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The Energy Network uses household devices to increase grid capacity. Launched by Fuse, a $400M ARR scale-up. Check out the first live product demo here.
Coinbase Shines at Super Bowl - Coinbase ran the sole major cryptocurrency advertisement during this year’s Super Bowl, a retreat from the multi-company "Crypto Bowl" seen previously.
BTC Jumps 12% - Bitcoin reclaimed the $70,000 level after a 12% weekend jump, fueled partly by the liquidation of $245 million in short positions.
Gold Recovery - Gold extended its recovery, topping $5,000 as Tether's gold holdings surpassed $23 billion and China's central bank continued accumulation.
What would most justify upgrading from research only to an expanded advisory service?
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Spotlights are fully customizable. Every element can reflect a project’s identity, priorities, and message. Analyst Takeaways add context behind the numbers. Embedded calls to action guide readers into the next step.
First Spotlight: Dabba Network
Our first Spotlight features Dabba Network. It shows how decentralized connectivity adoption is evolving through real usage data, paired with analyst insight. It is a clean example of how projects can shape their narrative using trusted Messari data and context.
Explore the Spotlight here:
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Messari's protocol reports give you a deep dive on the foundation and state of top crypto protocols, including key metrics and notable events. See the complete list of protocol reports here and get a preview of our latest report below.
by: Jake Koch-Gallup @immutablejacob · Research Analyst
Over 50 payments-focused applications on Polygon PoS facilitated $3.57 billion in transfer volume, up 96.5% QoQ and 399.2% YoY.
Stablecoin-linked crypto cards processed $362.6 million in combined Mastercard and Visa volume across ten card programs.
Polymarket recorded an all-time high average daily open interest of $253.9 million in Q4, up 88.1% QoQ and 49.7% YoY, surpassing its prior peak of $169.6 million in Q4 2024 during the U.S. election cycle.
Polygon PoS DeFi TVL ended 2025 at $1.16 billion, with QuickSwap and Polymarket’s TVL increasing by 12.2% and 103.4% QoQ, respectively. Stablecoin supply grew 80.1% YoY to $2.96 billion, driven primarily by USDC, which rose 36.2% QoQ to $1.34 billion.
Polygon upgraded its core infrastructure through the Rio and Madhugiri hardforks, enabling near-instant finality and establishing a clear path toward ~5,000 TPS through architectural and consensus-level upgrades.
by: Matt Kreiser @KreiserMatt · Research Analyst
U.S. spot XRP ETFs launched in November 2025, reaching $1 billion in AUM in less than four weeks, the fastest to do so since ETH. The offering significantly expands U.S access to XRP for investors previously limited by custody and compliance barriers.
The XRPL is primed for institutional adoption, as necessary identity, financial, compliance, and privacy features are being implemented. These include multipurpose tokens (MPTs) with metadata to store RWA parameters, a native lending protocol, confidential MPTs using Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), and credentials to control access via KYC/AML.
Permissioned Domains (XLS-80) is scheduled to go live in February and builds on Credentials, allowing entities, such as institutions, to require specific credentials, including Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, to access their offerings on the XRPL.
Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, closed 2025 with a market cap of $235 million on the XRPL (+164% QoQ), making it the network’s largest stablecoin.
The XRPL closed 2025 with an all-time high distributed RWA market cap of $281.2 million (+37% QoQ) as issuance grew for several RWAs launched in Q2 2025, including Ondo’s OUSG tokenized treasury fund, Guggenheim’s Digital Commercial Paper, and tokenized real estate issued by Ctrl Alt.
by: Matt Kreiser @KreiserMatt · Research Analyst
SparkLend is the leading institutional-grade, blue-chip money-market protocol in DeFi, beating out Aave V3’s Prime Market instance in market size, variety of blue-chip assets offered, and maximum leverage on a risk-adjusted basis.
Alternatively architected lending and borrowing protocols like Morpho and Maple Finance are complementary to SparkLend, serving as higher-yielding markets for Spark’s Liquidity Layer (SLL) to deploy capital outside of SparkLend’s conservative architecture and parameters.
As a Star (SubDAO) of Sky, Spark can borrow billions of USDS at the Base Rate and leverage the Peg Stability Module to rapidly scale blue-chip stablecoin markets on SparkLend, like PYUSD.
Spark is integrating with Anchorage, a leading qualified custodian offering tri-party collateral management. Initial borrowers under this structure include three institutional counterparties which have borrowed $150 million USDC against $222 million of BTC collateral.
Spark prioritizes security and capital preservation as reflected by SparkLend’s high-quality asset composition of ETH and ETH derivatives, U.S. dollar stablecoins, and BTC derivatives. The protocol has been configured to primarily enable ETH, ETH derivatives, and BTC derivatives as collateral to borrow U.S. dollar stablecoins.
IIn the midst of crypto's brutal downturn, with Bitcoin dropping below $62,000 after shedding over 50% from its $126,000 peak, a new wildcard has emerged in the form of autonomous AI agents, specifically OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot and Clawdbot). Launched by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, this open-source framework for persistent, task-executing AI agents has exploded to over 100,000 GitHub stars in early 2026, but its intersection with crypto is proving both revolutionary and risky. As of February 9, 2026, agents built on OpenClaw are already trading crypto, launching tokens, and even forming onchain economies, raising questions about the next frontier of DeFi and AI autonomy.
OpenClaw is a self-hosted agent that integrates deeply with user systems, acting independently across platforms such as messaging apps and APIs. Originally set up in November 2025 as Clawdbot, it rebranded to Moltbot after Anthropic's trademark pushback, finally settling on OpenClaw amid its viral hype. In crypto, it's quickly gaining traction for enabling agents to execute trades, query markets, and automate strategies.
Key crypto integrations include:
Onchain Agents: Agents like Clawdbotatg have their own tokens, in this case $CLAWD, for facilitating degen games and experiments, while agents such as StarkbotAI focus on x402-enabled DeFi ops.
Token Launches and the Agent Economy: On Moltbook, a companion social network for AI agents, over 1.5 million agents have formed communities, created religions, and now have even begun their own crypto economy. The $MOLT token surged to a circulating market cap of over $100 million as agents rewarded each other for code contributions, with payments handled via crypto and no human kill switches.
Infrastructure Growth: Tools like @virtuals_io's ACP standardize agent-to-agent commerce (escrow, reputation), while @SynthdataCo provides volatility forecasts for crypto and beyond. Agents have already placed winning trades on Polymarket using these tools.
As OpenClaw has gained viral momentum on X, crypto traders are leveraging it for everything from wallet automation to predictive modeling, potentially reshaping perp DEXs and RWAs. Yet, adoption hurdles remain high due to rising API costs and security expertise needed for self-hosting.
With great hype comes many opportunists. Fake agent tokens have already extracted millions from the trenches, as many rush to launch copycats of successful agent tokens. Additionally, VirusTotal uncovered hundreds of malicious OpenClaw skills, turning them into potential attack vectors with broad access to wallets and APIs that could be hijacked for theft. ClawHub, the ecosystem's skill marketplace, saw 14 malicious uploads in late January, disguised as crypto trading tools but delivering malware.
Despite sentiment flips from euphoria to doubt in the last few weeks, the "Molt meta" is showing legs. @0xDeployer's better contracts for token fees to prevent dumps, @SaharaAI's ClawGuard for verifiable guardrails, and @Wach_AI's mandate signing for secure txns are proving that developers are quickly building the infrastructure needed to scale OpenClaw. With ETHDenver on the horizon, likely featuring OpenClaw panels amid Vitalik's L2 rethink, expect more onchain AI builds.
OpenClaw could redefine crypto agency, blending AI with onchain autonomy. However, in a market already bleeding, tread carefully as the real revolution will be in secure, scalable agents.
