Shares of leading United States cybersecurity firms fell sharply after Anthropic launched its Claude Code Security vulnerability scanner on Feb. 20. Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Fortinet posted declines of up to 18% in the days following the debut of the AI-powered tool, which is built on Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model.

Stablecoin reserves on Binance have fallen from $50.9 billion in November to $41.4 billion, a decline of 18.6% that has taken balances back to October levels. The drop comes amid a broader crypto liquidity drought and expectations that U.S. interest rates will remain unchanged in March. Binance still holds about 64% of all exchange stablecoin reserves, but analysts say a renewed inflow of stablecoins may be needed to stabilize market liquidity.

Solana DeFi aggregator Step Finance, along with SolanaFloor and Remora Markets, is shutting down after a $27 million hack of its treasury wallets at the end of January. The team said it could not find a viable path forward and will halt operations immediately, while planning a buyback for STEP token holders and redemptions for Remora rToken holders.

Bitcoin slid more than $3,000 in under two hours on Monday, falling over 4% to around $64,300 and giving back its advance from Friday. The move pushed the Crypto Fear and Greed Index back down to a reading of 5 out of 100, while roughly 136,000 traders saw about $458 million in positions liquidated, mostly from leveraged longs. On-chain data also shows recent investors still realizing large daily losses, and Bitcoin's Sharpe Ratio has sunk to deeply negative territory that some analysts associate with prior accumulation phases.

On Thursday, Bitdeer Technologies Group's stock fell 17.38% to $7.94 after the Bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure firm unveiled a $300 million convertible senior note offering with an additional $45 million purchase option. This is Bitdeer's second such issuance after a $150 million offering in April 2024, and its shares are now down 29% year-to-date and nearly 70% below the January 2025 all-time high of about $26.

Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs reported that illicit entities received roughly $141 billion in stablecoins in 2025, the highest level in five years, driven mainly by sanctions-linked networks and large-scale money laundering. Sanctions-related activity made up 86% of all illicit crypto flows, with around $72 billion tied to the Russian ruble-pegged A7A5 token, while overall illicit use represented about 1% of an estimated $12 trillion in annual stablecoin transactions.

At its late-January Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the United States Federal Reserve left rates at 3.5%–3.75% but noted that further hikes could be warranted if inflation remains above target. The minutes show some policymakers prefer to hold rates steady for longer and see no case for additional easing until disinflation clearly resumes. A return to tighter policy would typically weigh on crypto markets by lifting yields on safer assets and making borrowing more expensive.

Arthur Hayes argues that the recent divergence between Bitcoin and the tech‑heavy Nasdaq 100 signals an approaching AI‑driven credit crunch that could force central banks to expand fiat liquidity and send BTC to fresh record highs. He estimates that a 20% reduction in the United States' 72 million knowledge workers could translate into roughly $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage losses, pressuring regional banks and prompting renewed money printing. Hayes adds that his firm Maelstrom plans to rotate surplus stablecoins into Bitcoin, Zcash and Hyperliquid once the Federal Reserve eases policy.

Bitwise and GraniteShares filed prospectuses with the U.S. SEC on Tuesday for six prediction market-style ETFs, according to the filings. The funds would track binary event contracts on CFTC-regulated exchanges, settling at $1 or $0, with exposure to outcomes across the 2026 congressional races and the U.S. presidential election on November 7, 2028.