On February 26, South Korea’s National Tax Service disclosed photos of seized crypto assets that accidentally exposed 12-word recovery phrases for Ledger hardware wallets. An unknown party then used the seed data to withdraw 4 million Pre-Retogeum tokens, valued on paper at $4.8 million, before later sending them back. The incident revealed a significant custody lapse in how authorities handle Ethereum-based tokens and other self-custodied assets.

On February 26, 2026, ZachXBT alleged that Axiom employees misused internal tools to track user wallets and front‑run trades, claiming more than $400,000 in gains. He said the activity began in early 2025 and persisted for at least 10 months. Axiom stated the same day that it revoked access to the tools and launched an internal investigation.

The Ethereum Foundation's Strawmap sets a 2029 target to lift Layer 1 capacity to about 10,000 TPS, roughly 1 gigagas per second, and cut finality from around 16 minutes to 6–16 seconds, delivered via up to seven hard forks on a six‑month cadence. The plan reframes L1 as a faster settlement layer alongside L2 scale, while traders are watching $2,150 resistance, $2,000 as a pivot, and $1,920–$1,800 as support.

Institutional investors allocated $157 million to Ethereum ETF products on Wednesday, just before ETH surged 15% to reclaim the $2,000 level and trade near $2,050. The move contrasted with mixed Bitcoin flows and coincided with a broader $134 billion crypto market inflow following Donald Trump's State of the Union address. With Bitmine adding $106 million in ETH to push its holdings above $9 billion, traders are now watching resistance near $2,150 and a potential path toward $2,400.

Over the past two days, Bitcoin rebounded from a low of $64,758 to reclaim the $68,000 area, triggering a short squeeze that wiped out more than $370M in leveraged positions. As BTC flipped the $66,000 zone into support, Circle reported revenue rising 77% to $770M while NEAR Protocol outperformed with a 17% gain following its "Confidential Intents" launch.

On February 22, 2026, the Solana-based AI agent Lobstar Wilde mistakenly transferred 52.439M LOBSTAR—about 5% of supply—to a random wallet, a stash valued between $250k and $441k. On-chain data indicated the holder exited into thin liquidity for roughly $37K–$40K, while LOBSTAR rallied 190% and the project's market cap reached $12 million.

Ethereum developers have confirmed that the FOCIL proposal to curb builder-level censorship will be added to the Hegota upgrade scheduled for the second half of 2026. At the same time, the Ethereum Foundation has moved 2,016 ETH, valued at about $6.8 million, into staking as part of a broader plan to allocate up to 70,000 ETH for yield instead of market sales. These parallel decisions aim to reinforce base-layer censorship resistance while easing long-term selling pressure from the Foundation's treasury.

Since February 2, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sold 10,723 ETH worth about $21.7 million while ETH hovers near the $1,825 support area. These sales, including 3,765 ETH offloaded between February 21 and February 24, come amid a 38% monthly price drop and a confirmed bearish chart structure. Analysts note that a decisive move below $1,800 could open a path toward the $1,500 region unless bulls reclaim levels above $2,150.

Five former Binance compliance investigators allege the exchange processed over $1B in Iran-linked transactions after its November 2023 DOJ settlement, and say they were fired for flagging the flows. Binance counters the dismissals were performance-related and cites a 97% drop in sanctions transaction volume between early 2024 and mid-2025 as reform evidence.