On Wednesday, ETHZilla announced it is rebranding to Forum Markets and will do business as Forum. Shares rose over 13% to $3.91 as the company pivots from a crypto treasury strategy to tokenization, with a ticker change to FRMM set for Monday at market open pending Nasdaq approval.

Bitcoin Depot has started enforcing identity checks for every transaction at its U.S. crypto ATM kiosks after rising fraud tied to these machines. The operator, which runs more than 25,000 kiosks globally, will also pay $1.9 million to the state of Maine to reimburse residents who lost funds in scams between 2022 and 2025. FBI figures show Americans lost $333.5 million to Bitcoin ATM scams in 2025, up 33.4% from $250 million in 2024.

Prediction market platform Kalshi said on Wednesday it banned a former California gubernatorial candidate for five years and fined him $2,000 after he bet on his own race in violation of insider trading rules. The same platform also penalized a YouTube editor who traded about $4,000 on creator stream markets in 2025, issuing a two-year suspension and roughly $20,000 fine, while the CFTC has created a prediction markets advisory to pursue insider trading cases.

Major cryptocurrencies climbed on Wednesday, adding more than $170 billion in market value and posting one of the strongest single-day rebounds in weeks. The total market cap rose roughly 8% to nearly $2.5 trillion as bitcoin briefly exceeded $70,000, with Ethereum up over 13% and Solana more than 15%. Some analysts linked the move to a pause in a "10 a.m." selloff after a Jane Street lawsuit, though no public evidence shows fixed-time sales.

On a Wednesday in 2026, the board of GD Culture Group authorized the potential sale of its 7,500 Bitcoin treasury holdings to help fund an already announced stock buyback program of up to $100 million over six months. The AI and digital marketing-focused holding company acquired the BTC in a September 2025 deal worth $875 million, entering the market when Bitcoin traded between $109,000 and $117,000. Following the latest announcement, the firm's shares rose more than 24% to $4.13, while its Bitcoin reserve was valued at about $517.5 million and its market capitalization stood near $236.7 million.

Shares of ETHZilla rose more than 13% to around $3.91 on Tuesday as the company rebrands to Forum and pivots from pure ether accumulation. The firm sold about $40 million in ETH in October and 24,291 ETH worth roughly $74.5 million in December to fund buybacks and retire debt. It is now targeting double-digit yields from tokenized home loans and other real-world assets.

On February 25, 2026, Kalshi said it closed two insider trading cases and reported them to the CFTC, issuing multi‑year bans and financial penalties. One case involved a California gubernatorial candidate; the other named a Mr. Beast video editor. The platform also recorded $8.5B in February trading volume, approaching January’s $9.5B peak.

On February 25, Bitcoin buyers pushed BTC back above $69,000 and Ether rebounded toward $2,000 amid a sharp improvement in risk appetite. Multiple large-cap altcoins, including XRP, BNB, SOL, DOGE, BCH, ADA, HYPE and XMR, are attempting technical recoveries toward key moving averages and resistance zones. Whether bulls can hold these levels and invalidate the recent downtrends will depend on how prices react around nearby support and resistance in the coming sessions.