Cointelegraph.com
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Cointelegraph.com - 06:04 Feb 20, 2026
The on-chain analytics firm‘s focus on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens had fallen out of step with the industry‘s current trajectory. On-chain analytics firm Parsec is closing down after five years, as crypto trader flows and on-chain activity no longer resemble what they once did. “Parsec is shutting down,” the company said in an X post on Thursday, while its CEO, Will Sheehan, said the “market zigged while we zagged a few too many times.” Sheehan added that Parsec’s primary focus on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) fell out of step with where the industry has now headed. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 05:18 Feb 20, 2026
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt reportedly refocused crypto and bank lobby talks on a crypto bill to allow stablecoin rewards tied to transaction activity. The White House has reportedly refocused talks between crypto and bank lobbyists on limiting how stablecoin rewards should be paid in the third meeting between the two groups over a crypto market structure bill. Crypto and banking industry representatives met at the White House on Thursday for the third time in 16 days to discuss stablecoin provisions that have stalled the crypto bill, which the Senate is looking to pass. No agreement was reached on Thursday, but executives at Coinbase and Ripple said progress was made, as one of the White House’s crypto advisers urged a trade-off that would let third parties, such as exchanges, offer stablecoin rewards only on transaction activity, not on balances. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:30 Feb 20, 2026
Bitdeer has launched its second-ever convertible senior note offering, which has seen its shares tumble 29% so far this year. Shares in Bitdeer Technologies Group took a hit on Thursday after the Bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence infrastructure firm announced a $300 million convertible senior note offering. Bitdeer said that it intends to offer a “principal amount” of $300 million in convertible senior notes with an option for purchasers to buy an additional $45 million in a private placement. It is the second convertible note offering from the firm, following a $150 million offering in April 2024 that also triggered an 18% stock slump. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:13 Feb 20, 2026
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari says crypto is “utterly useless” compared to AI, and that pro-stablecoin arguments are “a buzzword salad.” Neel Kashkari, the president of the US Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says that crypto is “utterly useless” in comparison to artificial intelligence and took a swipe at stablecoins, saying they don’t have many uses. Speaking at the 2026 Midwest Economic Outlook summit on Thursday, Kashkari drew comparisons between AI and crypto, saying the latter “has been around for more than a decade, and it's utterly useless.” “AI has not been around very long, and people are using it every day,” he added. “This is demonstrating to me that this thing is real and it has real long-term potential for the US economy as opposed to crypto.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 03:30 Feb 20, 2026
Sanctions evasion networks, guarantee marketplaces, and large-scale money laundering schemes dominated illicit stablecoin use, says TRM Labs. Illicit entities received around $141 billion via stablecoins in 2025, the highest level observed in the last five years, says blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. TRM said in a report released on Tuesday that the increase doesn’t reflect a broader growth in crypto-enabled crime, but does show a “deeper reliance on stablecoins within specific activity types where they offer clear operational advantages.” Stablecoins have been particularly used in sanctions-linked networks and large-scale money movement services, it said. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:58 Feb 20, 2026
Bitcoin developer Matt Carallo says Bitcoiners are looking to “blame something” for the asset’s sluggish price, dismissing quantum fears as the culprit. Bitcoin’s recent sell-off isn’t due to quantum computing fears, because if that were the case, Ether would be soaring, says Bitcoin developer Matt Carallo. “I strongly disagree with the characterization that Bitcoin's current price is materially, because of some kind of quantum risk,” Carallo told journalist Laura Shin on the Unchained podcast on Thursday. “If that were true, then Ethereum would be up substantially on Bitcoin,” he added. Ether (ETH) is down 58% since a major crypto market crash in early October, trading at $1,957 at the time of publication. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:20 Feb 20, 2026
Making Bitcoin quantum secure is the biggest challenge the protocol has ever faced. Here are the six biggest obstacles to be overcome. -
Cointelegraph.com - 01:45 Feb 20, 2026
Tech investor Jason Calacanis says he’s paying around $110,000 annualized to run an AI agent, more than most US salaries, and it’s not running at full capacity. The high costs of deploying and running artificial intelligence agents in the workforce may prevent them from replacing humans who can do the same work at lower cost, say two multimillionaire tech investors. Tech investor Jason Calacanis said on the All-In podcast on Saturday that he has been paying $300 per day for an Anthropic Claude AI agent to help run his businesses, despite the bot only operating at 10% to 20% of full capacity. “When do tokens outpace the salary of the employee?” Calacanis questioned, referring to the usage allowance, called tokens, that users must purchase to use most AI models. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:30 Feb 19, 2026
Bitcoin may stay capped under $70,000 as traders deploy bearish options strategies, and spot BTC ETF outflows point to a retest of the yearly low. Key takeaways: Professional traders are paying a 13% premium for downside protection as Bitcoin struggles to maintain support above $66,000. While stocks and gold remain strong, $910 million in Bitcoin ETF outflows suggest that institutional investor caution is rising. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:49 Feb 19, 2026
Blockchain-based versions of US stocks are drawing growing investor activity, with onchain wallets and cross-venue trading expanding rapidly. Kraken’s tokenized equities platform, xStocks, has surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume less than eight months after launch, underscoring accelerating adoption as tokenization gains traction among mainstream investors. Kraken disclosed Thursday that the $25 billion figure includes trading across centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, as well as minting and redemption activity. The milestone represents a 150% increase since November, when xStocks first crossed $10 billion in cumulative transaction volume. The xStocks tokens are issued by Backed Finance, a regulated asset provider that creates 1:1 backed tokenized representations of publicly traded equities and exchange-traded funds. Kraken serves as a primary distribution and trading venue, while Backed is responsible for structuring and issuing the tokenized instruments. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:32 Feb 19, 2026
Analysis by Bitcoin services company River forecasts a transaction surge as individuals and businesses experiment with AI agentic payments. Monthly transaction volume on the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network, a secondary layer for BTC that enables payment use cases, surpassed the $1 billion milestone in November 2025, according to a report from Bitcoin financial services company River. Transaction volume on the Lightning Network hit an estimated $1.1 billion in November, across 5.2 million transactions, according to a report shared by Sam Wouters, River’s director of marketing. The report said: However, the total transaction count in 2025 is lower compared with 2023, when monthly Lightning transactions peaked at 6.6 million in August of that year, which River attributed to experiments with micropayments in gaming and messaging apps. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:15 Feb 19, 2026
Bitcoin is on course to lock in another negative month, but one analyst says major differences in the current market structure could be a sign of a pending trend reversal. Bitcoin (BTC) is forming what may prove to be a fifth consecutive red monthly candle, which would be the longest losing streak since 2018. The silver lining is that data suggests that March may prove to be a profitable month for BTC. Historical price data from CoinGlass confirms Bitcoin is now facing its fifth consecutive red month, down 15% this month after closing the previous four months in the red. The last time this happened was in 2018, when it entered a bear market after reaching record highs in 2017. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:09 Feb 19, 2026
Paul Atkins and Hester Peirce spoke at ETHDenver on Wednesday on the future of regulation at the SEC and its response to crypto market volatility. Paul Atkins, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the agency’s crypto task force head, Hester Peirce, said Wednesday they would support efforts to clarify how “tokenized securities interact with existing regulation,” better positioning industry developers. Speaking to attendees at the ETHDenver conference on the future of regulation, Atkins and Peirce addressed concerns about volatility in many cryptocurrency prices and how the agency plans to move forward with digital asset regulation amid a potential market structure bill in Congress. In response to “falling crypto prices of late,” likely referring to the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) falling by more than 28% and 40%, respectively, in the previous 30 days, Atkins said: Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:06 Feb 19, 2026
A transaction-level analysis of 92 community banks found $78.3 million in net deposits moved to Coinbase over 13 months, with money market accounts losing most outflows. New analysis from banking data company KlariVis found that 90% of community banks in its sample had customers transacting with Coinbase. Across 53 banks where transaction direction could be determined, $2.77 flowed to the crypto exchange for every $1.00 returning, resulting in a net $78.3 million deposit shift over 13 months. The study reviewed 225,577 Coinbase-related transactions across 92 community banks and found that transfers were heavily concentrated in money market accounts, where 96.3% of identifiable transaction volume represented funds leaving banks for the exchange. "In general, community banks can be defined as those owned by organizations with less than $10 billion in assets," the Federal Reserve says on its website. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:15 Feb 19, 2026
The Bollinger Bands indicator has narrowed to its tightest level on record, a rare technical setup that analysts say is a sign of a pending directional move. A key volatility indicator for Bitcoin (BTC) has narrowed to its tightest measurement on record, a pattern that was followed by a multimonth rally in previous bull and bear markets. Will the Bollinger Bands indicator call the market bottom again? Analyzing the monthly Bitcoin chart, crypto analyst Dorkchicken noted that BTC’s Bollinger Bands are currently at their “tightest” level on record. Such conditions have repeatedly led to bullish breakouts, with the only prior downtrend from similar conditions occurring in 2022, during the drop to $16,000 from $20,000. Bollinger Bands measure price volatility, and extreme compression often leads to a sharp expansion. The analyst added that there are higher odds of an upside trend once expansion begins. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:11 Feb 19, 2026
The ETF invests exclusively in short-term US Treasurys and is structured for potential use by stablecoin issuers under US reserve requirements. US-based exchange-traded funds issuer ProShares has launched a money market ETF designed to qualify as an eligible reserve asset under the GENIUS Act, positioning it for potential use by stablecoin issuers. The ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF, trading under the ticker IQMM, invests exclusively in short-term US Treasurys. Unlike conventional government money market funds, it uses a floating net asset value (NAV) based on market pricing and trades intraday on an exchange. According to an announcement on Wednesday, the structure includes same-day settlement and dual NAV features designed for institutional reserve management. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 19:06 Feb 19, 2026
Trump administration officials held a similar event last week to discuss stablecoin yield within a market structure bill under consideration in Congress. Update (Feb. 19 at 7:21 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from the Crypto Council for Innovation. The White House has held another meeting between representatives from the cryptocurrency and banking industries on a market structure bill under consideration in the US Senate, seeking to iron-out differences on stablecoin yield provisions, among other issues. In a Thursday Fox News interview, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that the company’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, attended the meeting with White House officials earlier in the day. The CEO’s comments came after unconfirmed reports that the Trump administration would follow its Feb. 10 meeting on the CLARITY Act, a bill to establish digital asset market structure. That meeting did not result in a deal on stablecoins. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 18:58 Feb 19, 2026
Heavy outflows haven’t erased the success of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which still hold $53 billion in cumulative inflows, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may be seeing heavy outflows lately, but the broader picture tells a different story. According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, cumulative net inflows into Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs peaked at $63 billion in October and now stand at about $53 billion, even after months of redemptions. “That’s NET NET +$53b in only two years,” Balchunas wrote on X, sharing data compiled by fellow analyst James Seyffart. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 18:12 Feb 19, 2026
Bitcoin trades in a tight demand zone that formed in 2024, but previous bear market data suggests the channel will break and lead to new lows. Bitcoin’s (BTC) market structure shifted into a corrective phase after losing a key onchain valuation level in late January. Glassnode data shows that BTC's price is compressing within a 2024-era demand zone as liquidity conditions soften. At the same time, BTC's supply is steadily shifting into long-term, retail-linked wallets while exchange activity has cooled. This mix of technical and onchain data, along with the current capital rotation, may shape the next steps for Bitcoin price. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 17:10 Feb 19, 2026
New Bitcoin price analysis set out key safety nets for bulls ahead of a potential showdown with Binance traders' aggregate deposit cost basis. Bitcoin (BTC) has four new key support levels to watch as a fresh wave of bearish BTC price action aims to push the market price below $50,000. Key points: Bitcoin’s realized prices remain important milestones as the market forms a long-term floor. Read more
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