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India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU‑IND) has launched a fresh anti‑money‑laundering crackdown aimed at privacy‑focused cryptocurrencies. The move targets Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash (DASH), which together represent the largest and most widely used privacy coins globally.

India Tightens Crypto Oversight

Details of the action were shared on Friday by market analyst MartyParty on social media platform X (previously Twitter), who notes that FIU‑IND has issued a directive to crypto exchanges registered in India, instructing them to immediately suspend deposits, withdrawals, and trading activity for Monero, Zcash, and Dash. 

At the heart of the regulator’s concerns is the technology underpinning these assets. Privacy coins rely on advanced cryptographic techniques designed to obscure transaction details, wallet balances, and user identities. 

Monero uses ring signatures to hide the sender and receiver, Zcash allows shielded transactions that conceal transaction data, and Dash offers optional privacy features. 

While these tools are valued by users seeking confidentiality, regulators argue they make it difficult for exchanges to meet know‑your‑customer (KYC) and transaction‑monitoring obligations. The regulator views these features as posing elevated risks related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion. 

The latest directive applies to all cryptocurrency exchanges registed in the country, which currently includes crypto platforms operating in compliance with Indian regulations. They have been instructed to stop supporting the assets, including delisting, blocking all deposits and withdrawals, and disabling any associated trading pairs.

Monero, Zcash, And Dash Show Mixed Market Reaction

The latest action builds on a broader regulatory push by Indian authorities. In October 2025, FIU‑IND ordered internet service providers to block access to 25 offshore crypto exchanges that failed to register. 

By contrast, only a handful of exchanges currently remain fully registered and compliant in the country. Binance, Mudrex, Coinbase, CoinSwitch (CoinSwitch Kuber), and ZebPay continue to operate legally in India.

Despite the regulatory pressure, market prices for the targeted privacy coins showed short‑term resilience. Over the past 24 hours, all three assets posted gains after recovering from sharp losses earlier in the week. 

Monero was trading at $524 at the time of writing, up 3.5% on the day. Zcash also rebounded modestly, rising 2.2% to trade at $372. Dash recorded the strongest daily performance, jumping 11.6% during the same period.

However, the broader trend remains negative. According to CoinGecko data, Monero, Zcash, and Dash are still down sharply on a weekly basis, with losses of approximately 21%, 8%, and 20% respectively over the past seven days. 

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

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin mining Difficulty has seen a downward adjustment following the decline in the network Hashrate.

Bitcoin Blockchain Has Eased Mining Difficulty

According to data from CoinWarz, the Bitcoin mining Difficulty has gone through a decline in the latest network adjustment. The “Difficulty” here refers to a metric built into the blockchain that controls how hard miners would find it to discover a block.

The indicator’s value automatically changes roughly every two weeks in events called adjustments, based on how miners performed since the last such event. The blockchain follows one simple rule to adjust the Difficulty: miner blockchain production rate should converge to 10 minutes per block.

If miners find the average block in an interval greater than 10 minutes, then the network responds by raising its Difficulty just enough that these validators are slowed back down to the standard rate. On the other hand, this cohort performing slower than needed forces the blockchain to ease things up.

The latest Bitcoin Difficulty adjustment occurred on Thursday, and as the below chart shows, it resulted in a decrease for the metric.

Prior to the change, the indicator had a value of 146.47 trillion hashes. Now, it has dropped to 141.67 trillion hashes, indicating a decrease of 3.28%. This is the second-consecutive reduction in the network Difficulty.

In fact, the indicator has been in a long-term decline since November, with five of the six Difficulty changes that have occurred in the period leading to a drop in its value. Even the one adjustment that didn’t lead to a decrease in the metric had an almost neutral effect, so while the decline didn’t strengthen during it, it didn’t correspond to a change of direction either.

The reason for this long drawdown in the Bitcoin Difficulty lies in the trend witnessed by the Hashrate, a measure of the total amount of computing power connected by the miners to the network.

As data from Blockchain.com shows, the 7-day average value of the Hashrate has been going down during the last few months.

On January 18th, the 7-day average Bitcoin Hashrate fell to 978.8 exahashes per second (EH/s), its lowest level since the first half of September. The indicator has observed a rebound since this low, but its value still remains notably lower than earlier in the month.

Miners’ pace tends to directly correlate with the amount of computing power that they possess, so a decline in the Hashrate usually results in a correction for the Difficulty. The continued downtrend in the former since October is why the latter has also plunged.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $90,000, down more than 5% over the last week.

XRP is attempting to stabilize above the $1.90 level after slipping below the $2.00 mark, a breakdown that has fueled fresh uncertainty across the market. With momentum weakening and volatility picking up, traders are now watching whether this pullback becomes a temporary reset or the start of a deeper downside move.

Analysts remain divided on the outlook, as some argue XRP is entering a bearish continuation phase, while others believe the market is simply clearing leverage before a rebound. Either way, the coming sessions are shaping up to be decisive for short-term direction.

A report from Arab Chain adds an important layer of context by focusing on Binance flow dynamics. According to the report, data from Binance’s XRP platform shows the 30-day correlation between price and CVD (Cumulative Volume Delta) sitting near 0.61, which signals a moderate to strong positive relationship between price action and net volume flows. In simple terms, XRP’s recent moves have not been disconnected from trading activity.

Instead, price changes appear to be relatively supported by actual volume behavior rather than isolated technical noise.

This matters because when price and CVD remain positively linked, the market is often viewed as structurally aligned, suggesting trend confirmation rather than a random bounce. For XRP, this correlation could become a key signal as bulls fight to defend $1.90.

XRP’s CVD Confirmation Score Shows Base-Building, Not Capitulation

Arab Chain explains that while the 30-day price–CVD correlation remains positive, the latest CVD reading is still relatively negative, signaling that accumulated selling pressure has not yet flipped into net buying dominance. This is a critical nuance.

Rather than acting like a simple “buy” or “sell” trigger, the metric functions as a confirmation score, meaning it evaluates whether price action is internally supported by volume flows instead of offering a clean entry signal. In other words, it helps traders judge the quality of the trend and whether market behavior is coherent beneath the surface.

The real value of this framework is its ability to detect divergence early. If XRP’s price attempts to recover while correlation deteriorates, or if CVD stays negative during upside moves, it would suggest hidden weakness and a higher probability that rallies are being sold into. That kind of imbalance often appears before sharp reversals, especially in uncertain conditions where liquidity is thin and momentum-driven positioning dominates.

In the current context, however, the market is sending a more balanced message. The persistence of a positive correlation despite ongoing price weakness implies that XRP may be entering a base-building phase, where selling pressure is being absorbed gradually rather than accelerating into aggressive distribution.

Trend Weakness Keeps Bulls On Defense

XRP is trading near $1.91 on the 3-day chart after failing to reclaim the $2.00 level, keeping the market in a fragile short-term position. The structure shows that XRP topped above $3.50 during the mid-2025 rally, but the move has since unraveled into a steady downtrend defined by lower highs and repeated breakdowns. After the sharp leg lower in October, the price attempted to stabilize, but the recovery lacked follow-through and has gradually faded into a tighter compression zone.

From a trend perspective, XRP remains capped below its major moving averages. The blue average is sloping downward and sits above price near the mid-$2 range, reinforcing a bearish bias and limiting upside attempts. The green average is also flattening and rolling over, confirming that momentum has weakened across multiple timeframes. Meanwhile, XRP is now leaning directly on the red long-term average, which is rising toward the current price and acting as a key support reference around the $1.85–$1.90 region.

Price action over the last several candles suggests a base-building process, but it is still premature to call a reversal. Bulls need to defend this support zone and reclaim $2.00–$2.10 to shift momentum back in their favor. If XRP loses the rising long-term average, downside risk increases toward $1.70 and potentially the mid-$1.50 area, where demand previously stepped in.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

On-chain data from CryptoQuant shows GameStop has deposited its entire Bitcoin stack into Coinbase Prime, a potential sign of selling.

GameStop Has Transferred 4,710 BTC To Coinbase Prime

In a new post on X, on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant has revealed how GameStop just moved all its Bitcoin holdings to Coinbase Prime, the institutional prime brokerage wing of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. GameStop is an American videogame retailer that’s considered the largest chain of its kind in the world. In recent years, the company has seen a decline as physical gaming stores have increasingly lost relevance in the digital era.

In 2025, the struggling retailer diversified by adopting a Bitcoin treasury reserve, following in the footsteps of other firms like Strategy. As the chart below, shared by CryptoQuant, shows, the company bought 4,710 BTC between May 14th and 23rd. These purchases involved an average buying price of $107,900 per token, costing GameStop a total of $504 million.

It’s also visible in the graph that the company has cleared out all of its wallets recently, with its total holdings dropping to zero. GameStop has made these moves as the asset has gone through a bearish turn since October.

As this other chart showcases, the firm’s reserve was trading a notable amount below its investment value before the outflows occurred.

According to CryptoQuant, the transfer of GameStop’s holdings to Coinbase Prime could be a sign that the retailer is preparing to sell, a move that would lock in losses of around $76 million at current prices.

The potential sale of GameStop’s Bitcoin reserve has come alongside a significant number of store closures. According to a blog that compiles data using the retailer’s online store locator, 470 stores have so far either been confirmed to be closing or closed this January.

Back in 2021, GameStop was the highlight of a “meme stock” frenzy, in which its share price saw a 1,500% spike alongside a short squeeze over the course of two weeks.

Later in that year, the company decided to take a gamble on a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, attempting to ride the NFT craze of the period. Its platform hit the market in 2022, but it wasn’t long before GameStop started winding it down, and ultimately shuttered its doors in early 2024.

If the latest Bitcoin transactions represent sales, then it would mean that GameStop’s BTC treasury initiative has met a similar end as its NFT venture.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has returned to the $89,100 mark following this week’s pullback.

Ledger, the French maker of hardware wallets for crypto assets, is reportedly moving ahead with plans for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in New York, signaling continued momentum in public market interest for digital asset companies. 

The listing would place Ledger among a growing group of crypto firms seeking access to US capital markets, following the recent public debut of BitGo earlier this week.

Ledger Taps Wall Street Giants For US IPO

The move comes amid a broader initial public offering wave that gained strong traction throughout 2025, when several major crypto-native companies either went public or began laying the groundwork to do so. 

Firms such as Circle (CRLC), Bullish (BLSH), eToro (ETOR), Figure (FIGR), and Gemini (GEMI) have already gone public in the US, while Grayscale and Kraken remain part of the renewed IPO push, with filings submitted and preparations still underway.

According to a report by the Financial Times, Ledger has engaged investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Barclays to advise on its initial public offering in the United States. 

People familiar with the matter say the offering could value the company at more than $4 billion. While the IPO could take place as soon as this year, sources cautioned that the plans remain subject to change.

Ledger’s reported IPO ambitions come as BitGo opened trading on Thursday with its shares jumping 24.6%, giving the company a valuation of approximately $2.59 billion. 

BitGo and several of its existing shareholders sold 11.8 million shares priced above the initially marketed range of $15 to $17, raising $212.8 million in the process.

BitGo Sets Tone For 2026 Crypto IPOs

Market experts have pointed to BitGo’s performance as an important signal for the broader crypto IPO landscape. Lukas Muehlbauer, an IPOX research associate, described BitGo’s listing as the first major test of investor demand for crypto-related offerings in 2026. 

He noted that while Gemini went public near the peak of the crypto market last year, BitGo entered the market during a period of recent selloffs, making its reception particularly telling. 

Muehlbauer added that BitGo’s positioning as a profitable and regulated “digital asset infrastructure company,” rather than a business tied directly to token price movements, helped insulate it from “Bitcoin’s (BTC) day-to-day volatility.”

Beyond Ledger, expectations are building that the pipeline of crypto IPOs will continue to grow. In addition to Kraken and Grayscale, industry experts believe the coming year could bring an even larger number of crypto-related IPOs in the US. 

“2025 marked the professionalization of crypto, and the public markets noticed,” said Mike Bellin, a partner at PwC who leads the firm’s US IPO practice. 

Some offerings, however, have faced delays. Elliot Han, chief investment officer at C1 Fund, said that the fourth quarter could have seen an even higher number of IPOs. 

He pointed to the federal government’s prolonged shutdown as a key factor that pushed several listings into the first quarter of 2026. Han also noted that heightened stock market volatility toward the end of the third quarter added further complications.

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

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have announced a joint event on the future of crypto oversight amid the Trump administration’s push to welcome the sector.

SEC-CFTC Push Joint Crypto Oversight

On Thursday, SEC Chairman Paul Atking and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig announced they will hold an event next week to discuss regulatory harmonization between the two sister agencies.

According to the announcement, the pro-industry chairmen will outline the efforts to work together and cooperate to “deliver on President Trump’s promise to make the United States the crypto capital of the world.”

The event will be hosted on January 27 at the CFTC headquarters and moderated by crypto journalist Eleanor Terret. Additionally, it will be open to the public and livestreamed on both agencies’ websites.

“For too long, market participants have been forced to navigate regulatory boundaries that are unclear in application and misaligned in design, based solely on legacy jurisdictional silos,” said SEC Chair Atkins and CFTC Chair Selig in a joint statement.

“This event will build on our broader harmonization efforts to ensure that innovation takes root on American soil, under American law, and in service of American investors, consumers, and economic leadership,” they added.

Last year, the SEC and CFTC began discussing their options for effectively collaborating on crypto regulations, as a clear framework for digital assets became a top priority for the agencies

As reported by Bitcoinist, the agencies explored reinstating the CFTC-SEC joint advisory committee to develop recommendations on ongoing issues, including efforts in regulatory coordination.

During a September joint roundtable between the two agencies, Atking declared that the era of regulatory fragmentation was ending and the age of harmonized, innovation-friendly crypto oversight was here:

 We are at a crossroads. If we follow the path of our predecessors, America risks ceding leadership in the next chapter of financial history. (…) This ends now (…) our two agencies must work in lockstep to transform dual regulation from a source of confusion into a source of strength. Together, we can offer the best of both worlds: the investor protections that have defined U.S. markets, combined with the innovation-friendly approach that will keep us at the frontier of financial technology throughout the 21st century.

The SEC’s Director of the Division of Trading and Markets, Jamie Selway, highlighted the SEC’s efforts to “further harmonize its rules with our sister regulator, the CFTC. In a January 22 speech, He affirmed that the Division will work shoulder-to-shoulder with the CFTC staff to ensure the US’s continued leadership in financial markets, following Atkins’ September directions.

Congress Regulatory Efforts Stall

The SEC and CFTC’s efforts to regulate the crypto market come as the US Congress struggles to establish a framework to oversee the sector. The Senate Banking Committee’s version of the market structure bill, which focuses on the SEC’s oversight, was delayed after multiple market participants criticized the bill’s draft.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong shared his disappointment with the crypto legislation, withdrawing the company’s support last week. “This version would be materially worse than the current status quo. We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” he affirmed.

The Senate Agriculture Committee published its version of the CLARITY Act on Thursday, which mainly addresses the CFTC’s role and regulations, scheduling its markup session for January 27.

Eleanor Terret shared that the industry’s reaction has been mostly positive, “with stakeholders noting the bill’s close similarities to the House Agriculture Committee’s version of the Clarity Act.”

However, recent reports have warned that the Banking Committee’s crypto talks may not resume until later February or early March, as focus shifts to advancing affordable housing plans linked to President Trump’s priorities.

Ethereum has slipped below the critical $3,000 level, adding fresh pressure to a market that is already showing clear signs of hesitation. After weeks of choppy price action, ETH is now entering a more fragile phase where failed recoveries are starting to shift sentiment. With sellers gaining control and bullish momentum fading, several analysts are warning that this breakdown could open the door for a deeper correction if demand does not return quickly.

The timing is important. Ethereum is moving through a pivotal zone where short-term price direction could shape the broader narrative for 2026. If ETH continues to trade below $3,000 and lower support levels fail to hold, the market may transition into a prolonged risk-off regime. On the other hand, a fast recovery back above this psychological threshold could signal that the breakdown was only a liquidity sweep, setting up a rebound toward higher resistance.

Despite a weakening price structure, on-chain activity suggests large players remain active. Market data shows that Bitmine staked another 171,264 ETH, worth roughly $503.2 million, just a few hours ago. The move adds to the firm’s growing exposure and reinforces the idea that institutional-scale actors are still positioning aggressively, even as Ethereum faces one of its most decisive moments of the year.

Bitmine’s ETH Staking Signals Long-Term Conviction Despite Short-Term Weakness

According to data from Arkham, Bitmine has now staked a total of 1,943,200 ETH, worth roughly $5.71 billion, marking one of the most aggressive Ethereum accumulation and yield-positioning moves currently visible on-chain.

Staking at this scale removes a significant amount of ETH from liquid circulation, effectively shifting supply away from exchanges and into long-term validator positions. In practical terms, it suggests Bitmine is not positioning for a short-term flip, but rather treating Ethereum as a strategic asset that can generate native yield while potentially appreciating over time.

This activity stands out because it is happening while Ethereum is under pressure after losing the $3,000 level. At the moment, the market is stuck in a fragile, risk-sensitive phase, where traders are reacting quickly to breakdowns and failed recoveries. Momentum has weakened, liquidity remains thin, and analysts are increasingly warning that a deeper correction could unfold if key supports continue to fail.

However, Bitmine’s staking expansion provides a counter-signal: large players appear willing to keep committing capital even as sentiment deteriorates. That divergence highlights the current split in the market—short-term participants are defensive, while longer-term allocators are still building exposure. If price stabilizes, this kind of staking-driven supply reduction can become a structural tailwind.

Ethereum Downtrend Pressure Builds

Ethereum is trading near $2,940 after losing the key $3,000 psychological level, putting the market back into a fragile position. The chart shows ETH has been trending lower since the October peak, with a clear sequence of lower highs and heavy sell-side volatility that accelerated into November. Although ETH managed to stabilize into a broad consolidation range between roughly $2,850 and $3,250, the most recent breakdown suggests buyers are struggling to defend support when momentum fades.

From a trend perspective, Ethereum remains capped beneath its major moving averages. Price is trading below the green long-term average and the blue mid-term average, both of which are sloping downward and acting as dynamic resistance.

The recent rebound attempt toward the $3,300–$3,400 zone failed right under the green line, reinforcing that sellers are still controlling rallies. Meanwhile, the red long-term average sits higher near the mid-$3,000s, highlighting that ETH remains far from reclaiming a macro bullish structure.

Volume has increased on the sharp red candles compared to the slower grind higher, which often signals distribution rather than healthy accumulation. If ETH cannot reclaim $3,000 quickly, downside risk opens toward the $2,850 range floor. A clean recovery back above $3,150–$3,250 would be needed to reduce bearish pressure and reset the near-term trend.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

South Korean authorities have come under scrutiny after a large stash of seized Bitcoin went missing during a routine check. The loss was discovered when officials found that some of the wallets that had been held as criminal evidence were empty.

According to multiple reports, the value of the missing Bitcoin is about 70 billion won — roughly $47.7–$48 million.

How Officials Found The Theft

Reports say the gap showed up during a routine audit of confiscated digital assets at the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office.

An internal check flagged transfers from wallets that had been marked as evidence, and investigators traced the movement back to external addresses. The office immediately opened an inquiry to determine how access was lost and whether any recovery is possible.

Initial findings point to a phishing scam as the trigger. According to local coverage, a staff member accessed a fraudulent website that impersonated a legitimate service, and that interaction exposed passwords and private keys.

Once the credentials were captured, the Bitcoin was moved out in transactions that cannot be reversed.

Security Lapses And USB Storage

Reports note that some of the access details for the seized assets were kept on portable drives rather than in hardened custody systems.

That practice appears to have made it easier for attackers to grab the keys once the phishing trap was sprung. Simple mistakes can cost millions when the asset is bearer-like and transfers are final.

The theft has raised hard questions about how state agencies handle crypto. Some experts say that the tools used by prosecutors were more suited to personal use than to government-level custody.

There are calls for stricter rules, multi-signature setups, and cold storage protocols that do not rely on easily copied passwords.

Tracing The Bitcoin

Blockchain records show the funds moving through several wallets after the initial transfer. That public trail gives investigators leads, but tracing tokens to a final cash-out point is often slow and requires cooperation from foreign exchanges and on-chain analytics firms. Reports say authorities are working with outside specialists to map the flow.

What Prosecutors Are Doing Next

The Gwangju prosecutors’ office has vowed a full probe, and officials are trying to reconstruct events step by step.

There are also signs that the incident will trigger a review of national procedures for holding seized digital property. Some lawmakers and legal experts have already called for clearer standards and oversight.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

The US crypto market has welcomed a new entrant as 21Shares rolls out its Spot Dogecoin ETF, giving investors another avenue to engage with the infamous dog-themed meme coin. Trading kicked off amid a mix of curiosity and caution, with on-chain data already showing how much the DOGE ETF has performed so far. 

21Shares Launches Dogecoin ETF

In a press release on Thursday, January 22, 21Shares announced the official launch of its Spot Dogecoin ETF, TDOG, which began trading on NASDAQ the same day. The new ETF provides investors with direct exposure to Dogecoin through a fully backed, regulated, and transparent vehicle. Each ETF share is also backed 1:1 by DOGE held in institutional-grade custody. 

Notably, the launch of the new TDOG ETF brings the total number of US Dogecoin ETFs to three, joining Grayscale’s GDOG and Bitwise’s BWOW. 21Shares is also the only ETF provider endorsed by House of Doge, the official corporate arm of the Dogecoin foundation, highlighting the global asset manager’s close ties to the meme coin. 

As one of the largest crypto ETF issuers, 21Shares continues to expand its crypto product lineup with the introduction of TDOG. This follows the investment company’s previous ETF offerings, including TSOL, a Solana ETF released in November 2025; ARKB, a Spot Bitcoin ETF launched in January 2024; and TETH, an Ethereum ETF introduced in July of the same year. Together, these products demonstrate 21Shares’ commitment to providing institutional-grade access to high-demand digital assets. 

Federick Brokate, Global Head of Business Development at 21Shares, highlighted DOGE’s large and active global community, calling it a unique digital asset with constantly growing use cases. He added that the new TDOG ETF will give investors regulated, physically backed exposure through a familiar ETF structure they know and trust. 

Marco Margiotta, the CEO of House of Doge, also shared comments on the recently launched 21Shares ETF. He said that TDOG is a step toward making Dogecoin easier to access through traditional financial systems. He also disclosed that House of Doge’s partnership with 21Shares will help more people get involved as the Dogecoin ecosystem grows. 

How 21Shares Dogecoin ETF Has Performed So Far

Contrary to expectations, 21Shares’ recently launched Dogecoin ETF saw weak performance on the first day of trading, signaling investors’ lack of interest in the investment product. Data from SoSoValue shows that TDOG experienced no inflows on January 22 and instead declined by about 0.07%. Despite it being the second day of trading, the DOGE ETF has still not registered any flows. 

This lackluster performance has been observed across all Dogecoin ETFs this week. Grayscales’ GDOG and Bitwise BWOW have reported zero inflows over the last week. The last time GDOG saw positive activity was on January 8, when it received around $333,083 in investments. Before that, the ETF recorded its highest inflows on January 2, totaling roughly $2.3 million. Since its launch in November 2025, GDOG ETF inflows have been unstable, with more days of inactivity than significant investment. 

Michael Saylor says Strategy’s evolving capital-markets machine is starting to resemble a “central bank of Bitcoin,” positioning the company as a conduit between traditional money markets and the Bitcoin network. In an interview with Gatecast, the Strategy executive chairman argued the firm’s shift toward perpetual preferred equity and “digital credit” instruments is designed to fund continuous bitcoin accumulation while stripping out refinancing risk.

Saylor traced the company’s pivot to the COVID-era shock of 2020, when “the physical economy of the world came to a grinding halt and the financial system was turned upside down.” Facing what he framed as an existential decision, he said Strategy discovered Bitcoin during “the war on COVID and the war on currency,” and used it to “escape a pretty miserable existence and turned into something digital and modern and much better.”

Strategy Is Building A ‘Central Bank of Bitcoin’

That transformation now sits on a scale Saylor claims is often misunderstood. Addressing criticism that Strategy is simply levering up to buy more Bitcoin, he said the firm has raised roughly $44 billion over the past year and a half and characterized “most of that” as equity rather than debt. “There isn’t really leverage,” Saylor said. “Equity is capital that you have forever. We’re funneling that capital into the crypto economy. We’re buying Bitcoin.” He added that Strategy has acquired “about $48 billion worth of Bitcoin” across “like 88 different transactions,” purchasing “as soon as we raise the capital.”

When asked whether Strategy is still just a buyer or something closer to a “shadow central bank of Bitcoin” given its holdings, Saylor leaned into the analogy. “Bitcoin is digital capital. It is the world reserve capital network. It’s replaced gold as the global non-sovereign store of value for the human race,” he said. Then came the framing: “Banks normally buy credit. We actually sell credit. So what we’re doing is the reverse of commercial banking, retail banking. It is sort of like central banking. We are sort of like the central bank of Bitcoin.”

Saylor’s “central bank” claim hinges on a product stack meant to translate Bitcoin’s balance-sheet asset into yield-bearing instruments for investors who won’t hold BTC directly. He described STRC as “a currency that’s pegged to the dollar” and “backed […] with Bitcoin,” with proceeds recycled into BTC purchases. In his telling, that mechanism links “the Bitcoin economy” to “the traditional finance economy and to the money markets of the world.”

Michael Saylor: “We are sort of like the central bank of Bitcoin.” pic.twitter.com/IyZ9EHLAQn

— TFTC (@TFTC21) January 22, 2026

The more material shift, he argued, is Strategy’s progression away from maturity-driven debt toward perpetual structures. Saylor laid out a four-stage evolution: initial use of credit and leverage, a senior note secured by BTC collateral that the company later refinanced and vowed not to repeat, then non-recourse convertible bonds, an approach he said became constrained by market size and retail inaccessibility and finally “digital credit,” which he described as “an equity […]a perpetual preferred equity.”

In one of his clearest statements of intent, Saylor said Strategy’s priority is to prevent principal from ever coming due. “We don’t want to have leverage. We want to have amplification via equity. We never want the principal to come due. We’d rather pay a higher dividend forever,” he said. “I’d rather pay 10% forever than pay 5% for 5 years.” Strategy, he added, has “announced a $1.44 billion cash reserve for the dividends,” giving it “the option to not raise any capital in the capital markets for up to two years,” and in his view “effectively stripped the credit risk off of the business.”

Saylor also pitched liquidity as a differentiator. He said Strategy has raised $7 billion over the last nine months via these instruments and described an emerging market of about $8 billion outstanding. Where preferred stocks typically trade thinly, he argued Strategy’s “digital credit instruments were trading 30 million a day,” with “Stretch […] more than a hundred million a day,” which he framed as a step-change in market access.

The firm’s investor pitch, as Saylor described it, splits the world into capital and credit buyers. “Bitcoin is digital capital. The world will be built on digital capital. But the world will run on digital credit,” he said, arguing that products like Stretch can offer a money-market-like alternative “powered by digital capital” while sidestepping Bitcoin’s volatility.

At press time, BTC traded at $89,250.

Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at OpenSea, will not face a retrial after federal prosecutors chose to drop their re-review of his insider trading case.

Reports say the US Attorney’s Office reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Chastain that will lead to dismissal of the charges once the agreement runs its course.

What Prosecutors Decided

Prosecutors told a Manhattan federal court they would not retry Chastain following an appeals court ruling that tossed his earlier conviction.

Under the deferred prosecution deal, the government will dismiss the case about a month after notifying the court, and Chastain has agreed to forfeit roughly 15.98 ETH tied to the trades. He has already served three months in prison from his original sentence.

How The Appeals Court Changed The Case

According to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the jury in the first trial had been given the wrong instructions about what the wire fraud law covers.

The judges said confidential information only counts as property under the statute when it has commercial value to the employer, and jurors might otherwise convict someone for behavior that is unethical but not criminal. That legal point is at the heart of the reversal.

Reports note that prosecutors had called the matter the first-ever insider trading case tied to NFTs. Now, lower courts and enforcement teams will have to think carefully before using traditional fraud laws to police activity in NFT markets.

The ruling highlights a gap between old statutes and new kinds of online goods, which may push lawmakers to give clearer rules for how to treat confidential business signals related to crypto platforms.

OpenSea: The Case’s Earlier Chapters

Chastain was first charged in mid-2022 after prosecutors said he bought certain NFTs before they were featured on OpenSea’s homepage, then sold them after prices rose.

He was convicted at trial in 2023 of wire fraud and money laundering and received a sentence that included three months behind bars. The US Attorney’s Office originally described the scheme as a novel use of insider knowledge in digital markets.

With the deferred prosecution agreement in place for OpenSea, prosecutors can close this chapter without a new trial.

Chastain’s forfeiture of crypto assets and his already served time mean the government has secured some remedy, while the appellate decision leaves open big questions about when private business information can be treated as property for federal fraud charges.

Legal teams, judges, and regulators are likely to keep a close eye on how similar cases are handled in the future.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin’s price is fluctuating below the $90,000 mark as volatility increases across the entire cryptocurrency market. During the bearish price action, attention is now being shifted to the cautious signal from the Bitcoin Open Interest in BTC terms, which has remained below past all-time high in years.

Open Interest Tells A Different Story When Measured In BTC

Amid the ongoing volatile action of the crypto market, the derivatives market for Bitcoin is providing a more subdued message. This message is unfolding on the Bitcoin Open Interest (OI) in BTC terms as outlined in a recent research by Joao Wedson, a market expert and founder of the Alphractal analytics platform.

In the report shared on the X platform, the market expert highlighted that the open interest measured in BTC terms has failed to reach new all-time highs since 2022. The BTC-based perspective shows a more restricted usage of leverage over cycles, whereas dollar-denominated measures frequently climb in tandem with price.

On Thursday, the metric experienced a bounce, but Wedson stated that the upward move was mainly in USD-dominated open interest. This pattern suggests that traders are becoming more cautious in the market by allocating capital more carefully as opposed to putting it all into risky positions.

According to the expert, the trend simply suggests that speculation is present in the market and it’s currently expanding. However, the chart shows that the broader market is still far from any form of extreme or irrational euphoria. 

Not Enough Profit To Trigger A Bullish Recovery

BTC’s inability to produce another major rally is linked to the level of investors in profit. Darkfost stated that there are still not enough investors in profit to hope for a sustainable bullish recovery. Thus, it is crucial to understand that latent profits are not harmful to a market; it is quite the opposite.

When investors are most in profit, the situation is much more comfortable, which motivates them to hold. However, this only holds up to a certain point. Also, when the supply in profit surpasses 95% or even 100%, latest profits begin to impact the market and may trigger essential corrective phases.

The ongoing correction remained moderate with a drawdown to around 31%, but it was able to sharply reduce the percentage of supply in profit, suggesting very late entry by many investors. Currently, over 71% of BTC is in profit after dropping as low as 64%, a very concerning level that has typically been observed only when Bitcoin was entering a bear market. 

However, in Darkfost’s view, the market must reclaim above 75% supply in profit to regain a more stable structure. As long as it stays above this level, the supply in profit has historically been associated with positive periods, as shown in the chart. 

With the recent price rebound, the supply in profit saw a brief climb back to 75% before getting rejected. Meanwhile, many BTC investors possibly used this opportunity to exit at break-even or to cut their losses.

Major cryptocurrency exchanges are reportedly positioning to bring tokenized stock trading onto the blockchain, signaling a renewed push to merge traditional financial markets with digital assets. 

According to a report published Friday by The Information, platforms such as Binance are exploring ways to offer crypto tokens that track publicly listed US companies, effectively creating new channels for equity exposure through tokenized instruments.

Binance And OKX Explore Tokenized Stocks

The report says Binance is considering reintroducing stock tokens to its platform, several years after pulling similar products in 2021 amid regulatory uncertainty. 

The plan, cited by a person familiar with the matter, reflects a broader shift within the industry as exchanges revisit tokenized equities under evolving market and compliance frameworks. 

OKX is also said to be evaluating the possibility of offering tokenized stocks, according to Haider Rafique, the company’s global managing partner and chief marketing officer.

Binance has framed the move as part of its long-term strategy to connect traditional finance with the crypto ecosystem. In a statement to CoinDesk, a Binance spokesperson said the exchange is focused on expanding user choice while maintaining strict regulatory standards. 

The company noted that it began supporting tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) last year and recently launched what it described as the first regulated traditional finance perpetual contracts settled in stablecoins. 

Exploring tokenized equities, the spokesperson said, is a natural progression as Binance continues to build infrastructure, collaborate with established financial institutions, and develop new products for users and the wider industry.

Binance and OKX are not alone in this effort. Several major crypto firms, including Robinhood (HOOD), Gemini (GEMI), and Kraken, have already rolled out tokenized stock offerings in Europe. Meanwhile, Robinhood and blockchain startup Dinari are seeking regulatory approval to introduce similar products in the United States.

Tokenized Shares Gain Increased Interest

Robinhood took a significant step in June of last year when it launched trading in tokens linked to publicly listed companies and announced plans to expand into tokenized shares of private firms. 

As part of the rollout, the company distributed tokens pegged to OpenAI. According to Robinhood’s terms and conditions, those tokens function as derivative contracts backed by the firm’s ownership of fund units in a special-purpose vehicle that holds OpenAI convertible notes. 

Coinbase (COIN), on the other hand, is reportedly in discussions with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about launching tokenized securities that would grant investors the same legal rights and benefits as conventional shares. 

Several issuers involved in the space say they are closely adhering to established rules around securities law, anti-money laundering requirements, bankruptcy protections, and investor safeguards.

Industry leaders argue that, when structured properly, tokenization can strengthen rather than weaken investor protections. Ian De Bode, chief strategy officer at Ondo Finance, said that a careful approach to tokenized securities can enhance safeguards while unlocking efficiencies that traditional markets struggle to achieve.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

The XRP Ledger has moved one step closer to a major structural upgrade after validators voted in favor of Permissioned Domains. The amendment has now entered its two-week activation window, which is the standard process on the network before new features go live.  The change may sound technical on the surface, but it carries implications for how XRP-based infrastructure could be used by institutions operating under regulatory frameworks.

Validators Vote Yes On Permissioned Domains

According to commentary shared on X by Vincent Van Code, the amendment introducing Permissioned Domains has received enough validator support to pass. Vincent Van Code is a widely followed software engineer in the community. Amendments on the XRP ledger require sustained validator consensus before activation, meaning this approval reflects alignment across a large portion of the network’s validator set. 

Particularly, amendments on the XRP Ledger require over 80% consensus from trusted validators to hold for two consecutive weeks before activating. This process ensures network-wide agreement, preventing forced changes by any single entity. If support drops below the 80% threshold, the amendment is temporarily rejected, and the two-week period restarts.

As it stands, the consensus on permissioned domains is at 85.29%, and the expected time of approval is on February 4, 2026. Once the two-week waiting period concludes, the permissioned domains feature will become active at the protocol level. 

This means developers and institutions will no longer be building applications through off-chain workarounds or private chains. Developers will now be able to start building applications that rely on controlled access rules directly on the public XRP ledger.

How Permissioned Domains Change What Can Be Built On XRPL

According to the XRP Ledger website, permissioned domains are controlled environments within the broader ecosystem of the XRP Ledger blockchain. Anyone can define a permissioned domain in the ledger. That person becomes the owner of that domain and can update its settings or delete it. 

Permissioned Domains introduce a way to create gated environments on the XRP Ledger, where participation is limited to accounts holding specific verifiable credentials. Instead of every address being treated equally by default, certain activities can now be restricted to verified participants only, without altering the open nature of the base ledger. According to Vincent Van Code, this unlocks institutional use cases by restricting access to accounts with specific verifiable credentials. 

This capability opens the door to permissioned decentralized exchanges where regulated trading of tokenized securities, stablecoins, real-world assets, and even FX instruments can occur among compliant counterparties. The same framework also supports controlled lending protocols, restricted liquidity pools, and treasury operations that only approved entities can access.

The vote on permissioned domains plays into a growing trend of institutional entry into the XRP Ledger. While talking at the World Economic Forum in Davos 2026, Ripple’s CEO discussed increasing integration of the XRP Ledger technology with global financial infrastructure, including stronger engagement with banking partners and tokenization efforts. 

XRP’s price action over the past several days has been tight and uneasy in a way that tends to make traders impatient. XRP is now drifting sideways just below $2, compressing into a narrower range between $1.9 and $1.96. To some, this looks like weakness. 

To others, it looks like upside pressure is building. One technical analyst believes XRP’s price action is approaching a moment that could redefine the entire structure. That view was shared on X by crypto analyst Archie, who noted that its current consolidation is a precursor to a violent breakout that will send its price into new all-time highs.

Why The Current XRP Structure Matters

According to the technical analysis in question, XRP has been carving out a tightening pattern directly beneath a descending trendline that has acted as resistance since the beginning of the year. XRP printed a higher high of $2.4 in early January, retraced, and then began compressing into a narrow range of lower highs on the 30-minute candlestick chart. 

The chart shows how the token has repeatedly respected the trendline without collapsing below support at $1.9. This, in turn, has created what Archie describes as a coil right under the resistance trendline. Interestingly, this kind of structure tends to resolve quickly once price makes contact with the trendline again. 

Trendline Obliteration And The Push Beyond $2

According to the analyst’s prediction, the next touch of the trendline will not be another rejection. Instead, the next touch will lead to a clean break that sends XRP decisively through $2, which is a little more than a checkpoint. From his perspective, the repeated tests of resistance have weakened it, increasing the probability of a breakout as opposed to another downward rejection.

At the time of writing, the altcoin is trading at $1.91, down by 2.6% in the past 24 hours. However, looking closely at the chart Archie shared gives structure to what to expect once the trendline breaks.

The first level is just above the descending trendline itself, around the $2.00 to $2.05 region. In the context of the chart, a clean move through this level is what flips the structure from compression below resistance into expansion above resistance.

Above that, the next highlighted resistance is just below $2.20. The chart then shows a broader resistance cluster between roughly $2.35 and $2.40. Reaching and breaking above this zone is much more significant, as it would show that the breakout is a genuine trend reversal.

At the top end of the projection, the highest marked region is around $2.60. This zone appears to be the final upside target shown on the chart and would place XRP firmly into price discovery territory relative to recent structure.

Over the years, Ethereum staking has become one of the most vital and successful aspects of the broader ETH ecosystem, with big companies steadily jumping into the field. The majority of these companies, especially Bitmine Immersion, are revolutionizing ETH staking, turning it into a massive financial sector and edge.

Bitmine Monetized Ethereum Staking At Scale

After the entry of institutional investors, Ethereum staking has been transformed into a significant business opportunity from a technical requirement. At the forefront of this evolution is Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. (BMNR), a leading digital asset platform dedicated to improving the ETH ecosystem.

With its remarkable involvement in ETH staking, Bitmine Immersion is proving just how large this opportunity can be. The digital asset platform has successfully transformed Ethereum staking into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise by growing its validator operations and staking infrastructure.

As outlined by Milk Road on the social media platform X, the company intends to increase its present investment of 1.83 million ETH, valued at approximately $6 billion at current rates, to 4.2 million ETH. Bitmine’s plan and robust participation in ETH staking are a clear sign of the growing institutional appetite for on-chain yield.

This expansion demonstrates how staking is now about creating profitable, long-lasting businesses around ETH’s proof-of-stake economy rather than just protecting the network. Over the past month, Bitmine has been responsible for almost half of all new ETH entering the staking queue. 

Milk Road stated that staking at this scale removes Ethereum from the liquid supply and locks it away in long-term infrastructure rather than short-term trading. When a single player expresses a willingness to commit billions of dollars’ worth of ETH to staking, it points to an increased confidence in ETH’s future economics.

According to the expert, structural pressure is created by a reduced liquid supply and ongoing network demand over time. Given the sustained growth in institutional staking, Milk Road is confident that ETH’s price will move higher in the foreseeable future.

ETH Powering Crypto Native Financial Rails

With crypto native financial rails expanding, Ethereum is increasingly being positioned as the core infrastructure for major financial firms. JP Morgan asset management firm has confirmed this narrative with its latest fund launched on the ETH network.

Milk Road has reported that JP Morgan has introduced a tokenized money market fund on ETH, which is now live and already holds over $100 million in US treasuries. The rails are native to cryptocurrency, and the product appears to be traditional finance.

In reality, there is no separation, and there is only a financial product operating on the trains that make the most sense. Interestingly, this is how institutions move into new systems. “Incrementally, and only after the rules are clear enough to deploy real capital. Once they are live, they don’t leave,” Milk Road stated.

Либерально-демократическая партия России анонсировала выпуск цифровой монеты «Жириновский-коин». Мемтокен посвящен создателю ЛДПР, скончавшемуся в 2022 году.

An inactive Ethereum whale has just re-entered the trading scene, withdrawing over $15 million worth of ETH in just a single day. Considering Ethereum’s slow price growth over the past few months and the whale’s sudden appearance despite being dormant for months, there could be a possibility of insider trading.

Dormant Ethereum Whale Moves $15 Million ETH

A sudden $15.14 million Ethereum transaction has caught the crypto market’s attention, with the move either driven by insider knowledge or simple strategic positioning. According to data from blockchain analytics platform, Onchain Lens, the transfer shifted approximately 5,099 ETH from a dormant wallet address on Kraken into active circulation on Thursday, January 22. 

Based on on-chain records, the whale, identified by the address ‘0x761F2F,’ has remained inactive in the market for more than three months. The last few times the whale was actively moving in the market were when it executed a series of stablecoin and HYPE transactions. The anonymous whale had initiated multiple million-dollar trades in UETH, USDT, and USDC. Meanwhile, the HYPE transactions were primarily token burns. 

After withdrawing 5,099 ETH from Kraken, Arkham Intelligence reported that the whale had transferred the ETH to Lido Finance, converting it into 5,100 STETH. While there is currently no evidence of insider trading, the timing of the transaction raises questions, especially given Ethereum’s muted price action over the past few months and the mounting selling pressure from large scale holders. 

Typically, insider trading in crypto occurs when individuals with non-public information make large transactions ahead of major market events that could influence market price. Currently, there has been no spike in Ethereum’s price, nor any major news that could suddenly affect its movements. In fact, ETH continues to trade lower, down by roughly 1.7% over the past 24 hours. Its daily trading volume is also down by 34.89%, signaling reduced confidence among traders and investors. 

Whales Go Long On Ethereum

While dormant large-scale players are suddenly re-entering the market, some active whales remain bullish on Ethereum’s long-term prospects despite its ongoing downtrend. According to well-known market analyst Max Crypto, an anonymous whale has just opened a $202 million long position in ETH with 15x leverage. 

The scale of the trade is extraordinary considering Ethereum’s recent volatility. It shows strong confidence in the cryptocurrency’s future price action and its potential to overcome its ongoing downtrend. Notably, the position has a liquidation price of $2,495, meaning that if ETH falls to that level, the trade could be forcibly closed by the crypto exchange, resulting in substantial losses for the whale. 

Market participants are closely watching the whales’ positioning, with some calling it a brave but chaotic bet. Others have even speculated that the position may have been taken based on insider information, fueling discussions about potential market moves and a possible bullish turnaround for ETH.

Международная политика вновь давит на думы инвесторов. Прошлую неделю рынок следил за протестами в Иране, а на этой Дональд Трамп сместил фокус внимания мира на Гренландию. Под гнетом быстро меняющихся событий на крипторынке случилась коррекция.

Экономист и криптоскептик Питер Шифф (Peter Schiff) призвал биткоин-инвесторов переосмыслить целесообразность вложений в криптовалюту на фоне росте стоимости золота и серебра.