Elizabeth Warren Joins Trump to Tackle Crypto Debanking

Elizabeth Warren Joins Trump to Tackle Crypto Debanking

To everyone’s surprise, crypto critic Senator Elizabeth Warren pledged to work with President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans to stop the debanking of crypto firms. “Debanking is a real problem… You shouldn’t be locked out of our banking system” Warren said at a hearing.

The meeting coincided with the FDIC’s release of 175 "Operation Chokepoint 2.0" documents showing banks faced pressure to avoid crypto clients. Acting Chairman Travis Hill admitted requests were “almost universally met with resistance.”

Warren’s stance aligns with her support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which Trump recently dismantled. She said, “If the president is serious about stopping debanking, he needs a strong CFPB as his partner.”

The documents revealed banks weren’t banned from crypto clients but were deterred by “reputation risk” warnings. Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal responded, “We were right… The previous @FDICgov leadership lied to us all. There were many more pause letters.”

‍

XRP Ledger Briefly Halts, Recovers Without Data Loss

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) experienced an unexpected 64-minute outage late Tuesday, halting at ledger height 93,927,173 due to a consensus issue where validations weren’t published, causing ledgers to drift apart. Ripple CTO David Schwartz confirmed the network had “self-healed,” noting, “It looks like, as far as we can tell, only one validator operator manually intervened.”

This halt, designed as a safety feature when validators can't reach consensus, sparked debate about XRPL’s centralization and resilience. “One possible failure mode for XRPL is if all the validators think something's wrong with the network, all refuse to send any validations,” Schwartz explained, adding that no user funds were at risk during the downtime.

‍

Ondo Finance Launches Platform to Tokenize Securities

Ondo Finance has introduced Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM), a new platform for tokenizing traditional assets like stocks, bonds, and ETFs to bring institutional-grade financial markets onchain. "What stablecoins did for dollars, Ondo Global Markets will do for securities," the company stated, highlighting its goal to finally bring ETFs and stocks to crypto.

The platform will offer exposure to over 1,000 securities, including major stocks like Apple and Tesla, with tokens backed 1:1 by underlying assets and freely transferable outside the US. Ondo GM promises to reduce fees, expand global access, and provide asset managers with new distribution channels, with further announcements expected at Ondo’s summit in New York on February 6.

‍

Berachain Unveils Tokenomics and Airdrop Details

Ahead of its mainnet launch on February 6, the Berachain Foundation revealed BERA’s tokenomics, allocating 48.9% of the 500 million genesis supply to the community, including a 15.8% airdrop. Seed, Series A, and B investors will receive 34.3%, with 16.8% reserved for advisors and Big Bera Labs contributors, all following a one-year cliff and 24-month linear vesting.

Berachain also launched an airdrop checker for eligible community members, testnet users, and liquidity providers, with claims available via EVM wallets like MetaMask and OKX Wallet. BERA will function as the native gas and staking token, while the non-transferable BGT token governs ecosystem incentives. MEXC's pre-market trading for BERA, currently rates the token at $8.00.

‍

Data of the Day

The Bitcoin-Gold ratio has dropped to 34, its lowest since November 14, reflecting a 15.4% decline from December highs as gold surges nearly 10% year-to-date to $2,877 per ounce. Safe-haven demand driven by escalating US-China trade tensions and $4 billion in gold deliveries planned by JPMorgan to New York are fueling gold’s rise, with Chinese demand also spiking ahead of the Spring Festival.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin struggles to gain momentum despite $4 billion in spot ETF inflows, which are largely tied to arbitrage strategies rather than direct buying pressure. "The ETF buying could be offset by simultaneous spot or futures selling, dampening any significant price impact," noted Markus Thielen of 10x Research.

‍

More Breaking News

• BlackRock plans to launch a Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe, likely domiciled in Switzerland, following the success of its US crypto ETFs.
• US spot Bitcoin ETF inflows surged 175% year-over-year, reaching over $40.6 billion in total net inflows as of early February 2025.
• Trump’s "crypto czar" David Sacks reveals the White House is evaluating a strategic BTC reserve, as part of a broader pro-crypto agenda & sovereign wealth fund.
• Blockstream opens a new office in Tokyo to expand Bitcoin Layer-2 and self-custody adoption in Japan, partnering with Diamond Hands and Fulgur Ventures.
• Bitcoin now has a trustless bridge to Ethereum via Arbitrum, enabling BTC holders to participate in Ethereum's DeFi through the BitcoinOS rollup layer.
• US Senator Josh Hawley introduces a bill that could criminalize downloading DeepSeek, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison and $100m in fines.

For the latest updates on digital asset markets, follow us on X @Datawalletcom.