Chainalysis' annual report finds ransomware leak events climbed 50% in 2025 to nearly 8,000, while on-chain ransom payments slipped 8% to $820 million. The firm cites regulatory pressure, enforcement against laundering infrastructure, and more refusals to pay, prompting a pivot toward small and mid-sized targets.

The US Federal Reserve has requested public comments over a 60-day period on a proposed rule that would remove "reputation risk" from banking supervision. In a Monday press release, the Fed said the change would formalize guidance issued last June, limiting supervisory pressure to financial risk considerations and addressing concerns over crypto debanking.

Bitcoin-treasury firm Strategy has accumulated 717,131 BTC since its first purchase in August 2020 and has executed 99 separate Bitcoin buys so far. On a Saturday X post, chairman Michael Saylor hinted that the firm is preparing for its 100th acquisition by sharing a StrategyTracker chart titled "The Orange Century." Strategy has added Bitcoin for 12 straight weeks in 2026, while its share price has climbed about 950% since its initial BTC move.

On Wednesday, the Aptos Foundation said it will submit governance proposals to overhaul APT's tokenomics, including a 2.1 billion hard cap, cutting annual staking rewards to 2.6% from 5.19%, and a 10x gas fee increase. It also plans to lock 210 million APT and expects a 60% drop in annualized unlocks after the October cycle ends to enhance deflation.

Polygon has outpaced Ethereum in daily transaction fees for three consecutive days, collecting $407,100 on Friday versus Ethereum’s $211,700. The spike has been linked to strong user activity on prediction market Polymarket, which generated over $1 million in fees on Polygon in the past week while a single Oscars market attracted more than $15 million in wagers. Daily fees later narrowed to $303,000 for Polygon and about $285,000 for Ethereum, and USDC usage on the network has climbed to a record weekly 28 million transactions.

Russia's deputy finance minister said about 50 billion rubles of crypto changes hands in the country each day and called for a formal regulatory framework. A central bank official added he hopes the State Duma will pass the measures in the spring session, as the EU weighs broader restrictions on Russian crypto activity.

Apollo Global Management, which oversees nearly $940 billion in assets, has entered a cooperation agreement with DeFi lending platform Morpho to back its onchain lending infrastructure. Under the deal, Apollo or its affiliates may purchase up to 90 million MORPHO governance tokens over 48 months, while Morpho remains one of the largest DeFi protocols by total value locked.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has dropped its planned Namechain layer-2 and will launch the ENSv2 upgrade directly on Ethereum L1, according to a Friday blog post by lead developer nick.eth. The shift follows a reported 99% fall in ENS registration gas costs over the past year and the Fusaka upgrade lifting the gas limit to 60 million, with core developers targeting 200 million in 2026.

On Thursday, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) set a $10 billion daily trading record as Bitcoin fell 12% in the past 24 hours. The ETF dropped 13%, its second-worst day since launch, and saw $373.4 million in net outflows on Wednesday. Bitcoin traded near $64,000 after an intraday low of $60,300.