On February 26 2026, Foom.Cash, an Ethereum-based privacy protocol promoted as an evolution of Tornado Cash, suffered an exploit that led to losses of roughly $2.26 million in tokens. An attacker allegedly abused a misconfigured Groth16 zkSNARK verifier across Ethereum and Base, enabling forged proofs that drained 24.28 trillion FOOM tokens, with about $427,000 taken by the exploiter and around $1.83 million shifted in a white-hat rescue. The team has not yet publicly outlined remediation steps or the full impact.

IoTeX committed to fully compensate users affected by the February 21 ioTube bridge exploit that drained $4.4 million, with payouts funded from treasury regardless of asset recovery. Mainnet operations resumed on February 24 following security upgrades, and a tiered claims process starts Friday, February 27. The patch blacklisted 29 attacker addresses and froze about 45 million IOTX.

Hong Kong's 2026-27 Budget, presented by Financial Secretary Paul Chan, outlines a new licensing regime in 2026 for digital asset dealing and custodian service providers, alongside tax concessions covering digital assets. The plan builds on 2025 consultations and the Stablecoins Ordinance, and includes AI-focused initiatives and a Digital Asset Accelerator as part of a broader strategy to strengthen the city's role in global finance and technology. Changes to tax laws in the first half of 2026 will also make family office investments in digital assets, precious metals, and commodities eligible for specific tax benefits.

On February 25, 2026, the Aave Chain Initiative criticized Aave Labs' spending and accountability, citing $86 million in funding and several underperforming initiatives. Aave Labs responded hours later, highlighting milestones since 2017 and arguing forum activity is not a proxy for impact. BGD Labs said it will leave the Aave DAO on April 11, 2026, as AAVE gained over 5% in the last 24 hours.

Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation restated support for permissionless DeFi as a core priority. On February 23, the EF published a blog detailing a dedicated DeFi unit and security-focused commitments, and earlier today Buterin outlined the principles the EF aims to back. According to Lookonchain, he sold 1,869 ETH worth $3.67 million over about 48 hours.

On February 23, 2026, Empery Digital shareholder Tice P. Brown demanded the removal of CEO Ryan Lane and the entire board after the firm's Bitcoin holdings fell about 46%, cutting the treasury value to roughly $258.40 million. Empery Digital's market cap has dropped to around $147 million, below the value of its BTC, while Brown also criticized a $105 million margin loan and alleged day trading in Bitcoin derivatives. Similar governance clashes have emerged at CEA Industries and YZi Labs over large crypto reserves in BNB and other assets.

Bitdeer has sold its entire Bitcoin treasury of more than 1,127 BTC in February 2026 to raise liquidity for land purchases and infrastructure tied to AI and high‑performance computing. The miner began reducing its BTC balance from about 2,000 BTC at the start of 2026 and has now cleared its holdings while stressing that its self‑managed hash rate will keep growing. The move challenges the usual HODL approach among public Bitcoin miners as Bitdeer reallocates capital to higher‑margin AI and HPC data center operations.

On February 5 and 6, Bitcoin slipped below $61,000 before rebounding to $66,000–$68,000, while realized losses peaked near $1.24 billion per day and later eased to about $480 million. In early January 2026, USDT supply was about $187 billion and fell under $184 billion by mid‑February, with a 60‑day market‑cap change below ~$3 billion. Some analysts view these extremes and a Fear & Greed low near 5 as potential signs of market exhaustion.

On February 21, 2026, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor stuck to a no‑sale approach, even as the firm's 717,131 BTC position and a reported $12.4 billion net loss drew attention. Bitmine's Tom Lee also stayed constructive on Ethereum, while CryptoQuant data showed whale cohorts' unrealized profit ratios turning negative amid ETH's pullback.