Bitcoin Manipulation Claims Face Pushback, ETF Outflows End

Bitcoin manipulation accusations aimed at quantitative trading giant Jane Street drew sharp pushback from market analysts this week, even as spot Bitcoin ETFs reversed a prolonged outflow drought with more than $1 billion in fresh inflows across three consecutive trading sessions. The weekly roundup also covered Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin continuing to trim his ETH holdings, Aave crossing a landmark $1 trillion in cumulative lending volume, corporate Ether treasuries facing steep unrealized losses, and Curve Finance's founder arguing that decentralized finance protocols must pivot away from inflationary token incentives and toward genuine, sustainable revenue streams.

Is Jane Street Really Manipulating Bitcoin's Price?

The short answer, according to multiple analysts, is no. Cryptocurrency investors accused Jane Street of executing a coordinated algorithmic selloff at 10 a.m. EST each trading day, purportedly driving Bitcoin's price down at the US market open so the firm could purchase ETF shares at a discount. The allegations gained considerable traction online one day after Terraform Labs' court-appointed administrator filed a lawsuit against the quantitative trading firm, alleging insider trading tied to transactions that deepened the catastrophic collapse of Terra's algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem in May 2022.

Crypto influencer Justin Bechler argued that Jane Street's reported $790 million in iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) holdings could mask a net short Bitcoin position through hedges that remain invisible in public regulatory filings. Bechler contended that the firm's "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." He further claimed that the IBIT stake tells investors "nothing about whether those shares are hedged by puts, offset by short futures, or wrapped in a collar" that would render the net Bitcoin exposure zero or even negative, raising pointed questions about the limitations of current financial disclosure requirements.

CryptoQuant's head of research, Julio Moreno, cautioned that the trading behavior Bechler described is hardly unique to one firm. Moreno explained that purchasing spot exposure while simultaneously selling futures is a standard delta-neutral strategy widely used by institutional funds seeking to capture spreads rather than place directional bets on price movement. Jane Street's latest 13-F filing also disclosed positions in Strategy, along with sizable stakes in Bitcoin mining companies Bitfarms, Cipher Mining, and Hut 8, indicating the firm holds broad, diversified crypto market exposure rather than a concentrated bearish wager against Bitcoin.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs Snap Five-Week Outflow Streak

Institutional demand for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds came roaring back this week after five consecutive weeks of net negative redemptions that had weighed on market sentiment. US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed more than $1 billion across three straight trading days, with Thursday alone recording $254 million in cumulative inflows, according to data compiled by Farside Investors. The reversal marked a significant shift in institutional appetite after sustained outflows had applied persistent downward pressure on Bitcoin price action throughout the month of February.

The broader crypto market reflected the improving tone across asset classes. Most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization finished the week in positive territory, suggesting the ETF inflow reversal helped bolster confidence among both retail and institutional participants. The Pippin (PIPPIN) token surged roughly 55% to lead weekly gainers among the top 100 digital assets by market cap, while the Decred (DCR) token climbed more than 44% over the same seven-day period, offering a welcome reprieve after weeks of red across the board.

Vitalik Buterin Continues Selling ETH for Privacy Projects

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reduced his Ether balance by approximately 17,000 ETH over the past month after announcing plans to earmark $45 million in tokens for privacy-focused research and development initiatives. Wallets tracked by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence showed Buterin held around 241,000 ETH in early February before a series of outflows reduced the combined balance to 224,000 ETH by Tuesday of this week.

The pace of selling accelerated notably in recent days, with on-chain analysts reporting that Buterin offloaded roughly $7 million worth of tokens in just three days. Earlier in the month, he sold approximately 2,961 ETH valued at $6.6 million over a separate three-day window. Arkham Intelligence data showed the sales were routed through decentralized exchange aggregator CoW Protocol using numerous smaller swaps rather than a single large transaction, a method designed to minimize slippage and reduce visible market impact from such high-profile wallet activity.

Corporate Ether Treasuries Under Growing Pressure

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, one of the largest corporate holders of Ether, is facing an estimated $8.8 billion paper loss on its ETH treasury as the token trades well below the firm's average acquisition price, according to data compiled by third-party tracker Bitminetracker. ETH has fallen roughly 60% over the past six months, dropping well beneath Bitmine's average cost basis of $3,843 per token, creating a severe gap between the company's book value and current market prices.

Crypto research outlet 10x Research said on Monday that Ether is now trading near valuation and cost-basis levels that test whether the asset faces a cyclical downturn or a period of deeper structural weakness. The firm warned that "investors must therefore assess carefully whether the asset is simply in a cyclical downturn or entering a phase of deeper structural impairment." Despite mounting unrealized losses, Bitmine signaled continued conviction by acquiring an additional 45,749 ETH last week at an average cost of $1,992 per token.

Major Wall Street shareholders appear to share that confidence. The top 11 Bitmine institutional holders, including Morgan Stanley, Ark Investment Management, and asset manager BlackRock, all increased their exposure to the treasury company during the fourth quarter of 2025, according to regulatory filings. Bitmine's stock price has nonetheless fallen about 59% over six months and traded at $19.68 in pre-market trading on Monday, Google Finance data showed.

Aave Crosses $1 Trillion in Cumulative Lending Volume

Decentralized finance protocol Aave became the first DeFi platform to surpass $1 trillion in cumulative lending volume, a historic milestone that underscores the sector's expanding role in the global financial architecture. Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov said the achievement reflects the protocol's evolution from a concept into "the backbone of onchain lending, powering a new financial system that is open, global, and unstoppable." Kulechov described the feat as another step toward Aave's goal of becoming "the largest, most efficient liquidity network in the world."

Aave currently secures more than $27.2 billion in total value locked and has generated over $83.3 million in fees during the past 30 days, nearly four times the amount collected by its closest competitor, Morpho. The protocol 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 deposits. In August, Aave Labs launched Aave Horizon, an institutional lending market on Ethereum designed for traditional finance firms to borrow stablecoins against tokenized real-world assets. VanEck, WisdomTree, and Securitize were among the first institutional participants. Kulechov originally launched the protocol as ETHLend in November 2017 before rebranding to Aave in September 2018.

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.

— Stani Kulechov, CEO of Aave Labs

What Does the Shift Away From Token Incentives Mean for DeFi?

Decentralized finance can no longer rely on inflationary token emissions to sustain growth, according to Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov. Protocols must generate genuine revenue rather than attract liquidity with unsustainable yields, Egorov told reporters in an interview. He stated plainly that "your yield should come from revenues, not from tokens," adding that if a token "is not doing something, maybe it's better for you to not do token at all." The comments signal a broader philosophical shift within the DeFi industry, as leading builders increasingly prioritize sustainable economics over short-term liquidity-farming incentives.

Egorov contrasted the current environment with the so-called "DeFi summer" of 2020, when triple-digit and even 1,000% annual percentage rates attracted speculative capital into newly launched protocols. He argued that market participants have since fundamentally re-evaluated the associated risks, noting that "right now, news doesn't change prices of tokens anymore." The broader data supports his assessment: DeFi's total value locked has fallen approximately 38% over the past six months, declining from $158 billion on August 23, 2025, to roughly $98 billion as of Monday, according to DefiLlama analytics data. On February 15, Aave's Kulechov suggested DeFi lending could benefit from tokenizing "abundance assets" such as solar energy, battery storage, and robotics, which he expects to reach a combined value of $50 trillion by 2050.