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The U.S. Department of Justice's Northern California Prosecutor's Office announced that 10 executives and employees from four cryptocurrency market-making firms have been charged with allegedly manipulating token trading volumes and prices through wash trading, involving Gotbit, Vortex, Antier, and Contrarian.Three of the defendants have been extradited from Singapore to the U.S., and two others have pleaded guilty and been sentenced. The FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division even created multiple cryptocurrency tokens during an undercover operation to investigate illegal volume manipulation and price inflation within the industry. Over $1 million in cryptocurrency assets have currently been seized.

According to Greekwire, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown has filed a civil lawsuit against the prediction market platform Kalshi, accusing it of violating state betting and consumer protection laws by offering betting services on events such as sports, elections, and wars. The lawsuit has been submitted to the King County Superior Court, seeking to prohibit Kalshi from operating locally, recover lost funds for residents, and impose civil fines. Kalshi's advertisements have suggested that users could bypass local laws to participate in NFL betting, indicating that they "knowingly violated the law."However, Kalshi responded by stating that it is a compliant trading platform regulated by federal authorities, denying the provision of war-related markets, and expressing confidence in winning the case legally. This is reportedly another regulatory action the company is facing recently, as it is currently involved in over 20 civil lawsuits. Previously, prosecutors in Arizona had filed criminal charges against it, which is considered the first criminal case against a prediction market.

According to China Securities Journal, the global on-chain transaction volume of stablecoins in 2025 is estimated to be around $25 trillion after deduplication and adjustment for inflated figures, but the proportion of transactions with actual payment backgrounds is less than 1%, with the vast majority being "inflated transactions."This statistic covers 36 mainstream stablecoins on 16 major public chains, including Ethereum, Tron, and Solana. Analysis shows that "inflated transactions" are mainly composed of three categories: first, internal fund transfers within institutions, meaning transfers between different wallets or protocols under the same institution; second, on-chain protocol splits and transfers, where the same business is inflated due to multiple internal calls; third, stablecoins used as intermediary currencies for cryptocurrency exchanges, leading to the same funds being counted multiple times.In terms of real payment scenarios, in 2025, 15 leading cryptocurrency payment institutions, including Coinbase, BVNK, Bitpay, and Binance Pay, processed stablecoin transactions totaling $132 billion, while international card organizations like Visa processed approximately $4.5 billion in stablecoin-related transactions. Even when including the use of stablecoins in illegal activities such as money laundering, telecom fraud, and online gambling, the proportion of transactions with actual payment backgrounds remains less than 1%.

According to reports from CCTV News, based on insider revelations, journalists quickly found a business called GEO by searching multiple online platforms. Service providers engaged in this business on these platforms claim that users only need to pay the corresponding fees to have their products listed among the major mainstream AI large models; allowing their product advertisements to become the "standard answers" provided by the AI models.The popularity of the GEO business has led to the emergence of many companies and platforms specializing in press release services. They have long undertaken various press release tasks to ensure that AI large models reference and capture them, becoming an important part of hunting AI large models and conducting data "poisoning."

According to Axios, Anthropic is expanding its presence in the U.S. capital in preparation for the midterm elections. Anthropic will triple the size of its policy team and open a permanent office in Washington this spring to engage with policymakers and think tanks in the long term.Anthropic's new head of public policy, Sarah Heck, stated, "The pace of AI development is faster than any technology in history, and the window for making the right policies is closing." Heck takes over the role from co-founder Jack Clark and will report to President and co-founder Daniela Amodei.

According to Decrypt, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that the Fraud Center Strike Force has frozen and seized over $580 million in cryptocurrency from Southeast Asian crime networks.The task force was established in November 2025 and operates in coordination with agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, Secret Service, and Department of the Treasury, primarily targeting transnational crime networks operating "pig butchering" scams in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Pirro stated that her office will seek to forfeit the related funds through legal processes and return them to victims to the greatest extent possible.Deddy Lavid, CEO of blockchain analytics platform Cyvers, told Decrypt that while the $580 million in seizures is operationally significant, it represents only a small fraction of the total activity in the global crypto fraud landscape. The company has identified approximately 27,000 active criminal groups involved in about $27.5 billion in fraud exposure.Pirro linked the Southeast Asian scam networks to organized crime in China, while Lavid pointed out that these networks are becoming increasingly decentralized, involving operators from multiple countries and cross-border money laundering hubs.

According to TheEnergyMag, a fire occurred in Wenatchee, Washington, which is suspected to be related to local Bitcoin mining activities.Local fire departments have arrived on the scene, and specific damage details and whether there were any casualties have not yet been released. Relevant authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and whether the mining site complies with local safety regulations. As of now, the name of the involved mining site and the direct cause of the fire have not been disclosed.

Geoffrey K. Auyeung, a 47-year-old resident of Newcastle, Washington, pleaded guilty to participating in a money laundering conspiracy on February 20, 2026, in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.Auyeung set up nine fake companies, using investments in the oil and gas industry as a guise to defraud victims, transferring approximately $97.1 million in scam proceeds into 81 bank accounts and 19 cryptocurrency accounts under his control, which were then quickly moved to accounts controlled by co-conspirators in Russia and Nigeria.Investigations revealed that Auyeung profited at least $4.07 million from the scheme. Under the plea agreement, he will pay $24.7 million in restitution and forfeit approximately $10.1 million in assets. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 63 months in prison, with the final sentencing scheduled for May 12, 2026.

According to Jinshi News, Investec's chief economist Philip Shaw stated that there are strong rumors in the overnight market about Waller taking over, and the related transactions were basically completed last night. Next, Waller's stance on key issues such as interest rates and the balance sheet will be evaluated. He pointed out that the U.S. fiscal situation is on an unsustainable path, and Waller's appointment does not mean that Trump will not intervene in the Federal Reserve or other areas of government operations. Although the risk of a weaker dollar has decreased after today's news was released, the risk still exists.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the cryptocurrency industry and the banking sector are engaged in an intense lobbying battle over digital tokens that can provide annual yields, a struggle that could undermine the legislative process aimed at integrating cryptocurrencies into the mainstream financial system.The crux of the debate centers on what crypto companies refer to as "rewards"—annual yields distributed periodically based on the proportion of assets held by investors. This mechanism is particularly common in stablecoins. From the banks' perspective, companies like Coinbase offering around 3.5% yields on stablecoins are essentially akin to high-yield deposits, but without adhering to the stringent regulatory requirements that banks face when accepting public deposits. Consequently, banking organizations have sent numerous letters to lawmakers warning that these "yield-bearing stablecoins" could have a devastating impact on small and mid-sized banks in the U.S.In contrast, the national average interest rate for regular interest-bearing checking accounts in the U.S. remains below 0.1%. This debate is one of the reasons why the Senate Banking Committee postponed its scheduled vote on the cryptocurrency market structure bill on Thursday. JPMorgan, Citigroup, and other large banks are resisting stablecoin rewards while simultaneously developing their own cryptocurrency products and partnership plans.Some banks, including Bank of America, are considering whether to issue their own stablecoins. Analysts suggest that Coinbase's withdrawal of support for the bill could pose serious risks to its prospects, although other crypto companies continue to express support. This dispute highlights a tension: on one side is the rapidly growing new force of the cryptocurrency industry in Washington, actively leveraging its increasingly powerful lobbying influence; on the other side is the traditional banking sector, which has maintained close ties with Congress for decades.Last year, the U.S. Treasury estimated that stablecoins could siphon up to $6.6 trillion in deposits from the U.S. banking system, partly due to the "yield" mechanisms offered by stablecoins. In comparison, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve, total deposits in U.S. commercial banks were approximately $18.7 trillion as of early January. The U.S. government provides insurance for deposits up to $250,000 per account, but at the same time imposes strict regulations on banks' operations and financial soundness.

Lighter announced on Discord that, "We have entered the final phase of the second season points event, and we are currently conducting data analysis to remove points obtained from witch addresses, self-trading, and wash trading. All points that have been reduced (including those that have already been removed) will be redistributed to the community."

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, a whale/institution that lost 50 million USDT to phishing has sent a message to the phisher, stating that they are willing to offer 1 million dollars as a white hat bounty if the 50 million USDT taken can be returned.As of now, the phisher has not responded, but it is highly unlikely that they will return the money, as it has long been converted to ETH and washed away through Tornado.

According to Jin Ten reports, JPMorgan's trading department stated that the longest consecutive decline in U.S. stocks since August has created opportunities for bargain hunters. The S&P 500 index has fallen for four consecutive days, down a total of 3.4% as of Tuesday's close. Andrew Tyler, head of global market intelligence at JPMorgan, indicated that this round of correction represents a "technical washout" for the stock market, and the adjustment period may have ended. In a report to clients on Wednesday, Tyler pointed out that, given no changes in fundamentals, it is now a good time to buy on dips.

According to a report by Bloomberg, a recent study by researchers at Columbia University indicates that the trading activity on Polymarket, one of the most popular prediction markets, is significantly inflated by so-called "wash trading"—that is, the behavior of users frequently buying and selling the same contract within a short period of time.The study's findings show that this phenomenon, referred to by the researchers as "artificial trading," varies over time but has averaged about 25% of all trading volume on Polymarket over the past three years.

ChainCatcher news, Glassnode has released data on social media stating that as Bitcoin breaks through previous highs, traders are increasing their long positions, leading to a sharp rise in BTC futures open interest.The current pullback is testing the resilience of these long positions, which helps to reset market leverage. Moving forward, two signals need to be closely monitored: when and where buying power intervenes, and whether key support levels can reignite market demand.