Visa is expanding its stablecoin settlement pilot while extending its collaboration with Bridge, which is working toward launching stablecoin-linked Visa cards in more than 100 countries by the end of 2026. The initiative lets users spend stablecoin balances at over 175 million merchant locations and tests onchain settlement options via Bridge’s partnership with Lead Bank. The program remains in a pilot phase focused on settlement flexibility and operational efficiency rather than replacing fiat rails.

A European Central Bank working paper finds that stablecoins can function as substitutes for retail bank deposits, potentially shrinking banks' funding bases and constraining lending if adoption becomes widespread. The authors argue that this shift could alter how policy rate changes pass through the euro area banking system and indirectly expose the region to U.S. monetary policy via dollar-denominated stablecoins. While current usage is largely tied to crypto trading, the study warns that scale and evolving use cases will determine how strongly stablecoins reshape bank balance sheets and monetary transmission.

The global cryptocurrency market gained more than 5% within 24 hours, lifting total capitalization to $2.36 trillion as major assets advanced. Bitcoin traded above $69,000, while Ethereum, Solana, BNB, and XRP also logged notable daily and weekly increases. Hourly data showed some cooling in parts of the market, but overall momentum across large caps remained positive.

Cardano deployed USDCx, a USDC-backed stablecoin infrastructure built with Circle that links to the xReserve framework for 1:1 minting and redemption. The rollout integrates with Minswap, Liqwid, and SundaeSwap. Stablecoin capitalization on Cardano is around $34 million while TVL exceeds $137 million, pointing to deeper dollar liquidity despite subdued on-chain activity.

Vitalik Buterin has presented a multi-phase roadmap for scaling Ethereum's transaction capacity while maintaining decentralization, centered on execution upgrades and zero-knowledge proofs. The plan combines short-term changes like ePBS and gas model adjustments with longer-term reliance on blobs and ZK-EVMs to raise throughput without overburdening validators.

Ethereum fell below $2,000 this week, sparking debate about selling after trackers flagged wallet activity linked to Vitalik Buterin. On-chain data indicates roughly 19,300 ETH, worth near $39 million, were moved and sold around $2,000, while Arkham reports the founder still holds over 224,000 ETH. Technicals show lower highs and lows since late January.

On 23 February, ZachXBT signaled an upcoming insider-trading investigation, and on 26 February he named Axiom Exchange, alleging staff misused internal tools for profit. Shortly before the reveal, a Polymarket account funded with about $70,000 in USDC bet roughly $65,800 on Axiom being implicated, later earning more than $400,000, and was subsequently linked on-chain to an active Axiom user's Solana wallet.

On 25 February, World Liberty Financial introduced a governance proposal that ties WLFI token staking and lock-up duration to voting power and annual rewards of roughly 2%. The plan also links higher-level node participation to USD1 stablecoin conversion and liquidity programs, while aiming to shift value from intermediaries to long-term ecosystem participants. Final adoption will depend on a tokenholder vote, with any approved changes to be implemented in stages.

MANTRA’s OM token is undergoing a governance-approved migration to MANTRA Chain, a 1:4 redenomination into MANTRA, and a ticker change, leading some platforms to halt OM perpetual futures trading. Coinbase Advanced and Coinbase International Exchange have paused OM perps as a precaution around the upgrade, while spot markets and custody can be handled separately. OM recently traded near $0.067 with an increase of over 5%, amid a broader downtrend since late 2025.