Из жизни альткоинов

XRP is reportedly showing signs of tightening supply, with exchange balances falling to levels not seen in years. Despite this shift, the cryptocurrency’s price remains stuck below $2, highlighting an unusual disconnect between shrinking availability, slow demand, and weak price performance. 

XRP Exchanges Balances Crashes To New Lows

The supply of XRP on crypto exchanges has dropped to an eight-year low, yet the token continues to trade below $2. According to Glassnode data, XRP supply held on exchanges has fallen to 1.6 million tokens. This marks a roughly 57% decline from the 3.76 billion XRP recorded on October 8, 2025, representing the lowest level since 2018.

From a basic economic standpoint, a lower supply combined with rising demand often triggers a price surge in assets. For example, when coins are moved off crypto exchanges into private wallets, they are less available for immediate sale, which can limit supply and potentially support price appreciation. Analysts like X Finance Bull also see declines in exchange balances as a bullish signal that could create a supply shock and potentially spark a rally. 

However, despite exchange balances reaching multi-year lows in this cycle, the XRP price has struggled to maintain upward momentum and has continued to hover around $1.8. This choppy action suggests that reduced supply alone has not been sufficient to sustain a recovery or alleviate ongoing selling pressure. 

Why The Price Remains Stuck Below $2

Although XRP saw a sharp rally that briefly pushed its price above $3 earlier in 2025, that move was short-lived. Constant distributions, negative investor sentiment, and general market volatility have erased much of the gains, pushing the cryptocurrency almost 50% below its former highs. 

XRP continues to struggle to rise above $2 because its repeated breakout attempts have been rejected, keeping it below key resistance levels. This behavior points to weaker demand and lower buyer participation. Persistent selling pressure has also weighed heavily on price. In recent months, accelerated sell-offs have intensified market declines, preventing any meaningful or sustained reversal. 

On-chain metrics also provide extra context for the ongoing weakness. Notably, the portion of XRP’s supply currently in profit has also declined. Over half of the circulating supply is now underwater, increasing the risk of panic selling and reinforcing the ongoing downtrend. 

Broader market conditions also appear to be amplifying XRP’s price struggles. Major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Solana, are trending lower, reflecting a broader market slowdown that has also weighed on the price.

The combination of these market factors and declining investor sentiment has significantly affected the XRP price, driving it into a downward spiral. While market analysts remain optimistic about the cryptocurrency’s potential for a strong price recovery, XRP remains in the red, having closed 2025 lower and extending its downtrend into 2026 with no immediate rebound in sight. 

According to a CFTC press release, Amir Zaidi has been named Chief of Staff at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), effective December 31, 2025. The agency said Chairman Michael S. Selig made the announcement and noted Zaidi’s long history with the regulator.

Bitcoin: Experienced Regulator Returns

Zaidi first joined the commission in 2010 and served in various roles through 2019. He spent his last two years at the agency as Director of the Division of Market Oversight, a post he took on in 2017.

Reports have disclosed that in that role he helped shape the policy steps that led to the launch of regulated Bitcoin futures in the US during US President Donald Trump’s first term.

I’m grateful for Amir Zaidi’s willingness to return to the @CFTC as chief of staff. Amir was instrumental in the historic launch of CFTC-regulated bitcoin futures contracts during @POTUS President Trump’s first term. With Congress poised to send digital asset market structure… https://t.co/Oft6NLc4Uv

— Mike Selig (@MichaelSelig) December 31, 2025

What He Did Outside Government

After leaving the commission in 2019, Zaidi moved to the private sector. He joined TP ICAP as Global Head of Compliance in September 2019, a role in which he oversaw a large compliance team and reported to senior legal leadership at the firm. That experience gave him direct exposure to broker-dealer operations and market structure issues.

Why The Move Matters

Based on reports, Zaidi returns at a time when Congress and federal agencies are focused on clearer rules for digital assets. Some lawmakers are expected to advance a market structure bill in early January that could give agencies more defined roles over crypto trading and derivatives. That timing puts a spotlight on the CFTC’s leadership choices.

A Look At His Track Record

Zaidi’s years at the commission included work on exchange oversight, swap data, and market monitoring. The TP ICAP materials describe him as having led a team of about 90 staff across multiple offices while at the CFTC, an operational detail tied to his DMO role. That mix of policy and hands-on management is what the agency emphasized when announcing his return.

Regulators will likely move quickly to set priorities for 2026. Market participants and lawmakers will watch how the new chief of staff helps the CFTC coordinate with other agencies and respond to incoming legislation.

Featured image from Flowcarbon, chart from TradingView

After several months of inactivity, Metaplanet Inc., a Japanese Bitcoin treasury company, has expanded its BTC reserves, adding thousands of new coins to its already extensive portfolio. The company announced the completion of its 2025 quarterly accumulation cycle just two days before the new year, acquiring additional BTC as prices declined.

Metaplanet Closes Year With Extra Bitcoin

Bitcoin appeared to be on discount as Metaplanet ramped up its accumulation efforts at the close of 2025. The treasury company completed another round of BTC purchases, taking advantage of market weakness and BTC’s price sitting below $100,000, to expand its holdings.

On December 30, Metaplanet released a report detailing its recent Bitcoin buy and overall accumulation strategy, outlining its total holdings to date, along with the aggregate cost basis and average purchase price. During the Fourth Quarter (Q4) of 2025, the treasury company acquired 4,279 BTC at an average price of ¥16,325,148 per coin. The total investment for this purchase reached ¥69.855 billion.

Following the acquisition, Metaplanet’s total BTC holdings increased to 35,102 BTC. The treasury company’s cumulative BTC investment hit ¥559.727 billion, with the average price per Bitcoin across all holdings standing at ¥15,945,691. The treasury company has revealed that the recent purchase is part of its ongoing Bitcoin Treasury Operations, which include strategic and targeted buying through the sale of BTC options. 

In US dollar terms, Metaplanet reported purchasing additional BTC during Q4 2025 for approximately $451.06 million at an average price of around $105,412 per BTC. As of December 30, 2025, the company’s total Bitcoin position was acquired for roughly $3.78 billion at an average price of roughly $107,606 per coin.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Metaplanet, Simon Gerovich, reported on X that the company has achieved a BTC yield of 568.2% Year-to-Date (YTD) for 2025. This yield reflects the cumulative result of the BTC treasury’s acquisition activities throughout the previous year. 

Metaplanet Reports Strong But Slowing BTC Returns

In the report, Metaplanet achieved a BTC Yield of 309.8% from October to December 2024 and 95.6% from January to March 2025. The company maintained momentum with a 129.4% BTC Yield from April to June before growth slowed to 33% in the third quarter. From October to December 2025, Metaplanet’s BTC Yield further declined to 11.9%, reflecting a gradual deceleration in Bitcoin’s performance. 

The treasury company explained that BTC Yield measures the percentage change in Total Bitcoin Holdings relative to fully Diluted Shares Outstanding and serves as a key performance indicator of its BTC acquisition strategy. The report also disclosed that Metaplanet calculates its BTC Gain by applying the BTC Yield to Total Bitcoin Holdings at the start of each period.  

Charles Hoskinson rang in 2026 from his Wyoming ranch with a message that sounded, at first blush, like an exit. It wasn’t. The Cardano founder said he is “not leaving the cryptocurrency space,” but he is walking away from day-to-day life on X and retooling how he shows up publicly, arguing that his visibility has become a liability for Cardano and Midnight adoption.

Cardano Founder Plans To Move Into The Background

Hoskinson opened the New Year’s livestream titled “Happy New Year and Farewell” with a post-mortem on 2025, framing it as a year in which parts of the industry chased success faster than it built systems capable of delivering on crypto’s broader promises. In his telling, the space “lost our way” by letting incentives and spectacle override first principles.

He was also explicit about what the “farewell” refers to and what it does not. “So, to get this right off the bat, I’m not leaving the cryptocurrency space,” Hoskinson said. “I’m cognizant and aware that every single time I make a live stream or I say something, it gets misconstrued. So, let’s just definitively put that on the table. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving.”

Instead, he described a strategic retreat from hyper-online discourse, claiming that the “weaponization” of his persona creates a barrier for would-be users who might otherwise participate in Cardano or Midnight.

The problem, he argued, is that public perception increasingly substitutes for product evaluation: “We don’t ask what it do. We ask who made it… If we hate them, what that thing is is evil and wrong. If we love them, what that thing is must be good.”

The clearest operational change is his decision to step back from X entirely. “I’ve outgrown X,” he said. “So it’s my farewell to that platform and I’ll turn it over to curators and AI. It’ll go into silent mode for probably a few weeks to a few months as we build up that infrastructure because I have more important things to do, but I’m going to uninstall the app and never think of it again.”

Hoskinson said he plans to focus instead on “long form writing,” AMAs, livestreams, and experimenting with new media formats, floating Twitch as one possible outlet. The goal, as he framed it, is to preserve community connection while reducing the surface area for what he described as increasingly hostile, toxic cycles during down markets.

Beyond the social pivot, Hoskinson emphasized a shift into “deep focus,” saying he has returned to a level of product specificity he hasn’t had “in a very long time.” He cited drafting a “specification for a zkVM,” working on “adding privacy to intents,” and thinking through “chain abstraction” and the roles across “application and permission and solver and settlement” layers.

He repeatedly anchored that renewed focus to scale targets, explicitly tying his 2026 mindset to Midnight’s longer-term arc. “Every day I wake up and I ask, ‘How do I build something a million people can use?’ And then I ask, ‘How do I build something a billion people can use?’” he said, adding that he has been thinking through what it would take for Midnight to reach “a billion users and a trillion dollars of transactions on the platform by 2030.”

Happy New Year and Farewell https://t.co/lfCJ2T09h0

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) January 1, 2026

Personal Changes For 2026

Hoskinson also made the personal operational changes unusually concrete. He said he traveled “more than 260 days” in 2025, averaged “only five and a half hours of sleep a night,” and described that pace as unsustainable. After Japan and Hong Kong, he said, he intends to travel less and spend more time at his ranch or farm, focusing on health, reading, and calmer reflection.

The closing stretch blended motivation with ecosystem-specific claims about the year ahead: he said “we finally launched Midnight,” pointed to RealFi efforts that “gave out a million loans over the last 18 months” in Uganda and Kenya, and framed 2026 as the year “Leios ships,” “Hydra gets good,” and Cardano’s “decentralized governance becomes hardened” as the community gains “full agency.”

But he also delivered a blunt cultural critique that doubles as a signal to his audience about what he wants his next chapter to optimize for. “If all you can think about is the price, you’ve already lost,” Hoskinson said. “Even if it goes up, you’ve lost. Not just at crypto, but at life.”

At press time, ADA traded at $0.34.

Единого, всеми признанного события года на крипторынке, пожалуй, не случилось (к новым рекордам цены биткоина уже все привыкли). Опрошенные Bits.media эксперты, не сговариваясь, практически не повторили друг друга в оценке ушедшего 2025-го и своих ожиданиях от 2026-го.