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South Korea has announced plans to introduce Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in 2026 as part of broader digital asset reforms.

South Korea Using US & Hong Kong Crypto Spot ETFs As A Reference

South Korea revealed in its 2026 Economic Growth Strategy plans to allow spot digital asset ETFs this year, according to Wu Blockchain, citing local media outlet News1.

Spot ETFs are investment vehicles that allow traders to gain exposure to an underlying asset without having to directly own it. Such vehicles trade in the traditional markets, so investors of a spot ETF tied to a cryptocurrency never have to interact with blockchain components like wallets and exchanges.

Instead, the funds buy and custody the assets on behalf of investors. In recent years, spot ETFs tied to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have gained adoption in different regions of the world as DeFi and TradFi intersect.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved spot ETFs for Bitcoin in January 2024 and Ethereum in July 2024, while the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) allowed both in April 2024. Approvals related to altcoins like Solana followed in 2025.

Now, it would appear that South Korea is also looking to join the fray. Per the report, the country’s government has explicitly cited the digital asset spot ETF markets active in the US and Hong Kong as key reference points. Plans related to spot ETFs aren’t all that South Korea has announced. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of the country is also accelerating the next phase of its digital asset legislation, which will establish a framework for stablecoins.

In the East Asian bloc, other governments have already made progress on stablecoins. Hong Kong enacted its stablecoin legislation in August, while Japan saw the launch of its first yen-backed token in October. While South Korea has set a timeframe of 2026, it’s unknown when exactly spot ETFs could be introduced. As such, it only remains to be seen what plans the government will reveal next and which assets besides Bitcoin will be covered.

Speaking of spot Bitcoin ETFs, these funds have been facing outflows in the US recently, as data from SoSoValue shows.

From the chart, it’s visible that the Bitcoin spot ETF weekly netflow has mostly been negative since the cryptocurrency’s decline started in October. There were a few weeks that saw a positive value, but the scale of net inflows remained limited.

The netflow for the latest week has stood at a negative $431 million, meaning that the US funds are continuing to bleed.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has erased some of its recent gains as its price has retraced back to $90,500.

A day after the Electric Coin Company’s breakup, the team behind Zashi said it is spinning out into a new Zcash-focused company and launching a new wallet built from the existing Zashi codebase. The move is framed as an effort to “scale Zcash to billions,” while keeping the group’s work narrowly centered on the Zcash stack.

In a message signed by Josh Swihart, the developers said the new wallet is code-named “cashZ” and will reuse the codebase originally built for Zashi. The team also opened a waitlist for early access, telling existing Zashi users that “all you need to do is join the waitlist” and that a migration will be designed to feel as seamless as the current Zashi experience once cashZ is live “in a few weeks.”

The announcement attempted to answer what it expects will be the community’s first question after an organizational breakup: whether the engineers are still committed to Zcash. “The entire team that worked at Electric Coin Company and built Zashi is still 100% focused on full-stack Zcash development,” the post said. “We aren’t launching any new coins, we’re just scaling Zcash. To do that, it required that we leave and start a new Zcash-focused company.”

Why Zcash’s Core Builders Are Starting A New Company

The team said the decision to form a new company came down to three ideas: Zcash’s cypherpunk roots, governance and incentive alignment, and a need to scale.

In the longest section, the developers cast the past decade of crypto regulation as a kind of prolonged stress test for privacy, describing it as “a decade of compliance theater.” The post argued that privacy-preserving tools are not merely a technical preference but a civil-liberties issue that requires a more assertive posture from the organizations building them.

“This effort was not simply about complying with unjust laws. Of course, we must abide by the law, or else be thrown in a cage,” the message said. “But when the law is unjust, we have a moral imperative to work to change the unjust law. One tool for that is code.”

From that premise, the team connected Zcash’s mission to mainstreaming privacy online, positioning the protocol as “a peaceful global reform movement” and saying that a structure bogged down by internal friction would be poorly suited to that fight. “To do this, we need an organization that has courage,” it added, arguing for “cypherpunk leadership” and a governance model that “can’t cut through red tape.”

A second argument centered on what the post described as chronic misalignment when nonprofits and venture-style startups are intertwined. The team cited recent commentary from Andreessen Horowitz to bolster the idea that crypto’s “foundation era” is ending, while distinguishing the Zcash Foundation as an example of a standalone nonprofit that can do effective work.

The critique was not subtle: “Nonprofits are about rule-lawyering, while tech startups are about rewriting the rules,” the statement said, adding that nonprofit boards often lack the accountability mechanisms of corporate boards. The team also pointed to heightened scrutiny of US nonprofits and the risk of tax exemptions being challenged, arguing there is “no benefit in keeping a fast-growing technology company under a nonprofit when the substance of the organization is a for-profit.”

The final section placed the wallet launch inside a bigger ambition: to make Zcash large enough that privacy becomes difficult to marginalize. It framed the strategic choice as binary: “to be so small they can’t see you, or so big they can’t stop you.”

The post claimed that Zcash has undergone “a complete rebirth” over the past two years, crediting an ecosystem-wide effort and naming contributors including Sean Bowe, genzcash, and Shielded Labs, alongside “many more who prefer to remain unnamed.” That resurgence, it argued, changes the operating environment: “We are no longer so small they can’t see us. Everyone can see us. We now need to get so big they can’t stop us.”

For now, the tangible deliverable is cashZ, with the team promising more details later and signaling that execution will be the message. “Actions will speak louder than words,” Swihart wrote, urging users to join the waitlist as the developers “boot up” the new wallet and push toward what they describe as “onboarding billions to Zcash.”

At press time, the ZEC price recovered some losses from yesterday’s crash and traded at $436.

As the US Senate delves into the highly anticipated crypto market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, optimism is building ahead of the January 15 markup that could see the legislation advance to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Senate Reviews Crucial Crypto Bill

On Friday, Senator Cynthia Lummis, a prominent advocate for pro-crypto policies, shared insights on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), indicating that the Senate is engaging in a “light reading” of the bill. 

This step follows extensive negotiations involving not only bipartisan discussions between Democrats and Republicans but also interactions among lobbyists from both the cryptocurrency and traditional banking sectors. 

Key provisions, including stablecoin incentives outlined in the GENIUS Act, are proving pivotal for the bill’s potential success, as reported by Bitcoinist over the past few weeks.

Market expert MartyParty also chimed in, providing updates on social media regarding the Senate’s ongoing review of the long-awaited legislation that builds on the House-passed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. 

Path To Passage

MartyParty noted that the review is especially timely, as it aligns with the upcoming markup sessions scheduled for the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Senator Tim Scott, as well as discussions in the Agriculture Committee. 

He clarified that these sessions aim to take place around January 15, 2026, although some reports suggest that they might occur as late as January 16. The markups will provide an opportunity for amendments, debates, and committee-level votes on the bill’s language.

If the bill successfully advances out of both committees, the expert stressed that the drafts will be reconciled before moving to a full Senate floor vote. Achieving this step will require securing at least 60 votes to overcome any potential filibuster, emphasizing the need for bipartisan support.

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

The idea of an altcoin season rolling in is still active, and early signals are starting to surface. These signs are not through price moves but through changes in on-chain behavior and trader activity. 

At the center of these observations is Ethereum, the leading altcoin, which has always led previous altcoin seasons. However, other interesting behavior is showing up in other large-market-cap cryptocurrencies, which implies any altcoin season from here might be different from previous ones.

Ethereum Usage Holds Even With Price Consolidation

On-chain signals linked to an altcoin season are beginning to appear across several large-market-cap cryptocurrencies, which implies that any rotation into altcoins may not be driven by Ethereum alone this time. That said, Ethereum is still exhibiting a set of familiar traits that have always placed it at the center of past altcoin cycles.

Related Reading: Ethereum Enters Overbought Levels With Weekend Pump, Why A Crash Could Be Coming

For example, on-chain data shows Ethereum maintaining activity levels close to cycle highs even as its price continues to move sideways, fluctuating above and below $3,000. In previous market periods, consolidations of this nature were typically paired with a noticeable decline in network usage as traders lost interest and speculative activity cooled. 

This time, that pullback in engagement has not materialized. Active addresses and transaction activity are still high, with the recent numbers coming in around 472,000 active addresses. In previous altcoin cycles, similar conditions appeared just before Ethereum began to outperform Bitcoin and led the rotation into altcoins. Now, history might be repeating itself.

XRP, Solana, And BNB Reflect Early Altcoin Season Positioning

In addition to Ethereum, behavior across other large-cap altcoins adds context to the setup of an incoming altcoin season. Notably, on-chain data tied to XRP shows that whales are not sending tokens to exchanges after recent price moves. The current lack of sustained inflows from XRP whales into crypto exchanges means that larger holders are holding their positions, which is a behavior more consistent with anticipation than profit-taking.

Related Reading: Altcoin Season In Q1? Bitcoin, Ethereum Breakdown Maps Out Performance

At the same time, Solana is also beginning to see a return of retail participation. Trading activity is picking up, but the data is still far below the levels typically associated with euphoric phases. Historically, this stage has appeared before momentum expands, when interest starts to grow, not at the end of it.

Another piece of the on-chain activity comes from BNB, where average spot order sizes have been large and consistent despite relatively uneventful price action. BNB’s price action looks boring on the outside, but average spot order sizes are at levels similar to those seen before the altcoin season in 2021, and this can be taken as a sign of something interesting brewing beneath the surface.

Taken together, these on-chain signals reinforce the idea that if Ethereum does drive the next altcoin season, the course of events might be much more collective and differ from the previous altcoin seasons.

Dogecoin didn’t ease into 2026 quietly. Following several weeks of drifting and bearish price action at the end of last year, the memecoin suddenly picked up speed, jumping in the first few days of January and briefly reclaiming levels above $0.15.  However, on-chain data shows that Dogecoin’s mega whales did not have a hand in the rally. These large Dogecoin holders have mostly stayed on the sidelines, avoiding both heavy buying and selling.

Dogecoin’s Whales Quiet During Recent Price Action

Dogecoin began the week with a quick burst of upside that carried the price from below $0.12 into mid-$0.15. Trading activity picked up during the move, and there was genuine buying interest. During this period, Dogecoin’s trading volume nearly tripled those seen during the last days of December, with notable examples of $3.56 billion trading volume on January 2 and $2.34 billion on January 4. 

This intense trading activity briefly placed the Dogecoin price above $0.15 on January 5, a price level that has served as a resistance level that stopped the meme coin’s price action throughout December 2025. However, an interesting detail from recent on-chain analysis is how little large holders reacted to the price rally. 

According to data from on-chain analytics platform Santiment, Dogecoin addresses holding 100 million to 1 billion DOGE saw their collective holdings increase into January 4, peaking around 35.8 billion DOGE, before a decline beginning on January 5. 

Starting on January 5, this group began trimming exposure, and even as Dogecoin’s price action continued climbing to the $0.15 level, their combined holdings fell to roughly 34.59 billion DOGE by January 6. Since then, balances in this cohort have largely remained flat.

Dogecoin Large Holder Distribution. Source: Santiment

Sharks Doing Most Of The Bullish Work

On the other hand, Dogecoin sharks, i.e., wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million DOGE showed a much stronger appetite. After a brief pullback between January 2 and January 4, this group returned to accumulation during Dogecoin’s push higher. That buying trend has continued through the rest of the week, lifting their collective holdings to about 17.63 billion DOGE at the time of writing.

Smaller large holders in the 1 million to 10 million DOGE range followed a similar pattern, though with more hesitation early on. Activity in this group increased at the start of the week, followed by a dip around January 7. That decline was short-lived, however, as balances rebounded on January 8 and 9, rising to roughly 10.9 billion DOGE at the time of writing.

As it stands, Dogecoin’s price action seems to be taking a pause from the rally and is back to facing resistance at $0.15. The meme coin is now trading at $0.1424, and the lack of clear commitment from large whales is also keeping the outlook uncertain. 

Despite the price of XRP holding above the $2 mark following a brief rebound earlier this week, sentiment across the market has not fully recovered. On-chain data shows that short-term holders are closing their positions and exiting the market, which reflects growing caution.

A Dip In XRP Short-Term Holder Exposure

XRP may have gained brief upward traction, but short-term holders’ sentiment appears to be moving into a cautious state. From an on- chain standpoint, these key investors are currently stepping back, trimming their positions after several weeks of choppy price action and weakening momentum.

As observed in the XRP HODL Waves chart shared by Steph is Crypto, a market expert and investor, short-term holders have begun to reduce their exposure in the leading altcoin. This shift in sentiment is present among wallet addresses that purchased the token over the past week and month.

Such a development points to a cooling of speculative zeal, with supply held by these addresses known for their high turnover rate showing a discernible decline. Given the altcoin continues to face sideways price action, this shift strongly resembles profit-taking from the cohort in order to manage risk and cut their losses.

Steph is Crypto highlighted that the share of the total XRP supply held by these investors has fallen from 5.75 to 4.9% in just 7 days. While the pullback may seem small, the shift has the potential to reshape sentiment around the altcoin and its price dynamics in the upcoming weeks.

This is due to the fact that these investors are often one of the most reactive groups in the market. Once positions start to move into profit territory, the cohort tends to sell off their coins at a swift rate. With short-term holders going on a selling spree, the focus now is on whether institutional players and longer-term holdings will withstand the sell-side pressure.

However, while short-term players are exiting, large holders, also regarded as whales, are stepping back in at a significant rate. This implies that deep-pocket investors are exhibiting renewed conviction in the altcoin’s long-term prospects.

According to the report from Steph is Crypto, whales, particularly wallet addresses holding between 1,000,000 XRP and 100,000,000 XRP, recently acquired an additional 60 million XRP in a single day. After a period of relative quiet, the cohort seems to have moved back into accumulation mode. 

Leading The Charge In Asia

Demand for XRP is growing in the Asian region, as a report from X Finance Bull shows that the altcoin dominated Bitcoin in South Korea. Data from Upbit reveals that the token was the most traded asset of 2025 across the most active retail market on Earth. 

This is beyond price speculation. It is a testament to the altcoin’s increasing volume, liquidity, and usage. The XRP/KRW was ranked in the top spot most of the year, with Upbit executing over $1 trillion in trades.  According to the expert, this is an important landmark because real markets reveal truth, and South Korea interacts with trades that work.