On February 16, 2026, Elon Musk claimed Jeffrey Epstein mounted a broad effort to short Tesla and convinced Bill Gates to take a 1% short position when Tesla's market cap was about $40 billion. Musk also said the trade may have cost Gates up to $10 billion, while Tesla last closed at $417.44, up 17.3% over the past year.

On February 16, 2026, Tokyo-listed Metaplanet reported FY2025 results showing revenue surged 738% to 8.9 billion yen from 1.06 billion yen after pivoting to Bitcoin-focused operations. Despite a 6.29 billion yen operating profit, a non-cash valuation loss of 102.2 billion yen tied to Bitcoin's price decline pushed ordinary profit and net income into losses.

Harvard Management Company rebalanced the university's $50 billion endowment in Q4 FY2025, cutting Bitcoin ETF exposure by 21% and establishing an $86.8 million position in BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust. SEC filings submitted last Friday show HMC held 5.35 million IBIT shares valued at $265.8 million as of December 31 and purchased 3.87 million Ethereum fund shares.

On February 15, 2026, Pi Network's native token fell nearly 15% within 24 hours after a sharp rally linked to a Mainnet node upgrade deadline. The price had earlier surged more than 30% in a single day, lifting Pi to $0.1985, its highest level since January 20, before profit-taking and weak altcoin sentiment drove a pullback. Exchange data showed a net inflow of about 2.89 million PI to centralized platforms, signaling ongoing short-term selling pressure while node upgrades continue on a phased timeline.

On February 13 2026, data from derivatives markets showed Bitcoin short positions on centralized exchanges at their most aggressive levels since August 2024, with funding rates dropping sharply into negative territory as BTC trades around $65,000–$66,500. This positioning follows a prior cycle where a $55,000 multi‑month bottom in August 2024 preceded an 83% price advance to a $106,000 peak four months later, and current metrics such as the near‑1.1 MVRV ratio suggest Bitcoin is approaching historically undervalued levels without guaranteeing an immediate rally.

On February 12, 2026, Binance completed integration of Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger, enabling RLUSD deposits and preparing withdrawals once liquidity criteria are satisfied. The exchange is rolling out new RLUSD trading pairs, zero-fee campaigns, and support across Ethereum and XRPL, while Ripple targets broader expansion via layer-2 networks and continued focus on XRP's long-term growth.

Bitcoin slid to $60,000 last week before snapping back nearly 19% to $71,469, then eased to about $68,800 by Tuesday. On February 10, 2026, Santiment noted extreme fear and a surge in "buy the dip" chatter at the bottom, while CoinGlass reported roughly $1.3 billion in long liquidations. Analyst IT Tech cited $2.6 billion in 30-day net outflows and weakening demand.

On February 7, 2026, Kenya's Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission urged African oversight bodies to expand the use of AI, blockchain, and data‑mining tools to combat graft and financial crimes. The agency said 58% of its processes are automated and it is moving toward full digitization, while Kenya's FRC has frozen assets tied to 13 individuals over alleged terrorism financing.

The Ontario Provincial Police warned that callers posing as officers are directing residents to withdraw cash or send funds via crypto, with individual losses ranging from $6,000 to $13,000. On February 6, 2026, OPP East Region also flagged a surge in crypto job fraud exploiting real company names and small commissions. As of September 30, 2025, Canada recorded $544 million in fraud losses across 23,113 victims.