Tariff Jitters, Stablecoin Surge, NEARCON Spotlight

Welcome to our Crypto news in 10, a daily podcast bringing you the latest news about crypto in under 10 minutes.

Here’s what’s moving crypto on Monday, February 23, 2026.

Markets are on edge as bitcoin slips back under $65,000 on renewed tariff talk out of Washington... South Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management teams up with Solana’s Jito Foundation to bring liquid staking into regulated ETPs... Standard Chartered says stablecoins could become a trillion-dollar bid for U.S. T-bills by 2028... Bitdeer empties its bitcoin treasury — temporarily, says the CEO... and NEARCON lands in San Francisco to spotlight decentralized AI and real-world builders. Let’s jump in.

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First, the market picture. Bitcoin started the week heavy — briefly dipping below $65,000 overnight — after former President Trump floated a 15% global tariff under emergency authorities. That rekindled macro jitters.

Risk assets wobbled, and crypto followed, with traders rotating toward havens like gold. Barron’s tied bitcoin’s intraday slide to those tariff headlines and noted broader pressure across ether and large-cap altcoins. Times of India also flagged a roughly 2% dip during the U.S. session, noting bitcoin even pierced $65,000 before stabilizing. If you’ve felt the chop lately, that’s the backdrop — macro uncertainty crowding out risk appetite... again.

On to the day’s biggest structural development. South Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management — one of the country’s heavyweight managers — has partnered with the Jito Foundation to explore regulated exchange-traded products tied to JitoSOL, the liquid staking token on Solana.

The work centers on technical and regulatory groundwork for ETPs that could package staking yield and on-chain liquidity into a wrapper retirement savers can actually touch. Hanwha’s vice president called JitoSOL an "innovative asset" with attractive returns and liquidity — positioning it as an alternative for long-term portfolios. If this advances, it’s a milestone for liquid staking moving into mainstream wrappers in Asia.

Staying with mainstream adoption, a fresh note from Standard Chartered argues that stablecoins could become some of the largest marginal buyers of short-term U.S. debt this cycle. The bank models the stablecoin market cap reaching roughly $2 trillion by the end of 2028 — creating $800 billion to $1 trillion of incremental demand for Treasury bills.

That kind of steady bid could give the U.S. Treasury room to tilt issuance down the curve — analysts even floated the idea that 30-year auctions might pause for a stretch if bill demand materializes at scale. Whether or not that extreme scenario plays out, the punchline is clear: stablecoins aren’t just crypto plumbing — they’re becoming part of the public-debt distribution system.

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Over to miners. Bitdeer grabbed headlines after reporting that it sold the last of its bitcoin — about 943 BTC last week — on top of roughly 190 BTC of weekly production. That brought its treasury balance to zero.

CEO Jihan Wu quickly clarified on X that the balance "will not always be zero," framing the move as a liquidity choice while the company eyes land acquisitions for new sites. If you follow mining equities, it’s a notable tactical pivot. After a bruising start to 2026 — with volatility and difficulty whipsaws — some operators are prioritizing dry powder over hodling, then plan to re-accumulate opportunistically. Bitdeer’s update keeps that debate front and center.

And finally, builders. NEARCON 2026 kicks off in San Francisco today, with programming centered on the AI economy and the next wave of decentralized AI infrastructure. Expect live agent demos, workshops on privacy-preserving compute, and debates on real adoption beyond the buzzwords.

If you track the on-chain AI trend — where models, data, and agents transact and verify on public rails — this conference has become a barometer for what’s real versus what’s marketing. It runs February 23 to 24 and doubles as a showcase for NEAR’s speed and intent-based tooling that has been drawing cross-chain integrations.

Quick recap... Bitcoin starts the week under pressure on fresh tariff chatter. Hanwha and the Jito Foundation push liquid staking ETPs toward Korea’s mainstream. Standard Chartered says stablecoins could become a trillion-dollar T-bill bid by 2028. Bitdeer zeros its BTC stack — temporarily, says the CEO — as it hunts for expansion land. And NEARCON brings the decentralized-AI conversation to San Francisco.

That’s your crypto brief for Monday, February 23, 2026.

Thanks for listening and see you tommorow!