On Thursday, February 19, XRP's price decline wiped out $5.61 billion from its market capitalization in less than 24 hours amid a broader cryptocurrency downturn. The token's value fell from $90.49 billion on February 18 to $84.88 billion, making it the largest daily loser among the 20 biggest crypto assets by market cap. Technical indicators show XRP trading below key moving averages with bearish funding rates and open interest, while support around $1.35 and resistance near $1.44 remain in focus.

On Thursday, February 19, daily XRP perpetual funding rates fell nearly 80%, according to CryptoQuant. Open interest declined 5.35%, while the spot price traded near $1.42, down 3.66% on the day. Negative funding shows shorts paying longs, reflecting a bearish tilt in derivatives.

Fhenix, a blockchain R&D firm, is rolling out a full-stack infrastructure for confidential DeFi that brings Fully Homomorphic Encryption-based computation to public blockchains. The company detailed its FHE-centric strategy in a press release on February 17 and an X livestream on February 16, highlighting tools like the CoFHE coprocessor on Base and the fhEVM environment for Solidity developers. Management says these advances aim to enable private smart contracts, encrypted verification and end-to-end protected payments for use cases ranging from governance and identity to institutional asset tokenization.

On Monday, February 16, Bitcoin derivatives funding rates climbed by more than 140%, indicating that leveraged traders significantly boosted their bullish positions. Despite this, overall open interest edged down 0.08%, suggesting existing traders are repositioning rather than new capital entering the market. Bitcoin's spot price was still about 1% lower around $68,520, leaving the market exposed to potential long squeezes if the anticipated rebound fails to appear.

On Thursday, February 12, Standard Chartered lowered its 2026 Bitcoin price target from $150,000 to $100,000, after previously cutting it from $300,000 in December. The bank pointed to sustained ETF outflows, a weaker macroeconomic outlook and delayed Federal Reserve rate cuts, with its analyst warning of further price capitulation and a potential drop toward $50,000 before stabilization.

From January 1 to February 4, 2026, BlackRock's net digital asset holdings declined from $78.36 billion to $68.06 billion, a drop of $10.3 billion largely tied to market weakness. Bitcoin and Ethereum accounted for most of the change, alongside a reduction of 2,930 BTC and 138,240 ETH, while recent single-day moves saw BlackRock driving the majority of U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF and Ethereum redemptions.

In 2025, verified physical assaults and kidnappings targeting crypto holders reached 72, a 75% year-over-year jump. Europe made up more than 40% of cases, while kidnappings rose 66% and physical assaults surged 250%. Reported financial losses exceeded $40.9 million.

On Monday, February 2, BlackRock trimmed its exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum by more than $600 million, offloading 6,306 BTC worth about $496.41 million and 58,327 ETH valued at roughly $138.23 million. These moves made the firm responsible for 78% of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF outflows and nearly 54% of Ethereum redemptions that day, while both BTC and ETH prices remained under pressure in early February.

On Monday, February 2, Bitcoin traded below $77,000 amid macro headwinds, institutional outflows, and liquidations. Finbold's AI tool, combining ChatGPT, Gemini 2.5 Flash, and Claude Sonnet 4, projects $76,667 for February 28, 2026, versus a current $76,784. Individual model calls range from $72,500 to $82,500, highlighting near-term uncertainty.