Solana Ecosystem Meme Coin PIPPIN Hits All-Time High, Surging 14.45% in 24 Hours

February 15 — The Block’s Director of Projects Frank Chaparro reported that Wells Fargo posted a job opening for a Digital Asset Services Lead four days ago. Key responsibilities for the role include developing a three-to-five-year strategy covering tokenized deposits, on-chain collateral, intraday liquidity, and 24/7 programmable payments — with full integration into wire transfers, ACH, RTP, FedNow, and SWIFT. Separately, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley have recently hired senior leaders in the cryptocurrency space.

As of February 15, per Onchain Lens monitoring data, a whale has transferred 1,536 ETH—held for nearly four years—to Kraken, netting an estimated $1.95 million in profit.

**February 15th, in his "Fed Watcher" column, Nick Timiraos noted that key U.S. economic indicators are aligning positively: inflation is easing, the labor market remains strong, and growth is steady. This isn’t a final call, but it’s the closest the U.S. economy has ever come to a soft landing—restraining inflation without triggering a recession. Four years ago, most economists dismissed this as impossible; today, the scenario of inflation falling back to the Fed’s 2% target without a recession is plausible again.** **Yet while the economy doesn’t need an oxygen mask, it’s still too soon to unbuckle the seatbelt. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge—year-over-year core PCE—is currently near 3%. Many forecasters expect inflation to make little headway this year as tariff-related price hikes spread to more sectors. Meanwhile, the labor market may not be as strong as last week’s report suggested. Payden&Rygel Chief Economist Jeffrey Cleveland notes objectively that the labor market has

On February 15, at the Bitcoin Investor Conference, Robert Mitchnick—head of digital assets at BlackRock—said rampant leverage speculation on crypto derivative platforms is amplifying market volatility and could harm Bitcoin’s long-term standing as a stable institutional hedge. Mitchnick noted Bitcoin’s fundamentals as a “global, scarce, decentralized monetary asset” remain strong, but its short-term trading behavior is increasingly resembling a “leveraged Nasdaq”—a perception that will significantly raise the bar for conservative institutional investors to allocate to the asset. He also pushed back against the idea that a spot ETF would worsen market volatility. (CoinDesk)

On February 15, Dragonfly partner Haseeb posted that most crypto founders believe they need to launch a token during a bull market—but they’re wrong. Timing isn’t critical. Analyzing Binance token listing data, Haseeb found the annualized ROI of tokens launched in bull vs. bear markets shows no significant difference; any perceived gap is just noise. He recommends projects launch tokens in bear markets, citing advantages like less talent competition, lower service provider costs, and reduced CEX listing competition. While bull market token sales may see higher demand, these factors don’t have a meaningful overall impact. The key is to launch the product as soon as possible and build something truly valuable. “I often tell entrepreneurs: Solana launched 4 days after Bitcoin dropped $4k amid the 2020 COVID crash. Timing isn’t that important—what matters is launching.”

Feb 15: A crypto whale faced margin call liquidation again as Ethereum briefly dipped below the $2,000 mark, per HyperInsight data. Within 30 minutes, the whale rushed to cut leverage—625 ETH worth of long positions were liquidated, pushing its liquidation price down to $1,985.85.