Coinbase’s Brian A. takes on the Huge Banks, Crypto VC Dragonfly luggage $650M, the Trumps maintain pumping crypto, prime 12 crypto VCs, and extra inside scoops…
The Trump household Crypto Baron—are the First Household’’s crypto bets paying off? For them, sure.
Brian Armstrong has at all times walked a excessive wire between dApp/DeFi fanatics who prioritize decentralization, self-custody, and ‘crypto purity,’ and Coinbase’s want for old-school banks for on- and off-ramps to transform crypto to USD and vice versa. Coinbase could also be too ‘bank-like’ for the CryptoHeads, however Brian A. has championed the larger trigger for years and has the scars and success tales to show it.
A Biden-era SEC put Coinbase in a precarious place for 2 years—risking extreme restrictions or perhaps a shutdown if the SEC had prevailed. The Trump SEC shortly agreed to dismiss the lawsuit in February 2025—with no fines, penalties, or operational adjustments required—successfully derailing the regulatory assault and vindicating Coinbase’s lengthy battle. This decision was broadly seen as additionally a significant victory for the broader U.S. crypto trade and boosted general crypto market sentiment.
Brian Armstrong: Our man in Washington? We predict so.
Brian A. could have leaped these regulatory hurdles, however he’s nonetheless within the race. Extra lately, he has been hammering the Huge Banks for pushing provisions that may ban stablecoin rewards for lending or staking their tokens, thereby stripping People of actual yields averaging ~4-5% (e.g., by way of USDC rewards on platforms like Coinbase), dwarfing the sub-1% most banks pay on deposits.
‘The banks are actually coming and making an attempt to undermine the president’s crypto agenda.,’ Brian A. informed Fox Enterprise. ‘They’re making an attempt to guard their very own revenue margins, taking cash out of the pockets of hardworking, common People.’
Why purchase Bitcoin and SOL now? Hollywood leisure (and Gen Z’s psychological well being) continues to spiral, tendencies in crypto RWAs, VCs funding AI bots, and different FACTS…
CNBS: ‘Is quantum computing going to break the blockchain?
Brian A: No, that’s not true. I believe that’s a really solvable challenge. Coinbase has been very front-footed on this. Now we have put collectively a Quantum Advisory Council that’s in common contact with the key blockchains relating to a path to a post-quantum cryptography world.
Brian Armstrong’s CNBC interview, February 19, 2026
The ethical of this story is that stablecoins pose a aggressive menace to financial institution deposits, so Huge Banks are attempting to guard revenue margins on the expense of innovation. This isn’t going to work, given the entrenched (and self-interested) help of the Trumpets, who’re pushing every day talks for a ‘win-win-win,’ and the crypto tailwinds favor innovation over legacy protectionism.
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Crypto and blockchain-focused VC Dragonfly Capital simply closed its fourth fund at $650 million—beating its $500 million goal. This pushes the agency’s whole property underneath administration previous $3 billion. Portfolio highlights embrace Polymarket, Ethena, and Rain (as a stablecoin card issuer) 👍🏼, plus stalwarts like Avalanche, NEAR, MakerDAO, 1inch, and zkSync.
The agency zeros in on blockchain infrastructure, DeFi protocols, stablecoins, prediction markets, and crypto’s monetary apps—the “subsequent section” of blockchain evolving into core monetary plumbing.
High LPs embrace Tiger World, KKR, Sequoia China, and Invesco. Managing companion Haseeb Qureshi referred to as Fund IV “our greatest wager but that the crypto revolution continues to be early in its exponential curve.” Companion Rob Hadick famous the crypto enterprise ecosystem is enduring a mass extinction occasion.’
In biology, a ‘mass extinction occasion’ means a swift, large die-off of species (assume dinosaurs). The crypto VC world has taken heavy hits these days, with many devoted funds struggling or vanishing completely.
Co-founded by Donald Trump Jr., WLFI ripped almost 20-30% in a single day on hype for the World Liberty Monetary Discussion board on the household’s Mar-a-Lago compound yesterday. The invite-only bash reached capability with ~400 attendees, together with large names from Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, NYSE, Franklin Templeton, and Coinbase—plus policymakers, traders, and influencers.
WLFI and the remainder of the Trump household crypto empire lean arduous on that star energy to hype and promote their tokens. On the discussion board, they have been pushing World Liberty Markets, the brand new lending/borrowing platform supporting WLFI, Ether, USDC—and dropping contemporary bulletins like a partnership with Apex Group ($3.5T+ property underneath administration) to pilot USD1 stablecoin for tokenized fund ops, plus plans to tokenize mortgage income pursuits within the Trump Worldwide Resort & Resort within the Maldives.
Grasping bastards—unhealthy for the trade.
The not-so-dirty secret: WLFI and different Trump-family crypto performs have stuffed ~$1.2 billion in internet good points into the household’s pockets (together with $463M from WLFI token gross sales, $336M from the $TRUMP meme coin), whereas they sit on billions extra in depreciated holdings like 22.5 billion WLFI tokens now value round $2.7 billion.
Paradoxically (and fairly sadly), retail traders in Trump-related cryptos—presumably a ton of MAGA devoted—have gotten completely wrecked, with internet losses within the billions. WLFI plunged 74% from its $0.46 all-time excessive to ~$0.12, and $TRUMP meme coin cratered 90% from $37 to $3.40, wiping out speculative good points for early consumers throughout broader market dumps.
Not so completely satisfied after shedding their ass within the Trump Crypto Pump & Dump👿
On the discussion board, WLFI was pitching World Liberty Markets, its new lending and borrowing platform that helps property equivalent to WLFI, Ether, and USDC. So right here we go once more. The Trump-brand pump, spurred on-chain exercise yesterday for WLFI, confirmed giant token withdrawals and deposits, together with 235 million WLFI tokens to Binance for liquidity enhancement, whereas the occasion drew scrutiny from some U.S. Senators, for good cause, over a $500 million UAE funding in WLFI.
Different contemporary drops from the World Liberty Discussion board:
On-chain motion yesterday spiked with WLFI: large token withdrawals/deposits, together with 235 million to Binance for liquidity boosts.
The occasion additionally saved the warmth on that $500 million UAE funding (tied to Abu Dhabi royals/nationwide safety figures), drawing Senate scrutiny for apparent causes.
Eric Trump went full bull on Bitcoin, calling for $1M, whereas hyping stablecoins/USD1 as an “upgraded” greenback for the fashionable period.
Clearly, as Cryptonite, we love the pro-crypto vitality from the Trump administration—clarifying guidelines, paving a cleaner path to prosperity for everybody—however… this? Not good type, youngsters.
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Drape raised one other $200M in 2025. His early bets on Bitcoin catapulted him onto the Cryptonite prime 10 Wealthiest VCs listing.
Crypto and blockchain VC corporations raised over $15 billion in new funds throughout 2024-2026, a 2.5x surge from the $6 billion raised in 2022-2023 through the bear market…
Learn the remainder of this text and extra within the paid subscriber part of this Rap, together with entry to:
How crypto VC corporations raised $15 billion in new funds—within the final two years—what’s given them momentum?
The highest 12 crypto VC funds main the pack, and their prime portfolio corporations…
Cryptonite’s prime 10 scorching market alerts: OpenAI/MSFT merger, Meta and Nvidia deal, Gemini execs stroll, Benchmark new companion rent, Recursive Intelligence raises $335 million in 4 months, and extra…
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