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In the world of derivatives in the crypto market, on-chain data is like an unbiased mirror, reflecting the unrealized gains and risks of every large position. Recently, a whale address labeled by the community as "suspected HYPE insider trading" has once again become the focus of the market. As Hyperliquid (HYPE) price experienced a slight rebound on February 27, the floating loss of this address narrowed but still reached as high as $13.24 million.
This is not just a story about massive losses. It is more like a classic case of information advantage, leverage risk, and market transparency. This article will analyze this event based on Gate market data and on-chain monitoring, strictly distinguishing facts, opinions, and speculation, and structurally breaking down the timeline, data details, public controversy, and its multi-dimensional implications for the industry.
Event Overview: Unconcealable On-Chain "Open" Positions
As of 20

The perpetual contract decentralized exchanges (Perp DEX) track in 2026 has shifted from early rapid growth to a stage where "efficiency is king" in the existing game. When Hyperliquid set the performance benchmark with low-latency order books, Aster achieved asset gains through ecological resources, and Lighter built verifiable infrastructure using ZK technology, the market seemed to enter a brief period of innovation silence. However, Grvt recently announced a deep integration with Aave, introducing "Composable Yield," which brings a new perspective on "capital efficiency" to the industry. This is not just an overlay of product features but a reconstruction of the underlying collateral logic of Perp DEX.
Objective Statement of the Capital Efficiency Dilemma
In the traditional Perp DEX model, users deposit margin

In early 2026, the cryptocurrency market is undergoing a profound restructuring of its underlying logic that goes beyond price fluctuations. A key signal is that the historically highly correlated movement between Bitcoin and ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF), a representative of tech growth stocks, is now experiencing a historic divergence.
In recent years, Bitcoin and ARKK have been viewed as two sides of the same coin—both relying on a loose monetary environment to achieve valuation expansion rather than growth in their own cash flows. However, since mid-2025, this stable correlation has been broken: while leading AI stocks continue to rise supported by strong earnings, Bitcoin has failed to keep pace, instead aligning more closely with gold and commodities. This decoupling is not merely a fluctuation in correlation but suggests that the distribution logic of global liquidity, the attribute positioning of crypto assets, and the market’s pricing system are undergoing a systemic change.

When a pioneer of the internet begins to write a "eulogy" for another decentralized technology, the crypto world finds it hard to turn a blind eye. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, recently expressed a very pessimistic long-term outlook for BTC. He does not believe that Bitcoin will go to zero entirely, but predicts its price will fall to a level "only suitable for hobbyists to tinker with." At a time when Bitcoin's price has significantly retreated from its all-time high and market sentiment is fragile, Wales's statement is like a stone thrown into a calm lake, sparking deep discussions about Bitcoin's core value. This article will analyze the logic and controversy behind this view, starting from the event itself and combining on-chain and macro data.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, shared his long-term perspective on Bitcoin's future over the coming decades on social media. He explicitly stated that, although the Bitcoin network itself is designed to be sufficiently robust, it will not

February 27, 2026, the crypto market, after months of sustained volatility and decline, hovers around $67,692. On-chain analyst Willy Woo released a series of conjectures regarding the current market phase, sparking widespread discussion. He pointed out that the bearish sell-off dominated by investors is nearing its end, but the simultaneous deterioration of spot and futures liquidity makes any rebound difficult to sustain.
Woo's core assessment—that the bear market may end in Q4, with a typical bottom around $45,000, and two defensive lines at $30,000 and $16,000 following a breakdown of the global macro environment—provides a structured framework based on on-chain data and liquidity models for understanding the current market. This article will start from the event itself, combining market context, data-driven analysis, and multi-dimensional public opinion to examine the logic and potential variables behind this judgment.

When the tags "Trump Family" and "Bitcoin Mining Company" are combined, market attention often focuses on the resonance between political halo and crypto narratives. However, the first full fiscal year report released by American Bitcoin in early 2026 presents a more complex business picture: against the backdrop of volatile Bitcoin prices in 2025, this highly scrutinized company recorded a net loss of $152.3 million. Is this figure a sign of deteriorating fundamentals or a financial measurement game of digital assets? This article will analyze American Bitcoin's 2025 financial report, dissecting its data composition, market controversies, and industry deep impacts.
Overview of the Massive Loss Event
On February 26, 2026, the Bitcoin mining company Amer

By 2026, the crypto market has shifted from large-scale protocol financing to new capital deployment centered around artificial intelligence, reflecting investors' increased focus on AI projects that address real-world problems. This change is driven by the weakness in traditional infrastructure financing, with AI-related projects attracting significant investment, especially in niche areas such as embodied intelligence and prediction markets. At the same time, market opinions on the AI narrative vary—some are optimistic, believing AI will usher in a new era, while others are cautious, thinking project valuations are already inflated. Overall, the rise of the AI narrative is reshaping the supply and trading dynamics of the crypto market.

Trade.xyz recently launched cross-margin functionality on the mainnet for the seven major U.S. tech giants, allowing users to share margin across different positions. This feature improves capital efficiency, reduces funding pressure, and attracts professional traders. Although it offers capital efficiency advantages, it increases user management complexity and requires caution regarding risks in extreme market conditions. This move changes the competitive landscape between CeFi and DeFi and may enhance market liquidity or face regulatory challenges.

On February 18, 2026, leading decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket implemented two major technical adjustments without prior announcement: removing the long-standing 500-millisecond Taker quote delay in crypto markets and fully adopting a dynamic fee mechanism. This update, dubbed a "silent coup" by the community, caused more than half of the existing trading bots on the platform to become invalid overnight. The delay arbitrage strategy that once created the myth of earning $515,000 in a month with a 99% win rate was also rendered obsolete due to higher fees than the spread. This adjustment is not only a change in technical parameters but also marks a shift in the underlying logic of prediction markets—advantages are moving from Taker (market taker) predatory arbitrage to Maker (order placer) market making and liquidity provision.
Policy Background and Timeline
Understanding this new regulation

February 26, 2026, Ripple officially announced a historic turning point in the XRP Ledger ecosystem support model: shifting from a funding system dominated by a single enterprise for the past nine years to a distributed financing network driven by community DAOs, venture capital, regional entities, and academic institutions. This strategic adjustment is not merely a transfer of funding allocation rights but a reconstruction of the underlying logic of XRPL governance. Although XRP's price fell back to $1.41 following the announcement, the market's real concern is whether this institutional reform can, in the medium to long term, foster genuine on-chain activity and institutional adoption. This article will deeply analyze the industry implications of this upgrade from perspectives such as funding flow, governance structure, market disagreements, and multi-scenario simulations.
Ripple Reshapes Ecosystem Financing: From Centralized to Distributed Governance

On February 27, 2026, the crypto derivatives market experienced the largest settlement event of the month. According to data from mainstream options exchanges, Bitcoin and Ethereum options contracts with a notional value exceeding $8.72 billion are set to expire today. This massive settlement accounts for approximately 20% of the current market open interest, and its scale and structure have sparked widespread concern about short-term fluctuations in the spot price.
Currently, according to Gate Market data, as of February 27, 2026, Bitcoin is priced at $67,700.8 USD, and Ethereum at $2,036.79 USD, both significantly below their respective maximum pain prices. This article will analyze the background of this expiration event based on objective data, dissect the mainstream market narratives, and explore potential multi-scenario evolution paths.
Monthly close of nearly $90 billion

In late February 2026, the world's leading quantitative trading firm Jane Street suddenly found itself in the spotlight of the crypto market. First, on February 24, the bankruptcy trustee of Terraform Labs filed an insider trading lawsuit against them in the U.S. Federal Court in New York, accusing them of using non-public information to front-run during the Terra collapse in 2022. Subsequently, a theory circulating in the crypto community for months—"Bitcoin daily 10 o'clock dump"—rapidly gained traction due to the exposure of this lawsuit. Market participants observed that since the lawsuit news broke, this long-standing pattern of selling pressure during a specific time period mysteriously disappeared, and Bitcoin's price subsequently experienced a significant rebound. This chain of events pushed this mysterious quantitative giant into the center of market manipulation allegations.
Aftermath of the Terra Collapse: Timeline of the Lawsuit and Key Allegations

On February 26, 2026, pseudonymous on-chain investigator ZachXBT released a timely investigative report on the cryptocurrency trading platform Axiom, accusing multiple employees of abusing internal tools to track user wallets and profit from it. The release of this report put an end to the speculation frenzy that had swept the crypto community over the past 72 hours. However, what truly shook the industry was not only the investigation itself but also a prediction market game involving over $27 million centered around the "investigation preview."
From preview to revelation, ZachXBT's "move" was no longer just about on-chain crime tracking but evolved into a key indicator for observing market sentiment, information dissemination, and new gaming structures.
Axiom Investigation Overview
On February 26, ZachXBT published the investigation report, officially accusing the cryptocurrency exchange platform

By the end of February 2026, the stock price of Circle Internet Group (CRCL) remained at $83. Nine months earlier, this figure was $298.
On the surface, Circle's fundamentals are not bad: during the 270 days after its IPO, USDC circulation exceeded 75 billion, and its total revenue in Q4 2025 reached $770 million, a 77% year-over-year increase. These numbers are still impressive in the traditional financial sector, but the capital market's valuation shows a clear divergence from the fundamentals.
The market's hesitation towards Circle essentially stems from confusion about its "identity"—is it a "treasury bond fund" relying on Federal Reserve interest rates, or a tech company capable of reshaping global financial infrastructure? The answer to this question determines whether the valuation is between $300 and $80.

In February 2026, the annual open letter released by Stripe co-founder John and Patrick Collison, a payments giant, provided a highly significant reference point for the crypto industry. Against the backdrop of the overall crypto market experiencing a deep correction and Bitcoin prices nearly halving from their all-time highs—a so-called "Crypto Winter"—Stripe described the development of the stablecoin sector as a "Stablecoin Summer." This paradoxical statement is not a rhetorical device but a structural judgment based on solid business data: stablecoins are increasingly decoupling from the strong correlation with crypto asset prices and are emerging as an independent payment infrastructure, entering their own moment of prominence.
Event Background and Timeline: From Infrastructure Pain Points to Strategic Depth
Stripe's understanding of payment pain points stems from the founders' early

Bitcoin, after experiencing a significant pullback, is currently priced at approximately $66,250. The market is divided on whether a bottom has been reached. Analysis suggests that deleveraging reduces risk but lacks new capital narratives, which may lead to continued consolidation or a bottoming process. The current market structure is shifting towards institutional funding, with short-term volatility decreasing and long-term trends remaining uncertain. In the future, the market may face three scenarios: oscillating to build a base, a second bottom, or prolonged consolidation.

Recently, there has been speculation in the crypto community that Jane Street is suppressing Bitcoin prices through systematic selling to accumulate ETF shares. However, industry data shows that this claim lacks evidence. Analysts believe that Bitcoin price fluctuations are more driven by natural market mechanisms and risk management rather than manipulation by a single institution. At the same time, the market is undergoing a shift in price discovery power from on-chain spot markets to derivatives markets. This event reflects the increasing understanding of complex structures and the demand for transparency in the crypto market.

As of February 27, 2026, the crypto market is in a delicate phase dominated by technical analysis (TA) rather than fundamental narratives. According to Gate market data, Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading within a narrow range of $68,200 to $68,500, down more than 45% from its all-time high of $126,000 in October 2025. Market sentiment indicators, such as the Fear and Greed Index, have been lingering in the "Extreme Fear" zone between 11 and 16 for an extended period, which historically often coincides with market bottoms.
Recently, AllianceDAO co-founder Qiao Wang's views have sparked widespread discussion in the industry: Bitcoin, as an asset without cash flow backing, is not primarily driven by external macro events in a linear fashion,

In February 2026, after Bitcoin's price reached a historic high of $126,000, it experienced a significant correction and is now fluctuating between $62,000 and $70,000. However, in stark contrast to the weak price performance, spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to see strong capital inflows, with assets under management for BlackRock's IBIT once surpassing $54 billion. This disconnect between "hot capital and cold prices" has brought a group of key behind-the-scenes players—ETF authorized participants—into the spotlight. An intense debate over whether "they are deliberately suppressing Bitcoin's price" is brewing both inside and outside the crypto industry.
Market Controversy Overview: Who is Suppressing Bitcoin's Price?
Recently, speculation about market manipulation by the quantitative trading giant Jane Street has spread rapidly on social media. Some believe that, as BlackRock's IBIT