Crypto market fear indicators are approaching extreme levels last recorded during the FTX collapse and the initial COVID-19 market crash. The comparison suggests sentiment has deteriorated to some of the most risk-averse conditions observed in recent years.

Global markets face heightened event risk next week amid uncertainty over Trump's tariff stance and rising indications the U.S. may take military action against Iran, coinciding with NVIDIA's earnings release, PANews reports on Feb. 22. Federal Reserve Governor Waller speaks at 21:00 Beijing Time on Monday, followed Tuesday by Chicago Fed President and 2027 FOMC voter Austan Goolsbee at 21:00, Boston Fed President Collins and Atlanta Fed President Bostic at 22:00, another Waller speech at 22:10, and Fed Governor Lisa Cook on AI at 22:35. NVIDIA, the world's largest company by market capitalization, reports earnings Wednesday at a time to be announced, while Richmond Fed President Barr and Boston Fed President Collins join a panel at 4:15 that day. On Thursday at 2:20, 2028 FOMC voter and St. Louis Fed President Musalem speaks on the Federal Reserve's role, followed by U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending Feb. 21 at 21:30, and on Friday at 21:30 the U.S. publishes January PPI data on a year-over-year and month-over-month basis.

HTX transferred 700,000,001 USDT (worth $700,045,501) to Aave in a single transaction. The funds moved directly from the HTX address to the Aave protocol.

SolCex launched a USDT savings product offering 2.80% APR with flexible withdrawals and a cap of $1 million per account, the exchange announced. Tether discontinued CNH₮ issuance and will support redemptions for one year. Stablecoin transfer volume rose 72% to $33 trillion in 2025.

IoTeX disclosed on X that a private key compromise led to losses of approximately $2 million in USDC, USDT, IOTX and WBTC, Odaily Planet Daily reports. The team said it has contained the incident, is reinforcing security and is working with exchanges and law enforcement to freeze stolen funds. Onchain operations and deposit functions will resume within 24 to 48 hours after security upgrades are completed. The project described the breach as a sophisticated, long-planned attack by professional actors targeting multiple blockchain networks.

The cryptocurrency industry lost approximately $370.3 million to exploits and scams in January 2026, the highest in nearly 11 months and nearly four times the amount lost in January 2025, CertiK data show. A single social engineering attack accounted for approximately $284 million of the total, with 40 related security incidents recorded in January. On Feb. 22, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams warned of fake search engine ads impersonating Uniswap, with scammers purchasing keywords such as "Uniswap" to push lookalike websites to the top of search results; the fraudulent sites closely mimic the official interface, and once users connect wallets and authorize transactions, funds are immediately drained through signature authorizations rather than protocol-layer vulnerabilities, BlockBeats reports. A user identified as "Ika" on X said their wallet assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost after clicking a counterfeit link at the top of search results, and a similar interface replication incident was reported in October 2024.

Vitalik Buterin converted 428.57 ETH into 850,178 GHO in February, OnchainLens data show. Buterin has sold a cumulative 7,386 ETH since Feb. 2, valued at approximately $15.51 million based on an average price of $2,100, Odaily reports.

vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) resumed selling ETH after a two-week break, withdrawing 3,500 ETH ($6.95M) from Aave 8 hours ago. So far, he has sold 571 ETH ($1.13M).

Vitalik Buterin sold 428.57 ETH on February 22 and received 850,178 GHO, OnchainLens data show. Since February 2, his cumulative sales total 7,386 ETH, worth approximately $15.51 million at an average price of about $2,100 per ETH. PANews reports he may continue selling.