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  • 👀 Bitcoin-backed bonds just got their first stress test

👀 Bitcoin-backed bonds just got their first stress test

PLUS: A $188M crypto debt deal scrambles after liquidations, Coinbase starts reporting to the IRS, stablecoin talks inch forward in D.C., and crypto billionaires feel the drawdown.

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Cryptopolitan News
February 11, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

A bond backed by Bitcoin has just broken down, and here’s what it means.

Wall Street’s bet on crypto debt has hit a speed bump.

Jefferies and a crypto lender called Ledn are working on a huge, $188M asset-backed bond, made up of thousands of Bitcoin-collateralized loans. But when ‘allocation time’ arrived and BTC had already fallen ~27% from January highs, approximately 25% of loans were liquidated before the bond even began.

This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

The bond was supposed to finance additional lending. Instead, some of the collateral was force-sold, and Ledn is now desperately originating new loans just to satisfy investor yield targets.

The deal is still set to close Feb. 18 but looks much different in structure:

From $199M in loans → now just $150M loans + 50M cash, according to insiders.

🧠 How it works:

  • Savers lock BTC, users commit to 1yr loan

  • Most plow back the money to collect more BTC

  • Interest rate averages 11.8% but nothing is owed until it balloons.

  • BTC plummets and loan-to-value reaches 80% → auto-liquidation

According to Ledn:

“We’ve done almost 7,500 loans with no principal loss in 7 years.”

But S&P isn’t fully convinced:

  1. They flagged short performance history

  2. No borrower credit data

  3. An increased probability of default if the value of BTC drops further

If 79 percent of the loans on those bonds go bad, bondholders could lose as much as a third of their money.

Why this matters:

This would be the first real-world stress test of Bitcoin-backed assets securities. Success would open structured crypto debt as a proper asset class for pension funds and insurers.

If it flops, regulators will point to this as further reason to hold back the institutional adoption so many of us want.

Also:

  • These bonds pay 3-6% more than traditional fixed income (CreditFlow)

  • Ledn received a strategic investment from Tether in November

  • Asset-backed bonds are back in style, but crypto adds an extra layer on top of the volatility profile.

🗳️ Poll: Would you invest in Bitcoin-backed bonds?

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📊 Market Watch

🧾 Coinbase is giving your crypto trades to the IRS. For real this time.

Ah, back when crypto taxes were merely a bizarre grey area?

Not anymore.

Coinbase has just had its first blush with Form 1099-DA. If you bought or sold anything in 2025, count on seeing that form in your inbox shortly. And yes, the I.R.S. will receive a copy as well.

Coinbase is also integrating with CoinTracker so you can reconcile discrepancies, calculate gains and (hopefully) be less afraid, come tax time.

👀 TL;DR: The U.S. government is no longer turning a blind eye to crypto. It’s dialing in.

🏛️ Crypto vs. banks, round 2: progress at the White House, no handshake yet

Another huge crypto sit-down just went down in D.C.

On the table? If stablecoins should be permitted to pay yield, and who can provide it.

The vibe this time? Less shouting, more problem-solving.

Banks arrived with a prepared list of “do not cross” lines … but for the first time, they came with a footnote: “Unless there’s an exemption.” That’s a shift.

Ripple’s chief legal officer said “compromise is in the air.” Coinbase’s Paul Grewal described it as a productive session.

No deal yet. But following months of impasse, real movement is at long last occurring, and March 1 is looming as the next big deadline.

💸 Solana stablecoins are growing, and it’s not just a USDC game anymore

Solana has quietly been building a stablecoin empire, and it’s no longer just about USDC or USDT.

Non-USDC/USDT coins on solana has grow 10x in the last year. USD1 and PYUSD and jupUSD, EURC, even a Swiss Franc version (VCHF) we’re getting out of stablecoins here. Phantom’s launching its own too.

The total supply of stablecoins backed by baskets of goods on Solana has increased 75% YTD. It’s turning into a multi-currency, multi-issuer layer, which means lower risk, more choices and a more robust basis for real-world use cases.

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Brian Armstrong loses $10 Billion, and he’s not alone.

The crypto swoon just took Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong down from the ranks of the world’s billionaires. He’s shed over $10 billion since the summer, with his net worth clocking in at $7.4B, down from 17.7B.

And he is not the only one bleeding.

$60 billion in wealth has evaporated for crypto’s elite since October:

  • Armstrong: COIN shares off 56%

  • Saylor: MicroStrategy down 62%

  • CZ: Loss of $29B worth of BTC + BNB

  • Winklevii: $8.2B to $1.9B and Layoffs at Gemini

  • Novogratz: Post-October wealth drops 66%

The trigger? A savage fall from Bitcoin’s $126K peak, as markets tumble 40%, trading activity declines and growth for stablecoins slows.

And JPMorgan added insult to injury, by cutting its price target on Coinbase 27% and predicting Q4 misses all around.

📊 TL;DR: In this market, billionaires get margin called too.

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