This week, rumors of a “10 a.m. Bitcoin dump” blamed on quantitative trading company Jane Street gained traction online after it was sued by Terraform Labs’ court-appointed administrator, but market watchers said the data does not support a consistent, company-driven selloff.
The accusations mounted a day after Jane Street was sued by Terraform Labs’ administrator amid allegations of insider trading that worsened the collapse of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem in May 2022.
Elsewhere in the market, demand for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds returned after five consecutive weeks of net negative outflows. US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs took in over $1 billion in three consecutive days this week, with $254 million in cumulative inflows on Thursday, according to Farside Investors data.
Corporate Ether treasuries also came under pressure. The leader in corporate Ether (ETH), Bitmine Immersion Technologies, was seen facing an $8.8 billion paper loss on its holdings amid the ongoing market downturn.
Analysts reject Jane Street “10 a.m. dump” claims, say Bitcoin isn’t easily manipulated
Cryptocurrency investors accused quantitative trading company Jane Street of pressuring Bitcoin’s price with a daily, programmatic sell-off at the US market open, but market analysts and data suggest the pattern is not consistent, and no single company can force Bitcoin into a prolonged bear market.
The claims surged online a day after Terraform Labs’ court-appointed administrator sued Jane Street, alleging insider trading tied to transactions that worsened the collapse of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem in May 2022.
Several market watchers, including crypto influencer Justin Bechler, have argued that Jane Street’s holding of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF), known as IBIT, could mask a net short Bitcoin position through hedges that do not appear in public filings. Bechler argued that Jane Street conducted coordinated algorithmic selling of Bitcoin at 10 a.m. EST daily, manipulating the Bitcoin (BTC) price to buy the ETF at a discount.
”When Jane Street reports holding $790 million in IBIT shares, the filing tells you nothing about whether those shares are hedged by puts, offset by short futures, or wrapped in a collar that makes the firm’s net Bitcoin exposure zero or even negative,” wrote Bechler, adding that the ”actual position could be a massive short that looks like a long because the offsetting half of the trade is invisible under current disclosure rules.”
CryptoQuant’s head of research, Julio Moreno, cautioned that the activity Bechler described is not unique to one company. He said buying spot exposure while selling futures is a common approach for delta-neutral funds seeking to capture spreads rather than directional price moves.
Jane Street’s latest 13-F filing also disclosed holdings in Strategy, as well as sizable positions in Bitcoin mining companies Bitfarms, Cipher Mining and Hut 8.
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Vitalik sells 17,000 ETH in one month after earmarking $45 million for privacy
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has reduced his Ether balance by about 17,000 ETH in one month after announcing plans to earmark $45 million worth of tokens for privacy projects.
Buterin’s wallets tracked by Arkham held about 241,000 Ether (ETH) in early February, before a series of outflows reduced the combined balance to 224,000 ETH on Tuesday.
The reduction came amid continued selling by Buterin, including about 2,961 Ether worth $6.6 million over a three-day period earlier in the month. Onchain analysts reported that this accelerated recently as he sold $7 million worth of tokens in three days.
Arkham Intelligence data shows the ETH sales were routed via decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator CoW Protocol using numerous smaller swaps instead of one large transaction, a method typically employed to minimize market impact.
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Bitmine paper loss nears $8.8 billion as Ether slump tests cyclical thesis
Corporate Ether treasuries are coming under increasing pressure as the crypto downturn deepens, with analysts warning the market is approaching a make-or-break phase for Ether’s investment case.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies, one of the biggest corporate holders of Ether (ETH), is sitting on a large unrealized loss as ETH trades well below the company’s average acquisition price, according to third-party tracker Bitminetracker. Some estimates put Bitmine’s paper losses in the $8.8 billion range after Ether’s slide over recent months.
ETH’s price has fallen 60% during the past six months, dropping well below Bitmine’s average cost basis of $3,843 per token, Bitminetracker data shows.
Crypto research outlet 10x Research said Monday that Ether is now trading near valuation and cost-basis levels that test whether the asset is simply in a cyclical downturn or entering a period of deeper, structural weakness.
“Investors must therefore assess carefully whether the asset is simply in a cyclical downturn or entering a phase of deeper structural impairment.”
Bitmine continues to buy ETH despite the mounting paper losses. Last week, Bitmine acquired 45,749 Ether at an average aggregate cost basis of $1,992 per ETH, signaling confidence from the world’s largest Ether treasury firm.
Big Wall Street participants are maintaining exposure to Bitmine despite the market downturn.
The top 11 Bitmine shareholders, including Morgan Stanley, Ark Investment Management and asset manager BlackRock, have all increased their exposure to the treasury company during the fourth quarter of 2025.
Bitmine’s stock price has fallen by about 59% over the past six months and traded at $19.68 in the pre-market on Monday, data from Google Finance showed.
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Aave surpasses $1 trillion in lending volume amid institutional expansion
Decentralized finance protocol Aave has surpassed $1 trillion in cumulative lending volume, marking a historic first in the DeFi industry.
“A decade ago, DeFi and Aave didn’t exist. They were just ideas. Today, Aave stands as the backbone of onchain lending, powering a new financial system that is open, global, and unstoppable,” Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov said in an X post on Wednesday.
The feat marked another step toward Aave’s goal of becoming the “largest, most efficient liquidity network in the world,” Kulechov added. “One that builders, banks, and fintechs plug into by default, fundamentally improving liquidity and cost structures across global finance.”
In August, Aave Labs launched Aave Horizon, a new lending market on Ethereum, specifically for traditional finance firms and other institutional investors to borrow stablecoins against real-world assets.
VanEck, WisdomTree and Securitize were among the first participants to use Aave’s institutional offering.
On Feb. 15, Kulechov said DeFi lending could benefit from tokenizing “abundance assets,” such as solar, batteries for energy storage and robotics for labor. He expects those assets to be worth a combined $50 trillion by 2050.
Kulechov originally launched Aave as ETHLend in November 2017 before rebranding to Aave in September 2018. It now secures over $27.2 billion in total value locked, enabling users to earn interest on deposits and borrow instantly using crypto as collateral.
Aave leads several prominent DeFi lending platforms in TVL, including Morpho, JustLend, SparkLend, Maple, Kamin Lend and Compound Finance, each of which holds over $1 billion in total value locked.
Aave has generated over $83.3 million in fees over the last 30 days, nearly four times that of its next-closest competitor, Morpho.
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Curve founder says DeFi must ditch token emissions for real revenue
Decentralized finance (DeFi) can no longer rely on inflationary token incentives to sustain growth, according to Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Egorov said protocols must generate real revenue rather than depend on emissions to attract liquidity.
“Your yield should come from revenues, not from tokens,” Egorov told Cointelegraph. “You need real revenues flowing.” He added that if a token “is not doing something, maybe it’s better for you to not do token at all.”
Egorov contrasted the current environment with the “DeFi summer” of 2020, when triple-digit and even 1,000% annual percentage rates drew capital into new protocols. He said that at the time, speculative premiums drove token prices and bootstrapped total value locked (TVL) for protocols.
“Right now, news doesn’t change prices of tokens anymore,” he told Cointelegraph, arguing that users have “re-evaluated the risks.”
His comments came as DeFi’s TVL has fallen about 38% over the past six months, according to DefiLlama. Data from the analytics platform shows TVL dropped from $158 billion on Aug. 23, 2025, to about $98 billion as of Monday.
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DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.
The Pippin (PIPPIN) token rose 55% as the week’s biggest gainer in the top 100, followed by the Decred (DCR) token, up over 44% during the past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
