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Benchmark analysts recently reaffirmed their "buy" rating on Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and set a target price of $705, indicating an upside potential of about 430% from the current share price of approximately $130. Analysts believe that the company's strategic shift to the STRC preferred stock financing model is expected to become a core driver of Bitcoin reserve growth.At the Strategy World 2026 conference, the company's Executive Chairman Michael Saylor stated that the company will shift from its previous strategy of encouraging enterprises to incorporate Bitcoin into their balance sheets to focusing on promoting STRC perpetual preferred stock as the primary financing tool for future Bitcoin purchases. Benchmark analysts noted that STRC will become the "main engine" for Strategy to accumulate Bitcoin and is expected to accelerate the growth rate of the company's Bitcoin holdings per share.The STRC price fell to around $90 earlier this month but has since rebounded to near the $100 par value level. This preferred stock product offers an annualized yield of approximately 11%, pays dividends monthly, and has priority over common stockholders in the dividend distribution order.

According to Jinshi, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits in the U.S. for the week ending February 14 was 1.833 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.858 million. The previous value was revised from 1.869 million to 1.864 million.

According to The Block, OpenAI has announced a partnership with the crypto investment firm Paradigm to launch EVMbench, aimed at assessing the capabilities of AI Agents in the field of smart contract security, including the identification, patching, and exploitation of high-risk vulnerabilities.Both parties stated that as AI improves its capabilities in code writing and execution, it can be exploited by attackers but can also serve as a defensive tool. Therefore, it is necessary to test the security capabilities of AI systems in environments with real economic significance. EVMbench will provide various testing modes, including vulnerability detection, contract modification, elimination of exploitability, and simulating complete attack processes in a sandbox chain environment.At the launch of this tool, the DeFi protocol Moonwell and the cross-chain liquidity protocol CrossCurve have recently encountered smart contract vulnerability attacks, raising concerns about AI-assisted code security. EVMbench is reportedly built on 120 selected vulnerability samples, covering multiple public audits and competition cases.Industry analysts believe that as AI technology advances, the threshold for identifying smart contract vulnerabilities may further decrease, and the game between security defense and attack capabilities is accelerating.

According to The Block, Benchmark maintains a "buy" rating on Metaplanet but has lowered its target price by more than half, stating that the company's latest financial report highlights the "prospects and risks" of its aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy.Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer, in a research report on Tuesday, reduced the target price for the Tokyo-listed Bitcoin reserve company from 2,400 yen to 1,100 yen. He wrote that recent performance shows the "hope and danger" of the company's Bitcoin-centric financial strategy. The stock is traded under the OTC code MTPLF in the U.S., currently priced at about $2.20, having briefly fallen to around $1.85 earlier this month, close to its lowest level since the company began its Bitcoin purchasing strategy in April 2024.Metaplanet reported a net loss of $619 million for the fiscal year ending December 31, primarily due to non-cash valuation losses from its holdings caused by the decline in Bitcoin prices late last year. Nevertheless, its operational performance has significantly improved, with revenue and profits increasing due to Bitcoin-related financial services activities.A core pillar of Benchmark's investment logic is Metaplanet's continuously expanding Bitcoin revenue-generating business, which generates income through Bitcoin-related options and yield strategies. Analysts believe this segment allows the company to pay dividends on newly issued perpetual preferred shares without selling its core Bitcoin holdings, thereby funding subsequent BTC purchases through operating cash flow rather than asset sales.The company added that investor demand for these preferred instruments will likely determine whether Metaplanet can successfully continue to expand its financial reserves while controlling dilution risk.

According to Cointelegraph, Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that by 2050, DeFi could benefit from tokenizing $50 trillion worth of "abundant assets" (such as solar energy), thereby opening up a new category of on-chain collateral.Data from RWA.xyz shows that nearly $25 billion of real-world assets have already been tokenized on-chain, but they primarily exist in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds, stocks, commodities, private credit, and real estate.Kulechov expects these scarce assets to continue to grow, but "the greatest impact of tokenization can be achieved through the tokenization of abundant assets." By 2050, solar energy alone could account for $15-30 trillion.

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida issued a $2.8 million default judgment against former crypto influencer Ben Armstrong (also known as "BitBoy") in a defamation case brought by investor Kevin O'Leary. The court ruled against Armstrong in six counts of defamation due to his failure to present a defense. The damages include approximately $78,000 for reputational harm, $750,000 for emotional distress, and $2 million in punitive damages.The case stems from a post Armstrong made on the X platform in March 2025, where he falsely claimed that O'Leary was involved in a fatal boating accident in 2019 and committed murder.

According to The Block, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer has lowered the target price for Coinbase (COIN) from $421 to $267, a decrease of 37%, while reiterating a "buy" rating. This adjustment comes after the company announced its fourth-quarter financial results, which fell short of expectations due to an overall pullback in the crypto market, impacting both revenue and earnings.Palmer has reduced the fiscal year 2026 earnings per share (EPS) forecast by 21% to $5.34, with the EPS expectation for the first quarter of 2026 at $0.96, approximately 19% lower than the market consensus. However, based on the current stock price of about $164, the new target price still implies about 60% upside potential.The financial report shows that Coinbase's net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $1.71 billion, a 5% decrease quarter-over-quarter; the GAAP net loss was $667 million, primarily due to an unrealized loss of $718 million on crypto asset holdings and a strategic investment loss of $395 million. Despite short-term pressures, Palmer noted that the company's business structure is becoming "more diversified and resilient":Institutional trading revenue increased by 37% quarter-over-quarter to $185 million, benefiting from the acquisition of the derivatives platform Deribit for $2.9 billion last August;Stablecoin revenue grew by 3% quarter-over-quarter to $364 million, with USDC average balances reaching an all-time high;Subscription and services revenue reached $727.4 million, accounting for about 43% of net revenue, with full-year subscription and services revenue increasing by 23% year-over-year to $2.8 billion.The company expects subscription and services revenue for the first quarter of 2026 to be between $550 million and $630 million, with trading revenue for the period as of February 10 estimated at about $420 million. As of the end of 2025, the company held $11.3 billion in cash and had repurchased $1.7 billion in stock in the fourth quarter and early February, with the board also approving an additional $2 billion repurchase authorization.

Bybit launches a Valentine's Day exclusive event for new users.During the event, newly registered users can earn raffle tickets by completing tasks related to deposits, wealth management, and on-chain activities, with a chance to win a grand prize of 1,000 USDe airdrop.The event runs from February 13, 2026, 10:00 (UTC) to March 12, 2026, 10:00 (UTC), targeting new users who register between January 1, 2026, and March 31, 2026. Users who complete an initial deposit of no less than 100 USD will qualify for the raffle; additionally, for each eligible friend successfully invited to participate, users can earn extra raffle tickets (up to 10 tickets).Moreover, new users can gain additional raffle opportunities by completing any of the following tasks: making their first wealth management purchase, exchanging for BYUSDT, participating in Mantle Vault staking, or conducting USDe / USDtb trading and exchanges.By minting coins on-chain with no less than 5,000 USDe or USDtb, users can also increase their raffle ticket count, further enhancing their chances of winning.

Erika posted on platform X that Gu Ailing will join Benchmark under Bill Gurley as a Senior Investment Manager after the Winter Olympics.Bill himself has confirmed this matter in the comments section.

According to reports, Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou will attend the Consensus HK fireside chat on February 12, 2026, at 11:20 AM (HK time), sharing his latest thoughts on industry evolution around the theme ------ “When DeFi Expands into TradFi: Designing a New Financial Platform for the Next Decade.”The dialogue will be hosted by Aoyan Ashraf, Head of Global News at CoinDesk, focusing on the integration path between decentralized finance and traditional financial systems, as well as how digital asset infrastructure transitions from "fringe experiments" to mainstream financial architecture.

According to the official announcement, Gate DEX will launch a "Gas-Free Benefits Month" special promotion from February 10, 19:00 to February 25, 19:00 (UTC+8). During the event, Gate DEX will provide both new and existing users with multi-dimensional gas-free subsidies covering token sending, authorization, and trading, aiming to reduce users' on-chain interaction costs through full-process subsidies.It is reported that for users who create or import a new wallet within 7 days, Gate DEX offers 3 full-process gas-free opportunities; existing users can also receive 2 advanced gas-free benefits each month. In addition, the event features a "Recharge Bonus Gift," where users can activate additional token authorization and trading gas-free benefits instantly by pre-depositing 50 USDT to the gas station in a single transaction.The gas station is a recently launched multi-chain basic feature of the Gate wallet. By binding a dedicated gas account 1:1 with the user's EVM wallet, when users initiate on-chain transactions and the native gas is insufficient, they can choose to use the gas station balance to cover network fees, ensuring the smooth completion of transactions. This feature supports 10 mainstream EVM networks, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon, and allows deposits of over 100 mainstream crypto assets, including GT, USDT, USDC, ETH, and BNB.

Cryptocurrency KOL and former FTX community partner Benson Sun posted that Bitcoin experienced an extreme drop this morning. Calculating with a 200-day lookback period, BTC's decline reached -5.65 standard deviations (σ). The Six Sigma standard in manufacturing allows for only 3.4 defects per million occurrences, which defines "almost impossible" in human industrial civilization. Yesterday's BTC volatility was just 0.35 standard deviations away from this "industrial-grade impossibility."A -5.65σ occurrence has a theoretical probability of about one in ten million under normal distribution. Despite the fat tail effect in financial markets, this level of volatility has only occurred 4 times since BTC began trading in July 2010, accounting for about 0.07% of all trading days. Even during the deep bear phases of 2018 and 2022, such a rapid decline had not occurred within a rolling 200-day period. This poses a severe challenge to quantitative strategies.Currently, most quantitative models are built on data after 2015, and historical samples exceeding 5.65σ, apart from the anomalous "312" flash crash in 2020, occurred before 2015, leaving almost no reference precedent.CoinKarma's quantitative strategy has shown a paper loss in this round of market conditions, but due to maintaining low leverage (about 1.4 times) over the long term, it remains manageable, with a maximum drawdown of about 30%. While extreme market conditions are an expensive "tuition," contracts and on-chain data will become important nutrients for future risk control models.

According to Jinshi reports, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits in the U.S. for the week ending January 24 was 1.844 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.847 million. The previous value was revised from 1.827 million to 1.819 million.

According to market news, despite Galaxy Digital's stock price plummeting due to a $482 million loss in the fourth quarter, the market may be overlooking its potential in long-term catalysts such as AI data centers and U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory legislation.Galaxy's current stock price is around $21, and Benchmark maintains its "buy" rating with a target price of $57, anticipating a 170% upside. Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz stated during the earnings call that there is a 75%-80% probability of passing U.S. cryptocurrency market structure legislation, which could attract more institutional capital into the market. Additionally, the company plans to announce more institutional partnerships and infrastructure expansion plans in the coming quarters, including the expansion of on-chain credit markets.Benchmark also mentioned that Galaxy's Helios data center in Texas is an undervalued asset, with over 1.6 gigawatts of approved power capacity, and plans to start generating revenue this year through a leasing agreement with AI cloud service provider CoreWeave. Analysts believe that the valuation of the Helios data center alone could exceed Galaxy's current market value.Despite the decline in fourth-quarter performance, Galaxy's lending business continues to grow, with total loans reaching $1.8 billion, while the company has $2.6 billion in cash and stablecoin reserves, providing ample financial support for its expansion in cryptocurrency infrastructure and AI.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve official Barkin stated that the pricing power of businesses is constrained, which is beneficial for controlling inflation.

X product head Nikita Bier stated that the recent increase in platform creator rewards is due to a strong crackdown on matrix and bot accounts. This includes those with links for tips in their bios and content that engages in interaction baiting. "We redistribute all the money we get from scammers back to the real content creators."

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou today announced the core strategy and key development directions for 2026 at the Bybit Annual Gala, emphasizing the complete integration of TradFi, traditional banking services, and cryptocurrency, upgrading to create "The New Financial Platform," and building a borderless integrated financial service system to become a bridge connecting global finance.It is reported that Bybit's annual gala covers major offices around the world, this year including regions such as Asia, the UAE, and Europe.

Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou will appear today at 16:00 (UTC+8) in Bybit's first annual CEO live broadcast, themed "BUIDLing a New Financial Era."The live broadcast will cover Bybit's layout for 2026, the integration of Bybit Alpha with TradFi product systems, strategies for integrating emerging and traditional finance, updates on the Mantle (MNT) ecosystem, a deep review of the "mass liquidation" in the crypto market on October 11 last year, and the platform's progress in security and product upgrade plans.It is reported that Ben will also share a significant transformation news from Bybit.Users participating in the live broadcast will have the chance to share a prize pool of up to 10,000 USDT.