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According to CoinDesk, Steve Kurz, the Global Head of Asset Management and Co-Head of Digital Assets at Galaxy Digital, believes that the recent decline in cryptocurrencies is due to liquidity and leverage release rather than systemic failure. This indicates that the cryptocurrency cycle is more mature than in 2022, and most forced selling may have already been absorbed by the market.The development of stablecoins, tokenization, and the integration of blockchain with traditional finance is accelerating, making cryptocurrencies both a financial asset and a core part of the financial system. Steve Kurz expects that cryptocurrencies will not experience a V-shaped recovery but will go through a period of range-bound fluctuations. Subsequently, with the injection of institutional capital and the ongoing "great integration" of cryptocurrencies with traditional finance, cryptocurrency prices will gradually rise.

Chairman of Bitmine, Tom Lee, stated that Ethereum may experience a new round of V-shaped rebound after a recent decline, and it is currently close to the bottom range. He pointed out that since 2018, Ethereum has gone through 8 cycles of declines exceeding 50%, and all 8 have rebounded at a similar pace and achieved a 100% recovery.Despite the pressure on price performance, on-chain data shows that the demand for ETH staking remains strong. Currently, the waiting time for validators has risen to a historical high of 71 days, with approximately 4 million ETH queued for staking, and the total staking accounts for 30.3% of the circulating supply (about 36.7 million ETH).

According to the token unlock data from the crypto asset data platform RootData, ApeCoin (APE) will unlock approximately 14.87 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on February 17, worth about 1.89 million USD.

According to monitoring by PieShield, the wallet address of the Aperture Finance attacker transferred 1242.7 ETH (approximately 2.4 million USD) to Tornado Cash.Previously, it was reported that Aperture Finance was attacked on January 25, 2026, affecting its V3/V4 contracts and resulting in a loss of approximately 3.67 million USD.

According to Jinshi reports, Citic Securities research pointed out that although Walsh mentioned the policy direction of interest rate cuts and balance sheet reduction multiple times in 2025, considering that the liquidity pressure in the U.S. money market eased in January, the current reserve ratio to GDP is still around 10%, and the Fed's assets account for about 20% of GDP, close to pre-pandemic levels.Therefore, overall, the current U.S. financial market environment does not have the conditions for balance sheet reduction.

As the decline in the cryptocurrency market intensifies, another institution has chosen to exit the Ethereum ETF. According to the latest disclosed documents, Hong Kong's Apeiron Capital Limited has completely liquidated its holdings in the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) in the fourth quarter of 2025, selling a total of 285,400 shares for approximately $8.99 million.This ETHA position previously accounted for about 4.3% of Apeiron's assets under management (AUM) and has now been reduced to zero. This is another clear "de-risking signal" disclosed against the backdrop of a significant pullback in Ethereum and related assets. Data shows that as of January 30, ETHA was priced at $20.17, down 17.7% over the past year, underperforming the S&P 500 index by about 32 percentage points; following a recent sharp decline in the cryptocurrency market, its one-year decline has now expanded to over 30%. For the entire year of 2025, ETHA's net asset value has fallen by more than 11%. Analysts point out that Apeiron's liquidation of ETHA does not equate to a denial of the long-term value of blockchain or Ethereum, but rather resembles a reallocation choice in a high-volatility, low-return environment.As a single-asset ETF, ETHA's returns are almost entirely dependent on the price movements of ETH, which is significantly pressured during market downturns. Currently, Apeiron's portfolio is more concentrated in companies with tangible operations such as On Holding, Summit Therapeutics, and QFIN, indicating that its funds are shifting from crypto assets to targets that emphasize fundamentals.

According to Jinshi News, the dollar rose after President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Jefferies economist Mohit Kumar pointed out that Warsh is likely to lean towards reducing the Fed's balance sheet in the coming years.If inflation is seen as entrenched, Warsh may adopt a less accommodative policy. Currently, the dollar index is up 0.1% to 97.108, having reached a one-week high of 97.298 overnight.

According to Cointelegraph, Grow California, co-founded by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and Bitcoin supporter and venture capitalist Tim Draper, has disclosed that it has received approximately $40 million in donation commitments for an independent expenditure committee and related nonprofit entities to combat California's wealth tax and union power. Chris Larsen is expected to contribute up to $30 million of his own funds over multiple election cycles.Industry observers note that crypto-backed political action committees (PACs) are gearing up for the 2026 U.S. midterm elections to expand the industry's influence. Fairshake disclosed on Wednesday that its cash reserves have reached $193 million, funded by crypto institutions such as Ripple Labs, Andreessen Horowitz, and Coinbase.

According to Fortune, the venture capital firm Escape Velocity has completed its second round of fundraising, raising a total of $62 million, primarily to support DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure) and broader projects in the cryptocurrency space.The fund attracted notable investors, including Marc Andreessen and Ribbit Capital founder Micky Malka, with the largest contributor, Cendana, contributing $15 million. Escape Velocity co-founder Mahesh Ramakrishnan stated that although the DePIN sector is currently facing a market downturn, he believes that decentralized physical infrastructure will see breakthroughs. The company has previously invested in DePIN projects such as Daylight and Glow in the solar energy sector and plans to continue seeking high-quality projects that go beyond market hype.

Tesla's fourth-quarter financial report shows that its Bitcoin holdings remain at 11,509 coins, with no changes. However, due to the price of Bitcoin dropping from about $114,000 to $88,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, Tesla recorded an after-tax impairment loss of approximately $239 million in the report. Based on the current Bitcoin price of about $89,000, the value of the Bitcoin held by the company is approximately $1 billion.Tesla first disclosed its holding of 43,200 Bitcoins in February 2021, valued at about $1.7 billion at that time. Subsequently, it sold about 75% of its holdings near the bottom of the bear market in 2022, and the holding amount has remained relatively stable since that sale.In terms of the fourth-quarter financial report, Tesla's revenue of $24.9 billion was slightly below the expected $25.1 billion, but the adjusted earnings per share of $0.50 exceeded the market expectation of $0.45. In after-hours trading, Tesla's stock price rose by 3.4%.

BlockSec released a significant vulnerability analysis of a closed-source contract, detecting a series of suspicious transactions targeting victim contracts deployed on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and BSC for SwapNet and Aperture Finance, with total losses exceeding $17 million.Fundamentally, the root cause of both incidents is quite simple: the victim contracts have arbitrary call vulnerabilities due to insufficient input validation, allowing attackers to exploit this vulnerability to misuse existing token allowances and perform transferFrom to steal assets.Although the SwapNet and Aperture Finance incidents affected different protocols and blockchains, the fundamental issues in both cases are not complex: user-controlled underlying calls and insufficient input validation in contracts holding token allowances.

According to official news, Gate continues to improve its global asset trading landscape, having now built a complete trading map that covers both crypto assets and traditional global financial assets, providing users with a richer, more flexible, and more efficient multi-asset trading experience.The Gate TradFi section, as a newly launched multi-asset trading entry on the platform, allows users to use USDT as collateral to directly participate in trading traditional financial assets such as precious metals, foreign exchange, global stock contracts for difference (CFD), major indices, and commodities, while achieving centralized management of crypto assets and traditional financial assets through a unified account system. Gate TradFi covers a wider range of assets and supports up to 500 times fixed leverage.In addition, the precious metals section has covered spot and contract trading of mainstream precious metals such as gold and silver; the index section supports perpetual contract trading of major global indices such as NAS100, UK100, and SPX500; the stock section now supports nearly a hundred cryptocurrencies, including NVDA and TSLA, with up to 50x leverage, and offers 24/7 uninterrupted trading, further lowering the threshold for global users to participate in the traditional stock market.Currently, Gate has achieved deep integration of crypto assets and traditional global financial assets, providing users with more choices for asset allocation and strategy trading in different market environments.

Aperture Finance announced on platform X that it has detected an exploit affecting the Aperture V3/V4 contracts. To prevent new authorizations, core functionalities have been halted in the front-end application, and they are investigating the root cause of the incident in collaboration with security partners. To ensure wallet safety, please revoke all authorizations for the following contract address on the Ethereum mainnet immediately: 0xD83d960deBEC397fB149b51F8F37DD3B5CFA8913.Previously, it was reported that Aperture Finance was attacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $3.67 million.

Draper Associates founder and renowned investor Tim Draper posted on the X platform that when he first bought Bitcoin, the price was only $4 each. However, the investment was not made due to an understanding of the technology or foresight of the future, but rather because he was attracted by the idea that digital currency could bring change to those who could not access traditional banking.Later, he re-entered the market when U.S. Marshals auctioned 30,000 Bitcoins, bidding $632 each (the market price at that time was $618) and winning all nine auction batches. Despite the price subsequently dropping to $180, he insisted on holding, believing that Bitcoin is not just an investment but a tool to change the "rules of the game" in the world.