Bitcoin derivatives data show traders heavily favoring downside exposure while spot price holds in a tight range below $70,000. Over the last 24 hours, BTC slid to $65,092 before rebounding to $66,947, with funding rates and options pricing indicating crowded shorts and elevated demand for downside protection. Recent spot ETF outflows in the hundreds of millions of dollars further underline weak spot support even as short squeeze risk remains in play.

On Feb. 12, RippleX said Token Escrow (XLS-85) went live on the XRPL mainnet, bringing conditional locking to trustline IOUs and Multi-Purpose Tokens beyond native XRP. The issuer-permissioned feature targets institutional settlement, while XRPL's reserve model links object growth to baseline XRP balances; base and owner reserves were cut on Dec. 2, 2024.

Over the past month, the XRP Ledger has overtaken Solana in on-chain real-world asset value excluding stablecoins, with roughly $1.756 billion versus Solana's $1.682 billion, according to RWA.xyz. The shift has been driven by a rapid increase in represented assets on XRPL, which concentrate value in a small number of institutional-style issuances rather than broad retail distribution. In contrast, Solana continues to lead in holder count and transfer volume, highlighting a trade-off between value concentration and network participation.

Prediction markets saw trading volume jump from $15.8 billion in 2024 to $63.5 billion in 2025, with activity staying strong into January 2026 as three platforms captured over 95% of global flow. A CertiK report warns that this growth relies heavily on centralized Web2-style authentication, creating critical single points of failure even as on-chain settlement and oracle designs continue to evolve.

US banks and crypto firms are clashing over whether stablecoin rewards should be allowed under the CLARITY market-structure push. Total stablecoin supply reached $311.332 billion in mid-January, according to DeFiLlama, and Standard Chartered has warned about approximately $500 billion of potential deposit outflows by the end of 2028. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, and pending implementation by July this year, frames the backdrop.

Ripple has introduced Ethereum and Solana staking within its institutional custody platform through an integration with staking provider Figment, allowing clients to access protocol rewards without running validator infrastructure. The move underscores that XRP itself does not currently offer protocol-level staking, even as XRP-focused products recently recorded larger weekly inflows than comparable Ethereum and Solana products.

Ethereum dropped under $2,000 as large holder activity drew attention, with Lookonchain tracking Vitalik Buterin selling 6,183 ETH ($13.24M) over the past three days at an average of $2,140. Additional insider sales, including Aave's Stani Kulechov, coincided with cascading long liquidations, about $2.5B in US spot ETH ETF outflows, and a broader risk-off backdrop.

Bitcoin recently dropped below the key $70,000 mark and briefly touched $60,000 while the broader crypto market turned fragile, even as stablecoin issuance accelerated. Over a three-day stretch ending Feb. 4, Tether and Circle created more than $3 billion in new USDT and USDC, contributing to a stablecoin market that surpassed $300 billion in 2025. However, on-chain data shows stablecoin balances are being pulled away from exchanges rather than deployed into risk assets, signaling defensive positioning instead of fresh buying power for Bitcoin.

On Feb. 4, the XRP Ledger activated Permissioned Domains with 91% validator approval. The upgrade adds on-ledger credentials to gate access, enabling regulated trading, payments, and future lending on a public chain. Data from RWA.xyz places tokenized real-world assets at about $24.11 billion, highlighting the feature’s institutional focus.