On February 17, 2026, ORCA, the native token of Orca DEX on Solana, jumped more than 62% in a day, briefly exceeding $1.62 and marking its strongest trading volumes since December. The move was fueled by a short squeeze, over $23M in open interest, and heavy activity on South Korean exchanges, with more than half of spot volume on Upbit and over 75% of trades against the Korean won.

On February 17, Ripple’s ecosystem drew attention as Grayscale reported sustained client interest in XRP and highlighted its GXRP ETF with prior periods of strong inflows. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, launched in December 2024, has surpassed a $1.5 billion market cap and expanded institutional integrations. Over the past week, XRP traded between $1.35 and $1.66, with analysts divided between caution over a gravestone doji pattern and expectations of a potential move toward $1.80–$2 if key support holds.

On Feb. 16, Jake Claver defended his $100 XRP thesis in a Memes and Markets interview, casting it as a sequence of prerequisites tied to institutional tokenization, on-chain liquidity, and regulated market infrastructure. He said custody, identity, and liquidity must be in place so XRPL stablecoins and intermediary XRP can enable markets for tokenized stocks and real estate.

On Friday, Polygon collected around $407,100 in fees, overtaking Ethereum's roughly $211,700, marking its first recorded lead. A burst of Polymarket activity drove the shift, with about $15 million bet on a single Oscars market and over $1 million in fees generated in seven days. Typical transaction costs were about $0.0026 on Polygon versus ~$1.68 on Ethereum.

After bottoming on February 6, XRP rebounded about 38% to $1.55 before easing to roughly $1.46, outpacing recent moves in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB. On Binance, XRP reserves dropped 192.37M to 2.553B XRP, a 7% decline to the lowest level since January 2024, while seven-day trading volume on Upbit reached $4.11B, pointing to active markets and signs of investor accumulation.

According to Nexo, the platform has relaunched in the United States with compliant crypto services via a partnership with Bakkt, nine months after signaling a return. The NEXO token trades near $0.8871, up 5.7% over 24 hours and 9.4% for the week, with key levels at $0.8655 support and $0.9619–$1.07 resistance highlighted by analysts.

Between February 9 and February 15, XRP’s active wallets fell from 55,080 to 40,778, marking a network activity decline of about 26% while the token struggled below the $1.50 level. Over the same period, XRP’s price rebounded from lows near $1.11 to $1.20 and later traded at $1.46, still below its 50-day SMA at $1.83 and 200-day SMA at $2.34, reflecting ongoing bearish momentum despite ETF inflows and Ripple’s new institutional roadmap.

In a Thursday note, Standard Chartered reduced its XRP 2026 year-end price target by 65% to $2.80, down from $8. On February 17, XRP traded at $1.45, meaning the new target still implies a 91% upside. The bank also now projects Bitcoin at $100,000 in 2026 after lowering its prior $150,000 view earlier in February.