Crypto World
Tokenized Commodities Market Crosses $6B as Gold Hits Historic Rally
The tokenized commodities market has posted a striking resurgence, climbing 53% in under six weeks to exceed $6.1 billion in total value. The surge positions this segment as the fastest-growing corner of real-world asset tokenization, driven by expanding on-chain access to gold and other physical assets. Investors are increasingly seeking regulated, blockchain-enabled exposure to tangible assets, and the data indicate a material shift in demand toward tokenized commodities as a mainstream route to diversification.
Key takeaways
- The tokenized commodities market rose 53% in less than six weeks to top $6.1 billion, marking rapid expansion within real-world asset tokenization.
- Gold-backed tokens dominate the segment, led by Tether’s XAUt and Paxos-listed PAX Gold, with market capitalizations of about $3.6 billion and $2.3 billion respectively in the recent period.
- Year-over-year growth for tokenized commodities reached about 360%, outpacing tokenized stocks and tokenized funds by wide margins.
- Tether expanded its tokenized-commodities footprint by acquiring a $150 million stake in Gold.com, signaling deeper integration of XAUt into mainstream gold platforms and potential USDt purchase options for physical gold.
- Gold’s price momentum complemented the on-chain story, with gold hitting all-time levels in late January before consolidating in the $5,000s—while Bitcoin faced a separate price trajectory, remaining volatile after a broader market downturn.
Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $PAXG
Sentiment: Neutral
Price impact: Neutral. The article detailing asset issuance and price movements centers on on-chain tokenized assets rather than immediate price shifts in major cryptos.
Market context: The expansion of tokenized commodities underscores a broader push to transform physical assets into liquid, tradable on-chain instruments, even as traditional cryptocurrencies navigate their own volatility and macro-driven flows.
Why it matters
The growth of tokenized commodities—especially gold-backed tokens—reflects a notable pivot in how stakeholders access and leverage real-world assets. By converting physical metals into blockchain-tradable instruments, issuers aim to deliver improved liquidity, auditable on-chain provenance, and potentially broader reach to investors who prefer digital-native channels. The leading force in this sector is gold, which remains a cornerstone of the tokenized market and is increasingly integrated with mainstream platforms via strategic partnerships and cross-chain tooling.
Tether’s strategic expansion into tokenized gold signals both confidence in the asset class and a practical bridge between stablecoins and precious metals. The company’s $150 million stake in Gold.com represents not just capital but a potential pathway for the on-ramping of USDt into physical gold purchases. By aligning XAUt with Gold.com’s user base, the ecosystem could see more users transact in gold-backed tokens and, in turn, push higher liquidity across tokenized gold markets. The move also aligns with broader efforts to broaden access to real assets through on-chain rails, potentially lowering barriers for investors who want exposure without the logistical complexities of holding physical metal.
On the price side, gold has rallied meaningfully, reflecting a period of elevated demand for tangible assets amid macro uncertainty. In late January, gold touched striking levels around a then-new high, underscoring why tokenized gold remains attractive to market participants seeking a combination of liquidity and hedging characteristics. While the on-chain narrative emphasizes growth and access, the traditional price dynamics of gold provide important context for the overall momentum in tokenized commodities. Bitcoin, by contrast, has faced its own pressures, trading below record highs for extended stretches and prompting debates about whether it should be viewed as a digital safe-haven or a high-growth asset with its own risk profile.
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has moved through a volatile period since October, when a broader crypto market downturn triggered substantial liquidations. After a roughly 52% drop from an early-October peak to around $60,000, the asset has bounced back toward the high $60,000s to near $69,000 in recent readings, according to market data. Investors continue to debate whether Bitcoin remains a store of value or behaves more like a software-growth asset in the current macro regime. The discussion is not purely academic; it shapes how capital allocators perceive risk, correlation with traditional markets, and the appetite for real-world assets that promise on-chain transparency and settlement efficiency.
Beyond price action, commentary from major industry players has emphasized a shift in narrative. Grayscale and others have argued that Bitcoin’s long-standing moniker as “digital gold” faces renewed scrutiny as the asset’s price dynamics resemble those of risk-on growth equities at times. Yet the tokenized-commodities space continues to distinguish itself with a separate value proposition: the ability to tokenize and trade assets with a real-world physical counterpart, governed by on-chain protocols and regulated custodians. The convergence of on-chain finance with traditional asset classes—exemplified by gold—highlights a broader trend toward real-world asset tokenization that could redefine liquidity, settlement speed, and investor access in coming quarters.
What to watch next
- Follow the pace of growth in the tokenized commodities market, including quarterly or monthly updates on total market capitalization and the share of gold-backed tokens.
- Monitor Tether’s integration of XAUt on Gold.com and any announced USDt-enabled pathways for acquiring physical gold, including potential new merchant partners or custodial arrangements.
- Track gold price dynamics in relation to on-chain demand for tokenized gold products, noting any correlations with currency moves or macro risk sentiment.
- Look for regulatory developments or disclosures that could affect on-chain commodity tokens, custody standards, or reporting requirements for tokenized assets.
Sources & verification
- Token Terminal data on the growth and composition of the tokenized commodities market, including the six-week rise to $6.1B and relative YoY growth.
- Tether’s stake in Gold.com and statements about integrating XAUt and exploring USDt-based purchases of physical gold.
- Gold price commentary and all-time high levels around January, with the subsequent pullback and rebound figures.
- Bitcoin price dynamics and market context, including the October crash and latest price movements tracked by primary market data aggregators.
- On-chain tokenized gold tokens such as XAUt and PAXG, including market caps and year-over-year growth figures cited in official data releases and market dashboards.
Momentum in tokenized commodities reshapes on-chain gold access
The tokenized commodities space is gaining traction as a fast-moving segment within real-world asset tokenization. Data indicate a 53% surge in value over a period of fewer than six weeks, taking the total to north of $6.1 billion. This lift positions tokenized commodities as a leading growth vocation in the on-chain economy, with gold-backed tokens at the epicenter of the expansion. Token Terminal’s data illustrate the broader arc: starting the year just above $4 billion, the market has added roughly $2 billion in value since January, signaling not only robust demand but a structural shift toward digitized collateral and settlement layers for tangible assets.
Within the space, gold is the dominant force. Tether’s gold-backed token, XAUt, has been the primary driver of the ascent, contributing to a market capitalization of about $3.6 billion in the period under review. In second place sits Paxos-listed PAX Gold (CRYPTO: PAXG), which rose to approximately $2.3 billion. The prominence of gold tokens underscores the perceived safety and liquidity that on-chain representations of physical metal can provide in a market where traditional assets have faced friction and opacity. The top five largest tokenized commodities, according to Token Terminal’s dashboard, collectively show how gold’s on-chain footprint is outpacing other real-world assets in tokenized formats, reinforcing the sector’s potential to unlock new liquidity pools for long-only and hedged investors alike.
Year-over-year, the momentum is even more pronounced: the tokenized commodities market has surged roughly 360% compared with the previous year, a pace that outstrips the growth of tokenized stocks (about 42% over the same period) and tokenized funds (roughly 3.6%). The sector’s relative scale—now just over one-third of the $17.2 billion tokenized funds market and clearly larger than tokenized stocks at $538 million—emphasizes a broad reallocation toward tangible assets via blockchain rails. The ongoing evolution is not only about tokenizing gold but about building a broader ecosystem where gold, silver, and other real assets can be accessed with improved liquidity, transparency, and settlement efficiency.
Tether’s strategic foray into Gold.com illustrates how the ecosystem is layering on additional infrastructure to serve the growing demand for tokenized gold. By integrating XAUt into Gold.com’s platform, Tether is positioning USDt as a potential on-ramp to physical gold ownership, with discussions publicly framed around enabling customers to purchase physical gold using the stablecoin. The strategic fit is clear: a more seamless bridge from on-chain assets to physical metals could expand the user base for tokenized gold while also offering a practical use case for stablecoins beyond payments and liquidity provisioning. This development aligns with a broader trend of on-chain-native assets increasingly intersecting with traditional commodities markets, a synthesis that could reshape how institutions and individuals access and leverage gold as a hedge or strategic asset.
At the same time, gold itself has captured attention with a renewed leg higher. The spot price of gold climbed aggressively in the preceding year, surpassing earlier records and reaching fresh highs before a brief retreat. The price action reinforces gold’s bid as a traditional safe-haven asset, supplying a favorable backdrop for tokenized gold tokens to demonstrate both exposure and resilience in volatile market environments. Bitcoin, meanwhile, navigates its own course. After a pronounced fall from October’s peak, the benchmark cryptocurrency has rebounded in fits and starts, trading near the upper $60,000s to around $69,000 in recent readings. Market participants continue to wrestle with whether BTC represents a digital store of value or a high-growth instrument that may correlate with broader risk sentiment at times. This ongoing dialogue—between the on-chain commoditized world and the broader crypto universe—highlights the breadth of investor interest in assets that offer both liquidity and recognizable risk profiles.
As the sector matures, the central question becomes how tokenized commodities can sustain growth, attract institutional capital, and integrate with traditional financial ecosystems. The data show that the market’s expansion is not a peripheral trend but a substantive development in the crypto economy’s asset mix. If the pace persists, tokenized gold and other commodities could become a meaningful corridor for hedging, diversification, and strategic exposure within both crypto-native portfolios and more conventional investment strategies. The interplay between on-chain access to gold, stablecoin ecosystems, and physical-asset settlement could define a new phase of crypto-enabled real-world asset investing.
A White House meeting on stablecoin yield and rewards ended without a deal, but participants described the discussions as more productive than previous talks, according to details shared by journalist Eleanor Terrett.
Summary
- White House stablecoin yield talks ended without a deal, but both banks and crypto firms described the meeting as more productive than earlier discussions.
- Banks introduced written “prohibition principles” and signaled limited flexibility by acknowledging potential exemptions for transaction-based stablecoin rewards.
- The White House urged both sides to reach an agreement on stablecoin rewards regulation by March 1, with further talks expected soon.
The gathering brought together senior banking executives, crypto industry leaders, and policy staff to debate whether and how stablecoin issuers should be allowed to offer yield or rewards.
While no compromise was reached, negotiations moved into more detailed territory.
White House stablecoin talks show progress but no final deal
Banking representatives arrived with a written set of “prohibition principles” outlining firm red lines around stablecoin rewards. These principles detailed what banks are willing to accept and where they refuse to budge.
One notable shift emerged. Banks included language allowing for “any proposed exemption” related to transaction-based rewards.
Sources described this as a meaningful concession, as banks had previously declined to discuss exemptions altogether.
Much of the debate centered on “permissible activities.” This refers to what types of account behavior would allow crypto firms to offer rewards. Crypto companies pushed for broad definitions. Banks argued for narrower limits to reduce risk and regulatory exposure.
Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said that “compromise is in the air,” signaling cautious optimism despite unresolved issues.
March 1 deadline looms as talks continue
The meeting was smaller than the first White House session on stablecoins. It was led by Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President’s Crypto Council. Staff from the Senate Banking Committee were also present.
Crypto attendees included representatives from Coinbase, a16z, Ripple, Paxos, and the Blockchain Association. Major banks in attendance included Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, PNC, and U.S. Bank, alongside leading banking trade groups.
The White House has urged both sides to reach an agreement by March 1. Further discussions are expected in the coming days. However, it remains unclear whether another full-scale meeting will be held before the deadline.
[PRESS RELEASE – Vaduz, Liechtenstein, February 9th, 2026]
xMoney ($XMN) is expanding its partnership with Domino’s, bringing its payment infrastructure to Domino’s Greece following a successful rollout in Cyprus.
The collaboration focuses on acquiring services, enabling Domino’s Greece to accept card payments and digital wallets, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, across both web and mobile ordering platforms.
At the core of the integration is xMoney’s embeddable checkout solution, designed to deliver a seamless payment experience without redirection. Customers complete their orders faster, while all sensitive payment data is securely handled by xMoney’s compliant infrastructure.
The expansion was announced in person at a community event hosted at SuiHub Athens – a community space established to support builders and Sui ecosystem partners – bringing together the xMoney and Sui teams, Domino’s representatives, and building on xMoney’s previously announced work with Sui to expand real-world payment access across Europe.
“Domino’s operates in a high-volume, real-time environment where speed and reliability are critical,” said Manos Tsouloufris, CTO of Daufood. “xMoney’s checkout solution supports multiple payment methods in a single, seamless flow, helping us serve customers faster at scale.”
While the current implementation focuses on fiat payments, the two teams are also exploring future possibilities around digital asset payments, where network speed, user experience, and confirmation times make sense for real-world commerce.
The launch in Greece represents the next step in a broader European expansion, reinforcing xMoney’s role as a trusted payments partner for brands that operate at scale and its presence within the Sui ecosystem reflects a growing focus on practical, consumer-facing payment experiences built for everyday use.
“When people order food, they don’t think about payments, and that’s exactly the point,” said Gregorious Siourounis, Co-Founder and CEO of xMoney. “Our role is to make checkout fast, reliable, and invisible, so brands like Domino’s can focus on their customers. Bringing this experience to Greece is a natural next step.”
As xMoney expands across markets and merchant use cases, XMN supports the broader ecosystem by aligning long-term participation and infrastructure growth across the network. Designed to sit alongside xMoney’s licensed payment rails, XMN helps structure how value, incentives, and future on-chain capabilities evolve, without impacting the simplicity of everyday checkout experiences.
Faster checkout. Less friction.
Payments that deliver.
About Domino’s
Founded in 1960, Domino’s Pizza is the largest pizza company in the world, with a significant business in both delivery and carryout pizza. It operates a network of company-owned and independent franchise stores in the United States and more than 90 international markets.
About xMoney
xMoney is revolutionizing the payments landscape with strategic European licenses, delivering a seamless, secure, and forward-thinking ecosystem powered by innovative product design, cutting-edge technology, and unwavering compliance. XMN, xMoney’s newly launched token, is natively integrated into the licensed and regulated payment infrastructure – empowering merchants and consumers with lightning-fast, trustworthy transactions underpinned by full regulatory transparency. Now trading on Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, Bitvavo, Bluefin and other exchanges, XMN is primed for broader adoption with a robust pipeline of integrations ahead.
Contact details:
Website: www.xmoney.com
SECRET PARTNERSHIP BONUS for CryptoPotato readers: Use this link to register and unlock $1,500 in exclusive BingX Exchange rewards (limited time offer).
The days of outsized gains in crypto may be coming to an end as more risk-averse institutional players are entering the space, replacing retail investors who chase rapid gains, according to Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz.
Novogratz reportedly said at the CNBC Digital Finance Forum on Tuesday in New York that it reflects the maturing industry.
“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,” he said.
Novogratz referenced FTX’s collapse in 2022, which resulted in a bear market that saw Bitcoin (BTC) prices fall 78% from $69,000 to $15,700 in November that year, stating that there was a “breakdown in trust” then.
Novogratz also acknowledged that the Oct. 10 leverage flush, which he called a significant event that “wiped out a lot of retail and market makers,” and increased selling pressure — though there wasn’t any major catalyst.
“This time, there’s no smoking gun,” he said. “You look around like, what happened?”
“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.”
Tokenized real-world assets will drive markets
Novogratz said he expects the industry to shift from high-return speculation to more practical applications, such as tokenized real-world assets that offer steadier returns.
However, some traders will always speculate, said Novogratz, but 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.”
Related: Chainlink co-founder’s 2 reasons this bear market feels different
Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov made a similar argument on Tuesday, stating that tokenized RWAs will “surpass cryptocurrency in the total value in our industry, and what our industry is about will fundamentally change.”
Long-term Bitcoin believers will be fine
David Marcus, the co-founder and CEO of Lightspark and a former PayPal executive, told Bloomberg on Tuesday that there has also been a shift in who is holding Bitcoin.
“It’s just a change of who’s holding Bitcoin, and you’re moving from people that had long-term belief and were holding Bitcoin directly to just access to Bitcoin being wired off to our financial system and markets.”
He added that the change in holders and the Oct. 10 leverage flush have changed the dynamic, but those who have long believed that Bitcoin is a “hedge to everything else that’s happening in the markets” will be fine.
Magazine: Bitcoin difficulty plunges, Buterin sells off Ethereum: Hodler’s Digest
As MEV threats intensify on Ethereum, researchers are pursuing cryptographic shields designed to cloak mempool data until blocks finalize. Fresh measurements show almost 2,000 sandwich attacks every day, draining more than $2 million from the network each month. Traders executing large WETH and WBTC swaps, as well as other liquid assets, remain exposed to front-running and back-running. The field has grown beyond early threshold-encryption experiments toward per-transaction designs that aim to encrypt a transaction’s payload rather than entire epochs. Early prototypes like Shutter and Batched threshold encryption (BTE) laid groundwork by encrypting data at epoch boundaries; now, per-transaction designs are being explored for finer-grained protection and potentially lower latency. The debate centers on whether real-world deployment on Ethereum is feasible or remains primarily in research channels.
Key takeaways
- Flash Freezing Flash Boys (F3B) proposes per-transaction threshold encryption to keep transaction data confidential until finality, using a designated Secret Management Committee (SMC) to manage decryption shares.
- Two cryptographic paths exist within F3B: TDH2 (Threshold Diffie-Hellman 2) and PVSS (Publicly Verifiable Secret Sharing), each with distinct trade-offs in setup, latency, and storage.
- Latency overhead from finality is modest in simulations: about 0.026% for TDH2 (197 ms) and 0.027% for PVSS (205 ms) with a committee of 128 trustees on Ethereum-like conditions.
- Storage overhead is a consideration: roughly 80 bytes per transaction under TDH2, with PVSS inflating as the number of trustees rises due to per-trustee shares and proofs.
- Deployment remains challenging: integrating encrypted transactions requires changes to the execution layer and may demand a major hard fork beyond The Merge; nonetheless, F3B’s trust-minimized approach could later find use beyond Ethereum, including sealed-bid auction contracts.
Tickers mentioned: $ETH, $WETH, $WBTC
Market context: The broader crypto environment continues to weigh on MEV mitigation efforts as developers seek privacy-preserving mechanisms that do not erode finality or throughput. The ongoing discussion touches on protocol upgrades, research benchmarks, and cross-chain applicability, with activity spanning academic papers, industry tooling, and governance proposals.
Why it matters
The MEV arms race has harsh consequences for liquidity and trader outcomes, especially in high-volume decentralized exchanges where sandwich-type strategies exploit visible mempool activity. By moving toward per-transaction encryption, proponents argue that the incentive to front-run could diminish, since collateralized decryption happens only after a transaction has reached finality. This could improve fair access to liquidity for both retail and institutional traders, while potentially reducing the aggressive search for edge cases that currently drive MEV. Yet, the effectiveness hinges on the cryptographic primitives’ resilience and the ecosystem’s ability to absorb the added complexity without eroding security guarantees.
From a builder’s perspective, the F3B framework presents a clear tension between privacy and performance. The TDH2 path emphasizes a fixed committee and a streamlined data footprint, while PVSS offers more flexibility by letting users select trustees but incurs larger ciphertexts and greater computational overhead. The simulations suggest that, when configured appropriately, privacy-preserving measures can coexist with Ethereum’s throughput and finality targets. However, achieving real-world deployment would demand careful coordination among clients, miners or validators, and ecosystem tooling to ensure compatibility with existing smart contracts and wallets.
Investors and researchers should watch how the incentive structures evolve. F3B’s staking and slashing regime aims to deter premature decryption and collusion, but no system is immune to off-chain coordination risks. If the mechanism proves robust, it could influence future designs for privacy in permissionless networks and inspire alternative approaches to secure computation in open ledgers. The potential applications extend beyond straightforward trades; encrypted mempools could also underpin privacy-centric auctions and other latency-sensitive, trust-minimized interactions where upfront data leakage would otherwise enable manipulation.
What to watch next
- Further experimental results and real-world testnet pilots evaluating F3B’s latency, throughput, and storage under varied network loads.
- Rigorously documented security analyses of TDH2 and PVSS in active blockchain environments, including proofs of correct decryption and resilience against malicious actors.
- Public discussion of integration strategies with the Ethereum execution layer, and whether any client, protocol, or governance changes could enable phased deployment.
- Exploration of F3B-style privacy techniques in non-ETH networks or sub-second blockchains to gauge broader applicability and performance trade-offs.
- Sealed-bid auction use cases and other cryptographic applications where encrypted bids remain hidden until a defined deadline, aligning with F3B’s post-finality execution flow.
Sources & verification
- Flash Freezing Flash Boys (F3B) — arXiv:2205.08529
- How batched threshold encryption could end extractive MEV and make DeFi fair again — Cointelegraph
- Applied MEV protection via Shutter’s threshold encryption — Cointelegraph
- The Merge — Ethereum upgrades: A beginner’s guide to Eth2.0 — Cointelegraph
- TDH2 (Threshold Diffie-Hellman 2) — Shoup et al. (paper)
Per-transaction encryption reshapes the MEV battle on Ethereum
Flash Freezing Flash Boys introduces a pivot from epoch-wide secrecy to transaction-level privacy. The core idea is to encrypt the transaction with a fresh symmetric key and then shield that key with a threshold-encryption scheme reachable only by a predefined committee. In practice, a user signs a transaction and distributes an encrypted payload along with an encrypted symmetric key to the consensus layer. The designated Secret Management Committee (SMC) holds decryption shares, but will not release them until the chain has achieved the required finality, at which point the protocol jointly reconstructs and decrypts the payload for execution. This workflow is designed to avert the exposure of transaction details during the propagation window, thereby reducing the opportunities for MEV-based manipulation.
Two theoretical treatments underpin the approach. TDH2, which relies on a distributed key generation (DKG) process to produce a public key and shares, pairs a fresh symmetric key with a ciphertext that the committee can unlock in a threshold fashion. PVSS, by contrast, uses long-term keys for trustees and Shamir’s secret sharing, allowing a user to distribute shares encrypted with each trustee’s public key. Each model is accompanied by a set of zero-knowledge proofs to deter malformed decryption data, addressing concerns about chosen-ciphertext attacks and decryption validity. The two paths present different performance profiles: a fixed committee streamlines setup and reduces per-transaction data size (TDH2), while PVSS offers flexibility at the cost of larger ciphertexts and higher computation. In practical terms, simulations on a PoS-like Ethereum environment suggest sub-second delays after finality—well within acceptable bounds for many DeFi operations—and minimal storage pressure per transaction under TDH2. The numbers, of course, depend on committee size and network conditions.
Yet, deployment remains a topic of debate. Even if encryption constructs behave well in simulation, integrating encrypted transactions into the execution layer would likely require substantial changes—potentially a hard fork beyond The Merge—to ensure compatibility with current contracts and wallet software. Nevertheless, the research marks a meaningful step toward privacy-enhanced DeFi, showing that it is possible to conceal sensitive data without sacrificing finality. The broader implication is that encrypted mempools could find application beyond Ethereum, in networks pursuing privacy-preserving, trust-minimized protocols where delayed or withheld execution is acceptable or desirable. For now, the path to real-world usage remains cautious and incremental, with F3B serving as a benchmark for what privacy-preserving MEV mitigation could look like in practice.
Aside from RAIN, the other notable gainers today are M and NEXO, while HYPE has lost over 5% of value.
Bitcoin’s price recovery attempts were once again halted at just over $70,000, and the asset now sits over a grand lower.
Most larger-cap altcoins have remained sluggish on a daily scale, aside from ZEC, which has jumped by 5.5%, and HYPE, which has dropped by over 5%.
BTC Stopped at $70K
The primary cryptocurrency’s recent price movements raised a lot of questions about the state of the market. The asset stood at $90,000 on January 28 but plunged hard in the following week or so. In fact, the culmination, at least for now, took place last Friday morning when it dropped to $60,000 for the first time in well over a year.
This meant that BTC had lost $30,000 in the span of under 200 hours. After such a calamity, it was expected that there would be some sort of rebound, which took place immediately on Friday. In a matter of less than one trading day, the cryptocurrency surged by $12,000 and tapped $72,000 by Saturday morning.
However, it couldn’t proceed further and slipped below $70,000, where it spent most of the weekend. It tried to initiate another leg up on Monday but was stopped on a couple of occasions at $71,000 and $72,000. It has declined slightly since that local peak and now sits at $69,000.
Its market cap has declined to $1.380 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts stands firm at 57%.
RAIN Keeps Going
Ethereum continues to fight to stay above $2,000 after a minor daily decline. TRX has slipped by a similar percentage as well. In contrast, XRP has jumped above $1.40 after a 3% increase. BNB, SOL, BCH, and ADA are also in the green, led by ZEC’s impressive 6% surge to $242.
HYPE, on the other hand, has dropped by 5.5% daily and now struggles below $30. RAIN has taken the main stage in terms of daily gains, having soared by almost 20% to well over $0.01. The other notable gainers now are NEXO, ASTER, and M.
The total crypto market cap has remained relatively still since yesterday at just over $2.420 trillion on CG.
SECRET PARTNERSHIP BONUS for CryptoPotato readers: Use this link to register and unlock $1,500 in exclusive BingX Exchange rewards (limited time offer).
Disclaimer: Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. See Disclaimer for more information.
Defend American Jobs, an affiliate of crypto super political action committee (PAC) Fairshake, will reportedly spend $5 million to support crypto-friendly politician Barry Moore in his bid for the US Senate, according to Bloomberg.
A five-week campaign will start this week with ads on broadcast TV and the Fox News Channel featuring US President Donald Trump endorsing Moore, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing a statement from Fairshake.
Super PACs raise money from corporations and associations; however, the committees can’t directly donate to or coordinate with political campaigns. Instead, they fund ads and other media to urge voters to support a specific candidate.
“We are proud to stand with Barry Moore, a leader who will fight for economic growth and make America the crypto capital,” Fairshake reportedly said in a statement.
Fairshake is one of the most prominent crypto-related PACs, backed by crypto companies including Coinbase and Ripple Labs.
It spent roughly $130 million during the 2024 US elections to support pro-crypto candidates. The election ended with a flood of elected officials with pro-crypto views.
Moore is labeled ‘strongly supportive’ of crypto
Moore was first elected to the US House in 2020 and was part of the US House Agriculture Committee, which included the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on its agenda last year.
He has also expressed crypto-friendly sentiment in the past. In an X post on Dec. 5, he appeared to approve of Trump’s crypto stance and related executive orders.
“Crypto is not a fad. It is part of our future. It is part of Alabama’s future,” Moore said.
A survey of 500 Republican voters, reported by the Alabama Daily News, found that 26s would vote for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall if the election were held in February. About 17% said they would vote for Moore.
Related: Trump Bitcoin adviser David Bailey wants to create a $200M PAC
Both have a rating of “strongly supportive” of crypto by advocacy organization Stand With Crypto, which compiles previous statements and actions to rate US politicians on their crypto stances.
Crypto PACs spend big on the industry
The US midterm primary elections are held in May, when each party will choose its nominee, followed by the general election on Nov. 3, when voters decide who will be elected.
Fairshake disclosed in January that it had amassed $193 million in cash ahead of the midterm elections. The Gemini Trust Company and Foris Dax, the parent company of Crypto.com, sent $21 million to a Trump-aligned PAC last year, which could also come into play in the midterms.
Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto — Canton, Zcash and more
TLDR:
- Banks accepted limited exemption language on stablecoin rewards after previously rejecting all transaction-based incentives.
- Crypto firms want broad definitions of permissible activities, while banks seek tighter limits to protect deposit structures.
- The White House urged both sides to reach a stablecoin deal before March 1 to sustain legislative momentum.
- A smaller meeting size allowed more detailed policy language discussions than earlier White House sessions.
A smaller White House meeting brought banks and crypto firms closer on stablecoin policy but stopped short of agreement.
Participants described the discussion as more detailed and more focused than earlier sessions. Officials pressed both sides to resolve disputes over rewards and account activity rules. A March 1 deadline now shapes the next phase of negotiations.
White House Stablecoin Talks Focus on Rewards and Exemptions
The meeting centered on whether crypto companies can offer rewards tied to stablecoin transactions. Banks arrived with written principles outlining limits they would accept.
One key shift emerged around conditional exemptions. Banking groups signaled openness to limited carve-outs after earlier resistance to any transaction-based rewards.
Crypto firms pushed for broad definitions of what counts as permissible account activity. Banks argued that narrower language would better protect traditional deposit models.
According to reporting by Eleanor Terrett, both sides called the session productive despite failing to reach a final compromise. Deal terms received deeper technical discussion than in prior meetings.
Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty said the atmosphere suggested growing willingness to bridge gaps. He also pointed to continued bipartisan momentum for crypto market structure legislation.
The White House urged participants to settle core disagreements before March 1. Officials framed the deadline as necessary to keep legislative progress on track.
Banks and Crypto Narrow Differences on Stablecoin Policy Scope
This gathering included fewer participants than the first White House session. It was led by the executive director of the President’s Crypto Council, Patrick Witt.
Crypto attendees included representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos, Andreessen Horowitz, the Blockchain Association, and the Crypto Council for Innovation.
Major banks present were Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, PNC Bank, and U.S. Bank. Trade groups such as the ABA and ICBA also joined.
Senate Banking Committee staff attended, signaling legislative interest in the outcome of the talks. Their presence added pressure for measurable progress.
Discussion focused on defining “permissible activities” for accounts offering stablecoin rewards. Crypto firms sought flexibility to innovate, while banks stressed financial stability concerns.
Sources in the room said the tone was more constructive than earlier meetings. Participants exchanged draft language rather than general objections.
No final resolution emerged by the end of the session. However, further discussions are expected in the coming days among the same parties.
The White House continues to position itself as a mediator between financial institutions and crypto companies. Officials want an agreement that can inform broader stablecoin and market structure rules.
A White House-brokered meeting between crypto and bank representatives to reach an agreement on stablecoin provisions in the market structure bill has been described as “productive,” but remains unresolved.
“Productive session at the White House today — compromise is in the air,” Ripple legal chief Stuart Alderoty, one of the meeting’s attendees, posted to X on Tuesday.
“Clear, bipartisan momentum remains behind sensible crypto market structure legislation. We should move now — while the window is still open,” he added.
Congress is looking to pass a bill to define how US market regulators are to police crypto. The House passed a similar bill, the CLARITY Act, in July, but the effort has stalled as the Senate Banking Committee has yet to garner enough bipartisan support to advance it.
Momentum to advance the bill was lost when major crypto lobbyist Coinbase pulled its support for the bill last month over provisions that would prohibit all yield payments tied to stablecoins.
Banking lobbyists have argued that yield payments to stablecoin holders on third-party platforms such as exchanges pose a risk to bank deposits and could undermine the banking system.
Bankers, crypto flag need for more discussions
The meeting on Tuesday was the second in two weeks to bring banks and the crypto industry to the White House; the first on Feb. 2 was described by White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt as “constructive” and “fact-based.”
Dan Spuller, the industry affairs lead at crypto advocacy group the Blockchain Association, posted to X that the latest meeting “was a smaller, more focused session” with “serious problem-solving.”
“Stablecoin rewards were front and center,” he added. “Banks did not come to negotiate from the bill text, instead arriving with broad prohibitive principles, which remains a key disagreement.”
A handout given at the meeting by the banking groups reportedly listed “yield and interest prohibition principles” that should be included in the Senate’s crypto bill, reiterating the group’s push to ban all stablecoin yield payments.
Related: Crypto PACs secure massive war chests ahead of US midterms
Three major banking groups, the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, and the Independent Community Bankers of America, said in a joint statement that “ongoing discussions” were needed to move the legislation forward.
They added that a “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.”
Meanwhile, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said that both crypto and banks “should stop re-litigating” the GENIUS Act, which banned stablecoin issuers from paying yield directly, to get the market structure bill across the line.
“That battle was fought. If you don’t like GENIUS, amend it,” he added. “Market structure has nothing to do with yield on stablecoins and must not be delayed further.”
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
The new offerings are Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending.
Spark, an on-chain capital allocator incubated by Sky (formerly MakerDAO), on Wednesday, Feb. 11, launched Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending, two products aimed at institutional borrowers.
The products target the off-chain crypto lending market, which Spark estimates at about $33 billion as institutional participation in crypto continues to rise, according to a press release viewed by The Defiant.
Spark Prime enables institutions to use collateral across both centralized platforms and decentralized finance (DeFi) and supports margin trading and off-exchange settlement. Arkis’ technology handles collateral and risk management, while Spark provides liquidity.
Meanwhile, Spark Institutional Lending is designed for firms that want to operate via custodians. Through integrations with entities like Anchorage Digital, institutions can borrow from Spark-governed markets while keeping their assets in regulated custody.
“Institutional lending depends on reliable liquidity,” said Sam MacPherson, co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Labs (a core contributor to Spark). “Spark Prime applies on-chain liquidity in a way that fits how institutions already manage custody, risk, and scale.”
Spark currently allocates more than $9 billion in stablecoin liquidity across decentralized markets, according to the release. The protocol boasts $5.2 billion in total value locked (TVL), making it the ninth-largest DeFi platform. Its lending protocol, SparkLend, accounts for $2.5 billion of Spark’s TVL, according to DefiLlama.
The launch builds on Spark’s earlier collaborations. In early 2025, Coinbase rolled out a Bitcoin borrowing product that used Spark-managed USDC liquidity, with Spark supplying more than 80% of the funds. Borrowing volumes grew by about $500 million over the next three months, per the release.
Spark has also supported on-chain liquidity for PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD, allocating around $500 million across stablecoin markets.
Spark’s native token, SPK, is down about 2% on the day, trading at $0.022, with $12 million in 24-hour trading volume, according to CoinGecko.
EMB: Feb. 11, 06:00 UTC
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Spark is pushing one of DeFi’s deepest pools of stablecoin liquidity further into institutional markets, unveiling new lending infrastructure designed to connect on-chain capital with off-chain borrowers that have largely stayed outside DeFi.
The protocol introduced Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending in an announcement at Consensus Hong Kong 2025 on Wednesday.
The new offerings extend more than $9 billion in deployed stablecoin liquidity into products aimed at hedge funds, trading firms and fintechs that operate under traditional custody and compliance requirements. Off-chain crypto lending is estimated at about $33 billion, according to Galaxy, reflecting sustained demand from institutions that remain cautious about direct onchain exposure.
“This will be OTC crypto lending through a qualified custodian,” Sam MacPherson, co-founder of Phoenix Labs, the core contributor to Spark, told CoinDesk in an interview. “This market is much bigger than the DeFi lending market, and we’re able to issue the same kind of overcollateralized loans Maker has done since its inception, but with access to a much broader set of borrowers.”
Spark Prime introduces a margin lending model that allows borrowers to deploy collateral across centralized exchanges, DeFi venues and qualified custodians under a single risk framework. That structure improves capital efficiency for hedge funds pursuing strategies such as perpetual futures trading, while giving lenders more direct exposure to funding rates.
The system is powered by prime broker Arkis’ margin and liquidation engine, which can automatically unwind positions across venues if portfolio risk thresholds are breached.
Spark Institutional Lending is aimed at firms that prefer fully custodial participation. Through arrangements with providers such as Anchorage Digital, institutions can borrow against collateral held in regulated custody while accessing Spark-governed liquidity pools.
MacPherson said the design reflects hard lessons from past market failures. “The status quo is still unsecured lending to hedge funds, which can go horribly wrong,” he said. “By keeping positions overcollateralized and holding collateral with an intermediary, you dramatically improve safety for lenders.”
Spark has already supported institutional-scale deployments, supplying most of the liquidity behind Coinbase’s bitcoin borrowing product in 2025 and allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to support PayPal’s PYUSD. The new offerings formalize that approach into a broader institutional framework, positioning Spark as a conduit between on-chain stablecoin demand and off-chain capital markets.
11 Buys To Make Your Sofa Cosier Than Ever
Financial Audit Guest Brings Me TAQUITOS
Student ‘a foreigner’ after car crash left him unable to speak Welsh
Smart energy pays enters the US market, targeting scalable financial infrastructure
Software stocks enter bear market on AI disruption fear with ServiceNow plunging 10%
Wikipedia volunteers spent years cataloging AI tells. Now there’s a plugin to avoid them.
-
Tech7 days agoWikipedia volunteers spent years cataloging AI tells. Now there’s a plugin to avoid them.
-
Politics3 days agoWhy Israel is blocking foreign journalists from entering
-
NewsBeat1 day agoMia Brookes misses out on Winter Olympics medal in snowboard big air
-
Sports4 days agoJD Vance booed as Team USA enters Winter Olympics opening ceremony
-
Tech4 days agoFirst multi-coronavirus vaccine enters human testing, built on UW Medicine technology
-
Business3 days agoLLP registrations cross 10,000 mark for first time in Jan
-
NewsBeat2 days agoWinter Olympics 2026: Team GB’s Mia Brookes through to snowboard big air final, and curling pair beat Italy
-
Tech3 hours agoSpaceX’s mighty Starship rocket enters final testing for 12th flight
-
Sports2 days agoBenjamin Karl strips clothes celebrating snowboard gold medal at Olympics
-
Politics3 days agoThe Health Dangers Of Browning Your Food
-
Sports4 days ago
Former Viking Enters Hall of Fame
-
Sports5 days ago
New and Huge Defender Enter Vikings’ Mock Draft Orbit
-
Business3 days agoJulius Baer CEO calls for Swiss public register of rogue bankers to protect reputation
-
NewsBeat5 days agoSavannah Guthrie’s mother’s blood was found on porch of home, police confirm as search enters sixth day: Live
-
Business6 days agoQuiz enters administration for third time
-
Crypto World15 hours agoBlockchain.com wins UK registration nearly four years after abandoning FCA process
-
Crypto World23 hours agoU.S. BTC ETFs register back-to-back inflows for first time in a month
-
NewsBeat2 days agoResidents say city high street with ‘boarded up’ shops ‘could be better’
-
Sports1 day ago
Kirk Cousins Officially Enters the Vikings’ Offseason Puzzle
-
Crypto World23 hours agoEthereum Enters Capitulation Zone as MVRV Turns Negative: Bottom Near?