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In February 2026, the global tech industry experienced a profound shake-up regarding "human-machine relationships." Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter co-founder, led the payments company Block (formerly Square), announcing layoffs of over 4,000 employees, accounting for 40% of the workforce. Unlike layoffs driven by poor performance, Dorsey candidly stated in an all-hands email: "Our business remains strong, with continued gross profit growth, an expanding customer base, and improving profitability. However, the world has changed. The intelligent tools we are creating and using, combined with smaller, flatter teams, are ushering in a whole new way of working."
This event was not an isolated case. Almost simultaneously, discussions about "AI replacing white-collar workers" swept through global capital markets. Microsoft AI division head Mustafa Suleiman (Must

In February 2026, the world’s leading quantitative trading firm Jane Street is at the center of a rare regulatory and public opinion storm. Known for its low profile and high profits, this market maker has been thrust into the spotlight of the crypto community due to two separate legal incidents: one is a insider trading lawsuit filed by the bankruptcy estate of Terraform Labs, accusing it of withdrawing funds using non-public information before the Terra ecosystem collapse in 2022; the other is a temporary injunction issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), alleging manipulation of indices on derivative expiration dates for profit.
Meanwhile, the long-standing "10 AM dump" theory in the crypto community has reignited. Many opinion leaders and retail traders blame Bitcoin’s persistent weakness during the U.S. stock market open on Jane Street’s systematic algorithms.

In February 2026, leading artificial intelligence company OpenAI announced the completion of a historic massive funding round. The company secured a total of $110 billion in new investment commitments, with a pre-money valuation reaching $730 billion. This deal not only set a new record for single-round funding in the global venture capital history but also sparked widespread discussion in the capital markets about the future direction of the AI sector due to its enormous scale and unique transaction structure.
The institutions participating in this funding round can be described as an "all-star lineup," including strategic investors SoftBank, NVIDIA, and Amazon. SoftBank committed $30 billion, NVIDIA also co-invested $30 billion, while Amazon pledged up to $50 billion in phased investments. This convergence of capital clearly signals that tech giants are making unprecedented bets on AI infrastructure.

In the first quarter of 2026, the crypto market entered a significant "project issuance cycle." Unlike the reckless meme chasing seen in the late stages of previous bull markets, this round of new projects showcases a combination of "high throughput" and "narrative-driven" features. From underlying infrastructure to vertical application layers, multiple projects are entering the market weekly through channels such as initial launches, Launchpool, or HODLer Airdrops.
This dense supply rhythm presents both opportunities and cognitive challenges for participants. Investors need more than just the act of "buying new tokens"; they require a comprehensive framework that combines narrative logic, data structures, and public sentiment divergence. This article will use Gate's recent new projects as case studies, based on market data up to February 28, 2026, to deeply analyze the structural opportunities and potential risks behind this "new token season."

The article analyzes the pullback in the crypto market in 2026, with Bitcoin's price falling from its peak to $65,000, and discusses whether $45,000 is the bottom of the bear market. It examines macro and micro factors affecting the market and explores different market perspectives. The conclusion suggests that $45,000 may be the bottom, but the current market structure and liquidity still require cautious observation, and the final bottom will be determined by macro factors and new narratives.

As of February 2026, the price of Ethereum (ETH) is at $1,870, experiencing volatile declines, and market confidence remains fragile. Despite some on-chain accumulation signs, macro liquidity tightening has limited the rebound potential. Analysts are divided on the short-term outlook, generally expecting the downturn to continue, and recommend market participants adopt a cautious wait-and-see approach.

In February 2026, stablecoin issuer Tether's trading price range in the secondary market drew global capital market attention. According to Forbes, recent private share transactions indicate that investors have pushed Tether's overall valuation to between $350 billion and $375 billion. Even with a more conservative valuation of $200 billion (a 300% increase from $50 billion in 2025), Tether has already ranked among the most valuable unlisted private companies worldwide, alongside tech giants like OpenAI and SpaceX. This valuation leap not only reflects the strong profitability of the stablecoin business model but also signals a deep integration of crypto-native forces with traditional financial power structures.
Background and Timeline
Tether's valuation reshaping is not an isolated event but a thread running through 2025

Since the fourth quarter of 2025, beyond the intense price fluctuations, the crypto market has quietly undergone a profound cultural migration. The starting point of this migration was the global trading enthusiasm unexpectedly ignited by a few Chinese-named Meme coins, and its endpoint may point toward a more multipolar, culture-driven crypto world. As Western traders begin to study the memes behind "Binance Life" and "Customer Service Xiao He" using translation software, a silent game over attention, liquidity, and pricing power has already begun.
Phenomenon Overview: The Break and Formation of Language Barriers
"Foreigners learning Chinese" in the crypto context is no longer just an amateur hobby of tech enthusiasts but has evolved into an investment behavior with clear utilitarian motives. Since October 2025, originating from BNB Chain (BSC), a group of Meme coins with distinctive Chinese internet cultural features has emerged.

On February 28, 2026, news from Washington's legislative corridor took the entire crypto industry by surprise. A game that could determine the fate of a multi-trillion dollar market, centered around the core clause in the CLARITY Act regarding whether stablecoins are allowed to generate yields, is entering its final critical stage.
Event Overview: A Zero-Sum Game Over "Yield Rights"
The so-called "stablecoin yield game" is essentially a contest over the ownership of the returns generated from capital deposits. Currently, compliant stablecoins like USDT and USDC, whose issuers invest reserve assets (mainly U.S. short-term government bonds), pay most of the interest—aside from retained profits—to channels such as exchanges and wallets in the form of "distribution costs," leaving end users with almost nothing.
The CLARITY Act currently under review in the U.S. Congress aims to clarify this power structure. Latest Negotiation Developments

In late February 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco-based crypto venture capital firm Paradigm is seeking to raise $1.5 billion for a new fund, with plans to expand its investment scope into artificial intelligence, robotics, and other cutting-edge technologies. This firm, which set a fundraising record in the crypto industry with a $2.5 billion flagship fund in 2021, is seen by the market as making a strategic move with significant signaling implications.
Although Paradigm emphasizes its continued investment in cryptocurrency projects, its management's statement that they "do not want to be restricted in order to avoid missing attractive deal opportunities" clearly reveals the anxiety and ambition of top global venture capital firms in the face of technological paradigm shifts. Amidst the current weak narrative in the traditional crypto market, the flow of this massive capital is shifting the focus from the previous narrative to the topic of "AI and Crypto integration."

In recent years, crypto market KOLs have often been representatives of "diamond hands" and "crypto supremacy." However, since the first quarter of 2026, a significant trend has quietly emerged among these early beneficiaries: their funds and attention are accelerating unprecedentedly toward the traditional U.S. stock market, especially in the AI, metals, and energy sectors. This is not just a case of diversified asset allocation but a forming collective action on a larger scale. Based on recent survey data covering over a hundred crypto KOLs, combined with changes in market structure, this article deeply analyzes the causal chain behind this "funds migration" and explores various possible future evolutions.
Fund Migration Phenomenon Overview
By the end of February 2026, a private survey initiated by crypto KOL Joshua (MOZAIK) sparked widespread discussion within the community. The survey, conducted from mid-January to early February, contacted approximately

As generative artificial intelligence can create countless exquisite images, texts, and even code within a minute, "perfection" is becoming a cheap commodity that can be infinitely replicated. Recently, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley shared an counterintuitive viewpoint on social media: technological advances make "perfection" easily attainable, but humans tend to assign higher value to those things that require more effort and have flaws.
This argument resonated deeply within the crypto industry. In an era where digital technology and human values seem to be at odds, this logic not only concerns social psychology but may also signal a profound shift in the valuation anchors of crypto assets.
Technology makes perfection cheap: an overview of an objective fact
Horsley used a vivid analogy to elaborate his point: handwritten cards, while far less clear and aesthetically pleasing than printed cards, hold more significance.

On February 26, 2026, fintech company Block founder Jack Dorsey delivered a shocking announcement in an open letter to shareholders and employees: the company will cut approximately 4,000 jobs, nearly 40% of its total workforce. Unlike the typical "cost-cutting and efficiency-boosting" layoffs seen in the tech industry over the past two years, Dorsey explicitly attributed this large-scale restructuring to the structural changes brought about by artificial intelligence. He stated outright that AI tools "fundamentally change the meaning of building and operating a company," and that a leaner team combined with smarter tools can do more and do it better.
Despite the massive layoffs, the capital markets responded very differently. After the announcement, Block's stock price surged over 24% in after-hours trading. This stark market reaction clearly reflects the current capital market's embrace of

In February 2026, a discussion about whether artificial intelligence can save the public finances of developed countries continued to ferment within the global macro strategy circles. There is a widespread optimistic expectation in the market: the productivity leap brought by AI will expand the overall economy and increase the tax base, thereby providing a relatively "painless" fiscal consolidation path for heavily indebted governments. However, preliminary estimates shared with Reuters by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and several former institutional economists are challenging this narrative on a quantitative level.
Objectively speaking, developed economies are facing the most severe fiscal constraints since World War II. The U.S. federal debt-to-GDP ratio has already reached a historic high of about 100%. Most wealthy economies have debt exceeding 100% of their gross domestic product, while also contending with the "triple squeeze" of rigid welfare spending due to aging populations, increased defense expenditures, and climate transition investments. Against this backdrop, the potential of AI to

Recently, the dispute between leading American artificial intelligence company Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has become a focal point for the global tech industry and geopolitical analysts. This conflict, highly watched by overseas crypto communities, is not merely a commercial contract dispute but a direct clash over AI ethics, national sovereignty, and the values of tech companies. As of February 28, 2026, the incident has escalated from business negotiations to presidential executive intervention, profoundly impacting the future landscape of the AI industry.
Event Overview: An Uncrossable Red Line
On February 26 local time, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly issued a statement, explicitly refusing the Department of Defense's request for "unrestricted use of its AI models." The company insists that its AI models must not be used for "purposes that threaten the security of the United States."

NKN (New Kind of Network) is a decentralized network transmission protocol designed to build peer-to-peer communication infrastructure driven by users sharing bandwidth resources. Through the Proof-of-Relay consensus mechanism, NKN incentivizes global nodes to contribute network resources, forming a decentralized data routing layer that covers the world. The NKN token is used to pay for network service fees, reward node operators, and participate in governance.
In the increasingly crowded Web3 infrastructure layer, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) are attempting to reshape traditional internet resource allocation methods. As an early explorer in this field, NKN (New Kind of Network) focuses on the core proposition: when network connectivity itself becomes a tradable commodity, how should the token economy be designed to support a global, large-scale decentralized network?

February 28, 2026, the "black swan" of Middle Eastern geopolitics flaps its wings again. As the United States and Israel confirm plans for a military strike on Iran, global markets are instantly engulfed by risk-off sentiment. During the traditional financial markets' "silence" caused by weekend closures, Bitcoin, with its 24/7 trading, becomes the only outlet for emotional expression. On-chain monitoring data shows that within one hour of the conflict breaking out, Bitcoin sell volume surged to approximately $1.8 billion. This is not just a series of numbers but a concentrated exposure of market structure, trader psychology, and asset narratives under extreme pressure. This article will start from the data, combined with Gate market data, to deeply analyze the causal chain, market divergence, and future evolution path behind this event.
Event Overview: The Macro Trigger of the Selling Wave
Fact: On February 28, the Israeli Defense Minister announced a state of emergency, and U.S. officials subsequently confirmed that the U.S. military

On February 28, 2026, the tranquility of the global financial markets was shattered by the sudden outbreak of gunfire in the Middle East. As the US and Israel jointly carried out military strikes on targets within Iran, risk assets, already under macroeconomic tightening anxiety, plummeted accordingly. As a 24-hour nonstop trading market, cryptocurrencies reacted first to this geopolitical "black swan" event with intense volatility. According to data from CoinGlass, within just 4 hours of the news breaking, the total liquidation amount across the network rapidly rose to $267 million, with long positions suffering heavy losses, contributing over $228 million. This article will use this incident as a starting point, adhering to strict principles of separating facts from opinions, to deeply analyze the crypto market turbulence triggered by geopolitical conflict, examining the market structure, narrative logic, and potential evolution paths behind the data.
Data source: CoinGlass

As of February 28, 2026, according to Gate market data, the price of Solana (SOL) is reported at $78.48, a 24-hour decline of 9.94%. The breach of this key psychological level marks an acceleration of the correction trend for SOL since its peak in 2025. Its current market capitalization is $44.38 billion, with a 24-hour trading volume of $73.66 million, and market sentiment remains neutral to slightly bearish. This article aims to provide a structured analysis, outlining the background of this price movement, dissecting market bullish and bearish viewpoints, and rigorously distinguishing between facts and opinions to project potential multi-scenario evolution paths.
Downward Path Review: From $87 to $78
The rapid drop below $80 is not an isolated market event but the result of multiple factors resonating over time. On February 26

On February 28, 2026, the global financial markets experienced two consecutive shocks within just a few hours. Following Bitcoin dropping below $65,000 in the early trading session and the US stock market posting its largest monthly decline in nearly a year, a sudden geopolitical black swan event in the afternoon pushed risk aversion to new heights.
According to Xinhua News Agency and several international media outlets, an explosion occurred in eastern Tehran, Iran's capital, with multiple missiles hitting targets in the city center. The attack targeted near the office of Iran's Supreme Leader, and Ayatollah Khamenei was urgently relocated to a safe house; simultaneously, Iranian President Pavehzadeh Ziyan narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. Israel later announced that all objectives set for its operations against Iran had been achieved. This series of escalating military conflicts has further exacerbated the already risk-averse sentiment among risk assets, which were under pressure from macroeconomic data. This article will revisit the timeline and causal chain based on the latest events, analyze market structure and public opinion divergence, and project multiple future scenario evolutions.
Event Overview