In Senate Banking Committee testimony on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and told firms seeking minimal oversight to "move to El Salvador." Coinbase withdrew support in January 2026 over proposed limits on passive stablecoin yields, while Bitcoin is down over 32% this year near $63,100.

On February 5, 2026, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced the Safeguarding Consumers from Advertising Misconduct (SCAM) Act, requiring social platforms to verify advertisers and exposing noncompliant companies to FTC and state attorney general actions. In 2025, Reuters reported Meta’s internal estimates tied roughly $16 billion of 2024 revenue to suspect ads, prompting calls for SEC and FTC probes, while major banking associations and AARP voiced support for the bill.

BBVA, Spain's second-largest bank, has joined Qivalis as its 12th member, a consortium of major European banks building a regulated euro-pegged stablecoin. The group, initially formed by nine banks in late 2025 and headquartered in Amsterdam, plans a commercial launch in the second half of 2026 after completing technical and regulatory work. The initiative aims to offer faster and cheaper euro-based payments and settlement of tokenized assets on blockchain, while challenging the dominance of USD-backed stablecoins in the roughly $300 billion stablecoin market.

On February 4, 2026, L2Beat's tracking showed that only about 27 of roughly 136 Ethereum L2 projects average at least 1.00 UOPS, leaving around 109 below that mark. Activity is concentrated on Arbitrum and Base, which handle about 90% of scaling traffic, while many smaller L2s see minimal engagement.

Good Vibes Club, an art-focused NFT collection launched in March 2025, announced a partnership with Instant IP to strengthen IP protection and support expansion into media, merchandise, gaming, and cross‑platform use. According to the project, benefits include superscript certification marks and clearer ownership rules; GVC also reports total volume above 12,500 ETH and an average floor near 0.9 ETH.

On February 4, 2026, Waymo and Tesla executives prepared to testify before a U.S. Senate committee, using crash and mileage data to argue that their autonomous systems are safer than human drivers. At the same time, Uber's shares have fallen about 22% since October 2025 as investors weigh the long-term risk from robotaxis backed by heavy funding and expanding fleets. The companies are also pressing for a single federal framework for self-driving vehicles, saying current state-by-state rules slow deployment and innovation.

On February 3 2026, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin used X to revisit the role of Ethereum's layer-2 networks, arguing that the original vision for L2s no longer fits current conditions. He pointed to the slow and difficult progress of L2s toward stage 2 and interoperability, alongside a scaling L1 with low fees and planned gas limit increases, and proposed that L2s reposition as a spectrum of options that add value beyond basic scaling.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent a letter to Congressional leaders criticizing the GENIUS Act. According to CNN, they contend the law lets issuers keep interest on assets backing flagged coins rather than prioritizing restitution; Chainalysis reports illicit crypto flows hit $154 billion in 2025 with stablecoins at 84%.

On February 2, 2026, South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service announced an AI upgrade to its VISTA system to detect unfair trading in the virtual asset market. The platform, trained on past scams such as wash trading and spoofing, uses high-performance GPU servers to scan massive datasets, flag manipulation patterns, and generate visual evidence across multiple tokens and exchanges.