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In brief Trump-family linked World Liberty Financial’s recent move was a short squeeze: whale buys amid negative funding, and a 40% OI spike, Decrypt was told. The DeFi project has announced a February 18 “World Liberty Forum” at the president’s Florida residence Mar-a-Lago. Its $500 million deal with a UAE firm has sparked scrutiny, with experts split on how the political heat affects the token and its meme premium. World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token surged double digits ahead of a high-profile gathering at Mar-a-Lago, though experts remain divided on whether the move signals genuine momentum or a short squeeze fueled…

Base, the Ethereum Layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, has seen its total value locked (TVL) fall by $1.4 billion in the past few weeks.The decline comes as public debate over the chain’s strategy and product direction intensifies.Base TVL Slides as Builders, Critics, & Coinbase Leadership Clash Over the Chain’s DirectionBase TVL has dropped from about $5.3 billion in January to roughly $3.9 billion as of this writing.Sponsored SponsoredBase TVL. Source: DefiLlamaThe drop matters because TVL remains one of the most closely watched indicators of capital activity and developer confidence in blockchain ecosystems.However, TVL fluctuations are common across L2 networks, particularly…

In brief Grok is Elon Musk’s irreverent answer to ChatGPT—designed to be edgy, real-time, and politically incorrect. Built into X, Grok has rapidly evolved through multiple versions, with Grok 4 powered by xAI’s Colossus supercomputer. Despite its growth, Grok has faced backlash for offensive response, accuracy issues and the creation of sexualized imagery. Created to be a more irreverent, politically incorrect, and “truthful” AI, Grok is Elon Musk’s frequently controversial answer to ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI—the company he co-founded in 2015.Who Created Grok AI?Launched in 2023, Grok was developed by xAI, Elon Musk’s rival to AI powerhouse OpenAI. Since its…

Moonwell, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol deployed on Base and Optimism, was exploited for about $1.78 million after a pricing oracle for Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH) returned a value of about $1.12 instead of roughly $2,200, creating a sharp mispricing that attackers were able to use for profit.The pull requests for the affected contracts show multiple commits co-authored by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, prompting security auditor Pashov to publicly flag the incident as an example of artificial intelligence-written or AI-assisted Solidity backfiring. Speaking to Cointelegraph about the incident, he said that he had linked the case to Claude because…

Once holding over 100,000 ETH, ETHZilla liquidated some to cover debt and repurchase stock. Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund have sold $74.5 million worth of ether (ETH) through ETHZilla Corp., fully exiting the company’s crypto treasury. The SEC filing confirmed Thiel’s entities no longer hold any shares in ETHZilla. The sale follows a series of ether liquidations by ETHZilla to cover debt and buy back stock. The company previously held over 100,000 ETH at its peak, according to DefiLlama. ETHZilla Faces Market Pressure ETHZilla started as a biotech firm, 180 Life Sciences Corp., before making a full pivot to…

Milo, a Miami-based financial technology firm focused on crypto-backed lending, announced it has originated more than $100 million in crypto mortgages, marking a milestone in the use of digital assets as collateral for home financing and purchasing. The company said the total includes its largest single transaction to date, a $12 million crypto mortgage, as demand grows among institutional and high net worth borrowers seeking alternatives to traditional mortgage structures. Milo’s crypto mortgage product allows clients to pledge Bitcoin to secure financing for home purchases without selling their holdings. The company said it offers up to 100% financing with loan…

Executives at Coinbase used a recent company ‘AMA’ call to address growing scrutiny around Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, defending the firm’s dominant role as a custodian and pushing back against claims that spot Bitcoin ETFs are backed by “paper Bitcoin” rather than real assets. Responding to a question from Bloomberg’s James Seyffart, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company holds a commanding share of the U.S.-listed Bitcoin ETF custody market, estimating Coinbase’s share at more than 80%. He framed that concentration as a competitive advantage rather than a risk. “We do have pretty dominant market share in terms of custody for…

A divergence in global bitcoin BTC$70,413.42 market sentiment is widening as U.S. institutional investors hold steady while offshore traders retreat from their positions.The gap is clearest in futures markets. CME, the go-to platform for hedge funds and institutional desks in the U.S., shows traders are still paying a premium to stay long on bitcoin, according to NYDIG’s head of research, Greg Cipolaro.This is evident on a one-month annualized basis, essentially the markup for futures over spot prices, which remains higher than on its offshore counterpart, Deribit. “The more pronounced drop in offshore basis suggests reduced appetite for leveraged long exposure,”…

Silent Link, a Bitcoin native SMS and mobile data company, has quietly grown into an international service provider for privacy-oriented users worldwide, at competitive rates. But how can a young company compete with the mobile data giants? Born from the Bitcoin industry, the brainchild of cypherpunk thought leaders like Matt Odell, Silent Link is a modern mobile data and SMS company that challenges the complicated and mediocre customer service of phone service providers around the world.A founding member of Silent Link, who asked not to be named, and thus we will call Bob, told Bitcoin Magazine in an exclusive interview…

Ripple Labs released a major update in Feb. regarding its XRP Ledger (XRPL). But will that be enough to save XRP’s price from Bitcoin’s stiff correction? XRP is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies worldwide. Its market cap is neck-and-neck with BNB to rank number four by this metric. Its main use case is fast, low-fee cross-border payments, but the XRP Ledger is opening up an entirely new use case for XRP tokens—decentralized finance (DeFi). The February update from the official team at Ripple Labs signals a significant shift in the ecosystem’s fortunes. But real quick, before diving into the update—…