In a report published on Saturday, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said five platforms—Bitpapa, ABCeX, Exmo, Rapira and Aifory Pro—are facilitating ruble-to-crypto conversions used by sanctioned Russian entities. Elliptic linked the network's rise to the March takedown of Garantex's website and highlighted flows including at least $11 billion at ABCeX, $19.5 million tied to Exmo, and $72 million involving Rapira.

At a Mar-a-Lago forum hosted by the Trump family's crypto platform, CEOs from Coinbase, Binance and Goldman Sachs joined U.S. market leaders and officials. World Liberty announced a partnership with Securitize to tokenize loan revenue interests tied to a Trump-branded Maldives resort, which the Trump Organization said in November is set to complete in 2030 with 100 villas.

The state of Nevada has filed a civil enforcement lawsuit against prediction market firm Kalshi in state court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied Kalshi's request to block state regulatory action. Kalshi is seeking to move the case to federal court, arguing it falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, while Nevada's gaming regulator claims the firm offers unlicensed sports wagering in violation of state law. The dispute follows a cease-and-desist order issued last year that led to earlier federal court proceedings over Kalshi's sports event contracts.

Trading platform eToro saw its shares close 20.4% higher at $33.07 on Tuesday after posting a fourth-quarter 2025 earnings beat, with results largely powered by its crypto business. The firm reported Q4 net income of $68.7 million, earnings per share of $0.71 and revenue of $3.87 billion, most of which came from $3.59 billion in crypto-related revenue, while full-year figures also showed solid growth.

Decentralized lending protocol ZeroLend will fully shut down after roughly three years of operation, with founder Ryker citing inactive and low‑liquidity blockchains and oracle providers dropping support as key reasons. The protocol, which focused on Ethereum layer‑2 networks, has seen its total value locked plunge from nearly $359 million in November 2024 to $6.6 million, while its ZERO token dropped 34% in the last 24 hours as users are urged to withdraw remaining funds.

On Feb. 9, Crypto.com launched its ai.com AI agent platform and has now obtained the ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification for AI management systems. The firm is positioning AI services as one of its three core business lines, rolling out SDKs and data products while emphasizing secure and transparent AI infrastructure.

Grayscale has submitted a Form S-1 to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission seeking to transform its existing Aave trust into an exchange-traded fund called the Grayscale Aave Trust ETF. The proposed fund, which would trade on NYSE Arca under the ticker GAVE with a 2.5% fee and Coinbase as custodian and prime broker, would hold AAVE tokens directly and follows a similar Aave-focused ETF filing from Bitwise in December. The move comes as Aave remains the largest decentralized finance protocol by total value locked and as AAVE trades around $126, far below its prior peak near $662.

On Wednesday, Strategy CEO Phong Le said the firm plans to rely more on its Stretch (STRC) perpetual preferred stock rather than issuing new common shares to fund additional Bitcoin purchases. STRC, the company's fourth perpetual preferred issue launched in July with an annual dividend above 11%, has now returned to its $100 par value, which could allow Strategy to restart offerings. Le also indicated the firm is not looking to acquire rival Bitcoin treasury companies, calling such deals a distraction from its core product. Strategy's common shares closed the same day down over 5% at $126.14.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said Paxful was ordered to pay a $4 million fine following its December guilty plea to conspiring to promote illegal prostitution, transmit criminal proceeds and breach anti‑money‑laundering rules. Prosecutors added the platform marketed itself as non‑KYC, handled over 26 million trades worth nearly $3 billion from January 2017 to September 2019, and agreed an appropriate penalty of $112.5 million but was assessed as unable to pay more than $4 million.