DEX

On Wednesday, crypto exchange Kraken said it purchased token management platform Magna, its sixth acquisition in the last 12 months. Magna, launched in 2021 and valued at $70 million in its most recent round, specializes in managing vesting schedules, airdrops and token allocations and reportedly reached a peak TVL of $60 billion in 2025.

On February 18, 2026, altcoin markets were described as facing record-level selling pressure, with little evidence of dip buying. Funds rotated toward BTC, meme tokens, and RWA assets, while altcoin participation on Binance fell from over 59% in November to 33.6% by February. Derivatives activity on centralized venues also waned amid higher liquidation risk.

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 February 17, 2026, ORCA, the native token of Orca DEX on Solana, jumped more than 62% in a day, briefly exceeding $1.62 and marking its strongest trading volumes since December. The move was fueled by a short squeeze, over $23M in open interest, and heavy activity on South Korean exchanges, with more than half of spot volume on Upbit and over 75% of trades against the Korean won.

Orca (ORCA) surged 54.48% in the past 24 hours, trading at $1.21 and dramatically outperforming a flat-to-down broader market. The rally, fueled by a historic 2,455% explosion in trading volume, has propelled the Solana-native token above key technical resistance levels, signaling a potential trend reversal for the decentralized exchange (DEX) leader.

Uniswap's UNI traded near multi-month support around $3.13 after a whale accumulated 640,000 UNI worth $2.29 million from OKX, with price later hovering close to $3.54. Key resistance remains at $4.92 and $6.60 while indicators show fading bearish momentum, shrinking exchange reserves of $307.95 million, and Open Interest dropping to $243.56 million.

Over the next three days, a permissioned DEX amendment is scheduled to activate on the XRP Ledger mainnet, enabling regulated institutions to trade while preserving compliance. XRP validator Vet recently highlighted XRP’s role as a bridge asset between pairs like EUROP/RLUSD via autobridging, and the new feature is expected to extend this function in FX and remittance flows. As XRP’s institutional roadmap expands around settlement, FX, collateral and on-chain credit, the token has also rebounded in price, gaining 13% in one day amid a broader market rally.

The Decibel Foundation said on Thursday it will introduce USDCBL, a protocol-native, dollar-denominated token issued via Bridge, ahead of the project's February mainnet for its Aptos-based perpetuals exchange. The stablecoin will act as collateral, with reserves in cash and short-term U.S. Treasurys whose yield remains within the protocol; the team also reported 650,000+ testnet accounts and over 1 million daily trades, figures not independently verified.

Ether traded below the $2,000 mark after a drop to $1,745, but renewed inflows into U.S.-listed ETH ETFs and firmer derivatives metrics are supporting a more constructive outlook. Rising decentralized exchange volume and higher DApps revenue on Ethereum suggest network demand is recovering, leaving room for a possible rally toward $2,400.

BlackRock said on Wednesday it will roll out trading for its tokenized USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on Uniswap, initially targeting qualified institutions. Following the announcement, UNI rose more than 3%, according to CoinMarketCap. The integration is coordinated by Securitize, and BlackRock will purchase an undisclosed amount of UNI.