DeepSeek plans to unveil a new AI model as soon as next week, and U.S. officials say it was trained on Nvidia’s Blackwell chips that are barred from export to China. A senior official said Monday the setup could breach U.S. export controls and suggested the hardware may be clustered at a DeepSeek site in Inner Mongolia.

Anthropic reported in a Monday blog post that Chinese AI firms DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax allegedly operated more than 24,000 fake Claude accounts and sent over 16 million prompts to distill its model outputs. The company warned this large-scale data extraction could accelerate rival AI development and potentially feed into military or surveillance uses, while at the same time unveiling a new Claude-based code scanning tool. Following the announcement, several cybersecurity and software stocks, including CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and GitLab, recorded sharp declines.

In early Monday trading in Asia, Bitcoin briefly sank to about $64,090, dropping as much as 5.6% amid renewed concerns over US tariffs, while Ether slid 5% and other altcoins fell even more. Over the same period, 12 US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a fifth consecutive week of net outflows totaling $3.8 billion, the longest such stretch since February last year, as Asian equity benchmarks such as South Korea's Kospi and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced.

According to Cryptopolitan, global markets face a busy slate this week, with trade policy shifts, Nvidia's Q4 2025 report on Wednesday, Friday's PPI, and 11 Federal Reserve speeches. Forecasts call for a Conference Board reading of 88.0 after 84.5, while policy signals include a proposed 10% global tariff under Section 122.

On February 21, 2026, economist Nouriel Roubini labeled the GENIUS Act reckless and warned that uninsured stablecoins without a lender of last resort could face runs. On Wednesday, Bitcoin traded around 67,400 dollars, down 45 percent from its late-October high, as he dismissed it as a pseudo-asset and not an inflation hedge.

According to Bank of America, institutional investors offloaded $8.3 billion of U.S. equities last week, marking the second-largest weekly sale on record. Retail buyers purchased $1.0 billion and hedge funds added $1.2 billion, while equity ETFs drew $2.2 billion and single-name outflows totaled $8.3 billion; outflows occurred in 13 of the past 15 weeks, reaching $52.0 billion.

Tether announced on February 21, 2026 that it has stopped minting its offshore Chinese yuan-pegged stablecoin CNH₾ and will phase out redemptions over the next year. The firm cited persistently low demand for CNH₾ versus its other tokens, even as market data show USDT supply has slipped by about $1.5 billion in February to under $184 billion. During the transition, CNH₾ holders may continue to redeem under Tether's existing terms until the final cutoff date.

OpenAI told investors it plans about $600 billion in compute spending by 2030, replacing the $1.4 trillion figure previously discussed by Sam Altman. The company projects over $280 billion in 2030 revenue, nearly evenly split between consumer and enterprise, while Nvidia confirmed talks on a potential $30 billion investment separate from a September $100 billion framework.

According to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not permit President Donald Trump to impose global tariffs after declaring national emergencies. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting. The blocked duties included 25% on most Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% on most Chinese goods, with a baseline of at least 10% applied to nearly all trading partners.