Crypto exchange Backpack said it will allocate 20% of its equity to users who stake its token for at least one year. The plan offers a fixed token-to-equity swap ratio and seeks to address incentive misalignment, according to founder Armani Ferrante. The exchange flagged the initiative in an X post on Monday.

Pig-butchering crypto scams cultivate long-term trust, then funnel victims into fake digital asset platforms. In January 2026, losses reached $370.3 million, with social engineering accounting for about $311 million. Authorities are pursuing networks and laundering operations, but cross-border structures and encrypted channels complicate enforcement.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in an X post on Sunday that AI-powered personal assistants could help users navigate DAO governance by handling routine votes and surfacing context. He pointed to participation rates of roughly 15%–25% and warned of centralization risks. Near Foundation researcher Lane Rettig described similar "digital twins" last year.

Neo SPCC released NeoFS Node v0.51.1, following v0.51.0 earlier this month. The update adds new CLI commands for container policy checks and mainchain management, a policer consistency metric, faster metabase resynchronization, and storage-layer fixes. Operators on v0.51.0 can upgrade in place; v0.50.x users should follow the v0.51.0 migration guidance.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed using transaction simulations and related tools to better align onchain execution with user intent. In a recent post on X, he suggested that users first define the action they want to take and then approve or cancel after viewing a simulated outcome, supported by mechanisms like spending caps and multisig checks. He argued that while user intent is inherently complex and perfect security is unattainable, overlapping ways of expressing intent can make low-risk actions easier and high-risk actions more difficult.

World Liberty Financial, a Trump-linked crypto firm, plans to issue tokens tied to loan-revenue interests for the Trump International Hotel and Resort Maldives, with completion targeted for 2030. The product offers accredited investors exposure to projected interest payments through Securitize’s regulated digital securities infrastructure, emphasizing private-credit style cashflows over real estate ownership.

Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov argued that disagreement inside decentralized autonomous organizations is a positive indicator for protocol governance, pointing to a 2024 grant proposal in the Curve DAO and a December 2025 dispute in the Aave DAO. In the Curve case, a $6.3 million-equivalent grant plan for Swiss Stake AG was revised after pushback and later drew over 80% turnout, while the Aave dispute over CoW Swap fee flows and intellectual property control highlighted how legal recognition and ownership structures remain unresolved for DAOs.

On 22 February 2026 at 15:14, weekly activity on spot decentralized exchanges reached a record 38.1 million transactions over the past seven days, largely propelled by prediction markets. Polymarket registered 19.6 million weekly transactions by mid‑February 2026, ahead of Kalshi at 17.4 million, while sector volumes have grown more than 130x since 2024 and surpassed $13 billion.