The Web3 Pulse: Must-Read Crypto Stories & Big Tech Moves This Week

As Bitcoin corrects from its October 2025 highs and Ethereum undergoes months of consolidation, the market is increasingly scrutinizing the structural drivers behind these price movements. From federal lawsuits in Manhattan to new compliance strategies by social media giants, and record-breaking short interest on Wall Street, the crypto asset market is undergoing a profound reshuffling of order.

Here is an in-depth review of this week's core market dynamics:

《Jane Street Storm: The Institutional Game Behind BTC》

• Federal Litigation: A federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan in February 2026 has offered a new perspective on why Bitcoin failed to sustain its momentum and instead faced a sharp correction. The lawsuit targets top market maker Jane Street Capital, sparking widespread discussion regarding institutional conduct.

• Allegation Details: The filing alleges that Jane Street utilized a private communication channel named "Bryce's Secret" for insider trading. It claims the firm suppressed Bitcoin prices through programmatic trading and leveraged undisclosed derivatives books, effectively turning Bitcoin ETF liquidity into a tool to distort price discovery mechanisms at the expense of retail investors.

《$USD1 Depeg Crisis: Trump Family Stablecoin Hacked or Luna 2.0 Warning?》

• Market Monitoring: The exchange rate between $USD1 and USDT temporarily de-pegged, hitting a low of 0.9802, which caused the price of WLFI to drop by nearly 10% in a short period.

• Confidence Crisis: Although the project team quickly issued a statement attributing the event to "account compromise and coordinated attacks" and restored the peg, the incident highlights the fragility of trust in emerging stablecoin projects. The market remains highly sensitive to liquidity risks and negative sentiment.

《Meta Plans 2026 Stablecoin Comeback: Crypto Payments Coming to WhatsApp and IG》

• Strategic Pivot: Following regulatory challenges with Libra and Diem, Meta has adjusted its fintech strategy. The company is no longer seeking to issue its own currency but is instead partnering with third-party compliance institutions. Leveraging its user base of over 3 billion, Meta plans to support payments in over 50 currencies across more than 100 countries and regions.

• Infrastructure Play: A Meta spokesperson emphasized that this initiative is an "extension of existing payment infrastructure," downplaying the "stablecoin" label. This strategy indicates Meta's intent to reconstruct its social financial ecosystem in a more robust and compliant manner amidst a softening regulatory environment.

《On-Chain Data: Vitalik Buterin's ETH Asset Movements》

• Fund Flow Analysis: Amidst Ethereum's weak market performance, on-chain asset movements by founder Vitalik Buterin have drawn market attention. While official statements indicate funds are for funding open-source projects and public goods, the actual outflow exceeded the previously announced 16,384 ETH. Disposals began on February 3, paused briefly, and accelerated after restarting on the 22nd.

• Transaction Details: Data shows a total sale of approximately 19,326 ETH (exceeding the forecast by about 2,942 ETH). Key selling points included Feb 5 (~4,211.5 ETH), Feb 25 (~2,283 ETH), and Feb 26 (~6,297 ETH).

• Market Sentiment: In the current environment, high-transparency selling by founders has, to some extent, intensified investor caution regarding future market trends.

《Surging 35% in a Day, How Close is Circle to Becoming the "On-Chain Visa"?》

• Technical & Commercial Progress: Circle's Arc testnet has attracted over a hundred institutions, achieving 0.5-second transaction finality and a daily average of 2.3 million transactions. Additionally, Visa announced support for U.S. issuers and acquirers to use USDC for underlying settlement, accelerating the expansion of the Circle Payment Network (CPN).

• Market Response: Driven by these positive developments, the market responded positively, with a single-day gain reaching 35%. This marks Circle's substantive transformation from a mere issuer of compliant stablecoins to a foundational "on-chain settlement platform" penetrating traditional financial infrastructure.

《Polymarket Manipulation Concerns: Vulnerabilities in Prediction Markets》

• Event Review: Potential insider trading exposed by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT has pushed the prediction market Polymarket into the spotlight. A bet of merely $6,000 was alleged to have influenced the price trend of the MET project, which has a market cap of $200 million.

• Industry Warning: Analysts point out that while this event may not be definitively classified as manipulation, it exposes the low "interference threshold" of prediction markets. In markets lacking sufficient liquidity depth, low-cost capital can amplify information asymmetry risks by manipulating market sentiment, posing challenges to platform risk management mechanisms.

《Wall Street Short Interest Hits Record Highs: Pressure on Crypto Equities》

• Short Data Analysis: According to a Financial Times column on February 24, the median short interest in S&P 500 components reached 2.7%, a near-decade high.

• Key Targets: Among U.S. listed companies with market caps over $25 billion, MicroStrategy (MSTR) topped the S&P 500 list with 14% short interest, while Coinbase ranked fourth with 11%. This indicates intensifying valuation divergence among traditional financial institutions regarding core crypto assets, with significant hedging and bearish sentiment prevailing.

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