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This Week’s Top Stories

“Odds of the Clarity Act being signed into law in 2026 increased to over 80 percent yesterday.” – Friday, 20 February 2026 

• According to some rumors on X, the White House has set March 1 as the deadline to resolve the disagreement over the yield and reward provision in stablecoins and to allow the Clarity Act, which aims to regulate the crypto market structure, to move forward.
• The odds of the Clarity Act being signed into law in 2026 increased by over 15 percent to 82 percent yesterday and are now at 80 percent after spending a couple of weeks around the 60 percent mark.

“Recent headlines show BlackRock and Apollo Global entering DeFi and buying crypto tokens.” – This week 

• Over the past few weeks and months, there have been many major headlines in the world of tokenization. It surely is a hot topic right now, and everyone is talking about it. Some might say it’s overhyped, but some of these headlines certainly show that it’s the real deal now.
• BlackRock just recently announced a partnership with Uniswap, bringing its Treasury-backed digital token BUIDL to Uniswap. As part of the tie-up, BlackRock is allegedly also purchasing an undisclosed amount of Uniswap’s own UNI token.
• Additionally, Apollo Global announced a partnership with Morpho last week and will likely also bring RWA yield-bearing assets onchain as collateral for DeFi lending. Under the agreement, Apollo or its affiliates may acquire MORPHO tokens through a combination of open-market purchases, OTC transactions, and other contractual arrangements, subject to an overall ownership cap of 90 million MORPHO tokens over a 48-month period.

A Quick Crypto Overview: Sideways Consolidation

The total crypto market has been consolidating over the past weeks, trading in a sideways range after bottoming above $2 trillion in total market capitalization at the beginning of February. Bitcoin is trading at $67’800 at the time of writing, down around 4.5 percent from last Sunday’s high. 

The past few weeks have been accompanied by a couple of different headlines from various projects, such as the partnerships between BlackRock and Uniswap or Apollo and Morpho. The team behind Aave also announced its Aave Will Win Framework, which contains a new alignment framework that directs 100 percent of product revenue to the Aave DAO treasury under a token-centric model. The UNI token spiked by over 40 percent after the announcement last week but has since retraced most of the move. Morpho and Aave, on the other hand, are still up double-digit percentage points since last week (Aave +20 percent and Morpho +35 percent). 

While there was positive news for some projects, Optimism experienced the opposite, with Base announcing that it will abandon the OP Stack in the future, leading to a decrease of roughly 30 percent for the OP token, but more on this later. 

The traditional markets are also recovering from last week’s correction, with the S&P 500 currently up 1.4 percent from last Friday’s low. Gold is trading at $5’030 at the time of writing, currently fighting a resistance level from early February. It is still down 10 percent from its end-of-January ATH but up more than 14 percent since its February 2 low. 

Chart of the Week: Price Performance in February

This week we are taking a closer look at the price performance of Bitcoin, the total crypto market cap, gold, and the S&P 500 for the month of February. Gold is the only asset that is currently up since the beginning of the month. Interestingly, Bitcoin, the total crypto market cap, and the S&P 500 are all down roughly two percent right now but have reached this level through different paths, as one can see in the chart below.

What’s Happening Onchain? Base to Move Away From the OP Stack & Twitter Smart Cashtags are Around the Corner 

This week, Base announced plans to consolidate key network components into its own unified codebase and that it will gradually move away from the OP Stack over the coming months. Base has been the highest revenue contributor in the OP Stack ecosystem. For example, at some points during last year, Coinbase was paying more daily to the Optimism Collective than all L2s combined (including Base) were paying to the Ethereum L1. One can speculate on why Coinbase decided to move away from the OP Stack, but two things certainly stand out. First, it was likely tired of paying Optimism to license the OP Stack, and second, the lack of decentralization on Base might have also played a role, as Alex Thorn for example has pointed repeatedly out on X. 

On another note, there have been reports circulating that X will launch crypto trading features sometime soon. Nikita Bier, Product Lead at X and Solana Ecosystem Advisor has now communicated that X will not directly execute trade or act as a broker, the platform will rather provide financial data tools and related links. So it remains to be seen how this will look like in the end, but there is certainly some potential for it to be of value to crypto participants. 

Digital Asset Fund Flows: Fourth Consecutive Week of Outflows 

Last week, digital asset investment products saw net outflows of $173 million during the fourth consecutive week of net outflows, bringing the total net outflows of this four-week run to $3.74 billion. Last week began on a more positive note, with inflows of $575 million, followed by outflows of $853 million. Bitcoin saw the weakest sentiment, with $133 million in outflows. Ethereum saw $85.1 million in outflows. Interestingly, XRP, Solana, and Chainlink saw inflows of $33.4 million, $31 million, and $1.1 million, respectively. 

Over the past few weeks different 13F filings for Q4 were released by major financial institutions that invest in U.S. financial products such as the Bitcoin spot ETFs. The filings show that the Harvard Management Company, for example, reduced its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) holdings by 21 percent in Q4 2025 to 5.35 million shares valued at $265.8 million, while initiating a new $86.8 million position in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (IETHA). As of Dec. 31, the endowment held a combined $352.6 million in bitcoin and ether ETF exposure. 

When looking at other 13F filings, especially focusing on new entrants into the Bitcoin spot ETFs, one name stands out. The biggest new entrant is Laurore Ltd, a brand new entity without a website, press, or footprint. The only public information is that the filer’s name is Zhang Hui and it is HK-based. Jeff Park went down a little rabbit hole. You can read his post on X here. 

A 13G filing also revealed last week that Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund entities fully divested their ETHZilla Corporation common shares by the end of 2025. Thiel’s team had previously held a 7.5 percent stake. 

Market Sentiment: Crypto Fear and Greed Index Still Below 10 

The crypto fear and greed index remains below 10 at the deepest levels since 2022, as market participants remain uncertain about the coming weeks and months in the market. While the sentiment in the crypto market is understandable, as prices are down significantly from their recent highs amid the sharp drop at the beginning of the month, the market sentiment in the stock market is a little bit harder to understand. U.S. stock indices are still relatively close to their all-time highs, but the CNN stock market fear and greed index is in fear territory nonetheless (39), and the amount of bullish AAII members has been decreasing steadily over the past few weeks. At the end of January, 44 percent were bullish, and today only 34 percent state a bullish stance for the stock market in the coming six months, a figure that is below the historical average of 37.5 percent.

Other Relevant News

• Tomasz K. Stańczak announced he will step down as co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation at the end of February 2026. – Link
• Strategy announced it has acquired 2’486 BTC for approximately $168.4 million, at an average price of $67,710 per bitcoin. – Link
• OpenAI and Paradigm launched EVMbench, a benchmark designed to measure how well AI agents can detect, patch, and exploit vulnerabilities across EVM ecosystems such as Ethereum. – Link
• CME Group announced that, pending regulatory review, its regulated cryptocurrency futures and options will be available for 24/7 trading starting on May 29. – Link

Looking Ahead: Consolidation

Looking at the crypto market, the only question is which side the market will break out towards after we have spent enough time in this sideways range. A daily close above the $70’000 level would likely open up a price move towards the $75’000 level and possibly even towards $80’000, as the move at the beginning of the month possibly left quite some inefficiency between $75’000 and $80’000. A daily close below $66’000 would, on the other side, likely lead to a further selloff towards the $60’000 lows, as many market participants are eyeing this level, which was last week’s lowest daily closing price. 

In terms of catalysts, the overall market is dependent on Trump’s handling of the current tension in the Middle East surrounding Iran, and for crypto specifically, all eyes are on the developments in relation to the Clarity Act. Progress could likely lead to a recovery, whereas a stalling or even rejection of the new legislation could likely spook the market even more. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Monday, 23 February 2026 

Switzerland – PPI 

Tuesday, 24 February 2026 

USA – CB Consumer Confidence 

Wednesday, 25 February 2026 

Eurozone – CPI, Core CPI 

Thursday, 26 February 2026 

Switzerland – Employment Level 

USA – Initial Jobless Claims 

Friday, 27 February 2026 

Japan – Tokyo CPI and Core CPI