XRP Ledger payment activity has contracted sharply, with transaction flows down nearly 90% from an early‑February high. The network briefly saw multi‑billion‑unit daily payments before momentum faded and volumes reverted to baseline. The decline coincides with a fragile price setup, as XRP remains in a broader downward channel and has yet to reclaim key moving averages.

Nvidia said Tuesday after the market close it signed a multiyear agreement to deliver millions of AI chips to Meta, spanning Blackwell GPUs, forthcoming Rubin parts, and Grace/Vera CPUs. By 5:25 AM EST Wednesday, NVDA traded at $188.40 in premarket, up 1.85% after a 1.20% regular-session gain, as investors assessed the expanded data center footprint.

BlackRock's iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB) aims to keep 70% to 95% of its ETH staked under normal conditions, while maintaining a 5% to 30% unstaked liquidity sleeve for creations, redemptions, and expenses. The fund's filing outlines that 18% of gross staking rewards will go toward fees shared by the sponsor, Coinbase as prime execution agent, and staking providers, and notes that validator activation and exit queues on Ethereum can delay both reward generation and withdrawals for weeks or longer during congestion.

According to Santiment, Solana (SOL) investment products registered $11.9M in outflows, marking the second-largest ETF withdrawal in the asset's history as its market capitalization has dropped 62% over the past four months. While this pressure weighs on SOL, the Sushi decentralized exchange has launched on Solana using Jupiter's Ultra API to offer high-speed token swaps and cross-chain trading, with Tramplin preparing a premium staking rollout on the same network.

On 18 February 2026, Peter Thiel and Founders Fund exited ETHZilla, moving their stake from 7.5% to 0% according to U.S. SEC filings. The shares fell more than 5% in overnight trading and are down roughly 97% from 2025 highs as the firm shifts from an Ethereum treasury strategy to tokenizing jet engines with projected yields near 11%.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $104.9 million in net outflows on Tuesday, while total trading volume slipped to just over $3 billion from the $14.7 billion peak on Feb. 5. In Q4 2025, Hong Kong-based Laurore disclosed a $436.2 million single purchase of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF, alongside major position changes by institutions such as Jane Street, Brevan Howard and Mubadala Investment.

In episode 516, Head of BD Xenia Soborova shares how Solana's builder-heavy culture and capital-preserving reward models aim to reengage idle wallets. She outlines Tramplin's randomized redistribution of staking yields and its non-custodial setup on Solana nodes, positioning on-chain businesses as more sustainable than high-risk speculation.

Jane Street disclosed holding roughly 20.3 million shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust as of December 31, 2025. The Q4 2025 position has refocused attention on recurring sell pressure in Bitcoin and related ETFs around 10 AM ET. While rumors of coordinated suppression remain unverified, market-structure explanations such as hedging and arbitrage are also being discussed.