Ecosystem Update February 2026

We are pleased to share the February 2026 Ecosystem Update, highlighting developments in the macro environment, market performance, the broader industry landscape, and Advanced Blockchain’s ecosystem.

Macro Overview

                                                                      Market Cap development of the whole industry in Feb 2026. Source: CoinGecko

Over February, total crypto market cap trended down from roughly $2.8T on Feb 1 to the mid-$2.3T range by month-end, with the defining move being the sharp Feb 4 - 6 drawdown: market cap slid steadily into Feb 4–5 and then air-pocketed to ~$2.25T around Feb 6 before snapping back quickly toward ~$2.45T. That profile matches the ETF/flow-shock dynamic from spot-ETF. Bitcoin ETFs’ witnessed a historical high volume of over $10B in one single day, composed of huge BlackRock’s IBIT net outflow. The resulting mechanical spot selling (plus thin liquidity + derivatives liquidations) can compress prices rapidly, and because BTC is the largest weight in the index, it drags total market cap with it. After that flush, the rest of the month was mostly range-bound consolidation, oscillating roughly $2.33T - $2.48T.

‍Regulation & Policy: Market-Structure in Motion

Ahead of a White House hosted summit in early February, Coinbase and major banking/crypto trade groups signaled they would use the meeting to try to break the deadlock on US crypto market-structure legislation - specifically the fight over whether stablecoins can pay “rewards”/interest-like returns (a bank priority to restrict vs. a crypto priority to preserve). The follow-up was that the closed-door White House meeting ultimately failed to produce a compromise, with participants calling the talks constructive but acknowledging that the stablecoin rewards issue remained unresolved—leaving the broader legislative package (often framed as the Clarity Act / market-structure framework) still stalled and requiring further negotiations. 

US regulators signaled a more coordinated approach to crypto oversight as the CFTC and SEC agreed to fold their efforts into a joint “Project Crypto” initiative, launched at a Jan. 29, 2026 joint harmonization event led by SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig, with the stated goal of modernizing legacy rules, aligning definitions/taxonomy, and preparing to implement forthcoming digital-asset market-structure legislation being developed in Congress (including reducing fragmentation between securities vs. commodities oversight and enabling onshore pathways for products that have largely lived offshore).

Moves from Industry Big Names

Tether reported that its 2025 net profit topped $10B (down ~23% YoY from ~$13B), even as the company expanded reserves and leaned further into highly liquid U.S. government debt: direct U.S. Treasury holdings exceeded $122B and total Treasury exposure surpassed $141B (including indirect exposure such as reverse repos), while USDT supply grew by roughly $50B over the year to ~186B in circulation and excess reserves rose to ~$6.3B - framing the results as evidence of sustained global demand for dollar liquidity outside traditional banking rails despite lower headline profitability.

Hyperliquid’s precious-metals perpetuals saw a notable volume jump even as broader precious-metals demand was described as soft: as of Jan 31, 2026, its PAXG + GOLD contracts posted $602.7M in 24h volume with $196M open interest, SILVER hit $2.659B in 24h volume with $224M open interest, and COPPER added $161.3M volume with $115.8M open interest—putting gold/silver contracts into Hyperliquid’s top-10 most-traded markets over the period. 

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) reported a $12.4B net loss in Q4 2025, largely driven by mark-to-market/unrealized losses on its massive Bitcoin holdings as BTC slid below the firm’s average purchase price, sending MSTR shares down ~17% to an 18-month low immediately after the earnings release—underscoring how the company’s equity has become a leveraged proxy on Bitcoin’s price moves (with accounting volatility now a recurring headline risk).

Uniswap Labs announced a partnership with Securitize to make BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) tradable onchain via UniswapX, enabling near-instant swaps between BUIDL and USDC for pre-qualified/whitelisted investors through UniswapX’s RFQ workflow (with quotes from whitelisted market makers and atomic onchain settlement). The move is framed as a step toward bridging TradFi and DeFi by giving institutional BUIDL holders 24/7 liquidity access while maintaining onboarding/whitelisting via Securitize, and it also noted that BlackRock made a strategic investment in the Uniswap ecosystem alongside the integration.

Group Update

On the 10th of February 2026, the Annual Shareholders Meeting took place where several topics were discussed and voted on. The agenda items entailed the discharge of management and supervisory board members, the election of the auditor for the 2025 financial year, the election of Mathias Roch to the supervisory board, resolutions on the creation of new authorised and conditional capital, the appointment of special auditors in relation to particular historical matters, among others. The voting results on the different agenda items can be accessed here.

The accounting process of Advanced Blockchain AG has been concluded and the audit process shall be initiated accordingly. Furthermore, the accounting process of Incredulous Labs Ltd. is in its final stages and shall be concluded in the first week of March 2026, followed by the audit process. The accounting process for all other group entities shall be concluded during the course of March 2026.

The valuation of the group’s equity and not-yet live tokens has been concluded and shall be published in due course. 

During the course of February 2026, we received a capital distribution from Permanent Ventures Fund of approximately $130,000. Further capital distributions are planned for the remainder of 2026.

Edison Research, in collaboration with our team, has published its first research report covering a wide range of aspects about the group and its new strategy, among other relevant topics. The research report is accessible here.

Lastly, our team continues to be in close contact with our portfolio companies, in particular Panoptic and zCloak Network, on business development topics, including facilitating introductions to relevant partners from our network, in support of broader strategic initiatives planned for 2026.

Portfolio Update

Light Protocol - February was a quieter but technically meaningful month for Light Protocol, with the team continuing to deepen developer accessibility for ZK Compression on Solana. Active development continued across the core protocol GitHub repositories through mid-February, with consistent engineering contributions indicating steady protocol work rather than a period of slowdown. 

Overall, Light Protocol quietly but meaningfully aligned its infrastructure with the emerging AI-agent developer stack, ensuring ZK Compression stays accessible and composable as Solana's ecosystem continues to scale.

zCloak Network - zCloak’s communications leaned heavily into the AI × Web3 narrative via ecosystem events around Consensus Hong Kong 2026 (Feb 10-12, 2026). zCloak announced it was an official partner for the Web3 × AI Connect gathering in Hong Kong, sharing event details and positioning zCloak AI around trust, identity, and privacy for the AI era.

The team also announced the Agent Trust Protocol, combining internet identity, vetKeys, fast finality, decentralized storage, chain fusion, and potentially TEE servers.

Polymer - February was a standout month for Polymer Labs, highlighted by the launch of its zero-slippage USDC bridge on February 24, built in collaboration with LI.FI and live on the Jumper Exchange.

The launch generated strong visibility across Ethereum-focused media and community outlets, reinforcing Polymer's conviction that interoperability in 2026 is no longer optional infrastructure but the default expectation for any serious multi-chain application. The milestone was complemented by Polymer hitting $1.5B in total volume across 50+ chains with a 0.53s median latency — a tangible demonstration of the protocol's growing real-world adoption.

Panoptic - February was an active month for Panoptic, centred around ETH Denver 2026. The team attended the conference in mid-to-late February, where co-founder Guillaume Lambert delivered a talk on the future of DeFi and the case for native volatility infrastructure. The core message: DeFi needs capital-efficient, permissionless options markets, not just perpetual swaps as the foundation for the next generation of financial products.

The team closed the month having formed new partnerships and advanced strategic conversations feeding into the upcoming V2 beta launch, leaving Denver with renewed conviction and sharper product direction.

Peaq - A major research report from HashKey positioned peaq as the leading Layer-1 blockchain for the convergence of Web3 and robotics, highlighting its ability to assign on-chain identities, wallets, and economic agency to machines — strengthening its first-mover positioning in the emerging Machine Economy. On the ecosystem side, Roam Network released its litepaper detailing a "Digital Terrain Map" for the telecommunications and physical AI industries, while Peaq Escrow powered by LayerZero unlocked omnichain transactions for robots.

In addition, peaq announced a partnership with Strategy Alliance and idOS to support German SMEs in entering the Machine Economy, focusing on machine IDs, machine wallets, and compliant tokenization for real-world industrial deployment. Further advancing its RWA narrative, peaq launched the Machine Tokenization (RWA) Framework — the first full-stack framework to tokenize and finance robots — with limited spots available for the official pilot. The Purple Paper, peaq's long-term masterplan, remained on the community's radar heading into March.

Silencio - Silencio remained fully focused on both the monetization and community fronts. The team completed a second payout, reporting exceptionally strong demand for its voice data,

On February 5, co-founder Theo Messerer appeared on the debut episode of The Relay by DePIN Digest, alongside other sector founders. The appearance kept Silencio visible and relevant in the broader decentralised data conversation. February was a steady, execution-focused month for Silencio: monetization was live, token mechanics were functioning, and community engagement remained active as the team builds toward its next phase of product and revenue growth.

Teneo - February was a highly active month for Teneo, centred on a major integration that demonstrated the practical reality of autonomous agent-to-agent commerce. Teneo published a case study on how Pulsar Money streamlined on-chain verification using Teneo Protocol. 

Teneo also announced that its Agent SDK had been integrated as a native skill for Clawdbots on the Moltbook platform. The result: Clawdbots can now query Teneo Agents for real-time web signals and settle the payment autonomously using the x402 protocol, a live, functioning instance of Agent-to-Agent (A2A) commerce in production.

Teneo's transition from a platform that enables agent monetization in theory to one where agents are earning in real time.

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Closing Remarks

February marked a pivotal month for the group, defined by the successful completion of the Annual Shareholders Meeting, meaningful progress across financial and operational workstreams, and continued momentum within our portfolio.

At the group level, several milestones were reached: the accounting process of Advanced Blockchain AG was concluded, the valuation of the group's equity and not-yet live tokens was completed, and the first Edison Research report was published. The capital distribution received from Permanent Ventures Fund further underlines the tangible value being unlocked across the portfolio.

Across our portfolio companies, a recurring theme of projects transitioning from infrastructure development into real-world execution and product impact. Polymer's zero-slippage USDC bridge went live, Teneo's agents began earning in production, Panoptic deepened its strategic positioning ahead of V2, the new version of the protocol, and peaq received meaningful institutional research validation. Meanwhile, Light Protocol, zCloak Network, and Silencio each made quiet but deliberate progress in aligning their offerings with the broader AI × Web3 narrative that continues to gain traction.

The broader market environment remained challenging, with continued macro headwinds and regulatory uncertainty weighing on sentiment. Nevertheless, we remain firmly focused on building long-term value — for our portfolio companies, our shareholders, and the ecosystem at large.

We thank our shareholders and partners for their continued support and look forward to sharing further progress in the coming months.

Best regards,
Your Advanced Blockchain Team

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