ETHZilla (ETHZ), an Ethereum-focused digital asset treasury firm, is pushing deeper into tokenization, acquiring a $4.7 million portfolio of manufactured and modular home loans.
The company plans to tokenize the 95-loan portfolio on an Ethereum layer-2 network, aiming to turn the loans into cash-flow-generating digital tokens available via Liquidity.io, a regulated broker-dealer and trading system, according to an announcement shared with CoinDesk on Thursday.
The loans, secured by first-lien mortgages, are expected to yield around 10% annually, according to the firm.
“This transaction represents a natural extension of the tokenization strategy we’ve been building,” said McAndrew Rudisill, chairman and CEO of ETHZilla.
“Manufactured housing loans offer predictable cash flows and strong underlying collateral, which we believe makes them well-suited for tokenization within a regulated, transparent structure.”
ETHZilla’s shift toward tokenization comes after a sharp downturn in its core crypto holdings. Its stock has plummeted roughly more than 90% from a spike to $107 in August 2025, and it sold over $110 million in ETH last year to fund buybacks and debt repayments.
The company outlined plans to build a regulated framework for tokenizing everything from aircraft engines to auto loans, in a December letter to shareholders. The newly purchased home loan portfolio comes on the heels on ETHZilla’s earlier investment in Zippy, a manufactured home lender, and follows a similar acquisition of two jet engines the company also intends to tokenize.
Bitcoin is dangling at the edge of a breakdown, not bouncing toward a breakout. In the last hour, its price jittered between $69,049 and $69,546, as $1.40 trillion in market cap faces mounting pressure and $99.42 billion in 24-hour volume suggests panic, not conviction, inside a volatile $69,049–$76,122 trading range. Bitcoin Chart Outlook Bitcoin‘s 1-hour […]
Richie Santosdiaz gives an overview of the recent Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) fifth General Assembly that was held in Kuwait.
The fifth General Assembly of the DCO was held 4-5th February and attended by its 16 member states with their various ministers and government officials, the over 60 observers (which included organizations both in the public, private and semi-government sector), and the wider growing partnership network.
“Exclusive prosperity in the age of artificial intelligence (AI)” was the major theme of the Assembly.
Opening ceremony and sessions during the General Assembly
First, country host Kuwait kicked off the opening of the General Assembly with opening remarks from H.E. Omar Saud Al-Omar, Minister of State for Communication Affairs of the State of Kuwait and Chairperson of the DCO Council for the current term; he also chaired the Assembly during the two days.
The State of Kuwait hosted the fifth General Assembly of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO)
After H.E. Al-Omar, other welcoming remarks were made by H.E. Deemah AlYahya – Secretary General of the DCO (who last year was reappointed for another four-year term), and, afterwards, previous fourth General Assembly host and DCO presidency of the Kingdom of Jordan, were done by H.E. Eng. Sami Smeirat – Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship.
Later, further opening remarks were made by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s H.E. Shaza Fatima Khawaja – Federal Minister for IT & Telecommunications. Pakistan will take over the current chair role from Kuwait and also plans to host the seventh General Assembly 2027. Finally, welcoming remarks were made by H.E. Eng. Abdullah Amer Alswaha – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and, virtually through video message, by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He said, “I look forward to working with the Digital Cooperation Organization and all partners to build guardrails and accountability, advance shared standards and bridge the AI divide, so the benefits of AI are shared by all.”
The day further progressed with various open and closed doors meetings.
Key announcements, initiatives and agreements
A few of the many highlights during the DCO’s General Assembly the past two days included:
H.E. Al-Omar announcing the launch of a DCO campaign to combat online misinformation, through creating a platform for member states and partners aiming to commit strong cooperative and legislative actions.
Kuwait handing over the presidency council of the DCO to Pakistan for the current year; 2027 plans to go to Saudi Arabia
Various partnerships and/or memorandum of understandings (MoUs); some of the MoUs announced include those with DCO and the following individual organizations: International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), TikTok, and Edraak (an online platform offering free Arabic massive open courses launched in 2014 by Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan as an initiative of the Queen Rania Foundation)
The International Digital Cooperation Forum Discussing Key Aspects to Bring Digital Inclusion
Kuwait hosted the fifth General Assembly of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO). The second edition of the International Digital Cooperation Forum (IDCF) ran in conjunction with the Assembly. Pictured – John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA
In parallel and complimenting the General Assembly two-day program, the second edition of the International Digital Cooperation Forum (IDCF) kicked off, starting with opening remarks from DCO’s Director General Dr. Hajar El Haddaoui; later other remarks came from various partners included John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA.
The forum as a whole was attended by various people from around the world – from the public sector such as regulators to the private sector – both large companies and startups.
There was a flagship stage for the main forum, as well as various side events such as workshops, different areas for closed door meetings for participants of the General Assembly, as well as an area for startups that have worked with the DCO to showcase their solutions. The strategic partner for the IDCF this year, with its own showcase area, was Zaintech.
Throughout the two-days, some of the panel sessions at the flagship stage included: ‘Shaping the Digital Economy Future: Insights and Action Pathways from the DCO DEN 2025 and DET 2026,’ ‘Operationalizing Responsible & Trustworthy AI: Moving Beyond Ethics Manifestos to Functional Compliance and Risk Management,’ ‘Digital Banking and Fintech as Enablers of an Inclusive Digital Economy,’ ‘Women Shaping the Future of Technology,‘ and ‘Fueling Growth: Innovation and Investment as Catalysts for Digital and Social Prosperity.’ The latter I had the opportunity to moderate.
From left – Ahmad Bhinder, H.E. Dr. Kamal Shehadi, Dr. Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, H.E. Dr. Abdel Razzaq Natsheh, Hon. William Kabogo Gitau and H.E. Vandeth Chea
The panels had an array of world-renowned experts and partners. One to highlight, for example, was day two’s kickoff panel ‘AI Safety and Systemic Risk,’ which included the Republic of Lebanon’s H.E. Dr. Kamal Shehadi – Minister of State for Technology and Artificial Intelligence, the Kingdom of Morocco’s Dr. Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni – Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in Charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform, the State of Palestine’s H.E. Dr. Abdel Razzaq Natsheh – Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Economy, the Republic of Kenya’s Hon. William Kabogo Gitau – Minister of ICT and Digital Economy, and the Kingdom of Cambodia’s H.E. Vandeth Chea – Minister of Post and Telecommunications (MPTC); the moderator was Ahmad Bhinder from the DCO.
Overall, the latest Assembly showcased the wider strategic vision and implementation of the various member states and their partners – both in the public sector and private sector – towards wider digital economic development.
Secure Digital Markets (SDM) has completed a $1 million Bitcoin transaction over the Lightning Network in a pilot settlement with cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, marking what the firms say is the largest publicly reported Lightning payment to date.
The transaction, executed on Jan. 28 and valued at $1 million at the time, settled nearly instantly and with minimal fees.
It was facilitated using enterprise Lightning infrastructure from Voltage, a Bitcoin payments and infrastructure provider focused on institutional clients.
Lightning is a second-layer network built on Bitcoin that enables faster and cheaper payments by moving transactions off the base blockchain.
While it has been widely used for small consumer payments, its suitability for large institutional settlements has remained an open question. The SDM-to-Kraken pilot was designed to test whether the network can support high-value transfers between regulated counterparties.
“Moving $1 million to Kraken over the Lightning Network marks a definitive shift in the architecture of global settlement,” said Mostafa Al-Mashita, co-founder and director of sales and trading at SDM in a note to Bitcoin Magazine. “We have moved past the era of questioning Bitcoin’s institutional capacity.”
Lightning transactions without delays
Traditional Bitcoin transactions can take minutes or longer to confirm and are subject to fluctuating fees, factors that complicate treasury operations and inter-institution settlements.
SDM said the pilot demonstrated that Lightning could support use cases such as internal treasury movements, large-value settlements, and transfers between trading venues without the delays associated with on-chain settlement.
Kraken, one of the longest-operating crypto exchanges, has supported Lightning for retail payments for several years. The firm said the transaction reflects growing demand from institutional clients for faster settlement options.
“Milestones like this demonstrate what’s possible when innovation meets real-world demand,” said Calvin Leyon, head of on-chain at Kraken. “By dramatically reducing settlement times, the Lightning Network unlocks Bitcoin’s potential at global scale.”
The transaction relied on Voltage’s managed Lightning infrastructure, which provides liquidity management, node uptime, and operational guarantees designed to meet institutional requirements. Voltage said the pilot highlights how Lightning has matured beyond experimental use cases.
“A $1 million Lightning transfer highlights the maturity of the network and its ability to meet enterprise requirements,” said Graham Krizek, founder and CEO of Voltage.
SDM operates an institutional trading and lending desk offering execution through graphical interfaces, APIs, and request-for-quote systems.
The firm said integrating Lightning infrastructure allows it to explore faster settlement options for clients without relying solely on traditional payment rails.
Institutional attitudes toward bitcoin yield are beginning to shift and there is now renewed interest in BTC rewards after years of skepticism driven by smart-contract risk, leverage, and opaque strategies, GlobalStake co-founder Thomas Chaffee told CoinDesk on Thursday.
Products that allow users to earn a return on their bitcoin holdings often require wrapping BTC into protocols, involving smart contract risk or strategies that don’t scale, so institutions didn’t see “a risk-return profile that made sense,” according to Chaffee.
That reluctance is starting to change, Chaffee said, not because institutions suddenly want more risk, but because the types of strategies available to them have evolved. Rather than protocol-based yield or token incentives, allocators are increasingly gravitating toward fully collateralized, market-neutral approaches that resemble traditional financial strategies already familiar to hedge funds and treasuries, he said.
“The behavior change we’re seeing isn’t institutions chasing yield,” Chaffee said. “It’s institutions finally engaging once the strategies, controls, and infrastructure look like something they can actually deploy capital into at scale.”
The renewed interest comes after years of failed or short-lived attempts to generate yield on bitcoin, many of which unraveled during the 2022 market downturn as prominent lenders froze withdrawals and ultimately collapsed amid liquidity stress, most notably when crypto lending service Celsius Network indefinitely paused withdrawals and transfers citing “‘extreme market conditions’” in mid-2022 and later entered bankruptcy.
Chaffee is not the only one seeing renewed institutional interest in bitcoin yield. “People holding bitcoin, — whether on balance sheet or as investors — increasingly see it as a pot just sitting there,” Richard Green, director of Rootstock Institutional, told CoinDesk recently. “It can’t just sit there doing nothing; it needs to be adding yield.” Green said professional investors now want their digital assets to “work as hard as possible” within their risk mandates.
Chaffee explained that GlobalStake, which provides staking infrastructure across proof-of-stake networks, began hearing the same question repeatedly from clients over the past several years: whether similar institutional-grade yield opportunities existed for bitcoin.
GlobalStake unveiled its Bitcoin Yield Gateway on Thursday, a platform designed to aggregate multiple third-party bitcoin yield strategies behind a single onboarding, compliance, and integration layer.
The co-founder explained the company expects roughly $500 million in bitcoin to be allocated within three months. “We expect the bitcoin to be allocated during the gateway’s first-quarter roll-out period, sourced from a custodial partner based in Canada, demand generated by parties through our partner MG Stover, and our clients, which include family offices, digital asset treasuries (DATs), corporate treasuries, and hedge funds.”
Other firms are approaching the problem from the infrastructure layer. Babylon Labs, for example, is developing systems that allow native bitcoin to be used as non-custodial collateral across financial applications, an effort aimed at expanding BTC’s utility rather than generating yield directly.
The bitcoin price slid to $69,000 in Asian trading Thursday as a deepening selloff in global markets spilled into crypto markets. The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 9% over the past 24 hours, touching lows at $69,031 before trimming losses.
Bitcoin price has now wiped out all gains since its previous $69,000 all-time high in 2021. BTC is now down nearly 30% over the past 12 months and about 45% below its October peak, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
The move came alongside sharp declines in Asian equities. MSCI’s Asia technology index fell for a fifth time in six sessions, while South Korea’s Kospi dropped about 4% as major AI-linked names faced renewed pressure.
Investors have grown uneasy about the durability of the artificial intelligence investment boom that lifted tech stocks through 2025, with concerns building around stretched valuations, slowing earnings momentum, and the possibility that corporate AI spending may crest sooner than expected.
Bitcoin price sell-off
The risk-off tone spread into other markets, with silver plunging as much as 17% and gold falling more than 3%, signaling broad deleveraging across speculative and commodity-linked trades.
Bitcoin price’s decline also reflected fading institutional demand. U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of roughly $545 million on Wednesday, marking a second consecutive day of withdrawals.
BlackRock’s IBIT led the selling with about $373 million in net outflows.
CryptoQuant research highlighted the reversal in ETF-driven demand. At this point in 2025, spot ETFs had purchased about 46,000 bitcoin on a net basis.
In early 2026, they have instead become net sellers, reducing holdings by roughly 10,600 BTC year-to-date, creating a demand gap of about 56,000 BTC versus last year.
The decline leaves the bitcoin price down about 20% year-to-date and roughly 45% from its October peak near $126,000. Market veterans have warned that the pattern of consecutive lower highs and lower lows resembles sustained distribution rather than isolated retail panic.
Strategy’s ($MSTR) losses and bitcoin mining difficulty
Attention now turns to Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings report Thursday. The company holds about 713,502 BTC, and investors are watching for any changes in its balance-sheet posture.
Strategy shares have collapsed more than 70% from their 2025 high, recently trading near $120, levels last seen in September 2024. The decline has weighed on public pension funds with exposure to the stock, with reported paper losses in the hundreds of millions.
Despite price dips, Chairman Michael Saylor has made it clear that Strategy won’t be selling its Bitcoin — and in fact is doubling down on purchases even as the market dips, signaling his intent to keep accumulating more.
Earlier this week, Strategy said it purchased 855 bitcoin for about $75.3 million, paying a bitcoin price of $87,974 per BTC, according to a Monday filing.
Stress has also emerged in the mining sector. Bitcoin’s price near $71,000 sits below estimates of all-in production costs near $87,000, compressing margins.
CryptoQuant data shows network hashrate has fallen about 12% from October highs, while daily mining revenue briefly dropped to $28 million. A difficulty adjustment expected on Feb. 8 could cut mining difficulty by roughly 14%, offering relief to operators still online.
U.S. government can’t ‘bail out’ bitcoin
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the House Financial Services Committee that the U.S. government has no authority to “bail out” bitcoin or direct banks to buy BTC.
Rep. Brad Sherman pressed him on whether regulators could intervene like they did during the 2008 financial crisis, but Bessent rejected the idea outright.
He said that the government’s only bitcoin price exposure comes from law enforcement seizures, not taxpayer-funded investments.
Per BM Pro data, Bitcoin price fell 9% over the past 24 hours to $69,402 on $101 billion in trading volume, pulling its market cap down to $1.39 trillion as it trades near its seven-day low with 19.98 million BTC in circulation.
Bullish (BLSH), the crypto trading platform and parent company of CoinDesk, reported a net loss of $563.6 million for the fourth quarter, a reversal from the $158.5 million in profit it posted the year before.
The company lost $3.73 a share, down from earnings of $1.37 per share, as it cited non-cash digital-asset remeasurement losses.
Bullish started spot crypto trading in the U.S. in September, marking its entry into a tightly regulated and competitive market. The platform saw $64.3 billion in spot trading volume during the quarter.
It also debuted an options trading business as part of a broader push to diversify its offerings. The new business line generated $9 billion in options trading volume for the quarter.
Bullish shares fell 5% in pre market trading following the earnings announcement.
Bullish went public on the New York Stock Exchange in August through a direct listing. The company had previously operated as a private exchange focused on institutional clients.
Ripple Prime extends its multi-asset prime brokerage platform to include Hyperliquid, a leading decentralized derivatives venue
Ripple, a provider of blockchain-based enterprise solutions across traditional and digital finance, today announced that Ripple Prime, its institutional prime brokerage platform, enabled support for Hyperliquid, a high-performance decentralized derivatives protocol. This integration enables institutional clients to access onchain derivatives liquidity while cross-margining decentralized finance (DeFi) exposures with all other asset classes supported by Ripple Prime, including digital assets, FX, fixed income, OTC swaps, and cleared derivatives.
By supporting Hyperliquid, Ripple Prime continues its mission to bridge traditional finance and decentralized markets, offering institutions seamless access to DeFi venues within a unified, capital-efficient prime brokerage framework. Clients can access Hyperliquid liquidity while benefiting from a single counterparty relationship, centralized risk management, and consolidated margin across their entire portfolio.
“At Ripple Prime, we are excited to continue leading the way in merging decentralized finance with traditional prime brokerage services, offering direct support to trading, yield generation and a wider range of digital assets. This strategic extension of our prime brokerage platform into DeFi will enhance our clients’ access to liquidity, providing the greater efficiency and innovation that our institutional clients demand,” saidMichael Higgins, International CEO, Ripple Prime.
The inclusion of Hyperliquid underscores Ripple Prime’s commitment to supporting best-in-class liquidity venues across centralized and decentralized markets. As institutional participation in DeFi accelerates, Ripple Prime aims to provide clients with scalable access to next-generation trading infrastructure while preserving the controls and capital efficiency expected of a global prime broker.
XRP (XRP) price dropped below $1.50 over the weekend, its lowest level in over 14 months. Now, a bearish technical setup on the charts suggests that the downtrend may extend throughout February.
Key takeaways:
XRP’s bear pennant on the four-hour chart targets $1.22.
XRP futures open interest dropped to $2.61 billion, which gives some hope for the bulls.
XRP dropped below the pennant’s lower trendline on Tuesday, then rebounded to retest it as support. The price is likely to drop lower if the retest fails and a four-hour candlestick closes below this level at $1.58.
The measured target of the bear pennant, calculated by adding the height of the initial drop to the breakout point, is $1.22, representing a 23% drop from the current price.
XRP’s recovery to $2.40 in January turned out to be a “fakeout” as “price formed a fresh lower low,” pseudonymous analyst AltCryptoGems said in a recent post on X, adding:
“The downtrend remains intact and we are on the verge of a disastrous collapse in a huge no-support zone.”
XRP/USD daily chart. Source: AltCryptoGems
Trader and investor Alex Clay said that after breaching the support line of a double bottom pattern at $1.60, the path is now cleared for a drop toward $1 or lower.
Source: X/Alex Clay
As Cointelegraph reported, XRP’s next major support level is near its aggregated realized price at $1.48. If this level is lost, it would put the average holder underwater, a setup that closely matches the 2022 bear phase that ultimately ended in a 50% drawdown toward $0.30.
XRP buyers step back
The 90-day Spot Taker Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD), a metric that tracks whether market orders are driven by buyers or sellers, reveals that buy orders (taker buy) have been declining sharply since early January.
While demand-side pressure has dominated the order book since November 2025, buy orders have dropped sharply over the last 30 days, according to CryptoQuant.
This indicates waning enthusiasm or exhaustion among XRP investors, signaling reduced bullish momentum and increasing downside risk for the price.
Previous sharp drops in spot CVD have been accompanied by 28%-50% price drawdowns within weeks.
XRP spot taker CVD. Source: CryptoQuant
However, in the current downtrend, one hope for the bulls is the declining XRP futures open interest (OI). It has dropped sharply to $2.61 billion on Wednesday, from $4.55 billion on Jan. 6.
When OI declines in combination with falling prices, it indicates a weakening bearish trend or a potential trend reversal.
This could provide some fuel for the bulls to test the important overhead resistance at about $1.85, a level that served as support throughout most of 2025.
XRP Open Interest. Source: CoinGlass
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.
South Korean regulators are stepping up oversight of the domestic cryptocurrency market, signaling a faster, more coordinated approach to detecting suspicious trading activity amid renewed volatility.
The heightened scrutiny was highlighted after South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said it was reviewing sharp price movements in the ZKsync token listed on Upbit, following extreme volatility concentrated around a system maintenance window, according to The Korea Economic Daily (Hankyung).
The FSS said it was analyzing data and could escalate the review into a formal investigation, depending on the findings.
FSS officials and legal experts cited by Hankyung described the case as indicative of how regulators now respond to sudden price swings. The focus is less on isolated incidents and more on strengthening systems and clarifying expectations for exchanges operating as critical infrastructure.
Cointelegraph reached out to Upbit operator Dunamu for comments, but did not get a response before publication.
Faster detection and earlier escalation
South Korea’s push to tighten crypto market oversight has been accompanied by recent legislative and surveillance changes.
On Monday, the FSS expanded its use of artificial intelligence to monitor digital asset trading, upgrading its in-house crypto intelligence system to automatically detect potential crypto manipulation across different time frames.
The watchdog said the system reduces reliance on manual investigations and enables earlier detection of suspicious trading windows. Additional planned upgrades include tools to detect coordinated trading networks and trace the origin of funds used in suspected manipulation.
Regulators have also signaled a willingness to intervene faster. On Jan. 6, local media reported that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) was weighing mechanisms to enable pre-emptive freezing of funds to prevent the laundering of illicit proceeds linked to active investigations.
Related: South Korea’s Coinone weighs stake sale amid Coinbase speculation
From surveillance to enforcement
The surveillance push comes as courts begin applying criminal penalties under South Korea’s crypto investor protection laws.
On Wednesday, the Seoul Southern District Court reportedly handed down its first prison sentence under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, convicting a crypto executive, identified only by the surname Lee, of price manipulation involving a token listed on local exchange Bithumb.
According to Hankyung, the court sentenced the executive to three years in prison, ruling that repeated high-price buying and low-price selling, along with the placement of deceptive buy orders, constituted market manipulation.
Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons
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