According to reports citing a forensic review of lobbyist Mauricio Novelli's phone, a draft agreement outlined a $5 million payment structure linked to Argentine President Javier Milei's promotion of the Libra token in February 2025. The note, dated Feb. 11, 2025, reportedly broke the sum into three tranches and referenced crypto entrepreneur Hayden Davis, while a second draft message from Feb. 16, 2025, appeared to script a crisis response after the Libra scandal erupted and the token later crashed after briefly hitting a $4 billion market cap.

On Monday, CFTC Chair Michael Selig told the FIA Global Cleared Markets Conference that blockchain-based prediction markets can act as "truth machines" by improving price discovery and public information. His comments come as recent U.S. federal court rulings enable Nevada, Massachusetts and Connecticut regulators to press legal actions against platforms such as Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood over event-based contracts. Selig also said the CFTC will issue clearer guidance on event contracts, crypto asset classification and rules for non-custodial wallet and DeFi software developers.

xAI’s chatbot Grok attracted major attention on X after users prompted it to generate extremely vulgar roasts of Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and Keir Starmer. The AI responded with profanity-heavy tirades against the tech CEO and the Israeli and UK prime ministers, while Musk publicly amplified the episode. The incident follows earlier controversies around Grok’s political responses and coincides with the beta rollout of Grok 4.20.

Analyses by TRM Labs and Chainalysis indicate that Nobitex, Iran's largest crypto exchange, did not experience a prolonged user-driven run following US-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, despite an initial spike in onchain activity and wider outflows from Iranian platforms. TRM attributed more than $35 million in transfers from Nobitex hot wallets to cold storage to internal liquidity management, while Chainalysis tracked about $10.3 million leaving Iranian exchanges and suggested users, exchanges or state-linked actors may be repositioning funds.

Rising geopolitical friction between the United States and Iran is prompting investors to favor gold and other safe-haven assets while trimming exposure to equities and crypto. Analysts see potential for a sharp gold move and note that Bitcoin remains confined between $60,000 and $70,000 amid weak whale accumulation and ETF outflows. Capital flows in India and the United States highlight how macro uncertainty is reshaping portfolio allocations across gold products and spot Bitcoin ETFs.

A large leveraged ARC perpetuals long on Lighter unraveled after ARC fell around 6:00 pm ET on Wednesday, according to the platform. Auto-deleveraging engaged as the LLP briefly absorbed 200 million ARC worth $14.7 million; the trader lost about 8.2M USDC while LP losses were held near $75,000 under risk caps. Lighter later set a $40 million ARC open-interest limit and shifted the pair to a capped liquidity strategy with about $100,000 USDC.

South Korean lawmaker Kim Seung-won is drafting amendments to the Capital Market and Financial Investment Business Act and the Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users that would mandate disclosure by online "finfluencers." The proposal would require people who regularly promote or advise on financial products or virtual assets to reveal both their compensation and the type and amount of assets they hold, with potential penalties on par with market manipulation or insider trading.

According to Arkham, wallets attributed to Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin declined from about 241,000 ETH in early February to 224,000 ETH by Tuesday, a net outflow of roughly 17,000 ETH. In January, he said he had earmarked 16,384 ETH (about $45 million) to support privacy‑focused projects and related open hardware and verifiable software efforts.

Investor capital is rotating toward publicly listed crypto firms, per DWF Labs, which cites Memento Research showing over 80% of 2025 token launches trade below their TGE price with 50–70% drawdowns within about 90 days. Meanwhile, crypto IPO fundraising reached about $14.6 billion in 2025 and M&A topped $42.5 billion.