X adds crypto trading. 400M users incoming?

Lead Change

$8.7B wiped out. BTC claws back to $70K. Fear & Greed screams Extreme Fear. And X is about to let 400M people trade crypto in their timeline.

Market Snapshot

Metric	Value	24h Change
BTC	$70,278	▼ -0.11%
ETH	$2,060	▼ -1.81%
SOL	$89.16	▲ +2.72%
Total Market Cap	$2.48T	─ Flat
BTC Dominance	56.6%	Holding
Fear & Greed Index	50	Extreme Fear
Total DeFi TVL	$98.1B	─ See chains

BTC is treading water at $70K after a violent flush. ETH underperforming, SOL quietly outperforming.

Narratives Snapshot

Narrative	Value	7d Change
Prediction Markets	$3.85B	▲ +1.47%
Real World Assets (RWA)	$52.25B	▼ -9.91%
Meme	$42.80B	▼ -14.22%
AI	$22.17B	▼ -20.43%
SocialFi	$2.28B	▼ -20.72%
Gaming (GameFi)	$5.18B	▼ -23.99%

Almost every narrative is bleeding. Prediction Markets is the lone green at +1.47%, which makes sense: people bet more when they're scared.

What Prediction Markets Think

Prediction markets are deeply skeptical on crypto upside: 7.5% chance of ETH ATH by June, 11.8% on XRP hitting $2 this month. The bigger macro bet: 61.75% probability of a Warsh Fed Chair nomination by month-end, which would be a hawkish signal for all risk assets.

Market	Prob	Δ 24h	Vol
SIGNAL Ethereum all-time high by June 30, 2026? Money is betting 92.5% against ETH reclaiming its all-time high by mid-year. At $2,060 today, ETH would need roughly a 140% rally. The market thinks that's fantasy. Given the EF leadership churn and L2 cannibalization narrative, it's hard to argue.	8% probability	─	$95K volume
SIGNAL Will XRP reach $2.00 in February? XRP is at $1.57 and ripping +7.26% today, but bettors give it only an 11.8% chance of hitting $2 this month. That's a 27% move in two weeks. The market says the rally has legs but not that many.	12% probability	─	$96K volume
SIGNAL Will Kevin Warsh be formally nominated as Fed Chair by Feb 28? A 61.75% probability of a new Fed Chair nomination this month. If Warsh gets the nod, expect a hawkish repricing across risk assets. He's historically more hawkish than Powell, which is not what crypto bulls want to hear.	62% probability	─	$95K volume

Data from Polymarket prediction markets • Prices reflect real-money bets

5 Changes That Matter

1 X (formerly Twitter) will launch in-timeline crypto and stock trading within "a couple weeks," according to the platform's head of product.

Let that sink in. (Sorry.) X has roughly 400 million monthly users. Most of them have never touched a DEX, never set up a MetaMask wallet, never argued about gas fees. And now they'll be able to tap a ticker symbol in their feed and buy crypto without leaving the app. This isn't a crypto-native product launch. This is distribution at a scale that makes every exchange CEO sweat through their Patagonia vest. The feature is called Smart Cashtags, and it turns $BTC mentions into interactive trading widgets. The bull case: this is the on-ramp that finally bridges the gap between crypto-curious normies and actual ownership. The bear case: X's track record on product launches is... uneven. Remember when X Payments was supposed to change everything? Still waiting. But if even 1% of X's user base converts, that's 4 million new crypto participants overnight.

If X confirms a specific launch date and names exchange partners within 7 days, this is real. If it stays vague "couple weeks" talk with no partner announcements, file it under Elon's Greatest Promises, Volume XII.

2 Bitcoin clawed back to $70,000 after an $8.7 billion market wipeout, but CryptoQuant analysts say the "ultimate bear market bottom" hasn't arrived yet.

Here's the math that should keep you up tonight. BTC is down 45% from its October peak. That's a proper bear market by any traditional definition. But according to CryptoQuant's on-chain models, the capitulation event that marks a true bottom hasn't happened yet. The recovery to $70K came on cooling inflation data, which gave risk assets a brief reprieve. But the Fear & Greed Index is still screaming Extreme Fear. Galaxy's Steve Kurz calls this "healthy deleveraging" and sees a "great convergence" of infrastructure growth and institutional adoption supporting the long-term case. Translation from fund-manager speak: "We're long and we'd like you to be too." The tension between on-chain analysts saying "not done falling" and institutional voices saying "buy the dip" is the entire market right now. Someone's going to be very wrong.

If BTC holds $68,000 on the next retest (the level it bounced from in the sparkline data) for 5+ days, the deleveraging thesis holds. If it breaks below $65,000, CryptoQuant's "ultimate bottom" call starts looking prescient.

Trump Media's Truth Social filed for two crypto ETFs with the SEC: one for BTC/ETH exposure, another focused on Cronos staking. Meanwhile, senators are demanding a CFIUS probe into a $500M UAE stake in Trump-linked World Liberty Financial. — Source: decrypt.co

3 Trump Media's Truth Social filed for two crypto ETFs with the SEC: one for BTC/ETH exposure, another focused on Cronos staking. Meanwhile, senators are demanding a CFIUS probe into a $500M UAE stake in Trump-linked World Liberty Financial.

The Trump crypto empire is expanding in two directions at once, and they're on a collision course. On one side: Truth Social wants to be a crypto brand. A BTC/ETH ETF is table stakes at this point, but the Cronos staking fund is a head-scratcher. Cronos? Of all the chains to build an ETF around, they picked the one associated with Crypto.com. That's either a strategic partnership nobody's announced yet, or someone's nephew really likes CRO. On the other side: Senators Warren and Kim are asking Treasury Secretary Bessent to investigate whether a reported $500M UAE investment in World Liberty Financial poses a national security risk. This follows a separate House probe launched last week. The political math here is wild. The same administration pushing for crypto clarity is also creating the conflicts that make regulation harder. It's like trying to referee a game you're also playing in.

If CFIUS opens a formal review within 14 days, WLFI-adjacent tokens (and the broader Trump crypto narrative) face real regulatory headwinds. If the probe stalls in committee, the market will treat it as political theater and move on.

4 Treasury Secretary Bessent says the Clarity Act must pass by spring or the political window closes. He says passage would "comfort" markets amid BTC volatility.

A sitting Treasury Secretary just put a deadline on crypto legislation. That's new. Bessent's argument is straightforward: markets hate uncertainty, and the Clarity Act would define which tokens are securities and which are commodities. The "spring or bust" framing matters because midterm positioning starts in summer, and no politician wants to vote on anything controversial when they're fundraising. Sui executives are already saying institutional demand has "never been higher" thanks to the GENIUS Act's ripple effects on stablecoin regulation. The institutional pipeline is real, but it's sitting in a holding pattern waiting for legal clarity. Think of it like a runway full of planes that can't take off because air traffic control hasn't decided which direction the wind is blowing. Bessent just told ATC to make a call.

If the Senate Banking Committee advances a market structure bill to floor vote within 30 days, expect a relief rally in compliance-heavy tokens. If spring arrives with no vote scheduled, the "regulatory clarity" narrative dies for 2026.

Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak is stepping down at the end of February. Bastian Aue takes over alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang. — Source: blog.ethereum.org

5 Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak is stepping down at the end of February. Bastian Aue takes over alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang.

The EF leadership carousel keeps spinning. Tomasz lasted... not long. The Foundation has been under intense community pressure for months over perceived lack of direction, slow shipping, and the general vibe that Ethereum is losing the narrative war to Solana and the L2s it spawned. Aue's appointment is the Foundation's attempt at a fresh start. But here's what the market actually cares about: ETH is down -1.81% today while SOL is up +2.72%. ETH/BTC has been in a slow bleed. The Ethereum ecosystem still commands $55.9B in TVL (dwarfing everything else), but mindshare is a different story. Leadership changes don't fix product-market fit problems. They fix organizational ones. Whether Aue can translate organizational improvements into shipping speed is the only question that matters for ETH price.

If the new EF leadership announces concrete roadmap priorities (Pectra timeline, blob fee adjustments) within 14 days, the market might give ETH a sentiment bounce. If it's another round of "we're listening to the community" blog posts, ETH/BTC continues its slow grind lower.

5 Quick Hits

Grayscale files to convert its AAVE trust into an ETF on NYSE Arca — The DeFi ETF pipeline keeps growing. If approved, this would be the first pure single-token DeFi ETF, and AAVE's $27.1B in TVL makes it the obvious first candidate.
Mirae Asset to buy 92% of Korean exchange Korbit for $93M — A major Korean asset manager buying a crypto exchange is the kind of TradFi-to-crypto bridge that doesn't make headlines but moves the needle on institutional infrastructure in Asia.
Benchmark cuts Coinbase price target 37% to $267 but keeps Buy rating — The analyst says COIN's business is "more diversified and durable than ever" but the crypto bear market is real. Translation: great company, bad neighborhood.
Blockchain lender Figure confirms customer data breach via social engineering attack — A publicly traded company losing customer data to a phishing attack in 2026 is the kind of thing that makes regulators reach for their pens.
Crypto startups raised $39.5M across 15 deals this week — Funding is trickling, not flowing. For context, single rounds were clearing $100M+ during the bull. Seed and pre-seed dominated, which means VCs are planting, not harvesting.

Risk Map

🔴 Behavioral: Extreme Fear with leverage still in the system: The Fear & Greed Index is in Extreme Fear, but BTC bounced $5K off the lows in days. That kind of snap-back usually means leveraged longs are re-entering too early. The $8.7B wipeout cleared some positions, but if funding rates haven't fully reset, the next leg down will be sharper than the first.
🔴 Structural: Warsh Fed Chair nomination at 61.75% probability: A hawkish Fed Chair nominee would reprice rate expectations across every risk asset. Crypto trades as a leveraged beta to liquidity conditions. If Warsh gets the nod before month-end, expect a reflexive sell-off as the market prices in tighter-for-longer.
🔴 Wildcard: Trump crypto conflicts drawing bipartisan scrutiny: Both chambers of Congress are now probing WLFI's UAE ties. If this escalates into a formal CFIUS review, it poisons the well for the same administration's pro-crypto legislation. The Clarity Act and GENIUS Act need political goodwill to pass. A corruption scandal burns that goodwill fast.

Catalysts (Next 7 Days)

📅 X Smart Cashtags launch window (Within ~2 weeks (announced Feb 14)): If X rolls out in-app crypto trading to 400M users, it's the largest retail on-ramp event since Robinhood listed DOGE in 2021.
📅 Senate Banking Committee market structure vote progress (Ongoing through February): Bessent's "spring or bust" deadline means any movement (or lack thereof) on the Clarity Act in the next week signals whether 2026 gets real regulation or more limbo.
📅 Warsh Fed Chair nomination deadline (Polymarket: Feb 28) (By February 28): At 61.75% probability, the market expects this to happen. A hawkish Fed Chair nominee would reset rate expectations and pressure every risk asset, crypto included.

Sources

Disclosures

Not investment advice. For education only. Crypto is high risk. We may earn affiliate revenue from some links.