(7/52) Weekly Market Insight | February Week 4 | Exhausted Sentiment

Headline News: Exhausted Sentiment

• Bitcoin declined 1.7% last week, weighed down by a hawkish recalibration in the latest FOMC minutes, trade policy shifts following the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, and escalating geopolitical friction in the Middle East. Concurrently, institutional demand continues to cool as spot Bitcoin ETFs registered $315.86 million in net outflows, officially marking a fifth consecutive week of institutional de-risking.

Macro-Outlook: Tariffs Anyway

• After the US Supreme Court ruled that President Trump exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose global tariffs, Trump invoked Section 122 to impose a 15% global tariff.
• The US and Iran nuclear negotiations are still on-going, potentially resume talks in early March and significant military posturing in the Middle East.
• The US PCE price index increased to 2.9% in December, higher than the market expectations of 2.8%. Meanwhile, the US durable goods orders decreased by 1.4% in December, milder than the 2% decline expected by the markets. The Q4 US GDP decreased to 1.4%, significantly below the market forecasts of 3%, showing signs of potential stagflation risk.
• The January FOMC minutes indicated that several participants expressed concerns about sticky above target inflation and surprisingly open for a rate-hike.

The Upcoming Economic Calendar includes,

• Friday, February 27, 9:30pm: US PPI in January

Weekly-Cryptos-Overview: Unclear Path of CLARITY

• White House set a March 1 deadline to resolve the stablecoin yield dispute, aiming to advance the broader crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act. However, the prediction markets are pricing roughly a 56% to 70% chance of passing in 2026.
• OpenAI introduced EVMbench, a new benchmark measuring how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities, enabling secure integration of AI into blockchain ecosystems.
• CME Group announced 24/7 trading for cryptocurrency futures and options starting May 29.
• Grayscale’s Sui Staking ETF (GSUI) started trading on NYSE Arca.

Layer 1 and Layer 2s

• World Chain announced Remainder, its open-source GKR prover for machine learning, enabling on-device ML model execution with cryptographic proofs, supporting local World ID upgrades without Orb revisits.
• StarkWare integrated EY’s Nightfall ZK privacy layer into Starknet, enabling confidential payments and DeFi for institutions with private-by-default transactions and selective disclosure.

Dapps

• Uniswap Labs released seven new Skills providing structured access to core Uniswap protocol actions, serving as a starting point for agentic workflows onchain.
• Zora announced the launch of an attention market for trading trending topics and memes platform on Solana.
• MYX Finance, a perpetual DEX, announced a Consensys-led strategic funding round, positioning as its largest investor to accelerate growth.
• Compound announced V4 deployment on Base, leveraging Base’s user onboarding tools and institutional focus to embed lending, borrowing, and yield directly into Base-native apps via its API-first design.
• Securitize partnered with Euler Finance to integrate its DS Protocol, enabling tokenized real-world assets as collateral in risk-isolated lending markets.
• Pump.fun introduced Cashback Coins, allowing creators to choose between trader rewards or fees at launch, permanently directing all creator fees to traders.
• Rocket Pool deployed its Saturn One upgrade on the mainnet, introducing RPL fee switch, 4 ETH validators, MEGAPOOLs, and more.
• Infinit, a Decentralised Finance (DeFAI) app, launched Prompt-to-DeFi, allowing users to research, create, and execute DeFi strategies through natural language prompts, simplifying complex yield farming and portfolio management.

Governance and Upcoming Alpha

• Aptos proposed a shift to performance-driven tokenomics, including reduced staking rewards to 2.6%, 100% fee burning, hard cap at 2.1 billion APT, and KPI-tied emissions, aiming for deflationary APT through burns exceeding emissions starting in 2026.
• Base evolved its technical roadmap with a new unified stack for Base Chain, enabling six hardforks per year (moves away from OP Stack chain), targeting 1 gigagas/s throughput, 99.99% reliability, and more.
• Ether.fi announced its plan to migrate to Optimism OP Mainnet in the coming months, bringing 70,000+ active cards, 300,000+ accounts, and over $160 million TVL to the Superchain for enhanced liquidity and DeFi integration.
• Uniswap proposed expanding protocol fees to all remaining v3 pools on the mainnet and activating fees for v2 and v3 on eight additional chains.

Token Unlock

• XPL token unlocks on February 25, amount representing 4.94% of the token supply.
• HUMA token unlocks on February 26, amount representing 7.28% of the token supply.
• SAHARA token unlocks on February 26, amount representing 4.78% of the token supply.
• GRASS token unlocks on February 28, amount representing 18% of the token supply.
• EIGEN token unlocks on March 1, amount representing 6.2% of the token supply.
• ZAMA token unlocks on March 2, amount representing 5.21% of the token supply.
• LINEA token unlocks on March 10, amount representing 4.91% of the token supply.
• VANA token unlocks on March 16, amount representing 4.47% of the token supply.
• STBL token unlocks on March 16, amount representing 83.3% of the token supply.
• ZRO token unlocks on March 20, amount representing 10.3% of the token supply.
• KAITO token unlocks on March 20, amount representing 7.29% of the token supply.