FTX Begins $1.2B Repayments

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ FTX begins paying creditors with claims of less than $50K; next distribution date set for May 30th for claims over $50K.

• Ethereum Foundation $ETH launches the Open Intents Framework, a framework to standardize intents transactions; Hyperlane and Bootnode co-led the creation.

• Geth Ethereum Client $ETH urges validators to update to version 1.15.2 to avoid potential financial losses; version 1.15.1 has a regression that could cause block creation failures.

• US SEC acknowledges 21Shares filing to allow staking for its spot Ethereum $ETH ETF; similar Grayscale filing has yet to be acknowledged.

• Pumpfun deposits 65,122 Solana $SOL worth ~$11M into Kraken; deposited a total of 1,235,043 SOL worth ~$247M into Kraken in 2025.

• US SEC acknowledges spot $XRP ETF filings from Canary Capital, CoinShares, & Bitwise; also acknowledges CoinShares Litecoin $LTC ETF filing.

• BinanceUS to restore USD services over the coming days; paused fiat services in June 2023 after the US SEC sued them.

• Nigeria sues Binance for $79.5B in economic damages and $2B in unpaid taxes; Binance working with Nigeria FIRS to address potential historic tax liabilities.

Alpha

• Hyperliquid $HYPE launches HyperEVM mainnet; describes launch as "bringing general-purpose programmability" to the network.

• Monad launches testnet; claim testnet $MON & explore the Monad ecosystem.

• ⭐️ OpenSea pauses XP for listing & bidding following community feedback; rewards program to focus on XP shipments in the meantime.

• Reddio posts "Heads up, something BIG is on the way!" on X; to potentially launch mainnet soon.

• DeBank launches Berachain $BERA Airdrop Hunter Web3 Badge; users who received the Berachain BERA airdrop are eligible to mint.

Airdrops

• Paradex Airdrop Strategy by Earndrop.

• ⭐️ Kaito to launch $KAITO airdrop claim tomorrow on February 20th at 12:00PM UTC; tokenomics to release before claim.

• Binance launches $KAITO HODLer Airdrop; BNB Simple Earn products subscribers from February 6th to February 10th are eligible.

• Caldera unveils $ERA; to launch airdrop soon; tokenomics, token utility, initial supply distribution, and more also coming soon.

• ICYMI Weekly Airdrop Recap by Earndrop.

• ICYMI Triad Airdrop Strategy by Earndrop.

Finance News

• S&P 500 $SPX closes at a new ATH of $6,144.15; up 4.46% year-to-date.

• ⭐️ Strategy $MSTR to raise $2B through convertible note offering; to use proceeds for general corporate purposes, including to buy more Bitcoin $BTC.

• Robinhood $HOOD to launch cryptocurrency services in Singapore by late 2025; to rely on recently acquired Bitstamp to provide services.

• MARA Holdings $MARA buys Texas wind farm for an undisclosed amount; adds 240 MW of interconnection capacity and 114 MW of operational wind generation.

• Tether offers to buy majority stake in Adecoagro SA, a South American agricultural and energy company, for ~$385M; Adecoagro board engaged financial and legal advisors to discuss the offer.

• Fold $FLD debuts on the Nasdaq; went public via SPAC merger with FTAC Emerald Acquisition Corp; holds 1K Bitcoin $BTC worth ~$96M.

• OpenAI considers giving board special voting rights to fend off takeover attempts; rights would allow the board to overrule major investors in the company.

• X in talks to raise money at a $44B valuation; talks for the new financing round are ongoing and details could change.

Security and Exploits

• Jupiter users targeted in phishing campaign; fake "Jupiter Exchange exploit" ads urge users to paste malicious code into browser consoles, leads to wallet drain.

• Cardex exploited for ~$400K due to compromised session key; users advised to regularly revoke approvals and permissions for apps and tokens in their Abstract wallet.

• FrigidStealer malware targets macOS users outside North America via fake browser updates; steals sensitive data from web browsers, cryptocurrency related apps, and more.

Token Unlocks

• Immutable $IMX / ~$18M / FEB 21st
• AltLayer $ALT / ~$11M / FEB 25th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• ⭐️ Blockaid raises $50M in Series B funding led by Ribbit Capital.

• Cygnus raises $20M in Pre-Seed funding from several investors.

• Altius raises $11M in Pre-Seed funding led by Founders Fund & Pantera Capital.

• Universal raises $9M in funding led by a16z Crypto.

• Fluent raises $8M in funding led by Polychain Capital.

• Yield Basis raises $5M in funding.

• Maestro raises $3M in Seed funding led by Wave Digital Assets & Draper Associates.

• Fomo raises $2M in Pre-Seed funding from several investors.

• Mu Digital raises $600K in Community funding on Echo.

The Degen Farmer