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The crypto market is testing lows. Bernstein analyst says, “nothing blew up,” and what we are experiencing now is the “weakest Bitcoin bear case.” The reason? Strong bitcoin ETF adoption, institutional inflows, and pro-crypto policies could help the market to bounce back and if everything goes well, Bitcoin could reach a price target of $150,000 in 2026.

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Breaking: RippleX, the technology company behind the XRP Ledger (XRPL), announced on February 4 that the open-source, decentralized public network had activated “Permissioned Domains” after achieving 91% validator approval (XLS-80 amendment). The upgrade aims to bolster XRPL’s institutional adoption without compromising network decentralization.

Blockchain, at its core, is permissionless, meaning anyone can access, trade, or execute DeFi applications.

XRP Ledger has explained permissioned domains as “controlled environments” within the blockchain. The feature introduces credentials to maintain compliance requirements, such as KYC/AML verification, and manage access to approved users, while preserving privacy and the underlying decentralized architecture of the ecosystem.

Now the question is, why would a permissionless public blockchain like XRPL get permissioned, and how does it benefit users?

Permissioned domains act like a gated community that grants access only to approved members based on the network’s “accepted credentials.”

Many whitelisted institutions and banks avoid on-chain digital asset transactions because the liquidity providers or the customer base of the network is anonymous, which can sometimes pose significant security risks.

Permissioned domains bridge this gap by onboarding only verified and approved entities and ensuring regulatory compliance.

David “JoelKatz” Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, shared on X, “Even Ripple can't use the XRPL DEX for payments yet because we can't be sure a terrorist won't provide the liquditity for payment. Features like permissioned domains will address this.”

In other words, a gated environment with real-world regulatory compliance offers an additional layer of security and access only to sanctioned individuals and organisation.  

The Road Ahead: XRPL’s permissioned DEX is expected to go live in two weeks, around February 18.

👉 Also Read: Ripple Backs $280M Diamond Tokenization in UAE Using XRP Ledger.

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Big News: South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange, Bithumb, is under intense scrutiny after accidentally distributing $40 billion worth of Bitcoins to users.

On February 6, during a promotional airdrop, Bithumb mistakenly distributed 6,20,000 Bitcoins to 695 users who were winners of the campaign.

The campaign called “Random Box” was supposed to distribute 2,000 Korean won (around $1.40) to each of the eligible winners. One of the Bithumb employees mistakenly transferred 2,000 BTC instead of 2,000 KRW per winner.

The Aftermath…

Following the error, Bitcoin briefly crashed by 17%, around 81 million won, which was $55,000 of Bitcoin price, even though global platforms showed $66,000.
Peter Girnus, COO at Bithumb said on X, “We're reviewing our processes. The process was: select currency, enter amount, click send. The employee selected the wrong currency. Entered the right amount. Clicked send. The process worked perfectly. The human didn’t.”

Reimbursement plus bonus…

Bithumb froze the accounts within 35 minutes and recovered around 99.7% of the assets. The exchange has estimated losses at around 1 billion won and reassured that all affected customers will be reimbursed in full, and an additional 10% bonus.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is investigating the incident.
“It is a case that shows the structural problems of electronic systems for virtual assets. There are many areas we are seriously looking into, and we are particularly worried about the issue of electronic systems,” said Lee Chan-jin, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

After the incident, Bithumb released a statement saying that “We would like to make it clear that this incident is unrelated to external hacking or security breaches, and there are no problems with system security or customer asset management.”

👉 Also Read: South Korean Financial Regulator to Probe Crypto Market Manipulation, Impose Penalties for IT Failures.

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On February 9, top-tier crypto exchange Bitget and web3 security company BlockSec announced the release of the UEX Security Standard report that outlines five security benchmarks for crypto and traditional exchanges.

The research whitepaper is written by Ryan Lee, Chief Analyst at Bitget Research, and co-authored by Bitget CEO Gracy Chen.

The paper introduces the concept of Universal Exchanges (UEX) and the importance of a universal or standardized security infrastructure across decentralized (DEX) as well as centralized (CEX) trading platforms.

👉 Read More At Business Insider.

President Trump-linked World Liberty Financial (WLFI) faces a House investigation over a $500 million deal related to an Abu Dhabi-linked royal family..

On February 4, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is leading the investigation, sent an official letter to Mr. Zach Witkoff, Co-founder of WLFI, requesting documents and information related to the shocking Emirati deal.

Khanna requested confirmation of the details stated in the Wall Street Journal reports regarding the $187 million sent to Trump family entities.

When questioned about the allegations, Trump told reporters at the White House, “My sons are handling that, my family is handling it… I have all I can handle right now with Iran and with Russia and Ukraine.”

According to the Wall Street Journal reports, an entity of the royal family, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who manages Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund and is the brother of the UAE’s President, secretly signed a deal with 49% share in WLFI.

The Abu Dhabi investigation sparked public criticism over potential conflicts of interest involving Trump’s personal crypto ventures. Critics have raised concerns that these ties could undermine regulatory oversight, foreign policies, and public interests.

👉 Also Read: Fintechs Back Fed Payments Account That Could Open Rails to Crypto Firms.

MegaETH, the “real-time” blockchain, officially launches mainnet on February 9 with a target capacity of 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) and 10 milliseconds (ms) in block time. The network offers gas-free onboarding for new users on their first transactions.

What To Know

MegaETH, the performance-first layer-2 blockchain network built on Ethereum, announced on Monday that its mainnent is now live with 50+ apps and is open to the public.

Unlike traditional layer-2 networks, MegaETH promises low latency and near-instant transactions with reduced gas fees on Ethereum.

MegaETH has integrated the @infinex extension that allows users to execute their first transaction with zero gas fees.

The MegaETH Foundation is fueled by the USD-pegged native stablecoin called USDm. Revenues earned from USDm will be utilized to accumulate MEGA tokens via routine purchases.

The launch date of the MEGA token has not been set yet. The Foundation has announced token unlock conditions that include minting $500 in USDm in 30 days or launching 10 apps that can reach 100,000 transactions.

The highly anticipated Super Bowl LX at Levi Stadium, Santa Clara, returned this year, with a noticeably minimal crypto participation, a solo commercial from Coinbase.

Coinbase Returns

In 2022, the Super Bowl LVI was flooded with crypto commercials from top crypto firms, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, and FTX. Since then, the game was often dubbed the “Crypto Bowl.” That year, Coinbase’s bouncing QR-code commercial stole the spotlight.

However, the bankruptcy of FTX, one of the biggest crypto exchanges, in November 2022 was a hard blow to the industry, and events like the Super Bowl saw minimal presence from crypto firms.

Four years later, Coinbase returned to the big American game. This time, their 60-second spot featured “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).” The commercial was an instant success, and Coinbase received mixed reactions from social media platforms.

Instead of highlighting the brand’s message, Coinbase played on the nostalgia and focused on the karaoke-style lyrics of the popular 1997 song by the Backstreet Boys.

Industry analysts suggest that crypto companies are now more conscious of regulatory and public scrutiny and are moving away from aggressive marketing to guarded and sentiment-driven campaigns.

👉 Read More At Coinbase.

Based on CoinMarketCap data, February 11, 2026, 2:24 AM, ET.