According to Global Ledger, hackers accelerated laundering in the second half of 2025, often moving funds within seconds and using mixers, DeFi, and bridges. Tornado Cash appeared in 42% of exploits, and average laundering time rose to 10.6 days. DeFi flows hit $732M in H2, while bridges routed $2.01B.

On 19 February 2026, World Liberty Financial announced its first real-world asset issuance: tokenized loan revenue interests tied to the Trump International Hotel & Resort in the Maldives. The private placement targets verified accredited investors under Regulation D 506(c) and Regulation S, offering fixed-yield exposure to cash flows from resort financing, with Securitize and DarGlobal involved in issuance and development. Following the announcement, WLFI's governance token rose about 20%, highlighting market focus on the project and its role in linking stablecoins to income-generating real estate.

On February 19, 2026, the White House set a third high-level meeting on stablecoin yield for 9:00 a.m. ET. Senior figures from major banks and crypto companies are expected to participate, with topics anticipated to include regulatory frameworks, risk, and market structure. The gathering underscores intensifying federal attention to digital-asset policy.

On February 18, 2026, CoinFello said it will unveil its onchain AI agent during ETHDenver's opening ceremonies. Attendees get early access through BuffiBot in the ETHDenver app, which supports text and real-time voice; the agent also launches as an EIP-8004 component, and post-conference access to CoinFello will continue while BuffiBot remains event-exclusive.

Address poisoning is a scam that tampers with a user's transaction history instead of attacking private keys, convincing victims to send funds to a maliciously crafted lookalike address. Incidents including a roughly 3.5 wBTC theft from a Phantom Chat phishing campaign in February 2026 and a $50 million USDT loss in 2025 show how interface design and user habits can lead to large losses. By abusing dust transfers, copy buttons and truncated address displays, attackers exploit behavior and wallet UX to make poisoned addresses appear trustworthy.

At a Mar-a-Lago forum hosted by the Trump family's crypto platform, CEOs from Coinbase, Binance and Goldman Sachs joined U.S. market leaders and officials. World Liberty announced a partnership with Securitize to tokenize loan revenue interests tied to a Trump-branded Maldives resort, which the Trump Organization said in November is set to complete in 2030 with 100 villas.

US Senator Bernie Moreno told CNBC at Mar-a-Lago that the US CLARITY Act could pass Congress by April. According to Polymarket, odds of 2026 passage spiked to 90% on Wednesday before easing to 72%. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who withdrew support in January over stablecoin and SEC provisions, now says there is a path forward.

Coinbase plans to migrate Base onto a unified, internally managed software stack that replaces its prior dependence on Optimism's core technology and external tooling. The move will let Base package its own client binary, target up to six hard forks per year, and introduce Base-specific governance, security council signers, and fee systems. As Base gains more control over upgrades and infrastructure, Optimism faces reduced influence over one of its largest Layer 2 ecosystem partners.