Analysts have scrutinized SEC 13F filings to assess whether Hong Kong-based Laurore LTD was involved in Bitcoin's sharp October 2025 crash, when the market saw about $19 billion in liquidations. The reports show Laurore amassed roughly $436 million of IBIT shares during Q4 2025, while major options market makers significantly boosted long volatility positions in the ETF. Commentary from industry figures indicates Laurore likely did not trigger the so-called 1010 event, but the case highlights growing interest from Chinese-linked capital in accessing Bitcoin via US-regulated ETFs.

On February 18, 2026, The Hyper Foundation said it will fund the Hyperliquid Policy Center in Washington, D.C. with 1 million HYPE tokens, valued at about $29 million, with the tokens to be unstaked later today. Jake Chervinsky will serve as founding CEO, and the nonprofit will advocate for clear rules for perpetual derivatives and on-chain market infrastructure in the U.S.

On February 15, 2026, DeFi lending protocol Moonwell discovered a critical oracle misconfiguration on its cbETH Core Market on Base, which it linked to Solidity code partially authored by Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6. The bug priced cbETH at about $1.12 instead of nearly $2,200, enabling liquidations and abnormal borrowing that left users facing an estimated $1.78 million in losses across cbETH, WETH, and USDC positions. The incident, which followed Bithumb's multi-billion-dollar reward misassignment on February 6, has intensified debate around AI-assisted "vibe coding" and the limits of human oversight.

Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company disclosed in a 13F filing that it held 12,702,323 shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust as of December 31, 2025, valued at about $630.6 million. The position marked a 46% rise from the 8,726,972 shares reported on September 30, 2025, highlighting growing institutional exposure to spot Bitcoin ETFs alongside holdings in major technology, healthcare, gold mining, and consumer companies.

On February 17, 2026, Gemini disclosed via an SEC Form 8-K that COO Marshall Beard, CFO Dan Chen, and CLO Tyler Meade left their roles effective immediately. The COO role will remain vacant, with Cameron Winklevoss directing its duties, while interim leaders were named for finance and legal. The update follows plans to cut up to 25% of staff and exit the UK, EU, and Australia.

On February 17, 2026, Nakamoto Inc. said it signed definitive agreements to buy BTC Inc. and UTXO Management GP, LLC in an all-stock transaction valued at about $107.3 million. The consideration totals 363,589,816 Nakamoto common shares at a set $1.12 reference price, with closing targeted for the first quarter of 2026, subject to customary conditions.

On February 17, 2026, blockchain security firm Cyvers reported a $600,000 loss tied to an address poisoning scheme that leveraged zero‑value transfers and a copy‑paste mistake. Similar incidents since December 2025 include $514,000 and $12.25 million losses, while researchers estimate more than one million poisoning attempts occur each day on Ethereum.

On February 17, 2026 (UTC), Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin defended his use of the term "corposlop," arguing that labeling projects is criticism rather than censorship. He emphasized that Ethereum's permissionless design means users need not share his views to build or transact. He also reiterated the distinction between protocol neutrality and builders expressing principles.

On February 16, 2026, OpenEden said attackers compromised the DNS for openeden.com and portal.openeden.com, creating a phishing risk for anyone accessing those domains. The team sclaimed reserves remain verifiable via Chainlink Proof of Reserve, but users could lose assets if they connect wallets to spoofed pages. The team is investigating and advised against interacting with the sites.