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The Bitcoin hashrate has rebounded by more than 20% in two weeks, recovering from a slump caused by a U.S. winter storm and regulatory pressure, DL News reported. The analysis suggests that the BTC network has recovered as U.S. miners have come back online, despite price declines after the cryptocurrency briefly touched $60,000. Consequently, the BTC mining difficulty is expected to see a significant upward adjustment on Feb. 20.

Toss, which recently established a dedicated blockchain division, is exploring the acquisition of an overseas crypto exchange, the Korea Economic Daily reported. The company is reportedly in contact with various international platforms, with a particular focus on an institutional trading model. It recently held a meeting with EDX Markets, a U.S.-based institutional crypto trading platform. An official familiar with Toss's internal affairs stated that while an acquisition is not yet confirmed, the company is keeping the possibility open and is in contact with several platforms.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sold more than 1.5 million shares of the company's stock for approximately $550 million between last April and this January, Solid Intel reported, citing VanEck.

Stablecoin issuer Agant has completed its crypto-asset business registration with the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), paving the way for the launch of its proprietary pound-pegged stablecoin, GBPA, CoinDesk reported. The company plans to target the institutional payments, asset tokenization, and settlement markets.

A wallet believed to belong to the government of Bhutan has deposited 100 BTC, worth $6.77 million, to trading firm QCP Capital, according to Onchain Lens.

Tether is testing its internally developed local AI agent, QVAC, CEO Paolo Ardoino announced on X. He added that QVAC supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and can perform inference and decision-making on below-average GPUs without an internet connection. The project will be open-sourced soon, Ardoino said.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $68,000. BTC is trading at $68,012.45 on the Binance USDT market.

Israeli prosecutors have indicted a military reservist and a civilian for allegedly using leaked military intelligence to place bets on Polymarket, The Block reported. The reservist is accused of sharing operational information with the civilian during his military service. The civilian then allegedly used this information to bet on Polymarket contracts related to Israel's military actions. Authorities noted that the individuals were not high-ranking government or security officials. The outlet added that this incident highlights the growing controversy over information asymmetry in prediction markets, citing a previous case where bets were placed on Polymarket just before the U.S. attempted to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which prompted calls for legislation.

Spot trading volume on major exchanges rose by approximately 10% month-over-month in January, reaching a total of about $1.1926 trillion, according to Wu Blockchain. Binance led the market with $365 billion in volume, while South Korean exchange Upbit ranked 12th with approximately $35.9 billion. The top three exchanges by month-over-month growth were Uniswap (+84%), Bitfinex (+70%), and Upbit (+44%). Meanwhile, derivatives trading volume on major exchanges decreased by about 5% from the previous month to $5.562 trillion.

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) Aster (ASTER) announced it will host its second Tokenized Stocks & Precious Metals Perpetual Futures Milestone Challenge in partnership with Binance Wallet. The event will run from 9:00 a.m. UTC on Feb. 12 to 9:00 a.m. UTC on Feb. 26. Focusing on the real-world asset (RWA) sector, the challenge allows users to trade tokenized blue-chip U.S. stocks and precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper. Maker fees will be waived during the challenge. Participants who register and achieve a valid trading volume of 2,000 USDT will be eligible for rewards from a 100,000 USDT prize pool. They can also earn Aster Season 6 airdrop points.

South Korean crypto exchanges Upbit and Bithumb have announced the delisting of Flow (FLOW), effective at 6:00 a.m. UTC on March 16. Upbit explained that it had previously placed the token on its delisting watchlist after identifying a potential for user harm, citing past security incidents such as hacking. The exchange added that a subsequent review determined the issues that led to the designation have not been resolved.

CryptoQuant contributor Woo Min-gyu has suggested that the current cryptocurrency market is likely entering a bear market rather than undergoing a mid-cycle correction. He explained that the Bitcoin Composite Market Index (BCMI) recently fell to the low 0.2s, a level similar to the beginning of the 2018 and 2022 bear markets. According to Woo, the BCMI had maintained a neutral balance at the 0.5 level until last October but then fell directly to the 0.2s without rebounding from the 0.3s, indicating a structural breakdown. The BCMI, a composite of MVRV (Market Value to Realized Value), Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL), the Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR), and investor sentiment, currently suggests shrinking unrealized profits, expanding realized losses, weakening sentiment, and ongoing valuation compression. However, Woo added that an extreme panic-selling phase has not yet occurred, as the market has not reached the 0.10–0.15 range where past cycle bottoms were formed. He projected that if the BCMI fails to recover to the 0.4–0.5 range, a structural bear market is likely to continue, and the final cycle bottom may still be ahead.

Last year's historic mass liquidation event on Oct. 10 was not limited to Binance, co-CEO Richard Teng said at Consensus Hong Kong, CoinDesk reported. He explained that a market downturn following China's implementation of rare earth controls and the announcement of new U.S. tariffs triggered massive liquidations across all exchanges. Teng noted that issues such as stablecoin depegging and delays in asset transfers compounded the problem. On that day, the U.S. stock market saw $1.5 trillion in market capitalization evaporate and $150 billion in liquidations, compared to $19 billion in liquidations in the crypto market. Teng emphasized that Binance, unlike other exchanges, provided some support to affected users. He added that while macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions are currently affecting the market, institutional demand remains strong.

The average purchase price for the 15,000 BTC acquired by Binance's Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) is estimated to be $66,666.66, according to on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa. The fund invested approximately $1 billion to purchase the holdings between Feb. 4 and today. The highest price paid by SAFU during this period was $76,580, and the lowest was $64,824. The analyst noted that the number six is considered auspicious in China.

Ark Invest, led by Cathie Wood, has purchased an additional $33.8 million worth of Robinhood stock, Cointelegraph reported. The firm also bought $11.6 million in Bullish shares and $4.4 million in Circle shares.

All publicly traded companies with significant digital asset treasuries (DATs) are currently facing unrealized losses on their holdings, according to data from CryptoRank as of Feb. 11. Strategy has seen an unrealized loss of approximately $6 billion, with Bitcoin trading 12% below its average purchase price. Meanwhile, Bitmine is facing an $8 billion unrealized loss as Ethereum has fallen 49% from its entry point. Other notable companies with unrealized losses include: - Evernos (XRP): -$490 million - Forward Industry (SOL): -$1 billion - Ton Strategy (TON): -$430 million - Alt Sigma (WLFI): -$800 million

South Korean crypto exchange Coinone announced it will list Espresso (ESP) for KRW trading at 2:00 a.m. UTC on Feb. 13.

Coinbase announced it will list AZTEC perpetual futures. Trading is scheduled to begin on Feb. 12, provided liquidity conditions are met.

Binance has announced the delisting of 13 spot trading pairs at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Feb. 13. The affected pairs are AT/BNB, AVAX/BNB, BANANA/BTC, COTI/BTC, FF/BNB, HIVE/BTC, IO/BNB, LRC/BTC, MANA/BTC, SAGA/BNB, W/FDUSD, XPL/BNB, and ZK/BTC.

Binance announced it will list ESP for spot trading at 1:00 p.m. UTC on Feb. 12. The listing will feature the Seed Tag, which is applied to tokens that may exhibit higher volatility and risks compared to other listed tokens.

A verdict in the administrative lawsuit filed by Dunamu, the operator of South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, against South Korea's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is scheduled to be announced at 4:50 a.m. UTC on April 9, Digital Asset reported. The case challenges a partial business suspension order issued by the FIU. It is the first administrative lawsuit of its kind to address whether transactions with unregistered Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) constitute gross negligence or willful misconduct. The verdict will come one year and two months after the FIU first issued the order in February of last year. During the proceedings, the FIU's legal representatives argued that Dunamu could have identified risk indicators associated with unregistered providers but designed its system to avoid doing so, which they contend amounts to gross negligence. Dunamu countered that the FIU's action was unlawful, claiming it was based on a definition of gross negligence and willful misconduct that deviates from established legal precedent.

Upbit, Bithumb, and Korbit have announced that they have placed Nomina (NOM) on their delisting watchlists.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a DeFi project linked to the Trump family, plans to launch a foreign exchange (FX) platform called World Swap, CoinDesk reported. WLFI co-founder Zak Folkman made the announcement while attending Consensus Hong Kong. The move is part of WLFI's strategy to build a full-stack financial ecosystem centered on its native stablecoin, USD1, with specific details scheduled for release at the end of this month, the report added.

Binance has announced that it will convert its AZTEC pre-market perpetual futures to standard perpetual futures at 7:00 a.m. UTC today.

Castrum Capital, a firm specializing in crypto startup investments, has made an undisclosed strategic investment in RAN, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based crypto quant trading platform. Alongside the investment, Castrum Capital will join as RAN's incubating partner to build and develop institutional-grade AI quant investment infrastructure. RAN is the core platform of Nexera Technologies Ltd., a developer of quant trading technology for the U.S. crypto derivatives market. It focuses on systematic investment execution, strategic stability, and operational scalability, centered around funding rate-based arbitrage scenarios. RAN added that the investment and incubation will help improve its execution system, model framework, and overall architecture.