Top Stories of The Week
Metaplanet CEO denies claims of hidden BTC trade details
Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich has rejected allegations that the firm misled investors about its Bitcoin strategy and related disclosures.
- Top Stories of The Week
- Metaplanet CEO denies claims of hidden BTC trade details
- Bitcoin ETFs lose $166M amid weak start to 2026
- White House revisits stablecoin reward debate
- Quantum fears not to blame for Bitcoin’s 46% slide: developer
- Winners and losers
- Most Memorable Quotations
- Top Prediction of The Week
- Top FUD of The Week
Critics on X claimed the company delayed or withheld price-sensitive information tied to large Bitcoin purchases and options trades financed with shareholder funds. They also alleged that Metaplanet obscured derivatives losses and failed to fully disclose key terms of its BTC-backed borrowings.
In a detailed post on Friday, Gerovich countered that all Bitcoin acquisitions, options strategies and borrowings were disclosed in a timely manner, arguing that critics were misinterpreting the company’s financial statements rather than uncovering wrongdoing.
Bitcoin ETFs lose $166M amid weak start to 2026
Selling pressure continued for US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday, with analysts warning the asset is heading toward one of its weakest annual openings.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $165.8 million in outflows on Thursday, pushing weekly losses to $403.9 million, according to SoSoValue data. The withdrawals have brought the funds close to a five-week streak of net outflows, with year-to-date losses totaling $2.7 billion.
Trading volumes also declined sharply, dropping 21% over the week to their lowest levels since late December — a sign of softening investor engagement.
White House revisits stablecoin reward debate
The White House convened another meeting between cryptocurrency and banking industry representatives to address ongoing disagreements over stablecoin yield provisions in a market structure bill currently before the US Senate.
In a Thursday interview with Fox News, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said the company’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, participated in discussions with White House officials earlier that day.
Talks reportedly centered on limiting how stablecoin rewards can be distributed. It marked the third meeting in just over two weeks aimed at resolving sticking points that have stalled progress on the legislation.
While no formal agreement was reached, executives from Coinbase and Ripple indicated that progress had been made. One White House crypto adviser reportedly suggested a compromise that would allow third parties, such as exchanges, to offer stablecoin rewards only on transaction activity — not on token balances.
The CLARITY Act, which passed the US House in July, has faced repeated delays in the Senate. Obstacles have included two government shutdowns — including a 43-day shutdown in 2025 — Democratic concerns over potential conflicts of interest, and advocacy efforts pushing for additional provisions covering decentralized finance, tokenized equities and stablecoin yield rules.
Quantum fears not to blame for Bitcoin’s 46% slide: developer
Matt Corallo says concerns about quantum computing are unlikely to be driving Bitcoin’s recent price decline, arguing that the market reaction does not support that theory.
“I strongly disagree with the characterization that Bitcoin’s current price is materially because of some kind of quantum risk,” Corallo said during a Thursday appearance on the Unchained hosted by Laura Shin.
“If that were true, then Ethereum would be up substantially against Bitcoin,” he added. Ethereum has fallen 58% since the major crypto market downturn in early October and was trading at $1,957 at the time of publication.
Corallo’s remarks follow claims from some Bitcoin supporters that fears surrounding advances in quantum computing may have contributed to Bitcoin’s 46% drop from its October all-time high of $126,100 to roughly $67,162, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Winners and losers
By the end of the week, Bitcoin was trading at $68,004, Ether at $1,972, and XRP at $1.42. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.33 trillion, CoinMarketCap data shows.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the week’s leading gainers were Stable (STABLE), up 19.62%; Morpho (MORPHO), up 13.05%; and Injective (INJ), up 10.99%.
The biggest decliners were Humanity Protocol (H), down 27.34%; Chiliz (CHZ), down 19.60%; and Arbitrum (ARB), down 19.54%.
Most Memorable Quotations
“I strongly disagree with the characterization that Bitcoin’s current price is materially because of some kind of quantum risk.”
Matt Corallo, Bitcoin developer and open source engineer at Spiral
“Lack of Privacy may be the missing link for crypto payments adoption. Imagine a company pays employees in crypto onchain. With the current state of crypto, you can pretty much see how much everyone in the company is paid by clicking the ‘from’ address.”
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, co-founder and former CEO of Binance
“To look at this as a movie trailer and what’s ahead for Bitcoin and quantum. Just the preview here. It’s a two-step process. We’re going to upgrade and chill. That’s it. That’s the process.”
Matthew Roszak, chairman of Bloq and co-founder of Hemi
“When the Treasury ramps up Treasury bill issuance, it is financing spending that flows into the real economy, and eventually into risk assets like Bitcoin. When Treasury bill issuance falls or turns negative, that fiscal tailwind fades.”
Amir Hajian, researcher at Keyrock
“There’s people in this room that were probably on the opposite side of us, that were canceling bank accounts for us, that were kicking us out of their big banks for no reason other than the fact that my father was wearing a hat that said, ‘Make America Great Again.’”
Eric Trump, son of US President Donald Trump
“Post FTX DeFi spot lending leverage never really came back in the same way; it changed, morphed into something we understood less.”
Top Prediction of The Week
Bitcoin’s next surge may depend on overheated AI stocks: Lyn Alden
Lyn Alden says Bitcoin’s next major rally could be triggered if artificial intelligence stocks become excessively overvalued and begin to stall.
Speaking with Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast published Thursday on YouTube, Alden suggested that AI equities could eventually reach a point where their valuations appear stretched.
“It could be that the AI stocks eventually just peak; they get so silly big that they can’t get realistically much higher,” she said.
When an asset class becomes highly valued and further gains are difficult to justify, investors often rotate capital into other markets offering stronger upside potential — a shift that could benefit Bitcoin.
Top FUD of The Week
Uniswap founder warns of scam ads after victim “lost everything”
Hayden Adams, founder and CEO of the decentralized exchange Uniswap, has cautioned users about fraudulent advertisements impersonating the platform, citing a case in which a victim reportedly lost all their funds.
“Scam ads keep returning despite years of reporting,” Adams wrote in a Friday post on X. “There were scam Uniswap apps while we waited months for App Store approval.”
According to Adams, scammers are increasingly purchasing ads on major search engines targeting keywords like “Uniswap.” These ads often appear as the top search result, mimicking official links. Unsuspecting users who connect their crypto wallets and approve transactions can unknowingly grant attackers access to drain their funds.
January recorded the highest total losses to crypto scams in 11 months, underscoring the growing threat.
Tennessee judge blocks state action against Kalshi
A federal judge in Tennessee has temporarily prevented the state from enforcing its gambling laws against prediction-market platform Kalshi over its sports-event contracts.
In a ruling issued Thursday, Judge Aleta Trauger of the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee allowed Kalshi to continue offering sports-related event contracts to users in Tennessee while its lawsuit against state regulators moves forward.
Trauger indicated that Kalshi is likely to succeed in arguing that federal commodities law preempts Tennessee’s effort to classify and regulate its sports-event contracts as illegal gambling.
South Korean regulators face criticism over Bithumb Bitcoin error
South Korean lawmakers are intensifying scrutiny of financial regulators after crypto exchange Bithumb mistakenly credited users with Bitcoin it did not possess — an error that briefly triggered a wave of sell orders and renewed concerns about oversight in the country’s rapidly expanding digital asset market.
According to a Thursday report by The Korea Times, lawmakers argued that the Financial Services Commission failed to uncover serious flaws in Bithumb’s internal controls, despite conducting at least three inspections since 2022.
Representative Kang Min-guk of the main opposition People Power Party said the incident went beyond a simple technical glitch, pointing instead to deeper structural weaknesses in the crypto sector, including regulatory and supervisory gaps.
The mistake occurred during a promotional event on Feb. 6, when Bithumb accidentally credited users with 2,000 BTC each instead of 2,000 Korean won (about $1.40), resulting in a total of 620,000 BTC being erroneously distributed — far more than the exchange actually held.
