step

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour posted on X regarding the death of Khamenei and related prediction market events, stating: "We will not list markets that are directly tied to death. When a market may have a death outcome, we will design rules to prevent people from profiting from death."Because of this, Kalshi will handle the "Khamenei stepping down as Supreme Leader" related events as follows:All fees for this market will be refunded;If users opened positions before Khamenei's death, settlements will be based on the last trading price before Khamenei's death;If users opened positions after Khamenei's death, costs will be fully reimbursed.Tarek Mansour further stated: "No user will lose a dollar in this market. We will settle the market at the last transaction price before Khamenei's death, which was at 1:14 AM Eastern Time today."

According to Polymarket data, the probability of the market for "Khamenei will step down as Iran's Supreme Leader before March 31" has sharply risen to 93% today, an increase of 85 percentage points from before, with a total market trading volume of $30.43 million.

According to the Shanghai Securities Journal, Wang Bin, the head of the Third Criminal Division of the Supreme People's Court, stated at a press conference on "The People's Court's Work on Punishing Telecom and Network Fraud and Property Crimes According to Law" that the next step will focus on cracking down on key figures and core members of criminal groups, "financial backers" of telecom fraud, "snakeheads" organizing illegal immigration, and organizations providing armed protection for cross-border fraud crimes, as well as violent crimes such as intentional homicide, intentional injury, and kidnapping committed during telecom fraud, and related crimes such as "money laundering" using virtual currencies and underground banks.Wang Bin also stated that the people's courts will legally strengthen the application of property penalties against telecom fraud criminals, preventing them from benefiting economically. They will guide those involved in "two-card" assistance and concealment of criminals to voluntarily compensate victims, consider the return of stolen goods and compensation as mitigating factors in sentencing for confession and remorse, and impose strict penalties according to law on criminals who have the ability but refuse to return stolen goods or compensate victims.

The co-founder and CTO of the Web3 development tool platform thirdweb, Jake Loo, announced his resignation.Jake Loo stated, "At thirdweb, we have built and deployed multiple AI agents that cover our products and organizational structure. I have witnessed AI evolve from being a 'nice-to-have' to a key technology that fundamentally changes the way we work. This experience has transformed my way of thinking. I believe there is nothing more important than AI right now. This is not hype; it has brought about real changes in how software is built and used, how teams operate, and how the entire industry is reshaped. So I have decided to go all in."

According to the official announcement from Step Finance, Step Finance, SolanaFloor, and Remora Markets will cease all business operations. The project stated that after experiencing a hack at the end of January, the team explored various possibilities, including financing and acquisition, but was unable to find a viable solution, leading to the difficult decision to immediately end all operations.At the same time, the team is developing a buyback plan for STEP holders based on a snapshot taken before the incident, and providing a redemption process for Remora rToken holders. Remora tokens still maintain a 1:1 support.ChainCatcher previously reported that the Step Finance hack incident statement indicated that approximately $40 million was stolen, and it is advised not to use STEP tokens temporarily.

Bitcoin Core developer Murch announced on February 11 that BIP 360 (Pay to Merkle Root, P2MR) has officially entered the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal repository, marking the first time the Bitcoin development community has incorporated quantum resistance into the official technical roadmap.The proposal was co-authored by Hunter Beast, Ethan Heilman, and Isabel Foxen Duke, and is currently in the review and discussion stage, with no protocol changes activated yet.

StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson spoke on X about the potential impact of quantum computing on the crypto industry, calling for a proactive deployment of post-quantum security upgrades across multi-chain ecosystems, including Bitcoin, and proposed a five-step action plan:Acknowledge the threat and clearly recognize that once quantum computers mature, they will pose a severe challenge to the existing public key cryptography system, and take decisive action to implement countermeasures.Enhance education and information dissemination, systematically learn about the current state of quantum computing development and feasible solutions in post-quantum cryptography (PQC), and spread relevant knowledge within the community to raise overall awareness.Organize and invest resources to support and collaborate with post-quantum cryptography experts, promote multiple research and engineering practices, and provide funding and community initiative support for related projects.Listen to expert advice and establish standards, with experts proposing specific technical routes, including the selection of new signature algorithm standards and the reasonable post-quantum security levels required for hash functions.Promote protocol and infrastructure upgrades, introduce new quantum-resistant signature mechanisms at the core protocol layer, and ensure compatibility and integration with key infrastructures such as wallets to ensure a smooth transition.

The Ethereum Foundation's Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak will step down at the end of February 2026, to be succeeded by Bastian Aue, who will co-lead with the current Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei.Tomasz stated that over the past year, the Ethereum Foundation has achieved multiple goals, including accelerating decision-making, enhancing communication with the younger generation, bringing new energy to the builder community, improving open communication on social media and podcasts, being more open to institutional participation, supporting founders, and formulating treasury policies. After stepping down, Tomasz plans to continue participating in the Ethereum ecosystem as a core developer, focusing on proxy core development and governance work. He emphasized that Ethereum is becoming the underlying verification and transaction platform for financial infrastructure, with 2025 being a clear choice for institutions.

According to CoinDesk, two insiders revealed that as the cryptocurrency exchange platform Kraken prepares to go public in the U.S. early this year, Kraken has fired Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Stephanie Lemmerman.Lemmerman joined Kraken from Dapper Labs in November 2024 and served as the CFO of the exchange for one year and four months. One insider stated that she is currently serving as a strategic advisor at Kraken.Insiders revealed that former Vice President of Business Development Robert Moore has essentially taken over her position. The leadership page on the website of Kraken's parent company, Payward Inc., has been updated to show that Moore is now the Deputy CFO, while Lemmerman's name does not appear on that page.

Beast Industries announced that it has acquired the mobile banking app Step, aimed at teenagers and young adults, to enhance its presence in the financial services sector. Step currently has over 7 million users and has raised approximately $500 million from investors such as Stephen Curry and Justin Timberlake.Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold stated that this acquisition will leverage technology-driven solutions to improve the financial health of its audience. Previously, Ethereum warehouse company BitMine Immersion Technologies invested $200 million in Beast Industries in January, and both parties are exploring the integration of DeFi features into the financial platform. Additionally, Beast Holdings filed a trademark application for MrBeast Financial in October, covering businesses such as cryptocurrency trading and payment processing.

The crypto venture capital firm Multicoin Capital announced that co-founder and managing partner Kyle Samani will gradually step back from the company's daily operations.Co-founder Tushar Jain stated that Samani's interests have expanded from the crypto space to cutting-edge areas such as artificial intelligence, longevity technology, and robotics, prompting him to dedicate more time to exploring these emerging technologies. Kyle Samani gained significant attention for his early bet on Solana and has been an important voice in the industry for years, actively promoting multiple tracks including DePIN, and co-founding the digital asset vault company Forward, which focuses on SOL as its core asset. He has also proposed core concepts related to Solana's performance, such as IBRL (Increase Bandwidth, Reduce Latency).Samani stated that leaving Multicoin is a "bittersweet" decision, but he will continue to invest in the crypto industry as an individual and remain a voice for the Solana ecosystem.

Step Finance issued a statement regarding a hacking incident on platform X, disclosing that approximately $40 million was stolen from its treasury due to the compromise of an executive's device. After detecting the security vulnerability, they collaborated with cybersecurity researchers and relevant authorities to initiate an investigation into the attack and notified law enforcement. During this period, some operational activities were temporarily halted, and approximately $3.7 million in Remora assets and $1 million in other positions have been recovered.As the largest liquidity provider for Remora Markets, LP activities will resume once the system is fully secure. Remora Markets is not related to this incident, and all rTokens are still backed 1:1 by custodial collateral. At this stage, it is advised that anyone refrain from using STEP tokens until the investigation is complete. A system snapshot will be taken prior to the exploitation to ensure the safety of STEP token holders, and any updates will be released immediately once there is progress.

Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal stated on a podcast this week that, according to the global liquidity model, Bitcoin's price should currently be around $140,000. However, the "1011" event caused cryptocurrencies to lag behind the stock market and gold. Raoul Pal attempted to recap what he believes to be the process of the "1011" event in the video as follows:On that day, a significant macro shock (Trump's tariff policy) led to a collective explosion of highly leveraged positions. During the peak of the liquidation cascade, Binance's API briefly went down, preventing professional market makers from placing orders, providing liquidity, or hedging risks. A chain reaction followed, with liquidations continuing to amplify, forcing major CEXs to step in with their own balance sheets to prevent a complete system collapse.Raoul expects that the CEXs passively absorbed a large amount of assets during the event (potentially around $10 billion in inventory). The reason for the market's subsequent long-term weakness is that the CEXs that took over at that time concentrated on algorithmic selling during the U.S. stock market opening hours to gradually sell off their inventory.Raoul anticipates that the "digestion period" of this round of selling pressure is expected to clear by the end of February, and believes that after the selling pressure is cleared, Bitcoin will quickly rebound and reach $140,000. Additionally, Raoul believes that the debt risk of Strategy is manageable, and Saylor has cleaned up the balance sheet through bond/equity issuance.However, in response to the above speculation, Zhao Changpeng publicly stated during a Space on Friday that "the 1011 crash was not caused by any issues with the Binance system or operations; Binance is regulated and has no conditions to engage in any violations."

Step Finance released an update on the hacking incident on platform X, disclosing that several of its funding wallets were breached by an attacker last night. The initial assessment indicates that the attack was carried out through a certain attack vector. Remedial measures have been taken, and the company is closely collaborating with security experts. Relevant authorities have also been notified, and further updates on the incident will be provided.According to previous reports, the treasury and fee wallets of Step Finance were compromised. On-chain data shows that approximately 261,854 SOL tokens were unstaked and transferred during the attack, amounting to about 30 million dollars.

According to a post by SolanaFloor on the X platform, multiple treasury and fee wallets of Step Finance were compromised. On-chain data shows that during the attack, approximately 261,854 SOL tokens were unstaked and transferred, worth about 30 million dollars.Additionally, Step Finance's official statement mentioned that they are currently investigating the attack, and more information will be released later.

OpenAI's Chief Information Security Officer Matt Knight tweeted that he will soon be stepping down.During his tenure, Matt Knight led the development of security products, ultimately resulting in the release of Aardvark.