DEX

An analyst said Aster had only six daily active addresses, 51 weekly, and 346 monthly, prompting scrutiny of the perpetual DEX. Aster disputed the figure, citing a mislinked contract, while metrics show fees rising from a $5 million weekly average in January to over $8 million in early February and 91k new users in the past seven days.

XRP has drawn about $150 million in new capital this year while Bitcoin and Ethereum saw roughly $1.5 billion in outflows. On Feb. 18, analytics flagged XRP sentiment reaching a five-week high, highlighting rotation away from the majors. Coinbase also began allowing XRP as collateral for up to $100,000 USDC loans.

On February 19, 2026, HYPE traded around $31–$32, about 47% below its 2025 peak near $59. Arthur Hayes set a $150 target for July 2026 and placed a $100,000 outperformance wager against altcoins above $1 billion in market cap. Hyperliquid's model directs 50% of fees to token buybacks, with 2025 notional volume around $2.6 trillion.

On Wednesday, crypto exchange Kraken said it purchased token management platform Magna, its sixth acquisition in the last 12 months. Magna, launched in 2021 and valued at $70 million in its most recent round, specializes in managing vesting schedules, airdrops and token allocations and reportedly reached a peak TVL of $60 billion in 2025.

On February 18, 2026, altcoin markets were described as facing record-level selling pressure, with little evidence of dip buying. Funds rotated toward BTC, meme tokens, and RWA assets, while altcoin participation on Binance fell from over 59% in November to 33.6% by February. Derivatives activity on centralized venues also waned amid higher liquidation risk.

According to Santiment, Solana (SOL) investment products registered $11.9M in outflows, marking the second-largest ETF withdrawal in the asset's history as its market capitalization has dropped 62% over the past four months. While this pressure weighs on SOL, the Sushi decentralized exchange has launched on Solana using Jupiter's Ultra API to offer high-speed token swaps and cross-chain trading, with Tramplin preparing a premium staking rollout on the same network.

On February 17, 2026, ORCA, the native token of Orca DEX on Solana, jumped more than 62% in a day, briefly exceeding $1.62 and marking its strongest trading volumes since December. The move was fueled by a short squeeze, over $23M in open interest, and heavy activity on South Korean exchanges, with more than half of spot volume on Upbit and over 75% of trades against the Korean won.

Orca (ORCA) surged 54.48% in the past 24 hours, trading at $1.21 and dramatically outperforming a flat-to-down broader market. The rally, fueled by a historic 2,455% explosion in trading volume, has propelled the Solana-native token above key technical resistance levels, signaling a potential trend reversal for the decentralized exchange (DEX) leader.

Uniswap's UNI traded near multi-month support around $3.13 after a whale accumulated 640,000 UNI worth $2.29 million from OKX, with price later hovering close to $3.54. Key resistance remains at $4.92 and $6.60 while indicators show fading bearish momentum, shrinking exchange reserves of $307.95 million, and Open Interest dropping to $243.56 million.

Over the next three days, a permissioned DEX amendment is scheduled to activate on the XRP Ledger mainnet, enabling regulated institutions to trade while preserving compliance. XRP validator Vet recently highlighted XRP’s role as a bridge asset between pairs like EUROP/RLUSD via autobridging, and the new feature is expected to extend this function in FX and remittance flows. As XRP’s institutional roadmap expands around settlement, FX, collateral and on-chain credit, the token has also rebounded in price, gaining 13% in one day amid a broader market rally.