writing.

Nvidia shares also fell, down more than 5% at open on Thursday. Reaction to the chip giant’s earnings beat impacted BTC.

Despite this pullback, many traders are upbeat after US spot Bitcoin ETFs snapped a recent losing streak, with over $750 million in net inflows over two days. The flip has the market trending with mixed signals.

Half a bil into bitcoin ETFs yesterday, biggest day in a while, +$750m over past two days, right as obituaries were being published. They needed it too, like a hitter in a slump going yard. YTD is now under $2b in outflows. Unclear still tho if this is legit start to rebound or… pic.twitter.com/hl6JQuFcyI

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 26, 2026

However, according to crypto analyst Rekt Capital, it’s premature to say the bear market is over.

“The shortest Bitcoin Bear Market lasted 365 days. Bitcoin is currently ~140 days into its current Bear Market,” he posted on X, adding:

“Any talk of the Bear Market being over already is probably premature.”

Spot ETF inflows, on-chain metrics and macro shifts could be key factors in this cycle. But Rekt believes the technical picture says a lot.

In this case, the analyst points to historical cycle bottoms and BTC’s slide below the 200-week exponential moving average.

Even with recent inflows reversing recent outflows to a degree, institutional demand is low, and that could limit any upside.

#BTC

It’s very tempting to speak about Lengthening Cycles in a Bitcoin Bull Market

After all, nobody wants to see a sunny day end

It’s equally very tempting to speak about the Bitcoin Bear Market bottom already being near

Everybody wants Winter to end, and the sooner the… https://t.co/8bSxwKrdRx

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— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) February 26, 2026

BTC price analysis

Technically, Bitcoin’s retreat from $70,000 exposes support at $68,000-$68,500.

With a breakdown to $67,500, bulls risk an acceleration toward $60,000.

Rekt shares this outlook by noting that bulls remain vulnerable as long as price fluctuates below the 200-week EMA.

The moving average has acted as resistance in previous bear markets, including in 2018.

“Ultimately, as long as Bitcoin remains below the 200-week EMA, history suggests price will favour additional downside,” the analyst noted.

Earlier this month, analysts at Standard Chartered cut their target for BTC in 2026 to $100,000 and forecast a potential retest of $50,000 before a fresh rally higher.

Nasdaq has filed a proposed rule change to list the VanEck JitoSOL ETF, a fund designed to hold the Solana-based liquid staking token JitoSOL.

Liquid staking allows users to stake tokens to help secure a proof-of-stake network while receiving a transferable token in return that represents the staked assets and accrued rewards.

Jito Foundation president Brian Smith told Cointelegraph that if the fund is approved, staking rewards would not be distributed separately but instead reflected in the fund’s net asset value.

Because JitoSOL automatically compounds rewards, each token held by the trust would represent the underlying deposited SOL along with any staking yield accrued on the Solana network.

The exchange submitted the proposal under Nasdaq Rule 5711(d), which governs commodity-based trust shares, seeking approval to list and trade shares of a trust that would hold JitoSOL directly.

Created by the Jito Network, JitoSOL (JTO) is a liquid staking token backed by SOL deposited into a staking pool on the Solana network. It lets holders earn staking rewards through a transferable token without directly running validators or managing onchain staking.