On March 4, 2026, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City approved a limited master account for Kraken Financial, giving the crypto-focused bank unit direct access to core payment rails like Fedwire. Kraken can now move U.S. dollars without an intermediary, though it will not receive full bank privileges such as interest on reserves or access to the discount window.

Bitcoin rebounded from about $63,000, reached after weekend US and Israeli strikes on Iran, and pushed toward $73,000 alongside a broader improvement in risk appetite. Over the past two days, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded more than $680 million of net inflows, while rising crypto stocks and steadier oil prices have supported the move.

Bitcoin fell as much as 4.2% to $62,938 and Ether dropped 5% to $1,783 after Israel said it had carried out a preemptive strike on Iran, with around $128 billion in crypto market capitalization wiped out. Former US president Donald Trump released an eight-minute Truth Social video stating the US took part in the action and describing the aim as removing what he called imminent threats from Iran.

On February 27, 2026, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) said it is discussing a plan to carve out Truth Social and related units into a publicly traded SpinCo that would later combine with Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp. American Bitcoin reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $59.45 million on $78.3 million in revenue for the three months ended Dec. 31, alongside a sector pullback.

On February 26, 2026, Block said it will eliminate more than 4,000 roles, reducing headcount from over 10,000 to just under 6,000, and its shares rose more than 25% after hours. The company also reported fourth‑quarter 2025 gross profit growth of 24% year over year and raised its 2026 outlook to $12.20 billion in gross profit.

On February 26, 2026 (UTC update), tightening scandium supply was pressuring U.S. 5G chip and aerospace chains as inventories ran thin ahead of a planned March summit in Beijing. After April 2025 controls, yttrium exports to the U.S. fell to 17 tons from 333 tons, and prices climbed about 60% since a November alert, with some manufacturers rationing.

PayPal shares climbed almost 7% on Tuesday after reports said Stripe is evaluating a full or partial acquisition of the payments group. The move followed a steep slide that has left PayPal down more than 19% this year and nearly one third lower for 2025, even as Stripe’s valuation hit $159 billion in a secondary sale. Analysts argue PayPal’s global network and nearly $2 trillion in annual transaction volume could make it a valuable strategic asset despite broader market worries over AI’s impact on payment fees.

DeepSeek plans to unveil a new AI model as soon as next week, and U.S. officials say it was trained on Nvidia’s Blackwell chips that are barred from export to China. A senior official said Monday the setup could breach U.S. export controls and suggested the hardware may be clustered at a DeepSeek site in Inner Mongolia.

Anthropic reported in a Monday blog post that Chinese AI firms DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax allegedly operated more than 24,000 fake Claude accounts and sent over 16 million prompts to distill its model outputs. The company warned this large-scale data extraction could accelerate rival AI development and potentially feed into military or surveillance uses, while at the same time unveiling a new Claude-based code scanning tool. Following the announcement, several cybersecurity and software stocks, including CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and GitLab, recorded sharp declines.