Digital asset investment products saw $1 billion in net inflows last week, ending a five-week stretch of $4 billion in redemptions as large Bitcoin holders and softer prices encouraged fresh buying. Bitcoin products captured $881 million and Ethereum drew $117 million, while Solana, Chainlink, XRP, and Sui also recorded positive flows across key markets led by the United States. Over the same period, crypto markets stayed range-bound amid rising geopolitical tensions and a US strike on Iran that briefly pushed Bitcoin toward $63,000 and Ethereum below $2,000 before prices reverted to prior trading ranges.

Vitalik Buterin has outlined major execution-layer changes aimed at Ethereum's state tree and virtual machine, calling them the primary bottlenecks for proof efficiency. His plan highlights EIP-7864's binary state tree, potential adoption of hash functions like BLAKE3 or Poseidon, and a longer-term transition to a RISC-V-based VM. The phased roadmap includes using the new VM for precompiles, then for direct contract deployment, and eventually relegating the EVM to a compatibility layer.

World Liberty Financial has outlined a WLFI Governance Staking System that requires unlocked WLFI holders to stake for at least 180 days to gain voting rights and access to rewards. The framework adds Node and Super Node tiers starting at 10 million and 50 million WLFI, linking them to OTC USD1 conversion, partnership access, and volume-based incentives. The roadmap includes three rollout phases, while a separate memorandum of understanding with Pakistan targets technical collaboration on integrating the USD1 stablecoin into regulated digital payments.

Circle said revenue and reserve income rose 77% to $770 million in Q4 2025 for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, as USDC outstanding finished the year at $75.3 billion, up 72% year over year. In the quarter, on‑chain settlement reached $11.9 trillion, a 247% increase. For full‑year 2025, revenue totaled $2.7 billion, while a $70 million net loss reflected $424 million of IPO‑linked stock compensation.

Solana-based Step Finance and affiliates SolanaFloor and Remora Markets said they will cease operations, citing a late January wallet compromise that siphoned an estimated $30 million and unstaked 261,854 SOL. The teams halted parts of the platform, reported roughly $4.7 million recovered, and plan a STEP buyback and Remora rToken redemptions for holders.

In early 2025, on-chain investigator ZachXBT alleged that Axiom senior employee Broox Bauer abused internal tools to view private wallet data and track user activity. The claims include sharing screenshots of sensitive dashboards, compiling KOL wallet lists, and discussing a February 2026 plan to help a colleague earn $200,000 through access to Axiom's systems. The investigation also notes difficulty in definitively tying specific meme coin trades to insider activity without internal trading logs.

Bitcoin rebounded to $68,000 and added 4% on Thursday after earlier declines, but Glassnode said price action remains confined to a defensive consolidation between $60,000 and $69,000. Indicators show a 46% drawdown, roughly 9.2 million BTC held at a loss, and an Accumulation Trend Score below 0.5 since early February, suggesting upside depends on renewed spot absorption and stronger large-entity and institutional participation.

On Wednesday, Ethereum climbed back above $2,000, while its 30-day realized volatility on Binance rose to about 0.97, according to CryptoQuant, the highest since March 2025. On February 25, US spot ETH ETFs recorded over $157 million in net inflows, led by Fidelity's FETH. Santiment said ETH's 30-day MVRV is around -5.5%, signaling mild undervaluation.

Amid a broader market upswing, XRP added about 3% in the last 24 hours while the 30‑day average of large XRP transfers to Binance climbed to roughly 2.54 billion tokens, signaling renewed whale activity. Daily inflows around 50 million XRP, together with resistance near $1.40 and supports at $1.11 and $0.87, suggest bears still hold an edge despite the bounce. US spot XRP ETFs showed flat flows around late February, except for a $3 million inflow into Bitwise's XRP product.