What has been happening this week in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies? Current events and background reports in our weekly review.
Selected articles of the week:
The White House is hosting a mediation meeting on February 2 to salvage the stalled negotiations on the CLARITY Act. The central conflict: Should stablecoin issuers be allowed to pay interest on idle customer funds? Tensions escalated in mid-January when the 278-page Senate draft explicitly prohibited this – prompting Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to withdraw his support and warn that a bad law is worse than no law at all. The background is economically explosive: Coinbase alone generated 355 million dollars in revenue from stablecoins in the third quarter of 2025, while 53 banking associations led by the American Bankers Association are lobbying heavily against interest-bearing stablecoins. They fear for 6.6 trillion dollars in bank deposits. But their real concern is protecting their margins. The national average savings rate in the US currently stands at 0.61%, while banks invest the same deposits in Treasury bonds yielding around 3.6%. This difference is enormously profitable, and stablecoins with competitive yields would expose how little banks pass on to their depositors. The chances of a quick agreement have declined: prediction markets like Polymarket see the probability at only 50 percent. The new target: passage before the midterm elections in November.
The White House mediates stalled CLARITY Act negotiations between the crypto industry and banks ahead of a February 2 meeting.
Standard Chartered forecasts 500 billion dollar outflow from banks
British major bank Standard Chartered warns of a massive exodus of bank deposits into stablecoins: By the end of 2028, 500 billion dollars could flow out of banks in developed markets, with another trillion from emerging markets. The forecast is based on the assumption that the stablecoin market will grow to two trillion dollars by then – with about one-third sourced directly from bank deposits. The incentive is obvious: While US savers at traditional banks often receive only 0.1 percent interest, stablecoins offer up to 4 percent. Geoff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, sees US regional banks like Huntington Bancshares, M&T Bank and Truist Financial as particularly vulnerable. The concern is not new: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan already warned of a possible outflow of 6 trillion dollars – equivalent to 30 to 35 percent of all US bank deposits. The temporal parallel to the disruption caused by money market funds in the 1970s and 1980s is striking.
Standard Chartered predicts a massive outflow of capital from the traditional banking sector due to the rise of stablecoins.
Fidelity Investments launches stablecoin FIDD
The world’s third-largest asset manager, Fidelity Investments with 6.4 trillion dollars in assets under management, is entering the stablecoin business. The Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) launches on Ethereum in early February, backed 1:1 by US dollars, cash equivalents and short-term US Treasury bonds. Reserves will be disclosed transparently on a daily basis, with audited reports following monthly. The timing is no coincidence: Fidelity Digital Assets received conditional approval from the US banking regulator OCC as a National Trust Bank on December 12, 2025 – on the same day as Circle, Ripple, BitGo and Paxos. The regulatory framework has been in place since July 2025 with the GENIUS Act, the first comprehensive federal law for stablecoins. Fidelity earns from FIDD through interest income from the deposited Treasury bonds, but according to the GENIUS Act may not pass this on to users. The stablecoin market has long been a billion-dollar business: Tether dominates with 187 billion dollars, USDC holds 72 billion, while PayPal’s PYUSD grew 216 percent to 3.8 billion in under 90 days. Now a Wall Street titan is entering for the first time.
Fidelity launches the FIDD stablecoin, a digital dollar on Ethereum. The third-largest asset manager in the world bets on blockchain.
Altcoins overtake Bitcoin on SIX Swiss Exchange
A remarkable shift occurred at the Swiss stock exchange SIX in 2025: For the first time, altcoins accounted for around two-thirds of trading volume in crypto products – Bitcoin fell from 51 percent market share in 2024 to just 32 percent. Total volume remained stable at around 6 billion francs, but the distribution tells a clear story: Solana captured 25 percent, XRP 15 percent, Ethereum 13 percent. The clear winner was the 21Shares Solana Staking ETP (ASOL) with 870 million francs in trading volume and 28,669 transactions. Despite the Bitcoin decline, interest in crypto investments remains unbroken: SIX listed over 450 products from more than 20 issuers at the end of 2025, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETP since August. The geographical distribution of investors is striking: 37 percent come from Switzerland, 34 percent from the Netherlands, 15 percent from the United Kingdom. The currency preference shows the international orientation: 78 percent of products are traded in US dollars.
Crypto products on the SIX: Altcoins overtake Bitcoin (BTC) in trading volume. Solana (SOL) and XRP overtake Ethereum (ETH).
Gemini closes NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway after seven years
Crypto exchange Gemini is drawing the line under its NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway after seven years. The platform will end definitively on February 23, with withdrawal-only mode already running since January 23. Around 650,000 NFTs must be withdrawn by the deadline – anyone missing the deadline risks losses of up to 7.8 million dollars. The decline reflects the collapse of the entire NFT market: From 17 billion dollars at the beginning of 2022, volume shrank by 84 percent to 2.8 billion in January 2026, with monthly trading volume falling from 6 billion to 300 million. Yet Nifty Gateway had recorded over 300 million dollars in monthly revenue in mid-2021 and was the venue for spectacular drops: Artist Beeple achieved 582,000 dollars in minutes, musician Grimes sold her “WarNymph” collection for 6 million in 20 minutes. But Gemini is now focusing on its “Super-App Vision” with Self-Custody Wallet. The platform joins a long list of NFT marketplaces closed in 2025: Kraken NFT, X2Y2, Bybit NFT, even Nike shut down RTFKT.
Gemini shuts down NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway on February 23, 2026. Users have one month to withdraw approximately 650,000 NFTs.
