Ripple Labs has minted 20,000,000 new RLUSD tokens on the Ethereum network, adding to a series of recent issuance moves and burns. RLUSD’s circulating supply has climbed to 1.55 billion, an increase of over 2% in 24 hours, and the token has moved into the crypto top 50 by market capitalization. Ripple is pushing RLUSD growth through active treasury operations and new partnerships, including an integration-focused deal with Zand in the UAE.

According to developer Mononaut, Bitcoin's mining difficulty has jumped by about 15% to 144.4 trillion, marking one of the largest increases on record and fully reversing the previous epoch's sharp downward adjustment. As of February 20, 2026, this rebound in hashrate to 1 ZH/s is pressuring miners in the short term while Bitcoin trades around $68,104.38 with rising whale accumulation.

Shibarium's Google Search interest swung sharply, per Google Trends data. It hit 100% at 1:00 p.m. UTC on Feb. 18, 2026, then fell to zero less than 45 minutes later and stayed at zero for the last 24 hours. Over the past 30 days, SHIB is down 21.1%, while 24-hour volume rose 4.47% to $114.27 million.

An Ethereum developer detailed how ERC-5564 enables native stealth addresses using public meta-addresses and one-time destinations to keep wallets and histories private. The design introduces viewing and spending keys, plus optional delegation for payment scanning. He also noted gas requirements for fresh addresses and potential spam-triggered scans, with sender-included ETH and filters proposed as mitigations.

On February 17, 2026, Brian Armstrong said in an analyst AMA and a post on X that Wall Street undervalues Coinbase and misreads its strategy. He cited operating data, including 156% year‑over‑year trading volume, market share doubling in 2025, and 12 products each generating over $100 million annually, and noted that five GSIBs have begun collaborating with Coinbase.

In January 2026, the XRP Ledger executed an amendment intended to strengthen on‑chain lending. On Feb. 18, 2026, Ripple developer Mayukha Vadari said the newly launched XRPL Sandbox lacks tools to test protocol amendments and does not surface full transaction responses. He was responding to Anodos Finance CTO Kostas' announcement that positioned the environment as plug‑and‑play for "upcoming amendments."

Dogecoin has outpaced the broader crypto market, gaining over 7.18% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. With RSI near 73.41 and trading volume up 31.44% to $986.99 million, DOGE is trading around $0.095 after touching $0.097, and could challenge the $0.10 area if buyers sustain momentum.

On February 13, 2026, Tomasz Stanczak announced on X he will step down as Ethereum Foundation co-executive director, effective at the end of February 2026. Leadership will continue under Hsiao-Wei and newly appointed co-ED Bastian Aue, while Stanczak shifts to a more technical builder role focused on agentic Ethereum and open-source AI.

An address linked to the 2023 Mixin Network exploit resumed activity, moving 2,005 ETH to Tornado Cash on February 13, 2026, according to Lookonchain. Three new wallets then received 2,087 ETH and sold at around $1,933, while Ethereum traded near $1,971.30, implying sales below spot. CoinMarketCap later showed ETH at $1,970, down 1.3% in 24 hours.