Invest ideasNews
28 Feb 2026, 02:05
Morgan Stanley applies for OCC bank charter to custody crypto
The Wall Street banking giant has been accelerating its foray into crypto, filing to launch Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETFs in January.
28 Feb 2026, 02:00
Assessing if ICP’s whales can help it flip $3-level after 10% daily hike
ICP investors welcomed some good news this week.
28 Feb 2026, 02:00
XRP Builder Funding Shifts In 2026 As Ripple Backs New Model
Ripple is reshaping how builders on the XRP Ledger get funded in 2026, arguing that the ecosystem has reached a point where support needs to flow through more than Ripple-linked programs alone. The change matters because it signals a deliberate move away from a relatively centralized funding structure toward a broader network of DAOs, independent hubs, universities and venture partners. In its latest ecosystem update , Ripple said more than $550 million has already been deployed into XRPL initiatives since 2017, spanning non-equity grants, builder incentives, strategic partnerships and growth programs. Since 2021, those efforts have included hackathons, builder bounties, XRPL Grants and the XRPL Accelerator, with nearly 200 projects supported across areas including payments, DeFi, tokenization, AI, gaming, e-commerce and enterprise finance. XRP Ledger Enters New Phase The core message is that 2026 marks a structural pivot. Ripple said ecosystem funding has historically flowed through Ripple-supported channels, but that the next phase will lean on a “more distributed model” in which independent organizations, regional hubs, venture firms and community-led initiatives take on a larger role. The company framed the objective as giving builders “multiple channels” to access capital and support, rather than relying on a single gatekeeper. At the center of that shift is a new FinTech Builder Program aimed at startups building institutional-grade financial applications on XRPL. Ripple said the program will focus on use cases including stablecoin payments , credit infrastructure, tokenization and regulated financial services, while offering more than a traditional grants track. According to the post, founders will get support “across the entire development lifecycle,” from product design through market launch, with help on XRPL integration, strategy and partnerships. Ripple also outlined a wider support stack around that program. That includes expanded accelerator partnerships with venture firms and startup platforms, regional startup competitions, and builder awards meant to help projects after hackathons or competitions, when early traction still needs a bridge to something durable. The emphasis throughout is less on one-off experimentation and more on getting teams to production-ready financial products. The more interesting signal, though, may be where decision-making starts to move. Ripple highlighted XAO DAO as a hybrid DAO built for XRPL that will fund developers, community builders and early-stage ideas through microgrants. It said the DAO is designed to “amplify community voice” and create feedback loops where members submit proposals, vote on priorities and help steer the ecosystem’s direction. In parallel, XRPL Commons is positioned as an independent pillar of support, with Ripple explicitly saying the aim is to ensure that “no single organization becomes the sole gatekeeper” for ecosystem funding. Other pieces of the 2026 map point to geographic and institutional expansion. Ripple said XRP Asia is being developed as a dedicated APAC hub with a long-term plan for localized funding and regional ecosystem growth. UDAX, first launched with UC Berkeley in fall 2025, is set to expand this year to Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo, Oxford in the summer, and Berkeley again in the fall. Ripple also pointed to growing venture participation from firms including Dragonfly, Pantera, Franklin Templeton and Tenity as another sign that XRPL is trying to mature from grant-backed experimentation into a venue for fundable, production-scale startups. At press time, XRP traded at $1.3773.
28 Feb 2026, 02:00
Bitcoin Manipulation By Jane Street? Ex-Wall Street Market Maker Says No
The latest Jane Street debate on X is meeting a blunt rebuttal from Ari Paul. The BlockTower founder, who says he used to work as a Wall Street market maker 15 years ago, argues that Bitcoin’s failure to push higher is better explained by spot sell-side than by a long-running suppression campaign. Paul’s answer was direct. “In short: no,” he wrote, before adding that market makers do “game the system” in many ways, but that in liquid products such as BTC ETFs, the effect is usually limited to “meaningful but small costs to consumers,” not a lasting distortion of the underlying asset price. He framed the distinction as one between short-term microstructure games and a broader claim that one firm kept Bitcoin from reaching far higher levels. Bitcoin Manipulation? Small Moves, Fast Reversions To make that case, Paul pointed to the kind of behavior traders on desks know well. “For example, market makers may manipulate the price to run stop limit orders,” he wrote. “But that’s typically on an intraday timeframe. So they might run an asset like MSFT or BTC 2% in a weak market to trigger stops, then a few seconds or minutes later, the price is mostly back to where it was before.” In his telling, that is still manipulation, but it is not the same as structurally pinning Bitcoin below some imagined fair value for months. Related Reading: Bitcoin Spot Volumes Sink To 2024 Lows As Coinbase Selling Pressure Eases That argument lands against a more conspiratorial narrative now circulating online, why Bitcoin is not already at $150,000. Paul’s pushback does not deny that large Wall Street firms can shape short-term trading conditions. It rejects the stronger claim that such activity is the central explanation for Bitcoin’s broader price path. Paul’s core point was much less dramatic. “Why is BTC down? Because OGs sold tens of thousands of coins, and not enough people wanted to buy them.” That line closely matched the view from renowned on-chain analyst James Check, who argued that “Jane Street didn’t suppress the Bitcoin price” and that “HODLers all did,” by selling large amounts of spot into the market. Jane Street didn’t suppress the Bitcoin price folks. HODLers all did. It’s just not that hard, stop summoning your inner salty goldbug but blaming manipulators. People. Sold. A. Fucktonne. Of. Spot. Bitcoin. https://t.co/CrWgPUzUFP pic.twitter.com/N3VhgYjKhm — _Checkmate 🟠🔑⚡☢️🛢️ (@_Checkmatey_) February 26, 2026 He added: “My point has always been the same; manipulation is a thing that has always, will always, and is indeed the literal job of large wall street firms. However, you do not need that as the central argument to explain why the price didn’t go higher, nor why it went lower. That can be well and truly explained by looking at spot sell-side.” Paul did leave room for exceptions. He wrote that there are rare cases where Wall Street manipulates an asset in major ways over a longer period, but said those cases are uncommon because they are risky and harder to profit from than people assume. Related Reading: Is Jane Street Why Bitcoin Isn’t At $150K? Expert Debunks The Myth “There are rare exceptions where Wall Street manipulates an asset in major ways longer term, but this is quite rare because it’s very risky and not as easy as it looks to profit. 99% of the time that an asset isn’t moving like you want and people are crying “manipulation”, it’s best to embrace the cognitive dissonance, avoid the “easy way out” of blaming manipulation,” Paul wrote. That leaves the current Jane Street argument in a narrower frame. Yes, large firms can influence intraday flows, liquidity, and execution quality. But based on Paul’s account, that is a long way from proving that one market maker is the reason Bitcoin is not trading materially higher. Notably, the Jane Street theory picked up fresh attention after Terraform Labs’ wind-down administrator sued the firm in Manhattan federal court, alleging insider trading tied to Terra’s 2022 collapse. The complaint says Jane Street used a private chat called “Bryce’s Secret” to obtain non-public information and alleges an 85 million UST trade on Curve that helped trigger a selloff; Jane Street has denied wrongdoing and called the case opportunistic. At press time, BTC traded at $66,090. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
28 Feb 2026, 01:45
UNI Technical Analysis February 28, 2026: Market Structure
In UNI, LH/LL downtrend dominates, $3.6776 support is critical. Bullish BOS above $3.7612, BTC downtrend is increasing the downward pressure.
28 Feb 2026, 01:26
DOT Technical Analysis February 28, 2026: RSI MACD Momentum
In DOT's momentum, MACD is giving a short-term bull signal with a positive histogram while RSI is balancing at the neutral level of 57. EMA20 support is preserving trend strength, but BTC's downtre...
