The UK Treasury has appointed HSBC's Orion platform to support its Digital Gilt Instrument pilot, which is designed to test blockchain-based sovereign bond issuance. The program will issue a digitally native, short-dated gilt within the UK's Digital Securities Sandbox, with onchain settlement separate from the main debt management framework, and HSBC says such digital gilts could markedly speed up transaction settlement times.

On Wednesday, Ark Invest led by Cathie Wood added more shares of Bullish and Circle through three of its exchange-traded funds, taking its Bullish purchases to ten straight trading days. The firm bought 364,044 Bullish shares valued at $11.6 million at the latest close, alongside 75,559 Circle shares worth about $4.4 million, while both stocks and major U.S. equity indexes saw mixed price moves.

On Feb. 6, South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service escalated a routine review into a full investigation of Bithumb after the exchange mistakenly distributed 620,000 BTC worth about $43.1 billion to users. Bithumb has recovered most of the misallocated bitcoin, pledged 110% compensation on user losses, and proposed a 100 billion won protection fund, while the incident fuels political calls for tighter oversight of domestic crypto platforms.

On Monday, BitMine Immersion Technologies purchased $83.6 million worth of ETH, adding 40,000 ETH sourced from FalconX and BitGo to its Ethereum treasury. The firm now holds over 4.32 million ETH and is staking around 67% of its position, while Executive Chairman Tom Lee describes the current market pullback as an attractive phase within the company's long-term Ethereum accumulation strategy.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ro Khanna opened a congressional inquiry into World Liberty Financial over a reported $500 million investment from an entity connected to the UAE royal family and its national security advisor. His letter raises concerns that these financial links, including a 49% stake purchase and related chip export and crypto transactions, could create national security and constitutional risks tied to China.

On Tuesday, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization released a Digital Asset Custody Framework that introduces a four-tier structure for crypto custodians. The rules cap internal custody at 20% of client crypto holdings and allow top-tier external custodians to hold up to 100% of client assets, aiming to address risks highlighted by past failures such as QuadrigaCX.

Ark Invest expanded its holdings in Circle, Bitmine, Bullish, Coinbase and Block Inc. as share prices declined on Monday. The firm bought $9.4 million of Circle stock, $6.25 million of Bitmine shares and $6 million of Bullish, while adding smaller stakes of $1.9 million in Block Inc. and $1.25 million in Coinbase. These moves came as crypto-related equities and major coins like bitcoin and ether recorded notable price drops.

Russia plans to finalize a national cryptocurrency regulatory framework for a vote at the end of June, with implementation targeted for July 1, 2027. The rules would open the market to both qualified and non-qualified investors, cap annual purchases of the most liquid coins for retail participants, and keep a domestic payments ban and licensing obligations for service providers in place.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told Bloomberg on Tuesday that the company aims to become one of the world's leading gold central banks and will actively trade its reserves. Bloomberg reported Tether holds around 140 tons of gold, valued at over $23.3 billion, stored in a Swiss nuclear bunker, and is buying one to two tons per week.