STS Digital said Thursday, according to a statement shared with The Block, that it raised $30 million in a strategic round led by CMT Digital with participation from Payward and other investors. The firm plans to expand market‑making and scale its institutional spot and options platform, which offers access to more than 400 tokens across spot, "vanilla and exotic options," and structured products.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sold 17,196 ETH since the beginning of February, totaling roughly $34.96 million and surpassing his January 30 allocation of 16,384 ETH by 4.9%. He previously framed that allocation as his personal contribution to an austerity plan aimed at funding open-source infrastructure over several years, while recent sales have coincided with ether's price rising instead of falling.

On Monday, ZeroLend founder "Ryker" said the DeFi lending protocol will be wound down after around three years of operation, following sustained losses and ecosystem challenges. Total value locked has fallen 98% from a November 2024 high near $359 million to $6.6 million, while the ZERO token has lost almost all its value since peaking at $0.001 in May 2024.

Kalshi has entered a sports performance hedging partnership with Game Point Capital after its Super Bowl Sunday trading volume surpassed $1 billion and January activity hit a record $9.6 billion. The collaboration allows teams to hedge performance bonus payouts, with early NBA contracts on Kalshi reportedly pricing significantly below over-the-counter market quotes.

Coincheck Group N.V. reported Q3 revenue of $915 million and net income of $2.6 million, reversing a $98.5 million loss. According to the company, CEO Gary Simanson will resign on March 31, with 3iQ's Pascal St-Jean to take over on April 1. The quarter included $83 million from its Aplo acquisition.

The American Bankers Association urged the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a Wednesday comment letter to pause approvals of uninsured national bank charters for digital asset firms until new GENIUS Act rules are fully in place. The group also called for clearer receivership tools, potential SEC registration guidance for certain applicants, limits on the use of the word "bank", and resolution of stablecoin yield rules as multiple crypto companies seek OCC trust charters.

Stripe introduced a preview integrating the x402 protocol to let developers bill autonomous agents in USDC on Base. CoinGecko simultaneously activated x402 for its API, offering fixed $0.01 USDC per-request access to price and onchain data. The product rollout also coincided with a reported tender offer that values Stripe at $140 billion.

BitMine said it purchased 40,613 ETH in the week ending Feb. 8, lifting its Ethereum treasury to 4,325,738 ETH, equal to 3.58% of circulating supply and valued at about $9.2 billion. The company also reported 2,897,459 ETH staked, generating $202 million in annualized revenue, with internal yields at 3.32%.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized the launch of new generic EVM-based Layer 1 chains, calling them a dead end and arguing that Ethereum's base layer will already provide substantial EVM blockspace. He now promotes a broader spectrum of designs, including deeply integrated app-chain models and institutional Layer 2s, urging developers to focus on differentiated features such as privacy, app-specific efficiency and ultra-low latency. While questioning the rollup-centric roadmap, he still assigns Layer 2s a role in delivering extreme scalability for demanding use cases like AI.