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As Iran intensifies its strikes on key energy nodes, a large natural gas field in the UAE has been ignited. Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump has called on allies to assist in reopening the Strait of Hormuz.The drone attack on the Shah gas field occurred near the border between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. This marks the first time Iran has damaged the country's oil and gas upstream facilities during the conflict. The UAE government stated that operations at the gas field have been suspended, and there were no casualties on site. The gas field is jointly operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Texas-based Occidental Petroleum.Due to multiple drone and missile attacks, the UAE closed its airspace at night. Authorities reported that air traffic returned to normal on Tuesday morning. Just a day before the attack, Iran also struck a fuel depot at Dubai's main airport, causing a massive plume of smoke to rise over the world's busiest international transit hub and leading to a brief disruption of flights.

The discussion surrounding Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-110 continues to heat up. Bitcoin pioneer and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back retweeted to remind the community that Bitcoin's upgrade capability may be suppressed. This proposal, although described as a temporary soft fork to clean up "garbage data" on-chain to curb the on-chain data inflation brought by protocols like Ordinals, may hinder Bitcoin's future upgrade capabilities because it disables the OP_SUCCESS opcode in Tapscript, which is seen as an important reserved mechanism for future soft fork upgrades of Bitcoin.Additionally, BIP-110 will limit the Taproot control block size to 257 bytes, which may affect the development of potential Layer 2 technologies like BitVM that rely on extensive script execution. Although BIP-110 is positioned as a "temporary measure," Bitcoin soft fork upgrades typically require years of coordination, and restricting upgrade interfaces during this period may have long-term impacts.

The short-selling firm Culper Research announced a short position on Ethereum and ETH-related securities, including BMNR. The firm believes that the economic model of the ETH token has been damaged after the Fusaka upgrade, which raised the Gas limit to 45 million to 60 million. While a decrease in Gas fees of 10% to 30% was expected, the actual decrease was about 90%. Vitalik and validators' calculations of L1 demand elasticity are based on outdated models, with errors reaching 3-9 times.Culper refuted Tom Lee's bullish viewpoint. Lee cited the growth of active addresses and transaction volume as evidence of strengthened ETH fundamentals and institutional adoption, but Culper's analysis shows that on-chain data from January 2025 to February 2026 indicates that these activities are actually caused by address poisoning and dust attack-induced low-value trading waves.After the Fusaka upgrade, 95% of new wallets were created for dust attack wallets, and the number of poisoning attacks has increased more than threefold, accounting for over 50% of ETH transaction growth, currently representing 22.5% of all ETH transactions. Culper claims that Vitalik is well aware of this and is selling off, expecting ETH to decline further.

According to Jinshi, Federal Reserve's Williams stated that the economic fundamentals are solid and the job market is stabilizing.

According to Bloomberg, influenced by stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation data, market expectations for a short-term rate cut by the Federal Reserve have cooled, leading to a retreat in risk appetite. Bitcoin fluctuated downward on Friday night, briefly dropping to around $65,600, and has now rebounded to around the $66,000 mark.This week's market has shown significant volatility, with prices rebounding to nearly $70,000 on Wednesday, marking the first time since February 16 that it approached that level, but then retracing most of the gains. Market participants pointed out that the persistence of inflation has weakened expectations for easing, putting overall pressure on risk assets, and the short-term sentiment in the crypto market has fluctuated with changes in macro expectations.

10x Research's analysis on platform X indicates that the core driver of Circle's stock price increase is not the earnings report data itself, but rather the market positioning structure, which is more likely to trigger a high-probability short squeeze rather than a simple fundamental reassessment. It is reported that a hedge fund established a large short position before the earnings report was released; however, as Circle's stock price soared in a single day, it triggered a severe short squeeze, resulting in the hedge fund losing approximately $500 million in one day.10x Research further stated that this round of extreme volatility not only affects Circle but also impacts Coinbase and Bitcoin. Although Circle is a clear bullish target, the overall magnitude of the market is primarily driven by the imbalance in the overall positioning structure of the crypto market. New market catalysts may be on the horizon, potentially reshaping the market narrative, after which market trading logic may return to fundamentals.

According to market news, Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (BSTR) CEO Adam Back stated that despite the recent drop in Bitcoin prices to around $63,000, the company still plans to go public through a merger with Cantor Equity Partners I (CEPO) via SPAC, with shareholder approval expected as early as April this year.BSTR will debut with a balance sheet of 30,000 Bitcoins, of which 25,000 will be provided by Back and founding shareholders, and 5,000 will be contributed in kind by early investors. Back believes that the current lower Bitcoin prices are actually beneficial for the company to accumulate more Bitcoins at a discounted price after going public. He attributes the recent decline in Bitcoin to macroeconomic uncertainty rather than regulatory issues.

Bitmine today announced that the total value of its cryptocurrency holdings, cash, and "high-risk high-return investment projects" is currently reported at $9.6 billion. As of February 22, 2026, 6:00 PM Eastern Time, the company's crypto assets include:4,422,659 ETH193 Bitcoin$200 million in Beast Industries equity$17 million in Eightco Holdings equityTotal cash of $691 million.Bitmine's Executive Chairman Thomas "Tom" Lee stated that during this "mini crypto winter," we remain focused on methodically executing our financial strategy, steadily increasing our ETH holdings, and optimizing our portfolio returns. Despite the crypto prices hitting lows, the three major fundamental drivers for Ethereum continue to strengthen:Wall Street and its tokenization strategyAI and AI agents using smart blockchain to execute and collect paymentsThe emerging creator economy and its demand for blockchain verification.

According to official news, the Ethereum Foundation has released the 2026 protocol priority update, which indicates that it will advance along three tracks: scalability (integrating L1 execution with Blob scaling), improving user experience (focusing on native account abstraction and cross-chain interoperability), and strengthening the L1 layer (enhancing security, censorship resistance, and network resilience).Moreover, the Ethereum Foundation stated that it will continue to push the Gas Limit to 100M and above, promote ePBS and further Blob parameter adjustments, advance the zkEVM attester client, as well as work on censorship resistance and post-quantum security; the next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, is targeted for the first half of 2026, with Hegotá planned for follow-up later in the year.

According to Jinshi, the U.S. non-farm payrolls unexpectedly surged, leading to a hit in the U.S. bond market as traders reduced bets on a rate cut by the Federal Reserve this year. Short-term government bonds were hit hardest, with the two-year Treasury yield rising by 6 basis points to around 3.51%. The money market currently expects the Fed's next rate cut to occur in July, rather than the previously anticipated June. Bret Kenwell from eToro stated that investors should welcome the U.S. employment report, which will have constructive implications for the economy and the market.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams posted on the X platform, stating that the main issue with describing Rollups as "parasitic" is that these projects undertake a significant and costly engineering effort to scale Ethereum.In a Rollup-centric roadmap, this work is intentionally outsourced. If Ethereum wishes to be more independent, it needs to adopt a serious engineering-driven approach rather than treating every issue as a research problem.

Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr recently publicly called for Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back to resign, following the latest disclosure of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein by the U.S. Department of Justice. The documents reveal that the deceased criminal Jeffrey Epstein indirectly participated in Blockstream investments through funds associated with the MIT Media Lab and had email correspondence with several Blockstream co-founders and figures in the crypto industry.Dashjr stated that these documents reveal what he calls "deep corruption" and reiterated his long-standing disagreements with Adam Back, including the historical controversy over his lack of recognition as a co-founder of Blockstream. The related documents also mention Epstein's connections with crypto companies such as Coinbase and Tether, noting that Epstein invested $3 million in Coinbase in 2014.In response, Adam Back has publicly denied any direct or indirect financial relationship with Epstein but has not commented on whether he ever visited Epstein's private island. As of now, Blockstream and other related parties have not made any further response to Luke Dashjr's call for resignation.

After a decline earlier on Monday, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies like Solana have seen a mild rebound. Interestingly, Goldman Sachs pointed out that despite the weak price performance, on-chain activity paints a different picture, particularly for the Ethereum and Solana networks:The Ethereum network's daily active addresses, new addresses, and transaction counts increased by +27.5%, +26.8%, and +36% respectively month-over-month.The Solana network's daily active addresses and transaction counts increased by +24.3% and +8.2% respectively month-over-month. The number of new addresses on Ethereum reached an all-time high, averaging 427,000 new addresses daily in January—compared to an average of 162,000 new addresses per day during the "DeFi summer" of 2020. Currently, Ethereum has 1.2 million active addresses daily—this is another all-time high based on the 7-day moving average.Goldman Sachs also specifically noted that Ethereum's current market capitalization is now below its realized market capitalization (the total value calculated based on the price at which each token last moved on-chain, representing the total cost basis), which means that most ETH holders are currently in a loss position. Timothy Misir, head of research at digital asset analytics firm BRN, stated, "For cryptocurrencies, the stability of ETF fund flows is a key signal to monitor. Without this support, a rebound is likely to be difficult to sustain."

Delphi Digital stated in its latest report on Lighter (LIT) that the fundamentals of Lighter are much better than what the price trends reflect. The real issues are not poor product quality or insufficient team strength, but rather the lack of transparency in its token economic model, financial situation, and market maker collaborations.If Lighter can fully disclose the flow of profits, clarify the decision-making mechanisms for buybacks and development investments, and clearly present the incentive structure, then LIT could very well become a hassle-free asset and investment target like HYPE.

BitMine Chairman Tom Lee stated, "The parabolic and sustained rise of gold and silver is overshadowing the ongoing strengthening of the intrinsic fundamentals of crypto assets, especially Ethereum and Bitcoin.At the 2026 Davos Forum, financial institutions are preparing to build products on Ethereum and other smart blockchains. When the fundamentals continue to trend upwards, it is only a matter of time before prices rise."

According to Cryptopolitan, Strive board member Pierre Rochard pointed out this week that despite the continuous improvement of scaling technologies (i.e., tools that accelerate transactions and reduce costs), the way Bitcoin is taxed is the fundamental reason it cannot function like a regular currency in everyday transactions.Pierre Rochard stated that Bitcoin payments grow faster in low-tax regions. Under current U.S. tax law, Bitcoin is considered property rather than currency. This means that every time someone uses Bitcoin for consumption, whether purchasing coffee, services, or goods, it triggers a tax reporting obligation, and if the value of Bitcoin has increased since the buyer acquired it, capital gains tax may also be due.

According to a post by Christine D. Kim on platform X summarizing the 173rd Ethereum consensus layer core developer meeting, to launch the Glamsterdam upgrade before mid-year, developers may need to significantly scale down the upgrade.Although there has not yet been an official acknowledgment of discrepancies in planning and timelines, if issues do exist, they need to be resolved by the end of February. Key discussion points from the meeting include: if a compatible version of EIP-7732 cannot be achieved by the end of February, it will be considered for removal from Glamsterdam and postponed to a future hard fork; performance issues with nodes were discovered in the Consensys Teku client during mainnet stress testing, affecting progress; EIP-7928 requires clients to conduct a small-scale API review; the submission deadline for the Hegota upgrade Headliner EIP proposal is February 4; some client teams have completed preliminary work on the EIP-7688 library update.

Suspected "1011 Insider Whale" Garrett Jin posted on the X platform, stating that comparing the current Bitcoin market to that of 2022 is highly unprofessional. He believes that there are essential differences between the two from the perspectives of long-term price structure, macro background, investor composition, and chip distribution. He pointed out that the current macro environment is completely opposite to the high inflation and interest rate hike cycle of 2022: the situation in Ukraine is easing, CPI and risk-free interest rates are declining, and especially the AI technology revolution is likely to drive the economy into a long-term deflationary cycle. Interest rates have entered a phase of reduction, and central bank liquidity is returning to the financial system, which defines the risk appetite behavior of capital.Since 2020, Bitcoin has shown a significant negative correlation with CPI, and under the AI-driven technological revolution, long-term deflation is a high-probability outcome. Technically, 2021-2022 was a weekly M-top structure, while 2025 is a breakout of the upward channel, which is more likely to be a "bear market trap" before a rebound. He noted that to replicate the bear market of 2022, it is necessary to simultaneously meet stringent conditions such as the re-emergence of inflation shocks, the central bank restarting interest rate hikes or quantitative tightening, and a decisive price drop below $80,850. It is too early to be bearish before these conditions are met.In terms of investor structure, 2020-2022 was a high-leverage speculative market dominated by retail investors, while since the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in 2023, structural long-term holders have entered the market, effectively locking in supply and significantly reducing trading speed and volatility. Bitcoin has shifted from a historical volatility range of 80-150% to a range of 30-60%, becoming a distinctly different asset. The current market has entered a more mature institutional era, characterized by stable underlying demand, locked supply, and institutional-level volatility.

According to Fortune, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the launch of a cryptocurrency called "NYC Token" after leaving office, stating that the project aims to raise funds to combat anti-Semitism, anti-American sentiment, and promote children's blockchain education. Adams introduced the token in Times Square but did not disclose any partners, issuance time, funding usage, or specific mechanisms, only stating that ordinary New Yorkers could participate in the investment.During his tenure, Adams strongly supported the crypto industry but was also embroiled in controversies over ethical and conflict of interest issues. The new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made it clear that he will not purchase the token.Additionally, according to information from Eric Adams' X platform, the NYC Token reportedly launched on the Solana network about an hour ago, with its market value briefly soaring to $200 million before quickly retreating, currently reported at $93.98 million.ChainCatcher reminds users that the authenticity of the token is yet to be confirmed, and that celebrity coins are highly volatile with significant uncertainty, urging users to invest cautiously.