Industry Reports

Stripe mentioned in its 2025 annual summary that the platform's total transaction volume in 2024 reached $1.9 trillion, a 34% increase. The company supported 5 million businesses, launched over 350 product updates, and completed two key acquisitions. Stripe Atlas company registrations grew by 41%, with some startups quickly reaching paying customers.

Cipher Mining, after rebranding as Cipher Digital, released its Q4 financial report with revenue of $60 million, below expectations, and the stock price dropped about 5%. The company expects to undergo a business transformation in 2025, shifting from Bitcoin mining to high-performance computing infrastructure, and has secured a signed capacity of 600 MW.

Solana's "Pacific Backbone" initiative aims to enhance its network's speed and reliability for institutional users by connecting key Asian financial hubs. This upgrade targets high-frequency traders and bolsters Solana's position in the competitive blockchain landscape.

Recently, market risk aversion has increased, the US dollar is strong, long-term government bond yields are rising, and gold has hit new highs. Cryptocurrency assets have declined, with significant net outflows from BTC and ETH, and market sentiment is extremely fearful. Traditional derivatives institutions and mining companies are adjusting their strategies, and market funds are becoming more cautious.

February 24 News, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated at an event in Chiang Mai, Thailand, that Bitcoin was designed with a priority on decentralization rather than privacy features, so it cannot effectively support both. He pointed out that Bitcoin, in order to maximize decentralization, has almost sacrificed privacy benefits, resulting in highly transparent transactions and account information on the blockchain. Buterin explained that early cryptographic technology relied on centralized institutions to protect privacy because achieving full decentralization and privacy simultaneously was nearly impossible at the time. He emphasized that Bitcoin's design trade-offs involve some sacrifices in privacy, but its decentralization advantage provides the foundation for its network security and resistance to censorship.

The XRP Ledger Foundation announced the release of XRP Ledger Software version 3.1.1, which disables the Batch amendment due to a severe bug. A devnet reset is scheduled for March 2026, affecting only the devnet and resetting all data.

February 24 News, Bitcoin asset management firm Nakamoto announced the completion of its acquisition of BTC Inc. and UTXO Management through a fully stock-based transaction valued at approximately $107.3 million. This move is seen as a significant step in reshaping the Bitcoin media ecosystem and asset management landscape. According to the company's disclosure, after the completion of the transaction, relevant shareholders will hold 363,589,816 shares on a fully diluted basis, further strengthening its capital structure and business synergy. The acquisition includes BTC Inc., which operates Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoin Conference, as well as UTXO Management, which focuses on Bitcoin asset management. Founder David Bailey stated that the deal aligns with their long-term strategy of building a diversified business matrix around Bitcoin, aiming to create a closed-loop ecosystem encompassing media, asset management, and consulting services to enhance stable revenue streams and industry influence.

February 24 News, the on-chain analytics platform Nansen announced that it will establish a local operational entity in Glep Meditation City (GMC), Bhutan, and form a Bhutan team to provide data analysis and localization support for the continuously expanding digital asset infrastructure in this special administrative region. This move is seen as an important step in Bhutan building a sovereign-level digital asset ecosystem and also reflects the rising demand for on-chain data services and institutional-grade analysis tools in emerging crypto jurisdictions. According to Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, this plan is not a headquarters relocation; the company will still keep Singapore as its core base, and this is an addition of a physical entity in GMC. The key reason for choosing Bhutan is its "value-driven" economic zone model, which integrates crypto assets, regulatory frameworks, and financial infrastructure from the ground up, rather than adding digital asset policies retroactively.

Blockchain intelligence platform TRM Labs and banking infrastructure company Finray Technologies announced a partnership in February 2026, integrating Finray's compliance decision engine XZiel with TRM Labs' blockchain intelligence tools to create a unified system that can monitor both cryptocurrency and fiat transactions simultaneously, providing institutions with real-time risk alerts and compliance management across asset classes.

Coinbase launches Agentic Wallets, an on-chain wallet solution designed specifically for AI Agents, allowing AI Agents to independently hold funds and perform on-chain operations without human intervention. Solana's official account then retweeted lobster.cash, a Solana-based AI Agent autonomous payment solution developed by Crossmint.

Asset management giant Fidelity recently announced the recruitment of a DeFi product manager, focusing on on-chain treasury design and yield strategies, demonstrating its determination to enter DeFi. Fidelity's stablecoin, Fidelity Digital Dollar, launched on Ethereum, also showcases its ambition for digital transformation and aims to establish scalable on-chain yield products.

The January cryptocurrency market experienced high-level fluctuations in trading volume, with cautious investor sentiment and increased volatility. Stablecoin market capitalization is concentrated in Ethereum and Tron. Gold and silver prices reached new highs, and tokenized commodities grew rapidly. Web3 industry funding reached $1.82 billion, with security incidents primarily related to contract vulnerabilities.

BitMine (BMNR) purchased 51,162 Ethereum last week, marking the largest single-week increase since December of last year, bringing its total ETH holdings to 4.42 million. Research firm Fundstrat reports that ETH's current trading price is approximately 22% below the on-chain average cost basis for investors, with an implied 12-month return of 81% and a historical win rate of 87%.

Digital asset funds had another rough week, with investors pulling US$288 million out of products, which is the fifth straight week of net redemptions. That streak has drained about US$4.0 billion in total since it began, a figure that’s still noticeably smaller than the roughly US$6 billion

Bitcoin Core developer Murch announces that BIP 360 (Pay to Merkle Root) has officially entered the Improvement Proposal repository, marking Bitcoin's first inclusion of a quantum-resistant technical roadmap. The proposal, authored by Hunter Beast and others, is currently under review and discussion, and the protocol change has not yet been activated.

Standard Chartered Bank research shows that stablecoin issuers could become the largest buyers of U.S. Treasury bonds, with the stablecoin market cap expected to reach $2 trillion by 2028. This expansion could generate an additional demand of approximately $0.8 to $1 trillion for Treasury bonds, and an excess demand of $0.9 trillion may emerge over the next three years.

NYDIG Research Director Greg Cipolaro pointed out that the "investment landscape" of cryptocurrencies is shrinking, with only Bitcoin, tokenized assets, stablecoins, and a few DeFi infrastructures maintaining long-term value. Blockchain games and metaverse projects that were once highly valued have all failed, with funds concentrated among a few winners, indicating that the market is gradually maturing, but the total market capitalization may be smaller than expected.

Hanwha Asset Management and Jito Foundation have reached a partnership to develop liquidity staking ETP infrastructure in South Korea, focusing on technical readiness and compliance support. The goal is to integrate JitoSOL into financial products to support investors' diversification needs. This move marks South Korean financial institutions' active engagement in digital asset products.

Ethereum is facing a dual test of valuation and fundamentals, and the market needs to determine whether its downturn is a cyclical bottom. Bitmine has incurred an $8.8 billion loss, and increased ETH holdings have sparked controversy, highlighting the importance of capital allocation. Investors should carefully assess Ethereum's value prospects.