Step Finance announced an immediate shutdown on Feb. 23, 2026, following a security breach that drained over 260,000 SOL from its treasury, CoinJournal reports. The STEP token collapsed nearly 100% since the incident, and SolanaFloor and Remora Markets will also wind down operations; Remora users may redeem rTokens for USDC and Step Finance plans a buyback program for eligible STEP holders based on a pre-hack snapshot. SOL dropped below $77 over the past 24 hours, with derivatives data showing negative funding rates, rising long liquidations and a long-to-short ratio below 1. Technical indicators remain cautious: SOL is trading below its 50-day and 200-day EMAs with RSI near oversold, and traders are watching $75 as key support; a break below could lead to downside toward the $63–$51 range, according to CoinJournal and Coinlore.

Strategy completed its 100th Bitcoin purchase last week, acquiring 592 BTC for $39.8 million at an average price of $67,286 per coin, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing and Bitcoin Treasuries data. The company funded the purchase by selling 297,940 shares of its Class A common stock under its equity program, generating approximately $39.7 million. Strategy now holds roughly 717,722 BTC after investing about $54.56 billion since beginning its accumulation in August 2020, representing around 3.4% of circulating supply. Bitcoin Treasuries data show smaller public firms including Cango Inc., Exodus Movement, Genius Group and Bitdeer have recently reduced their Bitcoin holdings, with Bitdeer cutting its corporate treasury balance to zero.

The "Strategy Counterparty" whale address (0x94d) opened a 40x leveraged BTC long position worth $11.97 million at an average price of $63,275 within the past hour on Feb. 24, after closing all BTC and ETH short positions earlier today, Coinbob Popular Address Monitoring data show as cited by BlockBeats. The closed shorts comprised a $31.74 million ETH short initiated two days ago, a $13.58 million BTC short, and an approximately $40.74 million BTC short opened briefly today and closed for profit within two hours. The address currently holds $11.8 million in unused margin and has generated $2.85 million in profit over the past seven days. BlockBeats reports the address began accumulating positions in December last year with an initial account size of approximately $20 million and, due to its opposite trading direction to MicroStrategy, is viewed by the market as an on-chain counterparty to the publicly traded company.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission appointed Taylor Lindman, formerly a senior legal officer at Chainlink Labs, as chief counsel for its Crypto Task Force, CoinJournal reported. Chainlink (LINK) traded around $8.18 at press time, rebounding from a low of $8.13 but down roughly 51% over the past year. Short-term levels show support around $6.80 and resistance near $8.19, the report said.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin sold 10,723 ETH worth nearly $22 million over three weeks, The Block reports. The sales began in early February, following Buterin's public statement that he would use his own funds to support various open-source projects.

The Ethereum Foundation has begun staking its treasury funds with an initial deposit of 2,016 ETH and plans to stake 70,000 ETH in total, @ethereumfndn said. All staking rewards will be returned to the Foundation's treasury to fund operations and ecosystem support. The Foundation outlined that proceeds from staking are earmarked for treasury resources supporting operations and ecosystem initiatives, according to @ethereumfndn.

The market cap of tokenized US Treasuries surpassed $10 billion on Feb. 24, 2026, Token Terminal data show. The tokens represent digital versions of US government bonds issued and managed on blockchain networks.

Ethereum crossing above $1,916 could lead to about $1.115 billion in long position liquidations on major centralized exchanges, Coinglass data cited by ChainCatcher show. If ETH falls below $1,736, short positions on major CEXs face potential liquidations totaling approximately $694 million.

Bitcoin breaking above $66,406 would trigger $1.728 billion in long position liquidations across major centralized exchanges, Coinglass data cited by ChainCatcher show. A drop below $60,242 would result in $798 million in short liquidations on those platforms.