On March 6, 2026, former Washington CFO Nevin Shetty received a two-year federal prison sentence for secretly diverting $35 million in company funds into a DeFi investment tied to his side project HighTower Treasury. The crypto strategy, launched after he learned his job would be terminated in April 2022, collapsed during the 2022 downturn, nearly wiping out the entire investment and forcing layoffs of about 60 employees. Shetty was also ordered to pay $35,000,100 in restitution and will face three years of supervised release with restrictions on future corporate officer roles.

Prediction platform Kalshi is facing a class action filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California over how it settled a market on whether Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would leave office by March 1. Plaintiffs say a "death carveout" rule applied after reports of Khamenei's death on Feb. 28 led to partial payouts based on the final traded price instead of the full $1 per winning contract, while Kalshi argues the clause was meant to stop users from profiting directly from a person's death and later reimbursed fees and net losses.

Vitalik Buterin said on February 28, 2026 that Ethereum’s account abstraction, enabled by EIP-8141 and the Hegota upgrade, could be deployed within a year. The design would let wallets act like programmable apps, with recoverable keys, batch operations, and fee payments in non-ETH tokens. He also backed an anti-censorship proposal planned for the 2026 Hegota hard fork.

Bitcoin briefly dropped to nearly $63,000 following US-Israeli air strikes on Iran before rebounding to about $67,000–$68,000 within 24 hours. The sharp move coincided with roughly $657 million in liquidations affecting around 157,000 traders and left markets focused on whether the Middle East conflict will intensify or settle.

Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès has proposed a Bitcoin hard fork to move 79,956 BTC, valued at over $5.2 billion, tied to the exchange's historic hack. His GitHub plan would enable transfers to a recovery address without the original private key, potentially aiding creditor payouts. The idea has drawn sharp pushback from users concerned it could weaken Bitcoin's immutability.

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported that five cryptocurrency platforms tied to Russia are enabling users to move funds outside Western sanctions controls, with only one of them formally blacklisted. The study cites billions of dollars in processed volume, links to sanctioned exchanges, and services such as USDT-funded virtual cards, while regulators in Europe consider broader restrictions on crypto dealings with Russia.

BGD, a core engineering vendor to Aave DAO, said Friday it will not renew its contract, which ends on April 1. The company cited disagreements over shifting users from Aave v3 to the forthcoming v4. AAVE fell more than 6% after the notice, while Aave Labs said v3 will remain supported with no immediate migration timeline.

In a February 14, 2026 post on X, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that many prediction markets are tilting toward short-term speculation and gambling-style activity. He outlined an alternative model where onchain markets work with AI assistants to hedge household and business expenses against inflation, while supporters argue platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi can still provide decentralized economic intelligence amid rising US regulatory scrutiny.

Anthony Pompliano said easing inflation is challenging Bitcoin's long-term thesis centered on finite supply and monetary expansion. The Consumer Price Index slowed to 2.4% in January from 2.7%, and Bitcoin traded near $68,850, down about 28% over the past month amid an "Extreme Fear" sentiment reading of 9.