50T Investor Newsletter (Feb 16th)
Feb 16, 2026
Hi Investors,
A busy week for institutions in DeFi: BlackRock pushed its $2.1Bn BUIDL fund further onchain through a Uniswap integration and added UNI exposure, Apollo moved to acquire Morpho tokens to expand into onchain lending, and a new Aave proposal seeks to route 100% of product revenue to its DAO. At the same time, LayerZero introduced an institutional Layer 1 backed by Citadel, ICE, and DTCC, X confirmed plans for in-app crypto and equity trading, Coinbase leaned further into AI-native finance with Agentic Wallets alongside earnings, and Animoca secured new licenses - despite volatility, institutional adoption continues to press forward.
Below are the key developments.
Market Moves
BlackRock enabled its $2.1Bn BUIDL tokenized fund to trade via UniswapX and made a strategic investment within the Uniswap ecosystem
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Aave Labs proposed routing 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO and ratifying Aave V4 as the core protocol architecture
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LayerZero unveiled Zero, a new Layer 1 blockchain targeting institutional financial infrastructure, backed by Citadel Securities, Tether, and ARK Invest, and built in partnership with DTCC and Google Cloud
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X confirmed it will launch in-app crypto and stock trading via Smart Cashtags, with payments beta expected within one to two months
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The CFTC announced a 35-member Innovation Advisory Committee including leadership from Coinbase, Uniswap, Polymarket, Kraken, Gemini, Anchorage, and major TradFi firms
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Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets, enabling AI agents to hold funds, send payments, trade tokens, and earn yield onchain
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Anchorage Digital, Kamino, and Solana Company launched institutional collateral management on Solana via Anchorage’s Atlas platform
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Apollo agreed to potentially purchase up to 90MM Morpho tokens over four years to expand institutional onchain lending
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Portfolio Headlines
 | Animoca Brands secures Dubai VASP license to provide broker-dealer and investment services |
 | Coinbase reported Q4 2025 revenue of $1.78Bn, with stablecoin revenue reaching a quarterly high of $364MM and nearly 1MM Coinbase One subscribers Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets, enabling AI agents to hold funds, send payments, trade tokens, and earn yield onchain Interactive Brokers added nano Bitcoin and Ether futures via Coinbase Derivatives Deribit won FOW Derivatives Trading System of the Year Stripe added x402 integration for USDC agent payments on Base |
 | Ripple Custody partnered with Figment to offer institutional staking for networks including Ethereum and Solana |
 | Ledger integrated OKX DEX into its wallet to expand secure self-custodial trading |
 | QuickNode announced support for x402 |
 | TRM Labs reported that the U.S. Treasury is probing crypto exchanges over Iran sanctions evasion |
 | Yuga Labs revealed development of a BAYC anime series |
Charts of the Week
Thursday recorded the second-highest perpetual DEX volume on record, second only to October 10
More than $100Bn is currently locked in smart contract applications across Ethereum and other chains
Aave generated roughly 2x more revenue over the past year than the other top 10 lending protocols combined
Industry News Flash
Industry News
Crypto.com founder purchased ai.com for $70MM
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Deel partnered with MoonPay to enable stablecoin salary payouts for global workers
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Jump Trading agreed to take small stakes in Polymarket and Kalshi
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Polymarket launched five-minute Bitcoin price markets
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Phantom announced Phantom Chat, a social messaging feature targeted for 2026 rollout
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Sushi DEX went live on Solana powered by Jupiter’s Ultra API
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Grayscale filed an S-1 for a proposed AAVE ETF
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Farcaster founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan joined stablecoin startup Tempo
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The FDIC agreed to pay legal fees and drop its FOIA dispute over crypto-related “pause letters”
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Thailand advanced plans to integrate crypto into its local derivatives market
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Tether announced plans to add 150 staff over the next 18 months as expansion accelerates
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A privacy-preserving USAD stablecoin launched on Aleo mainnet in partnership with Paxos
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Tether invested in Hyperliquid frontend Dreamcash to expand perps markets using USDT0 collateral
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Robinhood launched a public testnet for its Arbitrum-based blockchain
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Binance partnered with Franklin Templeton to use tokenized money market funds as off-exchange collateral
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Media & Insights
📄 Research Piece of the Week: Galaxy
📌 Post of the Week: Dan Tapiero