While SENT shows short-term momentum after Bithumb and Upbit listings, broader trends suggest caution. Only 1 of 87 tokens listed on Upbit in 2025 is trading green, and most Bithumb listings are down.

Still, with its vision of an open-source AGI network and utility-driven tokenomics, Sentient continues to attract attention, particularly among investors interested in AI and blockchain convergence.

SENT’s latest price rally came after January 29 listings on South Korea’s Bithumb and Upbit. Upbit supports three trading pairs (KRW, BTC, USDT) and temporarily restricted buy/sell orders to stabilize early trading.

The token hit $0.038, marking a new all-time high, and became the largest gainer among the top 300 cryptocurrencies, highlighting strong investor interest in Sentient’s decentralized AI ecosystem.

Sentient (SENT) surged to a record high following dual exchange listings on Bithumb and Upbit. The decentralized AI protocol aims to build the open-source GRID, a community-driven artificial general intelligence network. SENT acts as a utility token for governance, staking, and network fees.

Trading volume jumped 192% to $299M, while the price spiked over 50% to $0.038 shortly after the listings. Binance led activity with 28.5% of volume, and Upbit contributed 22.9%.

SWIFT’s cross-border payments scheme modernizes messaging, rule enforcement, and user experience, but it doesn’t adopt blockchain or reduce capital tied up in pre-funded accounts.

Ripple takes a different approach, using blockchain-based rails and stablecoins to minimize liquidity requirements in specific corridors. While SWIFT raises baseline expectations for speed and transparency, Ripple’s solution still appeals in capital-intensive or emerging-market transfers.

For years, Ripple has criticized the correspondent banking system for slow, unpredictable, and capital-intensive cross-border payments. SWIFT’s new scheme directly targets two of those pain points: transparency and predictability.

Customers will now know fees, exchange rates, and delivery times before sending money. However, the underlying settlement mechanics remain unchanged — banks still rely on pre-funded accounts. SWIFT is improving the customer experience without changing the banking backend.

SWIFT announced a new global payments initiative aimed at making cross-border transfers for consumers and SMEs as fast and predictable as domestic payments. Over 40 banks are collaborating on the framework, with a minimum viable product expected in the first half of 2026.

The scheme focuses on transparency and reliability: upfront fee and FX disclosure, guaranteed full-value delivery, and end-to-end visibility on payment status. While payments will still settle through traditional correspondent banking, this marks a major step toward modernizing international transfers.

February’s update for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery isn’t all romance. Hogwarts graduates can revisit the Quidditch Pitch in London for matches testing their broom-flying skills. A new main quest chapter in the Beyond Hogwarts expansion explores familial bonds, while a fiery new magical creature joins players’ collections.

These additions complement the Valentine’s events, giving players a mix of competitive challenges, exploration, and storytelling. Seasonal updates like these help Hogwarts Mystery remain a staple for Wizarding World fans, offering ongoing adventures both inside Hogwarts and across the magical globe.

Fans of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery can look forward to a romance-filled February 2026 update. Starting February 1, the game will launch a new Magical Milestones event, offering rewards for players to unlock. Secret admirer letters will appear daily beginning February 2, leading up to special prizes for collecting them all.

Other highlights include the Seasonal Plant: Rose, added to the Hogwarts greenhouse, and two Special Adventures: A Tale of True Love and the Love Extravaganza Tournament, hosted by Apolline Delacour. With these events, the mobile game continues to expand its relationship-driven storytelling, keeping Wizarding World fans engaged with fresh romantic content.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, launching April 16 on Switch, expands player control over Miis, letting users direct actions, build relationships, and customize islands. However, Nintendo’s restrictions on sharing personalized content have angered fans, who fear these limits will reduce the game’s social appeal.

Some players plan to bypass restrictions by photographing their screens, but many wish Nintendo would simplify sharing. Despite the controversy, anticipation remains high, with features like enhanced Mii customization, dating preferences, and interactive social dynamics keeping excitement strong for one of Nintendo’s first-party highlights of 2026.

Nintendo’s upcoming social sim, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, has drawn criticism for its newly announced restrictions on image sharing. Fans expressed frustration online over the inability to upload screenshots directly to social media or transfer images to mobile devices, a feature many consider central to the game’s appeal.

Nintendo’s support site explained that these limits aim to prevent “humorous, surprising, or unpredictable moments” from being misunderstood and to maintain a safe, welcoming environment. While the decision has upset some potential players, the game is still generating excitement ahead of its April 16 release.

Project Genie represents DeepMind’s experiment in AI-driven world building. By generating explorable environments from prompts or photos, it allows users to interact with animated characters and objects. Some objects react dynamically, while characters occasionally walk through walls or navigate unpredictably — limitations the team is working to fix.

The prototype is not a finished product but offers a unique look at AI’s potential for creating immersive, interactive worlds. Fruchter emphasized that while it’s experimental, Project Genie provides a glimpse of capabilities that other tools cannot yet replicate, with future updates aimed at enhancing realism and control.

Project Genie lets users create whimsical, interactive worlds from text or images, though the results can be inconsistent. Worlds based on artistic prompts — like claymation, watercolor, or cartoon styles — performed best, while photorealistic or cinematic prompts often fell short.

Users can remix existing worlds, explore curated galleries, or generate videos of their creations. Currently, sessions are limited to 60 seconds due to compute constraints, but DeepMind sees this as enough to gather feedback. Research director Shlomi Fruchter said the team hopes to improve realism and interaction capabilities in future iterations.

Google DeepMind is opening access to Project Genie, its AI tool for creating interactive game worlds from text prompts or images. Starting Thursday, U.S.-based Google AI Ultra subscribers can experiment with the prototype, which combines the Genie 3 world model, image-generation model Nano Banana Pro, and Gemini.

Project Genie allows users to generate “world sketches,” modify them, and navigate the resulting interactive environments in first- or third-person view. The release is part of DeepMind’s push to gather user feedback and train its models as it develops more capable world models, which many see as a key step toward artificial general intelligence.

Meta is positioning its AI models to leverage unique personal data, giving it a potential edge in agentic applications such as shopping and content recommendations. Zuckerberg said the company’s AI will understand users’ history, interests, and relationships, aiming to provide a “uniquely personal experience.”

The announcement follows Meta’s acquisition of general-purpose agent developer Manus, which will be integrated into its products. While investors have questioned the return on Meta’s AI investments, the company plans to deliver AI capabilities to the public soon, signaling a significant push in “personal superintelligence” for 2026.

Mark Zuckerberg announced on an investor call that Meta users will start seeing new AI models and products “in a matter of months,” following a major overhaul of the company’s AI lab in 2025.

Zuckerberg did not provide specific timelines or product names but highlighted AI-driven commerce as a priority. He described plans for agentic shopping tools that help users find products based on their personal context, including their interests, history, and social connections.

The announcement comes as Meta increases infrastructure spending, with 2026 capital expenditures projected between $115 billion and $135 billion to support AI initiatives and the broader business.

The inquiry comes as the Bank of England moves to finalize rules for so-called “systemic stablecoins” by the end of 2026. These are fiat-linked tokens widely used for retail or corporate payments, which regulators say could affect financial stability and reduce bank deposits.

Sasha Mills, BoE executive director for financial market infrastructure, said the regime could allow systemic stablecoins to hold a deposit account at the Bank of England and access a liquidity backstop. The BoE is coordinating with the FCA to ensure stablecoins meet standards comparable to traditional money in the UK economy.

The inquiry follows the FCA’s consultation on crypto market rules, with full implementation targeted for October 2027, reflecting a broader effort to bring digital assets under comprehensive regulatory oversight.

The House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee has launched an inquiry into proposed stablecoin rules in the United Kingdom, inviting public input on frameworks developed by the Bank of England (BoE) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The review will examine how stablecoins could impact traditional financial services, including banking and payments, as well as assess the risks and opportunities posed by their growing adoption. Written submissions from industry experts, participants, and the public are open until March 11, with oral evidence scheduled for a public hearing on Wednesday.

Baroness Noakes, committee chair, said the inquiry will determine whether the BoE and FCA’s proposals offer “measured and proportionate responses” to developments in the stablecoin market.

On-chain money laundering continues to grow, with Chainalysis estimating over $82 billion in illicit funds laundered in 2025 — up from $10 billion in 2020. Chinese-language networks alone were responsible for $16 billion, roughly $44 million per day.

Experts say the growth is fueled by easier access to crypto and expanding liquidity. Law enforcement is struggling to keep pace. Tom Keatinge of the Royal United Services Institute said there is a “chasm” between criminal capabilities and authorities’ crypto expertise, calling for a systemic global effort to upskill law enforcement and improve information sharing.

Chainalysis recommends targeting both the operators and the platforms that advertise laundering services to curb the growth of this ecosystem.