📢 NEAR Adds Privacy to Cross-Chain DeFi

• NEAR Protocol has introduced Confidential Intents, a new privacy layer.
• Lets users carry out cross-chain DeFi transactions without exposing key details.
• Aims to make onchain activity more secure while keeping it seamless.

📢 Bitcoin adoption has expanded from just 2 nation-states to 23. In 2025 alone, five more countries came on board Brazil, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan.

📢 Analyst James Seyffart says hedge funds and financial advisors were the biggest sellers in Q4, reducing ETF holdings equal to about 25,000 $BTC.

📢 Strategy has turned into the most shorted stock globally as sentiment shifts, following roughly $9.5B in paper losses tied to its Bitcoin exposure.

📢 According to River, the world’s largest investment advisors oversee $146T in assets and the top 29 all share one link: exposure to Bitcoin.

📢 Banco Braza Launches Real-Backed Stablecoin on Polygon

• Banco Braza has launched the Brazilian Real stablecoin $BBRL.
• The token is live on Polygon.
• Marks another step in bringing fiat-backed assets onchain in Latin America.

📢 In 2025, real-world asset growth on Ethereum outpaced the combined total of the next five blockchains.

📢 Stablecoin payment volume surged to $400B in 2025, doubling year over year, as Stripe described the trend as a “stablecoin summer” in its annual report.

📢 Korea Moves to Rein In Crypto Promotions🇰🇷

• South Korea’s ruling party has proposed a bill targeting crypto influencers.
• Would require disclosure of personal token holdings.
• Paid promotions would also need to be clearly stated.

📢 LookOnChain reports that FG Nexus has sold another 7,550 ETH (around $14M), after earlier dumping 21,025 ETH at an average price of $2,649.
The firm initially acquired 50,770 ETH at an average of $3,860 between August and September 2025. It still holds 30,094 $ETH and is currently facing an estimated unrealized loss of about $82.8M.

📢 Smarter Web Company has secured a $30M credit facility from Coinbase to increase its Bitcoin holdings.

📢 According to Arkham data, Vitalik Buterin has now sold 97% of his planned 16,384 $ETH, after offloading another 4,458 ETH worth $8.92M. He has just 504 ETH around $1.04M left to complete the sale.

📢 Tether Invests in Whop to Power Stablecoin Creator Payouts

• Tether has taken a strategic stake in Whop.
• Whop will integrate Tether’s Wallet Development Kit.
• Creators will be able to receive payouts in $USDT and $USAT.

📢 Tokenized U.S. Treasuries have crossed $10 billion in total value locked, underscoring the fast expansion of onchain financial infrastructure.

📢 Ethereum open interest has jumped by $929 million, up 9.4% in just the past few hours, according to a CryptoQuant analyst.

📢 The Ethereum Foundation has published its “Strawmap” roadmap, detailing plans to speed up L1 finality, scale to 10,000 TPS using zkEVMs, improve L2 performance, strengthen post-quantum security, and introduce built-in L1 privacy features.

📢 Indiana’s HB1042 has cleared both legislative chambers and is now awaiting the Governor’s signature. The measure safeguards Bitcoin rights, prohibits discriminatory taxation on crypto, and permits digital assets to be included in state retirement plans.

📢 According to CryptoQuant’s Head of Research, Bitcoin spot demand is rising again for the first time since late November.

📢 U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw a strong $506.6M in net inflows on Feb 25, pointing to heavy institutional buying. BlackRock’s $IBIT led the move, pulling in close to $300M of that total for the day.

📢 Gate Clears Key EU Regulatory Hurdle🇪🇺

• Gate.io has secured a Malta PSD2 license.
• Opens the door to EU-wide stablecoin payments under MiCA rules.
ZStrengthens its regulatory footing across Europe