On February 21, 2026, economist Nouriel Roubini labeled the GENIUS Act reckless and warned that uninsured stablecoins without a lender of last resort could face runs. On Wednesday, Bitcoin traded around 67,400 dollars, down 45 percent from its late-October high, as he dismissed it as a pseudo-asset and not an inflation hedge.

According to Bank of America, institutional investors offloaded $8.3 billion of U.S. equities last week, marking the second-largest weekly sale on record. Retail buyers purchased $1.0 billion and hedge funds added $1.2 billion, while equity ETFs drew $2.2 billion and single-name outflows totaled $8.3 billion; outflows occurred in 13 of the past 15 weeks, reaching $52.0 billion.

Tether announced on February 21, 2026 that it has stopped minting its offshore Chinese yuan-pegged stablecoin CNH₾ and will phase out redemptions over the next year. The firm cited persistently low demand for CNH₾ versus its other tokens, even as market data show USDT supply has slipped by about $1.5 billion in February to under $184 billion. During the transition, CNH₾ holders may continue to redeem under Tether's existing terms until the final cutoff date.

OpenAI told investors it plans about $600 billion in compute spending by 2030, replacing the $1.4 trillion figure previously discussed by Sam Altman. The company projects over $280 billion in 2030 revenue, nearly evenly split between consumer and enterprise, while Nvidia confirmed talks on a potential $30 billion investment separate from a September $100 billion framework.

According to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not permit President Donald Trump to impose global tariffs after declaring national emergencies. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting. The blocked duties included 25% on most Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% on most Chinese goods, with a baseline of at least 10% applied to nearly all trading partners.

On February 18 2026, Nvidia confirmed a multiyear, multigenerational agreement with Meta to provide Blackwell and Rubin GPUs alongside Grace and future Vera CPUs for AI data centers. The partnership covers training and inference systems, networking, and hyperscale data centers, with Meta planning to deploy millions of GPUs and expand Grace now while targeting large-scale Vera CPU rollout from 2027.

On February 16, 2026, Bitmine reported holding 4,371,497 ETH priced at $1,998 each, valuing its Ethereum treasury at about $8.7 billion and representing 3.62% of the 120.7 million ETH supply. Including 193 Bitcoin, equity stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, and $670 million in cash, the company's total assets reached $9.6 billion. Bitmine disclosed that 3,040,483 ETH is staked, generating an annualized $176 million in rewards, with potential to rise to $252 million once MAVAN is fully deployed in early 2026.

Iran has partially closed the Strait of Hormuz during Revolutionary Guard drills under security precautions, according to state media. About 13 million bpd—roughly 31% of global seaborne crude—transit the passage, based on Kpler data, while the IEA's Monday report projects a 3.73 million bpd global oil surplus in 2026.

Spain moved to request a formal probe into X, Meta and TikTok, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez saying on Tuesday the cabinet will invoke Article 8 to examine alleged AI-enabled child sexual abuse material. The step aligns with wider EU scrutiny, including a 120 million euro fine against X in December and new investigations underway in France, Britain and Ireland.