Сборщик RSS-лент

Ethereum’s main network is witnessing a dramatic surge in activity, signaling renewed confidence and accelerating momentum across the ecosystem. Aspects like transaction throughput and user engagement appear to have pushed significantly higher over the past few weeks, breaking past prior peaks.

Another Historic Moment For Ethereum Network

Since the beginning of 2026, the Ethereum network has been hitting major milestones that reflect the blockchain’s efficiency and expanding ecosystem. Even in a volatile crypto landscape, ETH’s network usage and adoption have increased sharply, as evidenced by its rapidly growing active wallet addresses.

On-chain data reveals that the network has recently crossed a key threshold in terms of active wallet addresses following a sudden spike. From the report from Joseph Young, a market expert and narrator, the number of active addresses on ETH has surged to the highest level ever in its history.

This spike in user activity and interest signals more than just routine market noise and speculation. It shows growing adoption, increasing on-chain activity, and rekindled conviction in the leading ecosystem in the midst of general market instability.

After delving into the metric, the expert disclosed that the number of active 7DMA wallet addresses on Ethereum is sitting at over 811,500. As active address counts reached historic levels, the network’s fundamentals appear to have started surpassing its price performance. Should this performance hold, it is likely to play a huge role in shaping ETH’s next major move.

The blockchain’s performance extends beyond just massive active wallet addresses. Young added that Ethereum is the most proven network with more than 10 years of track record, underscoring its reliability and robust scalability.

During the period, ETH remained one of the most active and liquid crypto ecosystems by far. With several key updates over the years, such as the Fusaka Upgrade, the ETH network is now scaling faster than it ever did since its launch. 

ETH Carry Out More Transactions Than Ever

Given that a significantly high level of transactions is carried out on the network, Ethereum is still showing robust strength and a growing ecosystem. On-chain Foundation head of research, Leon Waidmann, shared a report that reveals that ETH is experiencing a wave of transactions, reaching unprecedented levels.

With over 2.2 million transactions being executed per day, the network has just hit yet another all-time high. The chart shows that the previous peak was positioned at 1.89 million per day, as recorded on January 10, reflecting its rising real-world usage in a period where network fundamentals are gaining robust significance.

While transactions continue to increase, the network’s transaction costs have remained extremely low. Swapping on the blockchain now costs just $0.04, Non-Fungible Token (NFT) sales cost about $0.06, borrowing fees are $0.03, and bridging costs, which are the lowest, are around $0.01.

21Shares is set to launch its Dogecoin ETF after gaining approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Nasdaq. This is expected to provide some bullish momentum for the meme coin even as DOGE funds see muted interest from institutional investors. 

21Shares To Launch Dogecoin ETF After Filing Final Prospectus

Crypto ETF issuer 21Shares has filed the prospectus for its Dogecoin ETF, signaling plans to launch this fund this week. However, the asset manager has yet to announce a specific launch date. This will be the third spot DOGE fund to launch after Grayscale and Bitwise’s DOGE ETF, which launched last year. 

21Shares Dogecoin ETF will launch on the Nasdaq under the ticker ‘TDOG.’ Crypto exchange Coinbase is listed among the Trust’s custodians alongside BitGo and Anchorage. Meanwhile, the fund will offer in-kind creations and redemptions, similar to other existing spot crypto ETFs. 21shares will charge a 0.50% management fee for the fund. 

The Dogecoin ETF will be 21Shares’ fifth spot U.S. crypto ETF, as the asset manager already offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP ETFs. The DOGE fund’s launch is bullish for the foremost meme coin as it could attract more institutional flows into its ecosystem. However, it is worth noting that the other existing spot U.S. DOGE funds have only seen moderate demand so far. 

SoSoValue data shows that the inflows into these Dogecoin ETFs have been minimal, with these funds currently boasting net assets of just under $10 million, which is less than 1% of the meme coin’s market cap. They have also mostly recorded zero-flow days since launching, with most inflow days below $1 million. However, it is worth noting that these funds saw greater demand at the start of the year, when DOGE rose to around $0.15. As such, they could attract more inflows as the market recovers. 

A Generational Buying Opportunity

Crypto analyst Hokage described the current DOGE price level as a generational buying opportunity amid the imminent launch of the Dogecoin ETF. This came as the analyst remarked that while the short-term is extremely hard to figure out, the long-term support will eventually get hit. His accompanying chart showed that the leading meme coin could rally to as high as $1.6 in the long term. 

The crypto analyst highlighted the potential integration of Dogecoin into Elon Musk’s X as one catalyst that could spark this run. He opined that the meme coin will eventually get integrated into X as a payment and tips feature. Hokage added that it is just a matter of time and not if. 

Related Reading: Dogecoin Is Breakout Ready: Analyst Shows Major Target For The Meme Coin King

At the time of writing, the Dogecoin price is trading at around $0.137, down over 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Российская сеть ломбардов «Мосгорломбард» объявила, что рассматривает возможность выдачи займов клиентам под залог криптовалют.

Bitcoin Core’s maintainer set has expanded for the first time in nearly three years, with pseudonymous contributor TheCharlatan (also known online as “sedited”) added to the project’s small group of “Trusted Keys” holders, an operational role that carries commit authority to Bitcoin Core’s master branch.

The move matters because it touches the narrowest choke point in Bitcoin’s most widely used node implementation: who can cryptographically sign and merge the code that ultimately ships to users. TheCharlatan was added on January 8, 2026, according to the project’s trusted-keys history on GitHub, which shows a new entry committed under the “sedited” account.

Bitcoin Core developers sign software updates with their PGP keys, but only a small subset of keys are recognized for commit access in the project’s verification tooling, a practical constraint designed to keep release signing and merge authority legible, auditable, and socially accountable.

With TheCharlatan’s addition, the Trusted Keys group now includes Marco Falke, Gloria Zhao, Ryan Ofsky, Hennadii Stepanov, Ava Chow, and TheCharlatan. The prior addition to the trusted-keys list was in May 2023, when Ofsky was added.

Protos reported the promotion as having broad support among Core contributors, citing a group chat in which at least 20 members agreed and no one objected to the nomination language. The nomination framed the decision in terms of review quality and judgment about what should ship. “He is a reliable reviewer… worked extensively in critical areas. He thinks carefully about what we ship… . He understands the technical consensus process well.”

Who Is The New Bitcoin Core Key Holder?

Protos identified TheCharlatan as a University of Zurich computer science graduate from South Africa, with a focus on reproducibility and Bitcoin Core’s validation logic.

In practice, that points to two areas that Core contributors tend to treat as release-critical. First, reproducible builds aim to make the path from source to binaries independently verifiable, an important property for a security-sensitive client where users want assurance they’re running what maintainers reviewed.

Second, Protos said TheCharlatan has worked on validation logic in ways that build on Carl Dong’s kernel library effort, separating validating from non-validating logic used to determine whether a block extends the best-work chain.

While Bitcoin’s development process is intentionally consensus-driven and diffuse, commit keys remain a concrete locus of responsibility. Protos situated the current model historically, noting that early Bitcoin development concentrated commit access in Satoshi Nakamoto’s hands before moving to a succession of maintainers. “Only Satoshi Nakamoto possessed Commit-level access… . Nakamoto first passed his key privilege to Gavin Andresen…”

Protos also referenced the later push to decentralize commit-key control into a group under Wladimir van der Laan, in the shadow of legal threats tied to Craig Wright’s claims, part of a broader effort to avoid any single maintainer becoming a practical or legal single point of failure.

At press time, BTC traded at $92,367.

Председатель комитета Госдумы России по финансовому рынку Анатолий Аксаков рассказал, что в новом законопроекте о регулировании криптоотрасли для неквалифицированных инвесторов введут лимит на покупку криптовалют: до 300 000 рублей.

Создатель блокчейн‑платформы Cardano и сооснователь Эфириума Чарльз Хоскинсон (Charles Hoskinson) заявил, что администрация президента США Дональда Трампа поставила американскую криптоиндустрию в более сложное положение, чем при предыдущем главе государства Джо Байдене. В частности, Хоскинсон раскритиковал запуск мемкоина Trump Coin и общую политику в сфере цифровых активов.

Криптобиржа Bitget опубликовала итоги 2025 года, представив ключевые показатели развития модели Universal Exchange (UEX) — экосистемы, объединяющей криптовалютные рынки, ончейн-инструменты и токенизированные традиционные активы в рамках единого интерфейса.

Биткоин ненадолго поднялся выше $92 000, но не смог закрепиться на этом уровне. Причина падения — позиция розничных трейдеров, начавших сокращать свои позиции на рынке, заявили аналитики компании QCP Capital.

Columbia Business School adjunct professor Omid Malekan challenged what he called five common banking-industry misunderstandings about stablecoin yields as Congress moves a market structure bill toward markup this month.

He pushed back on claims that stablecoins will automatically drain bank deposits or collapse lending, and argued the real fight is over who receives interest on the reserves that back those tokens.

“I’m disappointed that market structure legislation seems to be held up by the stablecoin yield issue,” he said. “Most of the concerns bouncing around Washington are based on unsubstantiated myths,” Malekan added.

Misconceptions About Stablecoin Yields

Based on reports, Malekan listed five specific points where industry talking points have wandered from the facts. He said stablecoins are fully reserved in many cases, and that issuers often park reserves in Treasury bills and bank accounts — activity that can feed, not sap, banking business.

I am disappointed that market structure legislation seems to be held up by the stablecoin yield issue. Most of the concerns bouncing around Washington are based on unsubstantiated myths.

So I’ve written a new article tackling the 5 biggest. They include:

1) Whether stablecoins… https://t.co/U2fQcPNZyV

— Omid Malekan (@malekanoms) January 12, 2026

He also noted that much US credit is delivered outside community banks, through money market funds and private lenders, so the link between stablecoins and bank lending is not as direct as some industry statements imply.

Banks Press Lawmakers Over Yield Rules

Lawmakers are racing to settle those questions before a committee markup. The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to mark up the market structure text on January 15, 2026, and sources say negotiators remain split on whether to restrict third-party yield arrangements tied to stablecoins.

Community banks and trade groups have urged senators to close what they call “yield loopholes,” saying unregulated rewards could lure deposits away and raise liquidity risks.

Who Captures The Interest Matters

Malekan focused attention on the distribution of interest from reserve assets. According to his comments, the policy choice is not about banning stablecoins but about deciding whether banks or crypto issuers capture returns on reserves.

If issuers are allowed to share interest or rewards with customers, that could pressure bank profits — a point banks are making loudly in hearings and letters to lawmakers.

File Drafting And Last-Minute Haggling

Reports have disclosed that committee staff were racing to file a bipartisan market structure text and reconcile yield language ahead of a deadline this week. Negotiations continued into late sessions as senators weighed compromises that could allow some forms of rewards while guarding against run risks and bank disintermediation.

Featured image from Global Finance Magazine, chart from TradingView

Инвестиционный директор компании Bitwise Мэтт Хоуган (Matt Hougan) опроверг идею критиков криптовалют, будто пенсионные фонды не должны вкладывать средства в биткоин из-за его сильной волатильности.

В этом году эфир может продемонстрировать ралли как в 2021 году, поскольку значительно опередит другие активы за счет растущего внедрения ончейн-решений для крипторынка. Об этом заявил глава отдела исследований цифровых активов Standard Chartered Джеффри Кендрик (Geoffrey Kendrick).

Криптовалютный рынок уходит от модели, где курсы монет зависели от хайпа розничных инвесторов к новой модели, где все решают крупные фонды с Уолл-стрит и долгосрочное планирование, заявили эксперты Binance Research.

Ripple has sent a new market-structure letter to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, urging the agency to draw a hard line between a securities offering and the underlying token that may later trade in secondary markets, a framing that could matter for how XRP (post SEC lawsuit) and other tokens are treated in disclosure and jurisdiction debates.

In the January 9, 2026 submission, signed by Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, General Counsel Sameer Dhond, and Deputy General Counsel Deborah McCrimmon, Ripple positions its comments as input to ongoing Commission rulemaking or guidance, explicitly tying its argument to parallel legislative efforts on Capitol Hill.

The company references earlier letters from March 21, 2025 and May 27, 2025, and points to the House’s CLARITY Act of 2025 and Senate discussion drafts as evidence that classification choices will cascade into “jurisdiction, disclosures, and secondary-market treatment.”

Ripple Presses SEC To Cement XRP’s Post-Lawsuit Status

Ripple’s core thesis is that regulators should move away from “decentralization” as a legal metric because it is “not a binary state” and creates “intolerable uncertainty,” including both “false negative” and “false positive” outcomes.

One of Ripple’s key concerns is that an asset could be treated as stuck in a securities regime simply because an entity still holds inventory or continues contributing to development, a point with obvious parallels to Ripple. The company still holds a large chunk of all XRP in their escrow while developer arm RippleX contributes heavily to the development of the XRP Ledger.

Instead, Ripple pushes the SEC to ground jurisdiction in “legal rights and obligations,” emphasizing enforceable promises rather than market narratives about ongoing efforts. The letter argues that regulatory theories focusing on “efforts of others” risk collapsing the multi-part Howey analysis into a single factor and, in Ripple’s view, sweeping too broadly.

The most consequential section is Ripple’s argument that the SEC’s jurisdiction should be time-bound to the “lifespan of the obligation,” rather than treating the asset as permanently labeled. In a passage that goes directly to secondary-market implications, Ripple writes:

“The Commission’s jurisdiction should track the lifespan of the obligation; regulating the ‘promise’ while it exists, but liberating the ‘asset’ once that promise is fulfilled or otherwise ends. The dispositive factor is the holder’s legal rights, not their economic hopes. Without that bright line, the definition of a security, and the SEC’s jurisdictional limits, become amorphous and unbounded.”

That framing matters for XRP and draws parallels to the SEC lawsuit: whether secondary-market trading of a token can remain subject to securities-law oversight long after any initial distribution, marketing, or development-era statements. Ripple explicitly rejects the idea that active secondary trading is itself a jurisdictional hook, comparing high-velocity crypto markets to spot commodities like gold and silver and even secondary markets for consumer devices.

Ripple also spends meaningful time on the “capital raising” boundary, arguing for privity as a bright line that distinguishes primary distributions from exchange trading where counterparties are unknown and the issuer is “merely as another market actor.”

In that context, the letter warns that treating every issuer sale as a perpetual capital raise creates “perverse outcomes,” including what it calls a “Zombie Promise” and “Operational Paralysis”: language that, while generalized, clearly speaks to concerns around issuer-held token inventories and the compliance burdens that could attach to treasury management and sales practices.

Separately, Ripple endorses “fit-for purpose” disclosures in cases where securities regulation is actually warranted, rather than forcing “full corporate registration designed for traditional equity.” For XRP holders and market participants, that is a directional signal: Ripple is arguing for a regime where disclosure triggers attach to specific promises or specific forms of ongoing control, not to the token as an object indefinitely.

The timing is also notable. Ripple dated the letter January 9, 2026, less than a week before a January 15 markup on comprehensive digital-asset market structure legislation in the US Senate Banking Committee, an approaching deadline that could shape how classification language, jurisdictional lines, and disclosure concepts harden into legislative text.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.05.

Власти Таиланда намерены запретить анонимные криптовалюты: компании, которые предоставляют криптоуслуги, будут обязаны идентифицировать всех участников цепочки транзакций.

На криптовалютном рынке появляется все больше индикаторов, которые применимы исключительно для анализа цифровых активов. Один из них — The Pi Cycle Top Indicator. Но зачем он нужен и насколько полезен?

Crypto custody firm BitGo announced on Monday that it aims for a valuation of up to $1.96 billion in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) in the United States, amid major interest by these firms to trade in public markets. 

As reported by Reuters, the crypto company plans to raise as much as $201 million by offering 11.8 million shares, with prices expected to range from $15 to $17 per share.

Investing Climate Remains Shaky

Established in 2013, BitGo has emerged as one of the largest crypto custody firms in the United States, specializing in the secure storage and protection of digital assets. This role has become increasingly important amid rising institutional interest in cryptocurrencies.

Following a strong showing for other major crypto firms in 2025, including successful market debuts from stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) and cryptocurrency exchange Bullish (BLSH), BitGo is entering a competitive landscape. Crypto exchange Kraken is also looking to go public. 

However, recent market volatility, particularly the sharp selloff in October of last year, whipping out nearly $20 billion in long positions, has created challenges for companies looking to attract investors. Additionally, ongoing pressure on technology and artificial intelligence (AI) valuations has heightened scrutiny across risk assets. 

According to Lukas Muehlbauer, an IPOX research analyst, this shift has led to a “flight to quality,” favoring established and regulated companies like BitGo over more speculative ventures.

BitGo Targets IPO Success 

Despite the challenges, BitGo aims to leverage positive market momentum in early 2026, when outperformance by small and mid-cap indices could provide a favorable environment for mid-sized offerings.

The firm has enlisted Goldman Sachs as the lead book-running manager for the IPO, with Citigroup also serving as a book-running manager. Other financial institutions in the offering include Deutsche Bank Securities, Mizuho, Wells Fargo Securities, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Canaccord Genuity, and Cantor. 

Clear Street, Compass Point, Craig-Hallum, Rosenblatt, Wedbush Securities, and SoFi will act as co-managers. BitGo plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “BTGO.” 

Notably, the company is one of five crypto firms, alongside Ripple, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos Trust Company, to receive national trust charter applications approved by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in December of last year.

This national trust bank charter would empower BitGo to manage and hold assets for its customers, enabling faster payment settlements—a move that could bolster the firm’s competitive edge in the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and digital finance.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com 

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy has continued its accumulation of the cryptocurrency, taking its holdings to 687,410 BTC with the latest purchase.

Strategy Has Acquired Another 13,627 Bitcoin

As announced in an X post by Strategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor, the company has completed a new Bitcoin acquisition involving 13,627 BTC, spending an average of $91,519 per token or a total of about $1.25 billion.

This purchase is rather large; in fact, it’s the biggest buy that the firm has made since July of last year. In his usual Sunday foreshadowing post, Saylor hinted that the acquisition would be significant, using the caption: “₿ig Orange.”

In a reply to the post, the Strategy chairman reflected on the company’s accumulation journey, saying, “Ironic that our $60.25 billion Bitcoin position started with a $0.25 billion purchase in August 2020.”

Following the purchase announcement, Strategy’s stack has officially grown to 687,410 BTC and total investment to $51.80 billion. At present, these holdings are valued at $63.28 billion, meaning that the treasury company is in a profit of more than 22%.

According to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the new acquisition took place in the week between January 5th and 11th, funded using proceeds from the company’s MSTR and STRC at-the-market (ATM) stock offerings.

Last Monday, Strategy announced expansions for both its Bitcoin treasury and US Dollar reserve, but the focus this week appears to have been on the cryptocurrency alone. The USD reserve, which was created by the company at the start of December, has seen two additions so far, and the latest one took its value to $2.25 billion.

In another X post, Saylor has also shared a chart that compares annualized returns for the best-performing assets in the “Bitcoin Standard Era,” referring to the period since August 2020 when the firm made its first purchase of the cryptocurrency.

As displayed in the graph, MSTR has produced the second-most annualized returns in this timespan, with its profits of 60% surpassing even BTC’s, which has managed a return of 45%.

The number one performing asset in the period has been Nvidia (NVDA), posting annual returns of 68%. The strength behind the company’s stock was initially driven by the Ethereum mining boom and more recently, by the rise of AI datacenters.

“The best-performing assets of this decade are Digital Intelligence $NVDA, Digital Credit $MSTR, and Digital Capital $BTC,” Saylor wrote, framing each asset under a distinct role.

BTC Price

Bitcoin kicked off 2026 with a recovery surge, but bullish momentum has faded for the asset as its price is still trading around $91,400.

Banking giant Standard Chartered is reportedly planning to launch a prime brokerage for cryptocurrency trading amid a global push by banks to establish digital asset ventures and compete in the sector.

Standard Chartered Plans Crypto Expansion

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that London-based Standard Chartered is allegedly preparing to expand its crypto efforts with the launch of a prime brokerage for digital assets trading.

According to sources familiar with the matter, discussions are in the early stages, and an official timeline for the launch has not been defined. However, they revealed that the major global bank plans to launch the new crypto business within its venture capital (VC) unit SV Ventures.

Notably, Standard Chartered’s VC unit recently announced that it is developing Project37C, a joint venture related to digital assets, but did not specifically call the platform a crypto prime brokerage. The joint venture is set to offer custody, tokenization, and market access, and “complement the broader Standard Chartered digital asset ecosystem.”

At the time, Harald Eltvedt, Operating Member and Head of Venture Building at SV Ventures, affirmed that “as we see institutional engagement with digital assets accelerating, there is similarly a growing need for platforms that combine innovation with a high standard.”

As the report noted, the banking giant has been one of the most active global financial institutions in the digital assets sector. Notably, it has backed multiple crypto ventures, including custodians and institutional trading platforms.

In July, the institution became the first global systemically important bank to offer spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for institutional clients. In Q4 2025, Standard Chartered announced its partnership with crypto exchange OKX in the European Economic Area (EEA) and its collaboration with DCS Card Center as the banking partner for a credit card that enables users to make stablecoin transactions.

Last month, Standard Chartered expanded its partnership with Coinbase to develop a suite of crypto prime services for institutional clients, including trading, staking, custody, and lending.

Global Banking Rules’ Challenge

Bloomberg highlighted that Standard Chartered could benefit from launching the new business through SC Ventures, as it may help circumvent some strict capital requirements for digital assets in corporate and investment banks.

It’s worth noting that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) released its standard for the “prudential treatment of banks’ exposures to cryptoassets” in 2022, including tokenized traditional assets, stablecoins, and unbacked digital assets.

Under Basel III rules, banks that hold cryptocurrencies face a risk charge far higher than with any other risk assets. The institutions are required to comply with a 1,250% risk charge for exposure to permissionless crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether. Meanwhile, some VC investments under the latest Basel capital package only face a 400% charge.

As reported by Bitcoinist, global regulators are in talks to review and potentially overhaul rules for banks’ crypto holdings, set to come into force in 2026. Senior executives stated that banks have largely interpreted the standards as a signal to avoid crypto “since they imposed a heavy capital burden on such holdings.”

However, the recent global shift toward the crypto industry has sparked debates at the BCBS regarding the suitability of these rules under the current environment, with major jurisdictions, including the US and UK, not committing to implementing them on time.

The US has been reportedly leading calls to amend these standards, arguing that the rules are “incompatible with the industry’s evolution,” particularly in the stablecoin sector. Moreover, some countries seem to agree with the US’s reasoning and favor reviewing the standards before they are widely implemented.

The Bank of Italy ran a technical analysis that asks a stark question: What happens if Ethereum (ETH) falls to zero and stays there?

The recently released paper is authored by Claudia Biancotti for the Bank’s Markets, Infrastructures, Payment Systems series. It is listed as Number 74 and runs 11 pages.

Bank Of Italy Issues Technical Analysis

According to the Bank, permissionless blockchains like Ethereum act as settlement systems for a wide range of tokens and contracts. The institution treats the question as a stress test on infrastructure rather than only on asset prices.

The note warns that if a native token loses most of its market value and the drop remains persistent, the economic incentives that keep validators running could vanish. Validators might exit, the paper says, and that could make settlement slow or stop.

What The Paper Found

Based on reports in the Bank’s paper, the chain of effects is simple and worrying. Validators are paid in ETH. If ETH has next to no value, that payment no longer motivates operators.

As a result, transaction settlement could slow dramatically or, in extreme cases, halt. The paper also highlights that other assets using the chain — for example, tokenized securities or fully backed stablecoins — could become hard to move or could face security problems if the network’s defenses weaken.

Ethereum: Context And Reaction

Italy’s broader regulators have recently stepped up their look at crypto risks. Reports show the Economy Ministry ordered a review of safeguards, and the Bank of Italy’s paper fits into that wider push to quantify risks tied to new payment systems.

Reuters and other outlets covered the regulator-level review in December and January as authorities pressed firms to meet emerging rules.

Potential System Risks

The authors do not claim the scenario is likely. Instead, the exercise is framed as a way to show how market risk can turn into infrastructure risk. The paper points out there is no formal mechanism to “shut down” a permissionless chain in an orderly way.

Any mitigation would rely on voluntary action by validators, major staking firms, or protocol changes proposed and adopted by the community. That uncertainty is the main policy concern.

The Bank of Italy’s note is a technical, measured look at a worst-case scenario. It uses concrete data to argue that a collapse in Ethereum market value would not only hit holders but could also impair the functioning of systems that now run on Ethereum.

Featured image from Gemini, chart from TradingView

After months of intense negotiations involving both political parties, as well as representatives from the crypto industry and traditional banking sectors, the long-awaited week for the crypto market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, has arrived. 

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terret reported on Monday that ongoing disputes within the industry, partisan disagreements over crucial details, and the pressures exerted by legacy banking interests have repeatedly delayed the timeline.

CLARITY Act Text Set For Release 

On Friday, the Banking Committee leadership indicated that the most recent bipartisan version of the bill would be officially marked up early on Thursday, January 15. 

The new text of the CLARITY Act will utilize the existing framework of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which passed through the House in July. This means the name “CLARITY Act” will remain, but the legislation will primarily reflect the Senate’s recent collaborative efforts.

As the week unfolds, the text set for the Banking Committee vote, which has undergone final edits, is expected to be distributed to senators on Monday or Tuesday for further amendments. 

According to Terret’s report, there are three major aspects that stakeholders will closely observe when the bill text is released. First, there is significant interest in what ethics rules will apply to public officials involved in the crypto space, including the President. 

Second, the ongoing debate regarding stablecoin rewards remains a focal point. Finally, how both Democrats and Republicans address decentralized finance (DeFi), particularly in relation to securities trading and concerns about illicit finance, is also among the key provisions to be.

Crypto Legislation Discussions

Amanda Tuminelli, Executive Director of the DeFi Education Fund, attended recent closed-door meetings involving leaders from both crypto and securities industries, stressing the importance of the regulatory balance in a digital assets bill. 

“Banks and trade associations like SIFMA have significant concerns about regulatory arbitrage, especially concerning decentralized exchanges trading tokenized securities,” she noted.

Tuminelli will also keep a keen eye on the potential inclusion of provisions related to self-custody, protections for software developers, and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), which she considers essential for the bill’s success.

ConsenSys General Counsel Bill Hughes has also expressed optimism about the developments leading up to the markup, indicating a hopeful outlook heading into the deliberations.

The reports suggest that Thursday could see simultaneous markups from both the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees. However, disputes over key provisions could threaten the bill’s bipartisan nature, potentially leading to a postponement. 

Negotiations between Senate Chairman John Boozman and Senator Cory Booker have seemingly continued over the weekend and may play a crucial role in determining the markup’s outcome, Terret asserted.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com