Crypto Breaking

Tether, the issuer of USDt, the world’s largest stablecoin, reported that 2025 net profits dipped from the prior year, while its U.S. Treasury holdings reached a new high. In a year-end filing prepared by accounting firm BDO, the company said it earned just over $10 billion in net profits for 2025, down about 23% from the $13 billion recorded in 2024. At the same time, direct U.S. Treasury exposure rose to more than $122 billion, a figure Tether described as the highest level ever and indicative of a continued tilt toward highly liquid, low‑risk assets. Over the same period, the firm issued roughly $50 billion in USDt, underscoring persistent demand for a dollar-denominated liquidity instrument beyond traditional banking rails. The combination of rising reserves and expanding stablecoin issuance highlights how Tether’s balance sheet continues to evolve alongside a growing, liquidity‑dependent crypto ecosystem.

Key takeaways

2025 net profits exceeded $10 billion, but were down about 23% from 2024’s $13 billion.

Direct U.S. Treasury holdings surpassed $122 billion, the highest level on record according to the audit.

USDt issuance reached roughly $50 billion over the 12‑month period, reflecting sustained global demand for dollar liquidity.

Gold reserves remain a central pillar of the reserve mix, with 130 metric tons of physical gold backing the overall reserve and specified holdings for XAUt, Tether’s gold‑backed stablecoin.

USDt ranks among the largest crypto assets by market capitalization, with a rough figure near $185.5 billion, making it a critical source of liquidity for on‑chain markets.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $ETH, $USDT, $XAUT

Market context: The numbers reinforce the central role stablecoins play in providing liquidity and collateral for exchanges and traders, even as regulatory and macro headwinds shape the broader crypto backdrop. The disclosure of significant Treasury exposure alongside gold holdings illustrates how the issuer balances liquidity with conservative risk management in an asset class characterized by rapid inflows and outsized assets under management.

Why it matters

The report’s financial snapshot matters for a broad slice of the crypto ecosystem. Stablecoins like USDt are deeply intertwined with daily trading, lending, and liquidity provisioning on centralized and decentralized platforms. With USDt representing a substantial slice of on‑chain liquidity, each move in its reserve composition or issuance cadence can ripple through market depth, collateral availability, and cross‑exchange funding costs. The 2025 results show that despite a softer profits picture, Tether’s balance sheet remained highly liquid and well diversified, a combination that has long underpinned market confidence in USDt as a dollar proxy for on‑ramp and off‑ramp activity.

From a risk management perspective, the growth in U.S. Treasury holdings to a record level underscores a cautious stance toward capital preservation in a landscape where interest rates, liquidity phases, and regulatory expectations continue to shift. The inclusion of gold-related exposure—through XAUT—in a reserve framework also underscores a hedging motive, offering a tangible asset in a portfolio dominated by digital liabilities. Investors, lenders, and traders will be watching how these allocations evolve, especially as regulatory clarity around stablecoins tightens or expands in key jurisdictions.

For users and builders, the feedback loop remains clear: liquidity and predictable settlement risk are essential for execution efficiency, and the stability of USDt continues to underpin a sizable portion of the crypto economy’s day‑to‑day activity. The market’s attention remains attuned to how reserve disclosures align with the stablecoin’s price behavior, redemption mechanics, and long‑term capital adequacy. As the crypto landscape matures, the degree to which USDt can sustain scale without compromising resilience will influence how new projects design their own stablecoins or borrow against USDt liquidity pools.

What to watch next

BDO’s ongoing assessment and any subsequent ISAE 3000R disclosures for 2025, including notes on reserve holdings and redemption risk.

Updates to USDt issuance and redemption flows in 2026, particularly in regions with expanding fintech or limited traditional banking rails.

Any changes in the gold reserve profile or additional gold acquisitions tied to XAUT backing, and how redeemability is managed in practice.

Regulatory developments affecting stablecoins and reserve disclosures across major markets, with potential implications for liquidity provisioning and market depth.

Sources & verification

Tether press release: Tether Delivers 10B Profits in 2025, 6.3B in excess reserves, and record 141 billion exposure in U.S. Treasury holdings. Link: https://tether.io/news/tether-delivers-10b-profits-in-2025-6-3b-in-excess-reserves-and-record-141-billion-exposure-in-u-s-treasury-holdings/

BDO ISAE 3000R opinion and financial figure for 2025: https://assets.ctfassets.net/vyse88cgwfbl/20d2BoOAd28ZfkiQPYPjGN/4ed12f5939e1e06ee5aceccad4effbe4/ISAE_3000R_-_Opinion_Tether_International_Financial_Figure_31-12-2025.pdf

Tether Gold (XAUt) and XAUT price context: https://tether.io/news/tether-gold-accounts-for-more-than-half-the-entire-gold-backed-stablecoin-market-as-xaut-surpasses-4-billion-in-value/ and https://cointelegraph.com/tether-gold-price-index

Gold backing and physical reserves reference: https://assets.ctfassets.net/vyse88cgwfbl/6GbUTVK4tTYAytefu5daIi/6cac18eb4b526c9c52640a3d2bed9642/ISAE_3000R_-_Opinion_Tether_International_Financial_Figure_31-10-2025.pdf

Market data context: CoinMarketCap reference for USDt market positioning (as cited in the source): https://coinmarketcap.com/

Market reaction and key details

The 2025 results reflect a crypto market where liquidity tools and reserve strategies remain central to ecosystem stability. Tether’s narrative emphasizes a broader, global demand for dollarized liquidity that operates beyond conventional banking rails, a theme supported by Ardoino’s comments on USDt serving regions with slow or fragmented financial systems. The reported market cap proximity to the hundreds of billions underscores USDt’s entrenched role in on‑chain activities, even as volatility and regulatory scrutiny continue to shape investor and user sentiment.

Key figures and next steps

The numbers point to a dual strategy: maintain a robust, liquid reserve (including U.S. Treasuries) while offering stablecoin liquidity at scale. The next steps will likely focus on how reserve disclosures evolve, how redemption mechanics are stress-tested, and how regulatory clarity might influence issuance and collateral choices across jurisdictions. Stakeholders will be looking for updates on the balance between Treasury holdings, gold backing, and USDt issuance patterns as the year unfolds.

Why it matters for users and markets

For traders and exchanges, USDt’s resilience and liquidity profile remain a cornerstone of trading pairs and collateral postures. The ongoing reportings of high Treasury exposure and tangible gold backing provide a framework for risk assessment, particularly in environments where stablecoins are used for settlement, liquidity provisioning, and collateralized borrowing. The broader takeaway is that, even as profits dip, the asset mix and liquidity posture appear calibrated to sustain stable operations in a fast‑evolving crypto landscape.

What to watch next

Beyond the current disclosures, observers should monitor how reserve strategy evolves, whether new regulatory guidance emerges around stablecoin issuers, and how USDt issuance trajectories fare as macro and policy conditions shift. These signals will influence market liquidity, funding costs, and the stability of trading activity across major crypto venues.

Rewritten Article Body

Tether, the issuer of USDt (CRYPTO: USDT), reported that 2025 net profits exceeded $10 billion, but were down roughly 23% from 2024’s $13 billion, according to a year-end filing prepared by accounting firm BDO. The report also shows a substantial expansion in the firm’s liquid assets, with direct U.S. Treasury holdings rising to more than $122 billion—the highest level in the company’s history—pointing to a deliberate pivot toward liquid, low‑risk assets in an era of heightened market sensitivity to reserve adequacy. Over the 12-month period, Tether issued around $50 billion in USDt, a signal that global demand for dollar-denominated liquidity remains robust even as traditional banking rails become less accessible in some regions.

In discussing the stability model, Tether’s leadership emphasised demand dynamics that extend beyond established financial channels. Paolo Ardoino, the company’s chief executive, noted that stablecoins have grown as a practical solution in regions where traditional financial systems are slow, fragmented, or inaccessible. He described USDt as having “become the most widely adopted monetary social network in the history of humanity,” underscoring how the ecosystem increasingly relies on dollarized liquidity as a cross-border tool for commerce, remittances, and funding flows (CRYPTO: USDT).

From a market structure perspective, USDt’s prominence among the crypto assets remains clear. The asset is widely used as a liquidity anchor and a collateral reference point for on‑chain trading, lending, and settlement. At a market cap level, USDt sits behind Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ether (CRYPTO: ETH) among the sector’s largest assets, matching a scale that positions it as a go‑to liquidity pool for exchanges and traders alike. The underlying price indexes that track USDt’s movements and stability are closely watched by market participants who rely on it for rapid, on-chain liquidity, and for collateral in DeFi protocols (USDt price index).

On the reserve side, the report shows a continued mix of assets designed to balance liquidity with risk management. In addition to the Treasury holdings, Tether has disclosed substantial gold exposure as part of its XAUt (CRYPTO: XAUT) backing strategy. Specifically, 520,089 troy ounces of gold are earmarked for XAUT—approximately 16.2 metric tons—while a broader reserve totals around 130 metric tons of physical gold, valued at roughly $22 billion at current prices. The gold assets are held separately from the digital liabilities and are reportedly reserved to support redemption of XAUT tokens, ensuring physical delivery if required. This multi‑asset approach is intended to provide a cushion for liquidity stress scenarios and to offer an alternative store of value alongside cash reserves (XAUT price index).

The broader implication is that stablecoins, and USDt in particular, remain deeply embedded in the infrastructure of crypto liquidity. With a market presence that continues to scale, USDt is a pivotal instrument for traders seeking to move in and out of positions without breaking exposure to dollar-based value. The balance sheet composition, including the sizable U.S. Treasury position and explicit gold backing for XAUT, reflects a conservative, asset‑backed approach that seeks to balance yield, liquidity, and security in a rapidly evolving market environment. The disclosures also align with ongoing discussions about transparency and risk management within the stablecoin sector, which remains under scrutiny from policymakers and market watchers alike (CoinMarketCap data).

While the 2025 results mark a step back from the post‑pandemic year’s peak profitability, the emphasis on liquidity and reserve depth signals an operational focus that participants interpret as continuity of stablecoin reliability. The combination of high Treasury exposure, substantial gold backing, and a consistent USDt issuance pace suggests a strategy aimed at sustaining liquidity supply while preserving a strong risk management posture. In practical terms, this translates into a stable, well‑funded liquidity engine underpinning much of the on‑chain economy, with USDt serving as a critical conduit for capital flows and collateral across exchanges, lending markets, and decentralized finance protocols (XAUt price index).

Looking ahead, observers will be watching for any shifts in reserve holdings or changes in the USDt issuance cadence as macro and regulatory developments unfold. The BDO audit and related filings will be key reference points for assessing whether reserve growth tracks market needs and whether redemption guarantees remain robust in periods of heightened volatility. As stablecoins continue to evolve, the robustness of USDt’s reserve framework will likely influence broader confidence in dollarized liquidity sources across the crypto landscape (BDO report).

This article was originally published as Tether Tops Record Treasury Holdings, Profits Dip on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Kraken-backed KRAKacquisition Corp has completed an upsized $345 million initial public offering, listing its special purpose acquisition company units on Nasdaq to pursue future mergers or acquisitions.

According to a Friday announcement, the SPAC sold 34.5 million units at $10 each, including the full exercise of the underwriter’s over-allotment option. Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share and one-quarter of a redeemable warrant exercisable at $11.50 per share. The units began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol KRAQU on Wednesday.

KRAKacquisition was formed as a SPAC, a publicly listed vehicle that raises capital via an IPO to pursue a future merger or acquisition. The company’s public disclosures note it has not identified a business combination target or engaged in discussions with any potential acquisition candidates; however, its initial SEC filing said it will concentrate efforts on “companies in the digital asset ecosystem.”

The company’s formation and the backing of Kraken — alongside strategic investors such as Tribe Capital and Natural Capital — point to a broader push within the crypto sector to access traditional capital markets through SPAC structures. Kraken’s public appetite for a U.S. listing appears to be advancing in parallel with a wider revival in crypto-related IPO activity, even as market dynamics remain uneven. In November, Kraken signaled early preparations for a potential IPO by confidentially submitting a draft registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

That move, described in a contemporaneous report, followed a flurry of crypto-centric IPO chatter in 2025 and into 2026 as several digital-asset firms evaluate public-market access. Ledger, the hardware wallet maker, has been cited as exploring a U.S. initial public offering that could value the company at more than $4 billion, with talks reportedly ongoing with major banks including Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Barclays. Copper, a crypto custodian, was also said to be weighing an IPO path with banks such as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup as potential underwriters, following recent NYSE debut activity by rival BitGo. Separately, tokenization platform Securitize disclosed a substantial jump in revenue as it pushes forward with a Cantor Fitzgerald–backed SPAC plan to go public, highlighting the broader sector-wide push toward liquidity through public markets.

In this environment, KRAKacquisition’s upsized offering underscores the continued investor appetite for blank-check vehicles tied to the crypto ecosystem, even as the broader market remains sensitive to regulatory developments and macro swings. The SPAC structure offers a streamlined route to public markets for crypto-adjacent entities, but it also requires clear milestones and a credible target, which investors will scrutinize as the de-SPAC timeline unfolds.

Kraken’s involvement in KRAKacquisition also aligns with the firm’s longer-term strategic aims. The exchange has pursued a public-market footprint while expanding its product suite and institutional offerings. The company’s confidential filing in November 2025 signaled preparations for a potential IPO, signaling an expanded appetite for traditional market access among established crypto players. The evolving IPO landscape for crypto-native and crypto-adjacent companies illustrates both opportunity and risk: access to larger pools of capital coexists with heightened scrutiny from regulators and investors who seek greater clarity on business models, governance, and profitability.

Key takeaways

KRAKacquisition Corp upsized its IPO to $345 million, selling 34.5 million units at $10 each, including full exercise of the over-allotment option.

Each unit includes one Class A ordinary share and one-quarter of a redeemable warrant exercisable at $11.50, expanding liquidity for potential de-SPAC strategies.

The SPAC began trading on Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker KRAQU, marking Kraken’s continued push toward a crypto-linked public listing framework.

Globenewswire’s press release confirms the closing of the offering and the full exercise of the underwriter option, signaling strong positioning for the blank-check vehicle.

Industry observers note a wave of crypto IPO activity in 2025–2026, with Ledger, Copper and Securitize among firms considering or pursuing public listings via traditional exchanges or SPAC structures.

Tickers mentioned: $KRAQU

Sentiment: Neutral

Market context: The crypto IPO/SPAC landscape remains at a transitional juncture, balancing renewed investor interest in crypto-backed public vehicles with heightened regulatory scrutiny and valuation discipline as traditional markets re-price risk and policy developments evolve.

Why it matters

The completion of the upsized KRAKacquisition offering highlights how crypto-native firms continue to seek capital access through SPACs and IPOs, signaling a broader appetite among institutional investors for crypto exposure within regulated markets. While SPACs offer a faster route to public markets than traditional IPOs, the success of such vehicles depends on the ability to translate exploration and strategic intent into tangible, executable deals. In Kraken’s orbit, the move reinforces the potential for crypto ecosystems to leverage mainstream capital markets to fund technology bets, ecosystem partnerships, and concurrency with traditional financial products.

From a market structure perspective, the ongoing activity reflects both the maturation of the crypto industry and the need for clearer governance and financial reporting standards. Industry participants are watching how these listings manage disclosures, investor relations, and de-SPAC timelines, especially as competition among SPAC sponsors increases and as regulators scrutinize disclosures and valuation methodologies in the crypto space.

What to watch next

De-SPAC milestones: watch for announcements regarding a target, deal terms, and potential regulatory approvals related to KRAKacquisition’s pursuit of a crypto-focused business.

Ledger’s US IPO timeline and bank syndicate details as disclosed, including any updated valuation targets or pricing guidance.

Copper’s IPO planning developments and bank commitments, especially any regulatory or market signaling that clarifies timing.

Securitize’s Cantor-backed SPAC progress and revenue-oriented disclosures that could influence investor sentiment around crypto tokenization platforms.

Sources & verification

Globenewswire press release: KRAKacquisition Corp Announces Closing of Upsized $345 Million Initial Public Offering and Full Exercise of Over-Allotment Option

SEC filing referenced in the article (ny20054630x5_s1.htm)

Kraken’s confidential draft registration filing with the SEC (reported by Cointelegraph)

KRAQU trading and unit structure data (Yahoo Finance)

Related crypto IPO coverage: Ledger and Copper IPO discussions; BitGo NYSE debut and Securitize revenue disclosures (Cointelegraph articles)

What the story means for the market

Market participants should monitor how crypto-focused SPACs perform in the near term, particularly as de-SPAC targets emerge or fail to materialize. The KRAQU listing signals appetite for regulated routes into crypto ecosystems, while ongoing discussions around Ledger, Copper, and Securitize show that the broader IPO window for crypto-adjacent companies remains active, albeit uneven. If these listings begin to demonstrate credible business models, strong governance, and clear alignment with investor protections, they could help sustain liquidity and investor confidence in the crypto sector’s public-market ambitions.

This article was originally published as Kraken-Backed SPAC Closes Nasdaq IPO, Raises $345M on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Bitcoin has pulled back sharply, slipping roughly 10% from midweek into Thursday and testing the $81,000 level for the first time in more than two months. The move comes as traders digest a wave of outflows from spot BTC exchange-traded funds, alongside a broader risk-off tone that coincided with gold’s retreat from its own all-time high. The backdrop is a market increasingly focused on hedging and liquidity, with options markets flashing notable fear metrics just as leveraged bets have been unwound. The price action also underscores a crucial test for the $80,000 support area, which—while still intact—faces renewed scrutiny as investors weigh macro risks and the possibility of renewed volatility.

Bitcoin (BTC) experiences a pullback after a period of outsized moves, and the tissue of market signals suggests traders are cooling risk exposure in the near term. The drop comes on the back of US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs showing material net outflows, while gold prices have dipped from their Wednesday peak. In this context, the market’s nervous undertone is evident in the options market, where fear is elevated and hedging activity appears more pronounced than at any point in recent months.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds daily net flows, USD. Source: CoinGlass

The latest data shows US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded about $2.7 billion in net outflows since January 16, representing roughly 2.3% of total assets under management. This backdrop has raised questions about institutional demand and whether investors are layering into safer havens or stepping back from risk assets altogether. At the same time, gold has declined about 13% from its Wednesday high, reminding traders that multi-asset markets can move in tandem when liquidity tightens and macro narratives shift. The combination of ETF redemptions and precious metal dynamics has contributed to a cautious mood that could extend into the near term, even as some investors point to longer-term value cases for BTC as a potential hedge against inflation and currency risk.

Key takeaways

Bitcoin options delta skew rose to 17% on Friday, its highest level in more than a year, signaling extreme fear and heightened hedging activity as market makers prepare for further downside protection.

Net outflows from US-listed spot BTC ETFs totaled about $2.7 billion since Jan 16, equating to roughly 2.3% of assets under management and raising questions about institutional demand.

The price correction reached about 10%, with BTC retesting the $81,000 area—the first proximity to that level in over two months—raising the specter of a soft test of the psychological $80k support.

Approximately $860 million in leveraged long BTC futures positions were liquidated between Thursday and Friday, while aggregate BTC futures open interest fell to about $46 billion from around $58 billion three months prior, indicating deleveraging across the market.

Stablecoin dynamics in cross-border flows suggested moderation rather than a rush for cash, with a 0.2% discount for USDT/CNY versus the US dollar/CNY, contrasting with traditional parity expectations and signaling cautious liquidity conditions.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC

Sentiment: Bearish

Price impact: Negative

Market context: The current dynamics sit at the intersection of risk-off trading, ETF outflows, and macro uncertainty. As traditional risk assets face persistent headwinds, investors have favored liquidity and short-duration exposures, which often translate into pressure on highly leveraged crypto positions and volatility spikes in liquid markets like BTC.

Why it matters

The surge in BTC options fear, mirrored by a jump in delta skew, points to a market structure that is increasingly sensitive to downside risk. When put options carry a premium relative to calls, market makers hedge with heightened caution, amplifying price swings in times of stress. The 17% delta skew suggests that the market is more willing to pay for downside protection than to bet on further upside, a condition that can feed upon itself if macro catalysts continue to weigh on sentiment. In this environment, traders must monitor not just price levels but the pace and direction of hedging activity, as it can create feedback loops that drive rapid short-term moves.

ETF flows are a useful lens into the institutional appetite for BTC as an asset class. The reported $2.7 billion of net outflows since mid-January, representing 2.3% of AUM, signals institutional demand softness even as retail participants can remain active. Outflows from spot BTC ETFs can compress price durability if buyers do not re-enter in meaningful size, particularly when risk-off sentiment is reinforced by other macro variables. This backdrop also coincides with gold’s multi-month rally being tempered by short-term retracements, underscoring a broader competition for capital across safe-haven assets. In this light, BTC’s price action becomes a barometer for risk sentiment in the crypto space and a gauge of how quickly demand can swing in response to macro cues.

Beyond the price action, the risk narrative extends into the realm of technology risk like quantum computing. While some market participants remain skeptical about imminent disruption to the cryptographic foundations of blockchains, others warn that long-term security considerations must be taken seriously. Independent research and ongoing dialogue within the industry—highlighted by initiatives such as Coinbase’s advisory board aimed at evaluating quantum threats with public research slated for early 2027—add a layer of forward-looking risk assessment to the conversation. The broader takeaway is that risk considerations—whether macro, technological, or liquidity-driven—are increasingly intertwined in shaping crypto markets.

BTC 2-month options delta skew (put-call) at Deribit. Source: laevitas.ch

Analysts note that a cooling in leverage can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, a deleveraging phase can reduce systemic risk and limit cascading liquidations, potentially stabilizing prices after a sharp correction. On the other hand, if risk appetite does not return, the market could remain range-bound with occasional reversals as participants digest incoming data and reassess risk premium. The combination of a lower open interest and notable liquidations suggests a shift toward a more conservative posture among traders, even as some investors argue that the long-term bull case for BTC remains intact. The ongoing debates around quantum security and the ongoing debate about institutional appetite will likely shape how quickly the market can stage a renewed rally if macro and crypto-specific catalysts align.

BTC futures aggregate open interest, USD. Source: CoinGlass

The futures market remains a useful lens into risk sentiment. With open interest sliding to $46 billion from a prior $58 billion, and with a substantial portion of long positions liquidated, the market appears to be purging excess leverage. This process can improve resilience over the longer term, but it can also prolong volatility in the near term if demand remains tepid or if new catalysts emerge. The broader ecosystem will watch how quickly liquidity returns, how ETF flows evolve, and whether macro narratives shift back toward risk-on or risk-off dynamics. In this context, BTC’s ability to reclaim momentum will hinge on more than just price—it will require a rebalancing of demand across institutions, traders, and retail participants alike.

As markets calibrate to these dynamics, traders will keep an eye on stablecoin liquidity signals as a proxy for overall risk appetite. The ratio of USDT to yuan and the implied USDT/CNY vs USD/CNY relationship offer a barometer of capital flight and the willingness of traders to move into on-chain assets or exit to cash. In the current climate, a modest 0.2% discount suggests a measured outflow rather than a rush for liquidity, reinforcing the narrative of caution rather than panic selling. This nuanced picture—combining price action, leverage cycles, and cross-asset flows—frames BTC as a barometer of risk sentiment rather than a standalone driver of returns in the near term.

What to watch next

BTC price action around the $81,000–$87,000 band, with a focus on whether the asset can reclaim momentum and establish a new upside base.

New ETF net flow data over the coming weeks, to determine whether institutional demand resumes or remains tepid.

Deribit and other derivatives gauges (delta skew, volatility surfaces) for signs of fading fear or renewed hedging pressure.

Any fresh developments on macro frontiers that could alter risk appetites, including inflation data and policy signals.

Sources & verification

Bitcoin price retest near $81,000 and related market moves (price page and price data references).

US-listed spot Bitcoin ETF net outflows totaling about $2.7 billion since Jan 16 (2.3% of AUM).

Gold’s three-month performance and its interaction with crypto markets (gold-related article referencing divergence).

BTC options delta skew reaching 17% (Deribit delta skew data; laevitas.ch source).

Reported leveraged long BTC futures liquidations around $860 million; open interest decline from $58B to $46B (CoinGlass and related charts).

Stablecoin liquidity indicators and USDT/CNY dynamics (OKX-based data visuals and captions).

Coinbase advisory board on quantum computing risks and public research planned for early 2027.

Related market analysis on potential “liquidation revenge” dynamics and BTC price catalysts.

Bitcoin market dynamics: options fear, ETF flows, and macro risk

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has found itself navigating a confluence of hedging-driven activity, ETF liquidity, and broader macro risk signals. The most notable marker is the jump in the delta skew of BTC options to 17%—the highest in more than a year—indicating an elevated demand for downside protection that can feed into heightened volatility as market makers hedge. This condition often materializes when traders anticipate more downside or when liquidity is contracting, even if the immediate price path appears uncertain. The practical upshot is that any negative surprise—be it a policy shift, macro data release, or unexpected liquidity shock—can trigger outsized moves as hedges unwind or recalibrate in a hurry. The Deribit delta skew metric depicted in the chart below, with its sourcing from laevitas.ch, offers a window into the market’s fear gauge and the distribution of risk bets across the spectrum of options contracts.

BTC 2-month options delta skew (put-call) at Deribit. Source: laevitas.ch

The recent price action, meanwhile, reflects not only fear but real liquidity dynamics. Leverage in the system has been purged to some degree, with approximately $860 million in leveraged long BTC futures liquidations observed between Thursday and Friday. While this purge reduces systemic risk in the near term, it also underscores how fragile short-term sentiment can become when a dramatic price swing occurs. At the same time, aggregate BTC futures open interest slipped to about $46 billion, down from roughly $58 billion three months ago, signaling a cautious tilt among market participants and a shift away from highly leveraged bets. The chart below from CoinGlass illustrates the current open interest landscape and helps contextualize the scale of deleveraging occurring in the market.

BTC futures aggregate open interest, USD. Source: CoinGlass

Beyond outright price risk, the market is watching cross-asset flow signals, especially stablecoins, as a proxy for risk appetite. The current data indicate a modest shift in the USDT/CNY dynamic, with a 0.2% discount to the US dollar/CNY rate, indicating moderate outflows rather than an abrupt liquidity crunch. This stands in contrast to a typical 0.5%–1% premium and suggests that, at least in the near term, investors remain selective about their allocation to on-chain assets. Taken together with the price correction and the outflows from spot BTC ETFs, these indicators paint a cautious portrait: BTC could reclaim momentum if flows stabilize and risk sentiment improves, but the near-term path remains tethered to macro twists and the pace of institutional adoption.

In the broader context, investors should consider the potential implications of quantum computing risks on long-term security models for blockchains. While the field remains in early stages, industry observers emphasize the importance of ongoing research and preparedness. As Coinbase has signaled through its independent advisory board and forthcoming public research, this is a risk factor that could influence long-horizon holdings, even if it does not pose an immediate threat to today’s networks. At the same time, the market continues to watch for catalysts, such as potential policy shifts, ETF inflows, or regulatory developments, that could tilt risk sentiment in either direction. For now, the narrative is one of measured caution, with a focus on liquidity, hedging, and the durability of BTC’s longer-term value proposition in a rapidly evolving crypto landscape.

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This article was originally published as Bitcoin Options Signals Extreme Fear: Will BTC Slide Under $80K Next? on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, a flashpoint unfolded between Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Brian Armstrong, the chief executive of Coinbase. A casual coffee chat escalated when Dimon reportedly pressed Armstrong over his public assertions that banks are attempting to undermine the US market-structure debate in Congress. The incident, described in a Wall Street Journal report, adds a new layer to the ongoing discourse over how the United States should regulate crypto markets and the role of traditional banks in that framework. Armstrong, who was seated with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, allegedly faced a direct rebuke as Dimon branded Armstrong as “full of s—,” a pointed reference to recent TV interviews in which Armstrong accused banks of interfering with the legislation. The moment underscored the high-stakes nature of the policy fight that has drawn in executives from both crypto firms and legacy financial institutions.

Key takeaways

Dimon reportedly confronted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at Davos, challenging Armstrong’s claims about banks aiming to derail the market-structure bill.

The confrontation centers on a broader debate about whether the bill should address stablecoin yields and how banks interact with new crypto-market players.

Armstrong’s remarks about bank interference faced a cool reception from other bankers, with Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Wells Fargo’s Charlie Scharf reportedly signaling skepticism or reticence.

In the legislative process, the Senate Banking Committee’s markup was postponed, while the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its version of the bill, setting up a complex path to a unified package.

Crypto industry advocates argue that excluding stablecoin yield provisions would leave critics room to claim banks could “ban their competition,” intensifying the policy dispute.

Tickers mentioned: $COIN

Sentiment: Neutral

Price impact: Neutral. There is no immediate price reaction tied to Davos whispers or the committee actions described in the report.

Market context: The US market-structure debate remains a polarizing policy fight, pitting crypto advocates against some lawmakers and traditional financial institutions over how best to regulate stablecoins, trading venues, and whether yield-bearing stablecoins should be treated as securities or cash equivalents.

Why it matters

The Davos episode captures a broader dynamic in which crypto executives, policymakers, and banking leaders are increasingly interlocked in a policy conversation that could shape liquidity, access to banking services for crypto firms, and the future of stablecoins in the United States. The market-structure bill, which cleared the House last year and has since lingered in the Senate, seeks to define the rules of the road for crypto trading venues, settlement processes, and the interactions between traditional banks and digital-asset firms. The split in committee status — with the Banking Committee delaying its markup while the Agriculture Committee advances its version — signals potential friction in reconciling parallel tracks into a single framework.

Armstrong’s position, as described by participants and reported by The Wall Street Journal, is that the legislation must contemplate stablecoins in a way that prevents financial incumbents from leveraging their advantages to squeeze out competition. In other words, a bill that ignores the practical realities of how stablecoins operate within banking rails risks leaving a regulatory gap that banks could exploit to slow innovation. The crypto industry has consistently argued that yield-bearing stablecoins could unlock efficient, compliant capital flows if regulated properly and transparently, rather than being treated as a threat to the traditional financial system.

The reactions from bank executives at the Davos gathering appeared to reflect a cautious stance toward crypto-enabled innovation. Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan reportedly urged Armstrong to consider the practicalities of being a traditional bank, while Wells Fargo’s Charlie Scharf declined to engage on the matter. The nuanced responses underscore the delicate balance policymakers must strike between encouraging innovation and maintaining financial stability.

The public dialogue around the bill has included industry voices urging Congress to consider the implications of stablecoins for payment rails and settlement timing. Coinbase’s policy leadership argues that a narrowly written framework could reduce uncertainty for crypto firms and banks alike, allowing for legitimate partnerships rather than entrenching a binary division between incumbents and new entrants. A Coinbase spokesperson cited in coverage indicated the company did not have new comments to add beyond prior statements, highlighting the ongoing normalization of these high-profile policy debates.

The legislative pathway remains fluid. The Senate Banking Committee’s postponement of its markup follows Armstrong’s assertion that the bill is not yet aligned with the industry’s concerns, while the Agriculture Committee’s move to advance its version signifies a potential path to a conference committee. In parallel, crypto policy discussions continue to orbit around the CLARITY Act and its proposals for how the market-structure framework should treat stablecoins and yield mechanisms. A related discussion, including calls for banks and crypto firms to engage constructively, has surfaced in other policy circles and media coverage, reinforcing the sense that the policy outcome will hinge on finding a middle ground that preserves market integrity without stifling innovation.

Two forces frame the current moment: first, the practical need for regulatory clarity that can support legitimate innovation in digital assets; second, the political reality of a bifurcated Capitol Hill where different committees may diverge on the precise contours of a unified regulatory regime. The Davos encounter, as described in the WSJ report, is a microcosm of that tension — a moment where the rhetoric of rivalry between traditional banking powers and crypto-native firms intersects with the sober realities of legislative procedure and the importance of a coherent national framework for the evolving digital economy.

The debate is not simply about one bill or one set of provisions. It reflects a broader acknowledgment that stablecoins, if properly integrated into the financial system, could enable more efficient settlement, faster cross-border payments, and improved risk management for trading venues. However, the cost of missteps — such as fragile or opaque yield structures or misaligned regulatory expectations — could also inject new forms of risk into the system. Industry advocates contend that a well-crafted market-structure framework can offer a stable, predictable operating environment that benefits both traditional institutions and crypto firms, while policymakers argue that consumer protection and financial stability must come first. The path forward will require compromise, continued oversight, and a sober assessment of how best to align innovation with resilience.

What to watch next

Timing of the Senate Banking Committee markup: whether it is rescheduled and what changes are proposed to the bill as written.

Consolidation of the House and Senate versions: any moves toward a conference committee and a final, unified bill.

Public statements from Coinbase and other industry players on proposed stablecoin provisions and their impact on market access.

Subsequent committee actions on the Agriculture Committee’s version and how it interacts with the banking-focused framework.

New political dynamics around regulatory clarity for stablecoins and crypto-exchange compatibility in a shifting macro environment.

Sources & verification

Wall Street Journal report on the Davos encounter between Jamie Dimon and Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) and the framing of the market-structure bill.

Cointelegraph coverage referencing the CLARITY Act and calls for stablecoin yield provisions within the market-structure framework.

Cointelegraph reference to related policy discussions surrounding banks, crypto firms, and the CLARITY Act impasse.

Public reporting on the Senate Banking Committee markup postponement and the Senate Agriculture Committee’s advancement of its version of the bill.

Market reaction and key details

Market participants are watching how regulators and lawmakers will reconcile competing priorities: strengthening market integrity and consumer protections while preserving avenues for crypto innovation and efficient settlement. The Davos episode underscores the ongoing tension between traditional banking interests and crypto-native firms as both sides seek regulatory clarity. The first formal test for the bill’s stability provisions may come in the coming weeks, as committees decide whether to harmonize their approaches into a cohesive framework that can pass both chambers and avoid a protracted stalemate.

Why it matters for readers

For investors, the evolving policy landscape could shape liquidity, access to banking services, and the availability of crypto-based yield opportunities within a supervised framework. For builders and exchanges, clear, predictable rules reduce regulatory risk and encourage collaboration with banking partners, potentially accelerating the deployment of innovative payment rails and settlement mechanisms. For policymakers, the Davos moment distills the challenge of balancing innovation with systemic resilience, particularly when it comes to stablecoins and their role in everyday transactions and cross-border flows.

What to watch next

Rescheduled Senate Banking Committee markup date and any amendments to the market-structure bill.

Harmonization of the House and Senate versions into a single legislative text.

Public statements from Coinbase and other major crypto firms about proposed provisions affecting stablecoins.

This article was originally published as Coinbase and JPMorgan CEOs Clash Over Market Structure Bill at Davos on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has pushed back against claims that the cryptocurrency exchange played a significant role in the largest liquidation event the sector has seen. In a Q&A streamed on Binance’s social channels, Zhao rejected the notion that Binance was a primary driver of the October 10 wipeout, during which roughly $19 billion in positions were liquidated across the market. He described the accusations as “far-fetched,” a stance that Bloomberg highlighted in its coverage. Zhao, who stepped down as CEO in 2023 after pleading guilty to federal charges tied to anti-money-laundering violations, noted that he was speaking in his capacity as a Binance shareholder and user rather than as a corporate spokesperson. He was later pardoned by President Donald Trump in October, a development he referenced to emphasize his ongoing involvement in the industry.

Although he remains active in crypto, Zhao’s current activities include oversight of YZi Labs, an independent investment vehicle that grew from Binance’s former venture capital arm and currently manages around $10 billion in assets. The public dialogue around the Oct. 10 sell-off has kept Binance in the crosshairs of market participants and regulators, even as the firm’s leadership has shifted over the years.

Source: Muyao Shen

As the conversation around October’s shockwaves intensified, Zhao noted that he no longer runs Binance but maintains a stake in the business and continues to participate in the industry on a personal level. He clarified that his remarks were not a corporate statement, underscoring the ongoing tension between corporate responsibility and market-wide liquidity dynamics that affect traders, lenders, and validators alike.

Beyond his Binance-linked activities, Zhao’s profile in the ecosystem has evolved through his leadership of YZi Labs, an investment entity that emerged from Binance’s venture activities and now manages a sizable portfolio. That role places him at the confluence of fundraising, cross-chain tooling, and strategic bets on new protocols—areas where the industry is watching for longer-term resilience in liquidity and risk management.

October crash caused a brief USDe depeg on Binance

The market episode that reignited scrutiny of major exchanges centered on Ethena’s USDe stability mechanism. The stablecoin briefly decoupled from its $1 peg on Binance, slipping to around $0.65 during the whiplash of the sell-off. The incident was later attributed to a platform-specific oracle issue rather than a systemic flaw across the broader DeFi stack. Ethena Labs founder Guy Young emphasized that the price dislocation appeared isolated to a single trading venue, which relied on an internal index rather than the deepest available liquidity pool. He also noted that the venue experienced deposit and withdrawal frictions that hindered arbitrage activity and price convergence.

Binance subsequently compensated affected users about $283 million as part of a broader effort to address losses tied to the event. The compensation underscored both the immediate financial impacts on traders and the reputational stakes for a platform that carries substantial counterparty risk within a volatile, liquidity-driven market. In the weeks that followed, crypto prices struggled to reclaim prior highs; Bitcoin (Bitcoin at the time in market commentary was referenced as BTC) later traded with renewed volatility, underscoring how a single event can ripple through the market’s pricing and sentiment. The broader narrative of the crash and the ensuing recovery period contributed to ongoing debates about liquidity provision, exchange risk controls, and the role of stablecoins in volatile episodes.

Altogether, the episode left an indelible mark on how market participants evaluate exchange safety nets, margin requirements, and the speed at which liquidity can evaporate during systemic stress. While Bitcoin price action has fluctuated, the asset’s path since October has been a reminder that even premier venues face challenges when liquidity tightens and risk appetite shifts in tandem with macro developments.

Source: CZ

Even as the dust settles on the immediate episode, Zhao’s remarks reflect a broader debate about the responsibilities of centralized exchanges during market upheavals. The record shows that Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price dynamics, liquidity constraints, and the behavior of algorithmic traders all intersect in such moments, making it difficult to assign blame to a single actor. Market observers will be watching how exchanges improve resilience—through risk controls, clearer disclosure, and transparent handling of customer funds—so that future episodes do not repeat the most acute aspects of October’s sell-off.

Why it matters

The discussion around Zhao’s comments highlights a persistent tension in crypto markets: the balance between innovation and risk management within centralized platforms. As the industry matures, traders rely on exchanges not only for liquidity but for safeguards against extreme volatility. The Oct. 10 event tested that assumption and prompted a closer look at how margin calls, liquidations, and depeg episodes propagate through interconnected protocols. While the market will no doubt continue to experiment with new products and cross-chain technologies, sustained improvements in risk controls—especially around oracle feeds and price references—will be essential to maintaining confidence among participants and regulators alike.

Moreover, the episode has implications for policy and enforcement. Zhao’s public stance—framed as a personal perspective rather than a corporate statement—underscores how stakeholders navigate accountability in a sector where legal and regulatory frameworks are still evolving. For users, the takeaway is a reminder to diversify risk—not only across assets but across venues—until clearer standards emerge for how exchanges manage extreme events and compensate users when disruptions occur in price feeds or settlement processes.

From an investment perspective, the market’s longer arc remains uncertain but cautiously optimistic. While November and December brought renewed volatility, the broader trend in on-chain activity, liquidity provisioning, and institutional interest suggests a sector that is still finding its footing after a period of intense upheaval. The fact that Zhao continues to influence the space through his investment arm and ongoing public commentary points to the enduring relevance of vocal founders and their platforms as the crypto industry seeks to institutionalize best practices without stifling innovation.

What to watch next

Regulatory statements or pending actions related to exchange liquidity risk and stablecoin disclosures.

Updates from Binance or YZi Labs regarding risk management improvements, liquidity commitments, or governance changes.

Any new insights into Ethena’sUSDe resilience and oracle architecture after the October depeg episode.

Market liquidity indicators and capital inflows/outflows that could influence Bitcoin and broader crypto benchmarks in the coming quarters.

Follow-up analyses on the October crash’s impact on market structure, including margin dynamics and exchange circuit-breaker practices.

Sources & verification

Zhao’s comments during a Binance social media Q&A, as reported by Bloomberg.

October 10 market crash and the $19 billion in liquidations reported in crypto coverage.

Ethena Labs founder Guy Young’s remarks on the USDe depeg and its attribution to an oracle issue.

Binance’s compensation of affected users totaling about $283 million.

Subsequent price action of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.

This article was originally published as CZ Denies Binance Fueled Historic Crypto Liquidation Crash on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

The European Commission has stepped up enforcement of its crypto tax rules, instructing 12 EU member states to close gaps in implementing the bloc’s tax reporting framework for digital assets. In a January infringements package, the Commission named Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal as needing to send formal notices to ensure full compliance with the EU’s new crypto-asset tax transparency regime. The move signals a broader push toward tax data exchange and transparency in a sector that has long faced regulatory ambiguity, with the Commission outlining a two-month deadline for responses before considering further action.

The commission’s action is anchored in a directive designed to bring crypto-asset service providers into the EU’s tax oversight net. Under the directive, entities operating within the bloc are expected to report certain user and transaction details to national authorities, a step intended to curb tax fraud, evasion and avoidance. The approach mirrors the OECD’s crypto framework, which several jurisdictions have started adopting to harmonize reporting standards and reduce cross-border tax gaps. The Commission’s move is not just about collecting data; it is about building a cohesive framework that can be used to audit activity across borders and ensure that digital-asset markets do not escape scrutiny merely because they operate outside traditional financial channels.

As part of the same enforcement wave, the Commission noted a formal notice to Hungary for MiCA (Markets in Crypto Assets) compliance shortcomings, granting two months for a response. Hungarian authorities have reportedly paused or scaled back certain services under amendments to national law governing “exchange validation services,” a move the Commission cautions must stay aligned with MiCA. This intertwining of tax transparency rules with MiCA’s broader regulatory mandate highlights how the EU is knitting together separate strands of crypto regulation—tax, consumer protection, licensing and enforcement—into a unified supervisory regime.

Beyond the formal notices, EU regulators have underscored that the MiCA framework, which began its rollout after its 2023 approval, is being enacted in stages to give market participants time to adjust. The core of MiCA requires token issuers and crypto-asset service providers to meet specific operational and disclosure standards, with the majority of pre-existing players facing a compliance deadline around mid-2024. While many member states began tightening the noose gradually, several jurisdictions trimmed the transition window, intensifying the pace of change for exchanges, wallet providers and other crypto-related services operating within the bloc. The EU has shown a willingness to enforce these rules with procedural rigor, warning that non-compliant entities risk being barred from offering services in one of the world’s largest digital asset markets. The trend toward stronger regulatory alignment has broad implications for the sector’s growth trajectory, as firms must invest in compliance and risk controls to survive in Europe’s regulated environment.

Related: France flags 90 unlicensed crypto companies ahead of MiCA cutoff: Report

The Commission’s January infringements package, which also references OECD-aligned tax reporting measures, emphasizes that the new regime is meant to keep pace with evolving crypto markets and the variety of services now available—from custody and trading to staking and on-chain transfers. The directive seeks to ensure that crypto asset service providers capture and relay relevant information about their customers and the transactions they process, enabling tax authorities to identify potential areas of non-compliance. In practical terms, this means EU member states will be required to assess whether local firms are reporting data in line with the directive and, if not, to formally notify the providers to take corrective action. The 12 named countries are expected to respond within two months, after which the Commission could issue a reasoned opinion outlining the specific remedial steps and timelines.

MiCA framework is moving along

The MiCA regime represents a comprehensive attempt to regulate crypto markets across the European Union, consolidating a patchwork of national rules into a single framework. Since its passage in 2023, the regulation has been implemented in phases, giving businesses a window to align with new requirements while continuing to operate. The directive’s emphasis on AML/CFT safeguards, disclosure duties and operational standards is designed to reduce risk in a rapidly evolving sector and to enhance market integrity. Although the timeline for full compliance has varied by country, the overarching objective remains clear: minimize regulatory grey areas that could be exploited for wrongdoing and provide a predictable, standards-based operating environment for legitimate players. The EU’s approach is closely watched by global regulators and market participants who seek clarity on how the bloc will balance innovation with consumer protection and tax enforcement.

The enforcement signals come as crypto markets navigate a broader regulatory climate that is becoming increasingly harmonized across borders. For traders and institutions, the EU’s push toward standardized reporting and stronger oversight could influence liquidity, risk appetite and cross-border activity within Europe. The commission’s warnings also echo a broader trend in which policymakers are prioritizing transparency over speed, recognizing that well-defined rules help minimize systemic risk and build trust in crypto markets among mainstream financial participants and the public.

Why it matters

For crypto service providers operating in Europe, these developments translate into tighter compliance obligations and more formalized data-sharing practices. Firms must ensure they have robust processes to collect and relay customer data and transaction details to tax authorities, reducing the potential for regulatory gaps that could be exploited for tax evasion or fraud. As regulatory scrutiny tightens, businesses may also face increased costs related to reporting infrastructure, auditing and customer due diligence. While this could raise barrier-to-entry for newer players, established firms may benefit from a clearer, more stable regulatory baseline that reduces ambiguity and fosters long-term planning.

Investors should monitor the evolving MiCA regime and the tax-reporting framework as determinants of market structure and strategic risk. A consistent, enforceable framework can improve market quality by mitigating exceptional risk events emanating from opaque offshore activity or inconsistent cross-border reporting. At the same time, the drive toward greater transparency could shift the competitive landscape, favoring entities with robust compliance programs and transparent governance. For builders and developers in the crypto space, these regulatory shifts underscore the importance of designing products and services that align with EU requirements from the outset, rather than pursuing rapid growth at the expense of compliance.

From a macro perspective, the EU’s initiative reflects a broader pattern: governments are integrating digital assets into established tax and financial supervision channels, seeking to curb illicit activity while preserving a conducive environment for legitimate innovation. The integration with OECD standards highlights a coordinated, international dimension to these efforts, signaling that the regulatory trajectory for crypto assets is unlikely to ease in the near term. As MiCA advances and tax-reporting rules take greater effect, the European market could see a shift in participant behavior, with institutions paying closer attention to compliance credentials, reporting capabilities and governance rigor—the kind of factors that increasingly determine which platforms win in regulated markets.

What to watch next

The two-month response window for the 12 named member states to comply with the formal notices.

Whether the Commission issues a reasoned opinion against any country that fails to respond adequately.

Hungary’s forthcoming submission on MiCA compliance and any subsequent regulatory actions.

Updates on MiCA implementation timelines across other member states and potential refinements to the reporting regime.

Any new OECD crypto-framework updates that feed into EU regulatory expectations.

Sources & verification

European Commission infringements package announcing formal notices to 12 EU member states over crypto asset tax reporting compliance and the two-month response window.

The directive expanding EU tax transparency and information exchange rules for crypto assets, aligned with OECD crypto framework.

Formal notice references to Hungary regarding MiCA compliance and the reported impact on exchange validation services under national law.

France’s related coverage on unlicensed crypto firms ahead of MiCA cutoff for potential context on enforcement momentum.

This article was originally published as European Commission Urges 12 Countries to Adopt Crypto Tax Rules on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

SoFi Technologies posted a landmark quarter as it recalibrated its crypto strategy and continued to scale its consumer financial ecosystem. The fintech lender reported revenue of $1.0 billion for the fourth quarter, a new record, while adjusting net revenue rose 37% year over year to $1.0 billion and GAAP net income came in at $173.5 million. The company also highlighted a strong EBITDA expansion, with adjusted EBITDA up 60% to $317.6 million. These earnings framed a broader narrative: SoFi is reviving its crypto products after a 2023 pause, and it is pursuing a multi-sided growth plan that blends crypto features with traditional financial services.

The company disclosed that total fee-based revenue reached a quarterly high of $443 million, and total members climbed to 13.7 million—a jump of about 35% year over year. SoFi added roughly 1.6 million new financial products during the quarter, lifting the total financial services product count to 17.5 million. A notable data point from the crypto segment is the 63,441 crypto-related products logged in the window from December 22 to December 31, a figure tied to the launch in late December and not representative of a full quarter’s activity.

The quarter’s results come on the heels of SoFi’s strategic reentry into the cryptocurrency space following a drawdown in November 2023. The firm relaunched crypto trading in June of the prior year and subsequently expanded its blockchain-enabled remittance capabilities to more than 30 countries. In December, SoFi also rolled out SoFiUSD, a US dollar–backed stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank. Taken together, these moves underscore a broader push by fintechs and banks to weave digital assets and stablecoins into mainstream consumer banking products.

SoFi’s consolidated results. Source: SoFi

Earlier coverage notes that SoFi’s crypto program paused in late 2023 before the June relaunch, a step that aligned with a broader industry pattern of banks reassessing crypto offerings amid regulatory and market headwinds. The company’s renewed focus on crypto trading, remittance rails powered by blockchain technology, and the December debut of a bank-backed stablecoin illustrate how SoFi is positioning itself as a hybrid fintech that can bridge traditional consumer banking with digital asset services. The public indicators of momentum—an expanding product suite, a growing member base, and a clear crypto retail footprint—signal that SoFi is testing a model where crypto is not a standalone feature but a component of everyday financial activity.

As the quarter closed, industry observers noted a wave of bank-level interest in digital assets. In May, major US lenders reportedly discussed a joint crypto-stablecoin initiative involving big names like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase indicated a path toward offering crypto trading for clients, while conceding that direct custody would not be immediate. These shifts reflect a broader recalibration among traditional financial institutions toward crypto services as a potential growth driver and customer retention tool.

In a separate development, UBS began exploring plans to offer crypto trading to its wealth management clients, initially focusing on select private-banking customers in Switzerland with potential expansion into Asia-Pacific and the United States at a later stage. The conversations around crypto trading at major banks were echoed by public comments from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who highlighted a shift in sentiment among bank executives he met at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Armstrong noted that many bank leaders were “actually very pro crypto” and viewing digital assets as a strategic opportunity, although some remain hesitant about full-scale adoption.

Key takeaways

SoFi posted a quarterly revenue of $1.0 billion for Q4, marking a record, with adjusted net revenue up 37% YoY to $1.0 billion and GAAP net income at $173.5 million.

Adjusted EBITDA rose 60% to $317.6 million, underscoring how the company leveraged its diversified product mix to support earnings growth.

Total fee-based revenue reached a quarterly high of $443 million, while total members expanded to 13.7 million and financial services products to 17.5 million.

The crypto segment logged 63,441 crypto products during the December window after the late-December launch, illustrating initial traction from a short period rather than a full quarter’s activity.

SoFi reintroduced consumer crypto trading in June and expanded blockchain-powered remittances to more than 30 countries, signaling a broader crypto-enabled consumer product strategy.

SoFi launched SoFiUSD, a US dollar–backed stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank, in December, aligning with the ongoing trend of bank-backed stablecoins gaining regulatory visibility.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $ETH

Market context: The quarter’s crypto push aligns with a broader tilt among traditional financial institutions toward crypto services, from trading to stablecoins and cross-border payments, as banks seek new customer engagement channels in a rapidly evolving regulatory and macro environment.

Why it matters

The SoFi earnings narrative reinforces a broader industry shift where fintechs and traditional banks increasingly integrate crypto into everyday financial services. The combination of record revenue, expanding membership, and a deliberate reentry into crypto products signals that consumer demand for digital assets remains robust enough to support a diversified strategy rather than a single-asset bet. By reintroducing crypto trading, expanding remittance features, and launching a dollar-backed stablecoin, SoFi is testing a triad of onramps—trading, payments, and stable value—that could shape the competitive dynamics of retail finance in the coming years.

From a market-structure perspective, the move reflects a normalization of crypto within mainstream platforms. The presence of stablecoins issued by traditional banks, alongside growing interest in crypto trading by major financial institutions, hints at a shift in risk appetite, liquidity provisioning, and product design. Yet, it also raises questions about custody arrangements, regulatory clarity, and the balance between consumer protection and innovation. The quarterly signals—record revenue, renewed crypto activity, and a stablecoin rollout—will be watched by investors and policymakers as they gauge the trajectory of crypto-enabled financial services in a regulated, consumer-focused environment.

What to watch next

SoFi’s 2026 quarterly results for metrics on crypto product usage, customer retention, and the ongoing adoption of SoFiUSD and remittance services.

Usage volumes and regulatory clarity around SoFiUSD and other bank-backed stablecoins as the year progresses.

Announcements or filings from JPMorgan, UBS, or other banks regarding crypto trading offerings, custody solutions, or new stablecoin initiatives.

Any updates on cross-border remittance workflows powered by blockchain and their impact on user engagement and transaction costs.

Sources & verification

SoFi Technologies, fourth-quarter 2025 earnings press release and Business Wire filing detailing revenue, net income, and EBITDA.

SoFi reintroduction of crypto trading and expansion of blockchain-powered remittances (Cointelegraph coverage).

SoFiUSD stablecoin launch announcement (Cointelegraph coverage).

Banking sector coverage on pro-crypto moves, including JPMorgan’s crypto trading plans (Cointelegraph coverage).

UBS exploration of crypto trading for private-banking clients (Cointelegraph coverage).

Statements from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong about discussions with bank executives at the World Economic Forum (X post).

SoFi’s crypto comeback and the broader bank-enabled wave

The fourth quarter capped a pivotal chapter for SoFi, which has been methodically expanding its crypto footprint after a strategic pause in late 2023. The company’s headline numbers demonstrate that it can deliver on core fintech metrics—revenue, member growth, and product breadth—while simultaneously integrating crypto offerings into its consumer experience. The reported 63,441 crypto products logged in the Dec. 22–31 window, although not a full-quarter representation, signals early traction for a crypto-enabled product stack that includes trading, custody, and on-ramp features.

SoFi’s crypto recovery is not happening in isolation. It mirrors a broader industry trend where banks and fintechs are recalibrating their crypto strategies, moving from caution to cautious optimism. The discussions among US banks about a joint stablecoin project, the explicit plans by JPMorgan to offer crypto trading, and UBS’s exploration of crypto trading for affluent clients collectively show an industry-wide reassessment of how digital assets fit into mainstream banking. These moves come against a backdrop of regulatory developments and evolving consumer expectations, where a stable and well-integrated crypto offering can differentiate financial service providers in a crowded market.

For SoFi, the path forward involves balancing growth with risk management. The company’s ability to convert crypto interest into durable revenue will hinge on customer acquisition costs, security, and the seamless integration of crypto into its broader product ecosystem. The December SoFiUSD launch, issued by SoFi Bank, represents a tangible step toward a regulated on-ramp for retail users, potentially boosting crypto literacy and engagement. Yet the continued evolution of crypto policy and the safety measures surrounding custody and settlement will be crucial as SoFi scales these services beyond the early phase, and as more banks weigh the costs and benefits of expanded digital-asset offerings.

The market context remains supportive but nuanced. Liquidity in the crypto space has rebounded at times, and investor risk appetite has shown resilience in response to macro stabilization and regulatory clarity in certain jurisdictions. The ongoing dialogue between fintechs, banks, and regulators will shape the feasibility and pace of broader adoption. SoFi’s quarter underscores a practical reality: crypto-enabled financial services can be integrated into a consumer-focused platform without compromising earnings quality, provided the product design is disciplined and the governance framework is robust.

This article was originally published as SoFi Hits Record Q4 Earnings as Crypto, Stablecoin Push Expands on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Bitcoin has long been pitched as a hedge against monetary erosion, but a currency backdrop with the U.S. dollar wavering near multi-year lows has nudged hedging behavior toward a broader toolkit. While Bitcoin remains part of the landscape, the current dynamic elevates gold and tokenized gold to the front lines of risk management. Market participants are embracing gold not merely as a tradable commodity but as a base layer for digital-age hedging, where tokenized versions offer on-chain access to bullion and censorship-resistant value storage. The movement signals a shift toward multi-asset strategies that blend traditional safe havens with crypto-native tools in a climate of inflation concerns and currency stress.

Key takeaways

Tokenized gold has gained traction as a bridge between traditional assets and crypto rails, with a clear share of the market now driven by digital gold exposure.

Tether Gold (XAUt) accounts for more than half of the tokenized gold market, with a market value exceeding $2.2 billion and 520,089 tokens in circulation as of the end of Q4, each backed by physical gold bullion.

Gold prices topped above $5,300 per troy ounce, marking roughly a 90% gain over the past year, while the U.S. dollar index slid to multi-year lows, underscoring currency stress in macro markets.

Bitwise launched an actively managed ETF designed to hedge currency debasement by pairing BTC with gold and other precious metals, trading on the NYSE under the ticker BPRO.

Fidelity plans to roll out a U.S. dollar stablecoin, the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD), aligning with federal standards for payments-focused digital dollars and real-time settlement.

Laser Digital, backed by Nomura, reportedly sought a U.S. national bank trust charter, signaling a push to integrate crypto services within the U.S. regulatory banking framework.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $BPRO

Sentiment: Neutral

Price impact: Positive. Demand for safe-haven assets and tokenized gold supports upside potential for gold and related crypto-linked products in a currency-stressed environment.

Market context: The move toward tokenized gold, crypto-backed ETFs, and regulated digital-asset settlement rails reflects a maturing macro backdrop where liquidity, regulatory clarity, and real-time settlement influence asset allocation within the crypto ecosystem.

Why it matters

Tokenized gold represents a tangible bridge between the legacy financial system and the crypto universe. By providing on-chain access to bullion, these instruments aim to address one of the thorniest questions in the crypto space: how to offer reliable exposure to a traditional safe haven within a digital-first framework. The market has seen the gold-backed stablecoin XAUt capture a commanding share of the tokenized gold segment, illustrating investor demand for asset-backed digital instruments that can move with the speed and programmability of blockchain rails. The fact that XAUt’s circulating supply stood at 520,089 tokens and that the overall market value exceeded $2.2 billion as of late Q4 underscores both liquidity and confidence in tokenized bullion as a complement to conventional gold holdings.

Meanwhile, gold’s price ascent—surging past the $5,300 per ounce mark and representing a near-90% year-over-year increase—aligns with a broader risk-off narrative as fiat erosion concerns persist. The concurrent slide in the Bloomberg dollar index to a multi-year low reinforces the sense that investors are recalibrating portfolios toward assets with intrinsic value and cross-asset hedging capabilities. In this environment, tokenized gold and related crypto constructs are positioned not as replacements for traditional hedges but as enhancements to diversified risk management strategies. The narrative is not about abandoning Bitcoin; rather, Bitcoin is becoming a complementary piece in a safety net that blends hard assets, tokenized assets, and regulated crypto instruments.

The market’s depth is expanding beyond products that simply track crypto prices. Bitwise’s BPRO offers an actively managed route for wealth managers seeking exposure to both digital and physical assets, packaged as a currency-debasement hedge. The fund’s NYSE listing signals a convergence of conventional asset management with crypto exposure, potentially drawing in investors who previously shied away from direct crypto allocations. The ETF’s structure—combining Bitcoin with gold and mining stocks—highlights a disciplined approach to hedging currency risk while maintaining a diversified exposure that can be tailored to client risk profiles. This development illustrates how Wall Street is layering crypto into traditional portfolios through regulated vehicles rather than relying solely on pure crypto products.

Source: Matt Hougan

The push toward formalized crypto exposure in regulated channels extends to the traditional finance giant cohort, where Fidelity is pursuing a U.S. dollar stablecoin—the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD). The project is being designed to adhere to federal standards for payments-focused digital dollars and to support real-time settlement and 24/7 payments, moving beyond the speculative trading narrative that has often governed digital assets. As the GENIUS Act and other regulatory developments shape the path forward for stablecoins, Fidelity’s approach reflects a broader trend: the push to identify trusted, regulated rails that can underpin mainstream adoption of crypto-native settlement systems.

In parallel, the market is witnessing a broader regulatory push that could redefine the boundaries of crypto finance. Nomura’s Laser Digital has reportedly sought a U.S. national bank charter, potentially allowing nationwide operations under a single federal license and enabling spot trading of digital assets without custody of deposits, subject to OCC oversight. If realized, the charter would streamline operations and reduce the state-by-state frictions that have characterized many crypto-enabled services to date. The development underscores a broader shift toward federated, regulator-friendly structures as digital assets move closer to mainstream financial markets. It also aligns with other industry moves toward federal trust bank status as a mechanism to deepen integration with traditional finance while preserving the distinct benefits of crypto-native settlement and custody models.

Taken together, these threads illustrate a converging narrative: the crypto ecosystem is expanding beyond pure price exposure toward robust hedging and settlement infrastructures. Tokenized gold and regulated crypto strategies are becoming essential elements of a diversified risk framework that can adapt to shifting macro regimes. Bitcoin remains a core anchor in this evolving playbook, but its role is increasingly as a high-volatility, liquidity-providing complement to more traditional hedges and to institutional-grade crypto rails. The result is a more nuanced, multi-layered approach to navigating currency debasement risk—one that blends centuries-old safe-haven assets with the efficiency and programmability of modern crypto finance.

Source: Cointelegraph

Crypto Biz is your weekly pulse on the business behind blockchain and crypto, delivered directly to your inbox every Thursday.

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What to watch next

Regulatory progress on U.S. stablecoins and digital-dollar standards, including any updates to the GENIUS Act framework.

Timeline and milestones for Fidelity’s Fidelity Digital Dollar rollout and pilot tests in settlement rails.

Performance and flows into the Bitwise Proficio Currency Debasement ETF (EXCHANGE: BPRO) as institutional demand evolves.

Regulatory clarity on bank charters and trust frameworks affecting crypto banking services, including OCC decisions on national charters.

Adoption dynamics for tokenized gold products and their impact on gold price correlations with crypto assets.

Sources & verification

XAUt token supply and market cap figures as of Q4 and the claim that XAUt accounts for more than half of the tokenized gold market.

Gold price levels and the four-year low on the Bloomberg US dollar index referenced in relation to gold’s rally.

Bitwise Proficio Currency Debasement ETF (BPRO) launch details and NYSE listing, including its focus on BTC, gold, and mining stocks.

Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) and the GENIUS Act alignment for stablecoins and real-time settlement infrastructure.

Nomura-backed Laser Digital’s reported US national bank charter application with the OCC and related regulatory context.

This article was originally published as Gold Leads as Dollar Slides; Bitcoin Recasts as a Companion Asset on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Bitcoin (Bitcoin is mentioned with ticker annotation in the body; placeholder to ensure accurate formatting; see below for the actual tagged reference.)

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has fallen 14.5% over the last 16 days, pressuring sentiment as the Crypto Fear & Greed Index sits at 16 — the year’s nadir for Extreme Fear. The slide coincides with mainstream selling and thinner liquidity, while derivatives data hint at a possible reprieve rather than a prolonged downturn. Traders have circled key levels and potential squeeze points that could catalyze a quick rebound if buyers step back in. The question for markets now is whether the setup marks capitulation or simply a pause before another leg lower.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: alternative.me

While selling has dominated markets over the past two weeks, Bitcoin derivatives data suggest the current trader positioning may lead to a recovery. Analysts are now weighing whether the latest sell-off has created conditions for a relief rally. 

Key takeaways:

Binance open interest has climbed more than 30% from its October 2025 lows, confirming rising activity within the Bitcoin futures market.

A move toward $92,000 may put over $6.5 billion in short positions at risk of liquidation.

Bitcoin swept swing lows between $80,000 and $83,000, clearing a large cluster of long liquidations. With downside liquidity absorbed, attention is turning higher.

Open Interest in Bitcoin on Binance rose to about 123,500 BTC, up roughly 31% since October 2025, signaling traders are rebuilding exposure rather than exiting.

January Bitcoin futures volume across major venues dipped to around $1.09 trillion — the lowest level since 2024 — with liquidity concentrated on Binance (≈$378 billion), OKX (≈$169 billion) and Bybit (≈$156 billion).

Market imbalance opens the door to a relief rally

From a technical standpoint, BTC has swept its swing lows between $80,000 and $83,000, clearing a large cluster of long liquidations. With that downside liquidity taken, attention is shifting higher.

Bitcoin 3-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

CoinGlass data shows that a move toward $92,000 may place over $6.5 billion in cumulative short positions at risk of liquidation. By contrast, a drop to $72,600 would only threaten about $1.2 billion. This imbalance means upside moves may force short sellers to buy back positions, potentially accelerating price recovery.

Bitcoin Exchange Liquidation Map. Source: CoinGlass

Additionally, crypto commentator Marty Party framed the recent move as part of a Wyckoff Accumulation “Spring,” where price briefly dips below support to shake out weak hands before reversing. 

In this context, the sweep below $83,000 may act as a final liquidity grab, allowing larger participants to buy discounted Bitcoin. If followed by sustained buying, the next phase may exhibit a price expansion with upside targets extending back toward $100,000. 

Bitcoin’s Wyckoff Accumulation. Source: Marty Party/X

Related: Bitcoin’s ‘miner exodus’ could push BTC price below $60K

Bitcoin futures positioning shows mixed signals

Bitcoin’s decline triggered an estimated $800 billion in liquidations over the past 24 hours, the largest single-day event since late November 20, when BTC last traded near $81,000. 

Yet, according to crypto analyst Darkfost, the open interest on Binance has risen to 123,500 BTC, exceeding levels seen ahead of the October 10, 2025, when open interest fell to 93,600 BTC. A roughly 31% increase since then suggests traders are rebuilding exposure rather than fully exiting the market.

Open Interest in Bitcoin term. Source: CryptoQuant

Broader derivatives activity has also cooled. Monthly Bitcoin futures volume across all exchanges fell to around $1.09 trillion in January, the lowest since 2024. Trading remained concentrated on major venues, led by Binance with $378 billion, followed by OKX at $169 billion and Bybit near $156 billion.

Related: Bitcoin loses crucial $84K support: How low can BTC price go?

This article was originally published as $6B Bitcoin Shorts Could Fuel Rally Above $90K on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

The European Union’s DAC8 framework for crypto tax reporting tightens the net on identifiable players while keeping decentralized finance (DeFi) largely at arm’s length for the moment. The regime emphasizes intermediaries—think custodians and exchanges—that will be tasked with gathering and reporting standardized user activity data under the OECD’s Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). In practice, this means a move toward auditable on-chain activity with a focus on the entities that interact most directly with users and assets. But the DeFi carve-out isn’t guaranteed to be permanent; as regulators widen AML plays and seek better visibility into crypto markets, questions are mounting about whether DeFi platforms may eventually be treated as virtual asset service providers (VASPs).

Key takeaways

EU DAC8 prioritizes enforceable targets by directing reporting requirements at custodians and exchanges, while keeping DeFi out of immediate regulatory scope for now.

Ant‑money laundering frameworks are increasingly used to define accountability in crypto markets, raising the possibility that some DeFi actors could be reclassified as VASPs if supervisory clarity shifts.

In the United States, lawmakers are weighing amendments to the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act (DCIA), with DeFi provisions emerging as a flashpoint in the broader market-structure debate between the CFTC and the SEC.

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) have grown into a roughly $10 billion sector, supported by real-world usage that generated about $72 million in on-chain revenue last year, even as many tokens in the space have fallen sharply.

Bitcoin-native DeFi initiatives—such as ZK-rollups that use BTC as base collateral—are accelerating institutional interest in treating Bitcoin as a treasury asset and on-chain liquidity source, signaling a shift in how on-chain assets are utilized.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC

Sentiment: Neutral

Market context: The regulatory backdrop remains cautious but pragmatic, with institutions seeking clear compliance pathways while investors watch for signs of longer-term structural clarity in both the EU and US. As the DeFi and on-chain infrastructure narratives converge, capital is shifting toward protocols and asset classes that can demonstrate tangible utility beyond token value alone.

Why it matters

The EU’s DAC8 framework marks a calibrated approach to crypto taxation that centers on trust but verifies activity through a formal data-sharing regime. By anchoring CARF reporting to identifiable intermediaries, regulators can build a remittance-style trail of transactions and user activity that is more readily auditable than a purely on-chain heuristic. This approach arguably reduces the friction for compliance-focused institutions while preserving space for DeFi innovations to mature outside the immediate national tax perimeter. The potential expansion of AML-driven accountability to DeFi—if regulators decide the pathways to classify DeFi platforms as VASPs—could alter the risk calculus for developers, custody providers, and liquidity venues, nudging projects toward standardization and verifiability.

Meanwhile, DeFi remains a political and regulatory flashpoint in the United States. The DCIA, designed to harmonize oversight between the CFTC and the SEC, is entering a stage where amendments are being proposed and debated with particular focus on how DeFi features like developer governance, automated market making, and liquidity provision would be treated under existing regimes. The outcome could influence the pace at which centralized and decentralized intermediaries align with any new market-structure blueprint, affecting funding cycles, compliance investments, and product-development timelines.

On the infrastructure side, DePIN—decentralized physical infrastructure networks—has quietly evolved into a sizable, revenue-generating segment. A joint State of DePIN 2025 report from Messari and Escape Velocity pegs the sector at about $10 billion in value, with on-chain revenue totaling roughly $72 million last year. This trend underscores a broader shift toward asset-centric infrastructure models where usage and cash flow matter more than token performance in isolation. Even as many DePIN tokens have suffered steep price declines, the underlying networks are increasingly delivering real-world utility, from bandwidth and compute to energy sensing data, which can attract institutional interest if governance and security considerations become more standardized.

A separate thread in the DeFi conversation centers on Bitcoin itself. Projects building DeFi stacks atop BTC—through Bitcoin-backed lending, stablecoins pegged to the BTC network, and ZK-rollups that anchor proofs to Bitcoin’s base layer—are advancing the debate about Bitcoin’s capabilities beyond a store of value. The emergence of BTC-native DeFi tools points to a future in which Bitcoin serves not only as a treasury asset for corporations but also as a foundational layer for on-chain finance, collateralization, and programmable money. The ongoing experimentation with BTC as base collateral demonstrates how widely the world is rethinking the role of the original cryptocurrency in broader financial architectures.

Against this regulatory and technological backdrop, recent market data paints a mixed picture for DeFi and broader crypto activity. In a week where the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization broadly declined, a handful of smaller DeFi-focused tokens faced some of the steepest losses, highlighting ongoing risk-off sentiment among investors even as users continue to push for real-world use cases. DefiLlama tracks total value locked across DeFi protocols, illustrating the sector’s sensitivity to macro risk and token price action, even as usage-driven revenue trends begin to outpace speculative narratives in some projects. Taken together, these threads show an ecosystem that is increasingly interconnected—regulatory clarity, on-chain infrastructure, and real-world utility all contributing to where capital flows and developer activity go next.

What to watch next

EU DAC8 CARF timelines and the first batch of reporting entities slated for 2027, with regulators continuing to assess DeFi’s regulatory boundaries.

Upcoming amendments to the DCIA as US lawmakers seek a clearer division of enforcement responsibilities between the CFTC and the SEC, including potential DeFi-specific provisions.

Results and implications from the State of DePIN 2025 report, particularly around on-chain revenue trends and institutional adoption signals.

Progress of Citrea’s Bitcoin-based DeFi initiatives, including mainnet milestones and liquidity targets (e.g., the $50 million early liquidity benchmark) as BTC-native DeFi expands.

Sources & verification

OECD’s Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and DAC8 guidance on enforceable reporting targets.

Animoca Brands Japan and RootstockLabs collaboration aimed at bringing Bitcoin-native DeFi tools to Japanese institutions.

Senate Agriculture Committee materials related to amendments proposed by Senator Klobuchar and discussions on CFTC/SEC jurisdiction over crypto markets.

Messari and Escape Velocity, State of DePIN 2025, detailing DePIN sector scale and on-chain revenue.

Citrea’s Bitcoin DeFi mainnet launch and related disclosures, including BTC-based collateral and the ctUSD stablecoin approach.

Key figures and next steps

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) remains central to the ongoing experimentation with on‑chain finance, as institutions balance the potential for BTC-backed DeFi with the regulatory and sustainability considerations that come with expanding base-layer usage. Policy developments in the EU and the US will shape how quickly, and in what form, DeFi and BTC-centric applications scale. Investors and builders should watch for concrete regulatory milestones, new product launches leveraging BTC as collateral, and updates on DePIN infrastructure deployments that tie on-chain activity to real-world capabilities.

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This article was originally published as DeFi Remains Outside Regulation as Regulators Crack Down Elsewhere on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Bitcoin has pulled back sharply this week, amplifying a sense of fragility across crypto markets as traders contend with the most sizable forced liquidation on record. The benchmark digital asset traded near the high $80,000s to mid-$80,000s, a move that coincided with a decline in its market capitalization and a reordering of the asset’s relative standing in global markets. The pullback comes as gold surged to the top of the asset ladder on a broad risk-off backdrop, underscoring the ongoing tension between perceived safety and the crypto cycle. The episode also highlights how liquidity dynamics, leverage unwinds, and macro expectations increasingly intersect with crypto price action.

Key takeaways

Bitcoin’s market capitalization sits around $1.65 trillion, with the asset roughly 11th in global rankings, reflecting a retreat from the top tier after a turbulent period.

The digital asset traded near $83,000, illustrating continued volatility even as macro conditions offered some supportive cues like a weaker dollar.

Gold asserted its perch as the world’s largest asset amid a record rally, with rising gold futures activity highlighted in market data cited by trackers and exchange data providers.

A sell-off drove prices from near $90,000 to below $82,000 and triggered about $1.6 billion in long liquidations, underscoring the fragility of long-position bets.

Analysts at Wintermute argued 2025 could mark a break from Bitcoin’s traditional four-year price cycle, though a broader recovery in 2026 would hinge on several conditional factors.

The macro backdrop featured ongoing policy considerations around US leadership of the Federal Reserve, with a crypto-friendly nomination fueling speculation about policy direction and its impact on risk assets.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $ETH

Sentiment: Bearish

Price impact: Negative. The rapid slide and heavy liquidations added downside pressure and heightened risk aversion among traders.

Market context: The move aligns with a broader mood shift in risk markets, where policy expectations and regulatory developments mingle with liquidity dynamics. Although a weaker US dollar can support crypto markets in some scenarios, BTC’s underperformance relative to equities and traditional havens like gold points to a more nuanced risk-off environment that can persist even when macro prints are supportive.

Why it matters

The recent price action matters because it tests the durability of Bitcoin as an asset class within a shifting macro landscape. A retreat from the top 10 by market capitalization underscores the degree to which liquidity conditions and institutional flows still drive crypto prices—not only supply-demand fundamentals within the ecosystem. For investors, the move raises questions about risk management, leverage dynamics, and the speed with which sentiment can swing in response to liquidity events.

From a broader market perspective, gold’s surge to the top asset underscores the ongoing search for safe havens in times of macro uncertainty. The juxtaposition of a flashing red crypto tape with a gold rally highlights how investors are calibrating portfolios in an era of rapid, often unpredictable, capital shifts. The data cited from gold futures activity by MEXC, among others, hints at a more complex interaction between traditional and digital assets as participants reassess hedging strategies and the role of digital assets in diversified exposure.

Analysts have pointed to structural questions surrounding Bitcoin’s longer-term trajectory. Wintermute’s recent market color suggested that 2025 could deviate from the sector’s historical four-year cycle, potentially setting up a later, conditional recovery in 2026. In that framework, durable upside would likely depend on a tailwind of broad inflows—into Bitcoin and Ether (ETH)—and a more explicit embrace of crypto assets by institutional buyers and ETFs that can unlock new layers of liquidity and exposure. The emphasis on inflows rather than quick price moves as a catalyst is a reminder that the wealth effect in crypto remains contingent on sustained demand rather than one-off rallies.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization peaked in October. Source: CoinMarketCap

The macro narrative around policy shifts continued to color the price action. Reports and market chatter around the possible appointment of a crypto-friendly Federal Reserve chair candidate—Kevin Warsh—added an additional layer of uncertainty and speculation about how regulatory signals might shape risk assets. Warsh’s eventual nomination, once formalized, would still require Senate confirmation, but the prospect alone has the market considering potential moves in interest rates, liquidity, and the appetite for risk across digital markets. Against that backdrop, Bitcoin’s relative underperformance versus traditional assets—despite a backdrop of a weaker dollar—emphasizes the ongoing sensitivity of crypto to policy expectations and macro risk sentiment.

Cryptocurrencies significantly underperformed other risk assets in 2025. Source: Wintermute

From a longer-horizon perspective, the narrative around ETF access and institutional participation remains central. Wintermute’s analysis framed a path to renewed crypto-market vigor that hinges on sustained inflows into Bitcoin and Ether, alongside an enhanced roster of ETF products that can channel more capital into the sector. If those inflows materialize, they could help generate a wealth effect that spreads beyond individual assets to the broader market, potentially offsetting the near-term headwinds created by leverage unwinds and risk-off rotations.

What to watch next

Updates on ETF approvals and expanded mandates for digital-asset products that could unlock broader institutional flows.

Senate confirmation developments for the Fed leadership candidacy, including Kevin Warsh, and any policy signals that could affect dollar strength and liquidity conditions.

Early signs of renewed capital inflows into Bitcoin and Ether, and any shifts in liquidity that might precede a broader risk-on phase.

Reports on the broader macro environment, including next-term inflation data and central-bank communications, that could influence risk sentiment across crypto and traditional markets.

Sources & verification

Bitcoin price around the mid-$80,000s and a market cap near $1.65 trillion, with ranking context from trackers.

Gold’s top-spot position and rising gold futures activity, as cited in data linked to the gold rally coverage.

Historical peak: Bitcoin market capitalization near $2.5 trillion in October and prices near $126,000 (CoinMarketCap data).

Sell-off and long liquidations reported around $1.6 billion (official coverage linked to BTC price dynamics).

Wintermute market-color analysis on 2025 cycle and 2026 recovery conditional (Wintermute report).

Nomination context for Kevin Warsh and related policy discussions (coverage linked to the nomination).

Market reaction and key details

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has reversed some of its recent strength, slipping from its perch in the world’s top-10 by market capitalization as traders digest the implications of a liquidity-driven unwind. The asset’s price sits in the low-to-mid $80,000s, translating into a market capitalization around $1.65 trillion and a ranking that places it 11th on the global list. The shift illustrates how quickly market sentiment can shift in a market that remains highly sensitive to leverage and momentum signals. While gold has surged to the top asset by market value, driven in part by a broad risk-off stance, Bitcoin’s trajectory over the past several weeks reflects a complex mix of macro expectations, liquidity dynamics, and structural shifts in the crypto ecosystem.

The latest move follows a period when Bitcoin had previously touched highs near $126,000 in October, at which point its market capitalization hovered around the $2.5 trillion mark. The subsequent pullback accelerated after a wave of long liquidations—reported at roughly $1.6 billion—pushed the price from around $90,000 to the sub-$82,000 area in a short span. Those unwind events underscore the sensitivity of Bitcoin to forced liquidations and the way risk-off dynamics can quickly overwhelm even broad macro-supportive signals, such as a weaker dollar.

The macro backdrop has further complicated the narrative. Speculation surrounding a crypto-friendly Fed chair candidate, Kevin Warsh, added a new layer of regulatory and policy expectations to the mix. Warsh’s nomination, once formally announced, must pass Senate confirmation, but the mere prospect of a policy shift can influence risk asset sentiment in the near term. In parallel, Bitcoin has, at times, underperformed other risk assets—despite conditions that could be favorable for crypto, including a softer dollar. As markets search for catalysts to re-energize the sector, attention has turned to the potential for increased ETF exposure and greater institutional involvement, which could help stabilize prices if inflows resume.

Analysts from Wintermute have offered a tempered view: 2025 could mark a departure from the traditional four-year price cycle that has often framed Bitcoin’s behavior, while a broader recovery in 2026 remains conditional on a set of favorable factors. The takeaway is that a sustained rebound will likely require a credible, broad-based inflow narrative, with capital moving into Bitcoin and Ether (CRYPTO: ETH) as part of a diversified strategy. In other words, price action alone may not suffice; a structural change in demand dynamics—driven by ETF mandates and institutional treasury programs—could be the real lever for a new cycle.

The juxtaposition of Bitcoin’s retracement with gold’s rally also hints at evolving roles for traditional versus digital assets in risk-off periods. Gold’s performance underscores a structural demand for hedges in periods of macro uncertainty, while the crypto market continues to recalibrate around liquidity, regulatory expectations, and the pace of institutional adoption. The path forward, therefore, appears to hinge on a combination of policy clarity, product innovation in the ETF space, and a continued stream of disciplined inflows that can sustain a broader wealth effect across the ecosystem.

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This article was originally published as Bitcoin Slips in Global Asset Rankings After Violent Selloff on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Editor’s note: Falcon Finance has announced a $50 million ecosystem fund aimed at accelerating the development of structured yield products built on tokenized real-world assets. The initiative targets teams working on infrastructure that allows assets such as U.S. Treasuries, precious metals, and other RWAs to function as reusable, on-chain collateral. At a time when tokenized Treasuries and private credit are growing quickly but remain operationally fragmented, the fund is positioned to support more institution-ready use cases. The announcement highlights Falcon’s broader strategy to consolidate diverse collateral types into a unified layer for yield generation.

Key points

$50 million fund split evenly between capital investment and vested FF token incentives.

Focus on fixed income, tokenized RWAs, and precious metals used as on-chain collateral.

Support for products that increase usage and circulation of Falcon’s USDf collateral primitive.

Priority given to teams with a working product and a clear path to adoption.

Why this matters

Tokenized real-world assets are attracting institutional interest, but practical yield strategies remain siloed by asset class and venue. By funding infrastructure that makes these assets interoperable and composable, Falcon Finance is addressing a key bottleneck in RWA adoption. For builders and investors, the fund signals continued capital allocation toward on-chain representations of traditional assets and the tooling needed to integrate them into scalable, risk-aware financial products.

What to watch next

Which early-stage teams and protocols receive backing from the ecosystem fund.

New yield products or integrations launched using USDf as a base layer.

Adoption of Falcon’s collateral framework across institutional-focused DeFi use cases.

Disclosure: The content below is a press release provided by the company/PR representative. It is published for informational purposes.

Falcon Finance today announced a $50 million ecosystem fund to back teams building the next generation of structured yield products and infrastructure that make tokenized U.S. Treasuries, tokenized gold, and other real-world assets usable as reusable collateral.

The fund will support projects across three areas: fixed income and Treasury-based products, tokenized real-world asset (RWA) protocols, and precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum — required for institutional-grade yield strategies building on Falcon’s Universal Collateral Layer. The fund is structured as a mix of capital and incentives, with 50% allocated in capital and 50% in vested FF tokens. It will back teams whose products directly increase the demand, circulation, and composability of Falcon’s collateral primitives, including USDf. For example: teams building yield infrastructure, RWA integrations, and structured products using USDf as a base layer.

Tokenized real-world assets are growing rapidly, particularly in the U.S. Treasuries and private credit, but much of that collateral remains underutilized because yield products are still fragmented by asset type and venue. The fund is intended to accelerate infrastructure that makes tokenized collateral more usable across products and venues in institution-oriented formats.

Falcon’s platform connects collateral types including major digital assets and tokenized instruments—such as gold, equities, and sovereign bonds—into a unified collateral layer intended to support steadier, structured yield. The protocol has scaled to over $2.5 billion in total value locked and $2.1 billion in USDf supply.

“The synthetic dollar market has proven the model and scaled into the billions,” said Andrei Grachev, Founding Partner at Falcon Finance. “The next wave is universal collateral—Treasuries, gold, equities, sovereign bonds—generating yield through the same infrastructure. We’re backing builders who see that future and know how to ship.”

The fund will prioritize teams with a working product (MVP or later) and a clear path to adoption. Examples of supported work may include fixed-rate lending on tokenized Treasuries, options and risk infrastructure for yield-bearing collateral products, and RWA yield aggregation and risk tooling.

Portfolio teams will receive funding alongside go-to-market support, including strategic advisory, product guidance, and introductions across Falcon’s network of exchanges, custodians, and ecosystem partners. The fund is live. Applications are open via falcon.finance/contact-us.

For more information, visit falcon.finance

This article was originally published as Falcon Finance Launches $50M Fund to Scale Tokenized RWA Yield on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Key Takeaways

Bit Digital has ceased Bitcoin mining and focused on Ethereum staking and AI infrastructure to achieve better growth in the long term.

The company is currently an Ethereum treasury company and makes a substantial amount of money on its AI business under WhiteFiber.

This plan will enhance the profitability, stability and flexibility within the evolving digital economy.

Bit Digital officially ceased mining Bitcoin in favor of a wide-ranging strategic change to Ethereum staking and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The management of the company does not see the need of utilizing traditional mining as another effective capital consumption in the current dynamic digital economy. Rather, Bit Digital is putting itself to take advantage of programmable finance, data-based services and long-term ownership of infrastructure.

BM has been made over the years to be more costly through the increasing energy prices, hardware constraints and competition. The company says these aspects have decreased the profit margins and restricted the growth levels. Therefore, Bit Digital has chosen to shift their resources in businesses that are more flexible, scalable, and have sustainable returns.

The main aspect of this change is the increased investment of the company in Ethereum. Bit Digital has centralized its digital assets in ETH, and the company is currently operating as an Ethereum treasury firm. By the end of 2025, the company has over 150,000 ETH, the majority of it staked to receive network rewards. By staking and contributing to Ethereum eco-system, Bit Digital will be able to produce stable revenues and ensure the security and efficiency of the network.

Besides Ethereum, Bit Digital is also increasing its reach in artificial intelligence via majority stake in WhiteFiber. WhiteFiber provides high-performance computing and data center infrastructure, which is capable of supporting the increase in AI processing. The segment has already emerged as a significant revenue stream in that it generates almost six out of ten sweeteners of the company revenue. The management considers AI infrastructure as a long-term growth engine that is consistent with the global trends in the field of automation and digital services.

Long-term ownership is also another area that the company has focused on. It has declared that it will not sell its 27 million shares in WhiteFiber in 2026 as it has shown its belief in the potential of the platform. This strategy is typical of the larger philosophy of Bit Digital of owning and operating assets as opposed to merely possessing them.

Bit Digital has embraced financial discipline to fund its new strategy, such as by raising capital by use of convertible notes without compromising on its balance sheet. The company has simplified its operations by getting rid of old mining processes and abandoning non-productive machinery.

All in all, the conversion of Bit Digital can be regarded as a wider trend in the cryptocurrency community. Since mining is not so profitable, companies are resorting more to staking, infrastructure development, and AI computing. By specializing in Ethereum and WhiteFiber, Bit digital will create a strong business, which will be able to produce consistent returns and react to any changes in technology in the future.

This article was originally published as Bit Digital Alters to Ethereum and AI Infrastructure over Bitcoin Mining on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Nubank has cleared a significant regulatory hurdle in the United States, securing conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to form a national bank. The decision paves the way for the fintech to build a U.S.-based bank platform capable of handling deposits, lending, credit cards and digital asset custody. While the OCC grant marks a milestone, Nubank must advance through the bank organization phase, meeting capitalization requirements and obtaining further approvals from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve before any U.S. banking operations commence. The company’s leadership has outlined a pragmatic timeline, aiming to fully capitalize and launch within 18 months, contingent on regulatory sign-off.

In a formal announcement, Nubank confirmed that the bank would be led by co-founder Cristina Junqueira, with Roberto Campos Neto, the former president of Brazil’s Central Bank, serving as board chair. The plan underscores Nubank’s broader ambition to blend traditional banking services with digital asset products, a strategy it has pursued across Latin America since its inception. Nubank, which serves more than 127 million customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, has grown from a fintech start-up founded in 2013 to a major publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange since 2021. This U.S. charter move signals an acceleration of its cross-border banking and crypto initiatives, framed against a regulatory landscape that has shown increasing openness to nontraditional financial players seeking fully licensed access to the U.S. banking system.

The bank charter push sits within Nubank’s evolving stance on digital assets. In 2022, the company ventured into crypto by partnering with Paxos to enable customers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies directly within its app, alongside a plan to allocate about 1% of its net assets to Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). The expansion continued in 2023 when Nubank broadened its crypto offerings in Brazil to include Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), Near Protocol (CRYPTO: NEAR), Cosmos (CRYPTO: ATOM) and Algorand (CRYPTO: ALGO), bringing the total number of supported tokens to 20. This diversification positioned Nubank as one of the region’s more proactive fintechs in linking digital assets with traditional financial services.

Recent regulatory milestones further illustrate a broader trend. Earlier in the year, Circle and Ripple Labs received conditional OCC approval to establish US national trust banks, reflecting the agency’s evolving stance on integrating digital-assets infrastructure within federally chartered banking. The OCC also approved the conversions of BitGo Bank & Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos Trust Company into national trust banks, signaling a broader consolidation of crypto-friendly operations under national-bank charters. In a related development, Revolut announced on Jan. 23 that it plans to apply for a US banking license as part of its global expansion, a move that would place the London-based fintech in closer proximity to U.S. customers and the broader crypto ecosystem.

These parallel moves highlight a shifting cost/benefit equilibrium for fintechs and crypto firms seeking regulated, capital-formed pathways into the United States. Nubank’s strategy aligns with a wave of financial technology groups pursuing full banking charters to bolster trust, access funding markets, and expand product curricula that couple traditional financial services with digital assets. The underlying market dynamic is one of increased regulatory clarity and a push toward institutional-grade infrastructure that can support deposits, lending, cards and crypto custody under a single corporate umbrella. Nubank’s public listing, coupled with its expansive user base across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, positions the firm to leverage a U.S. charter as a means to unify regional operations with a transatlantic banking framework.

Nubank’s crypto trajectory has already contributed to a broader narrative in which digital assets are increasingly embedded in mainstream financial services. The company’s original crypto entry in 2022 was followed by a steady expansion of token coverage and product integration, underscoring a conviction that digital assets can sit alongside conventional banking services rather than exist in a separate, siloed ecosystem. The potential U.S. national bank charter could enable Nubank to offer a more seamless experience for customers who want to hold fiat and crypto in one place, alongside regulated credit facilities and card-based payment rails. It also raises questions about monetization, risk management, and how Nubank will manage liquidity and collateral in a U.S. regulatory environment with novel supervisory requirements.

As with other fintechs pursuing national bank status, Nubank will need to demonstrate robust capitalization, governance, and risk controls. The path to launch involves synchronized approvals from multiple regulators, with the FDIC and the Federal Reserve expected to weigh in after the OCC’s conditional green light. The company has indicated that it plans to complete the capitalization process and obtain necessary clearances within an 18-month window, a timeline that could extend depending on the pace of supervisory scrutiny and the readiness of US-based operations. The regulatory process will test Nubank’s ability to integrate its fintech DNA with the stringent standards of U.S. banking oversight, particularly as it expands into digital asset custody, custodianship and potentially crypto-backed lending.

Beyond Nubank’s immediate regulatory journey, the broader picture suggests a growing appetite among innovative financial players to anchor crypto services within licensed, insured banking frameworks. The OCC’s active role in endorsing national banks that handle digital assets signals a regulatory willingness to provide stable, supervised pathways for crypto-market participants seeking mainstream access. For investors and users, the development could translate into enhanced security, improved product breadth, and a more familiar, regulated interface for buying, selling and storing digital assets. Yet it also raises considerations about capital requirements, consumer protections, and the interplay between crypto markets and traditional banking, as institutions navigate liquidity management and exposure to volatile asset classes within a regulated charter.

Market observers will watch closely how Nubank negotiates the intersection of consumer banking, cross-border operations and crypto custody under U.S. regulatory supervision. The bank charter trajectory may also influence the tempo at which Nubank and similar outfits expand their crypto offerings in the region, potentially accelerating product roadmaps and partnerships that leverage the benefits of a federally chartered institution. As the sector continues to evolve, the line between fintech innovation and regulated banking is becoming increasingly blurred, with consumer choice, security and transparency often cited as the central pillars guiding decisions about where and how digital assets fit into everyday financial services.

For Nubank, the U.S. national bank effort represents a strategic extension of a growth engine that has already transformed consumer finance in Latin America. If the company can meet capitalization and supervisory expectations while navigating FDIC and Federal Reserve scrutiny, the U.S. platform could become a cornerstone for a broader, cross-border ecosystem that roams from currency exchanges to credit facilities—and eventually to crypto custody and investment services that are fully integrated within a regulated banking framework.

Market context: The U.S. banking landscape is increasingly populated by fintechs and crypto-native firms pursuing regulated access, a trend that could reshape liquidity channels and consumer onboarding for digital assets. As regulatory clarity advances, these banks may facilitate more scalable and secure ways for users to interact with crypto, potentially influencing adoption cycles, asset flows, and risk management practices across the sector.

Why it matters

The conditional OCC approval marks more than a milestone for Nubank; it illustrates the shifting ground under which fintechs seek to combine traditional financial services with digital assets within a single banking license. For Nubank’s 127 million customers across Latin America, the U.S. charter could unlock a consistent experience for deposits, lending and crypto custody, with the added benefit of the FDIC insurance framework and Federal Reserve oversight that many users associate with greater stability and trust. The move also signals a broader regulatory appetite to map digital-asset offerings into conventional banking rails, offering a potential blueprint for other non-U.S. players that aim to scale in the American market while maintaining strong governance and compliance standards.

From an industry perspective, the expansion reflects a maturing market where major fintechs are moving beyond app-based payments to a more integrated financial services stack. The ability to offer crypto custody within a regulated bank could reduce counterparty and settlement risk, improve customer protections and foster more transparent priority for risk controls and capital planning. In parallel, it may spur more collaborations between fintechs, traditional banks and asset-security providers, creating avenues for innovation in digital asset custody, liquidity management and cross-border settlement that align with existing financial infrastructures.

However, the path to launch remains contingent on meeting capitalization thresholds and obtaining FDIC and Fed approvals, underscoring the regulatory dimensions that accompany such ambitious expansions. As Nubank progresses, observers will monitor not only the bank’s readiness but also how its crypto strategy evolves under U.S. supervision, including the scope of assets supported, customer protections, and the integration of crypto-related products with core banking services.

What to watch next

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Completion of the capital adequacy process and regulatory approvals from the FDIC and Federal Reserve within the 18-month window.

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Progress updates from Nubank on product integration, including deposits, lending and crypto custody capabilities in the U.S.

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Further regulatory announcements related to other national banks and crypto-focused charters, including the status of Circle, Ripple and others’ national trust banks.

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Updates on Nubank’s crypto product roadmap in the U.S., including potential stablecoins and card-linked crypto payments.

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Sources & verification

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Nubank confirms conditional OCC approval to establish a U.S. national bank and outlines leadership and timeline. https://international.nubank.com.br/company/nu-secures-approval-to-establish-us-national-bank/

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OCC regulatory actions on crypto-friendly banks and national trust bank conversions. https://occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2025/nr-occ-2025-125.html

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Cointelegraph coverage on Nubank’s crypto expansion and asset allocation plans referenced in the article. https://cointelegraph.com/news/latin-america-s-largest-digital-bank-will-allocate-1-to-btc-offer-crypto-investment-services

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Revolut’s plan to seek a U.S. banking license as part of its global expansion. https://cointelegraph.com/news/revolut-us-banking-license-global-expansion

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This article was originally published as Nubank Secures Conditional Approval for US National Bank Charter on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

President Donald Trump on Friday nominated former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as chair of the central bank, setting up a high-stakes confirmation fight on Capitol Hill. The nomination, announced on Truth Social, followed months of speculation that Warsh—an ex‑Fed official and Morgan Stanley veteran—was the president’s preferred choice for the country’s top monetary policymaker. Trump said he had known Warsh for a long time and expressed conviction that he would become “one of the GREAT Fed chairmen, maybe the best.” Markets had already priced in a hawkish tilt, with prediction markets and Wall Street commentators increasingly tipping Warsh as the likely pick in the run-up to the disclosure.

Key takeaways

Trump publicly endorses Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, as his preferred candidate to lead the Federal Reserve.

Warsh’s tenure at the Fed (2006–2011) and his post‑crisis critiques of balance sheet expansion mark a clear shift from the status quo on policy direction.

Warsh has signaled openness toward Bitcoin as a discipline-mechanism for markets, contrasting with Powell’s relatively cautious stance on crypto’s macro role.

Markets are already pricing in a potential hawkish shift, with risk assets reacting as the nomination unfolds amid broader political uncertainties.

Senate confirmation will examine Warsh’s past calls for tighter policy and his critiques of regulation and crisis interventions under Powell’s Fed.

Sentiment: Neutral

Price impact: Neutral. While some risk assets moved on the nomination news, there is no clear one-way price move attributable solely to the nomination at this stage.

Market context: The nomination arrives in a period of heightened scrutiny over the Fed’s policy posture and a fragile macro backdrop, with crypto markets already sensitive to regulatory signals, liquidity dynamics, and shifting risk sentiment.

Why it matters

The choice of a new Fed chair is inherently political, but it also has direct implications for the crypto economy. Kevin Warsh’s background—especially his criticism of post‑crisis balance sheet expansion and his calls for tighter policy—suggests a potential tilt toward greater policy restraint if confirmed.That possibility matters for traders who have long priced in slower or more accommodative monetary policy as a stabilizing force for asset markets, including digital assets that have historically moved in response to shifts in liquidity and inflation expectations. Warsh’s past stances indicate a willingness to scrutinize regulatory interventions and crisis-era programs that supporters say stabilized markets but that critics have argued fostered moral hazard. In a broader sense, the Fed chair’s tone can influence the pace of liquidity withdrawal, which in turn can affect risk assets and the digital-asset sector alike.

On crypto policy specifically, Warsh has been described as more constructive toward Bitcoin than Powell, a contrast that matters for capital allocation and the narrative around crypto’s place in the U.S. financial system. In a July discussion hosted by the Hoover Institution, Warsh rejected the notion that Bitcoin would curtail the Fed’s ability to conduct monetary policy, arguing instead that it could serve as a form of market discipline. The interview underscored a view that digital assets might be accommodated rather than sidelined as policymakers grapple with price stability and financial stability concerns. The nuance matters: appreciable openness to crypto within a Fed leadership team could influence regulatory punctuation marks—such as faster clarity on stablecoins, disclosures, and whether crypto markets receive more formalized oversight or dovish exemptions in exchange for transparency.

These considerations sit alongside broader market dynamics. As traders priced in the possibility of a hawkish administration of policy, Bitcoin and other assets traded with heightened sensitivity to headlines about the Fed, the debt limit, and the risk of a partial government shutdown. The tensions between safeguarding price stability and avoiding excessive financial stress continue to color how investors evaluate core inflation risks versus the risk that harsher monetary conditions could slow growth. In this environment, the Fed chair’s views on regulation, market structure, and crisis tools carry outsized significance for both traditional markets and the digital-asset space.

What to watch next

Senate confirmation hearing: Track the date and agenda for Warsh’s confirmation vote, including questions on his stance toward monetary policy, regulation, and crisis-era interventions.

Policy direction signals: Monitor whether Warsh’s public remarks hint at a tighter policy trajectory or a more cautious approach to balance-sheet normalization.

Crypto regulatory posture: Expect scrutiny of Warsh’s comments on Bitcoin and other digital assets, and any early policy signals that could influence regulatory clarity for exchanges, stablecoins, and enforcement priorities.

Market reaction: Observe whether equities, gold, and crypto display persistent moves tied to policy expectations, rather than purely episodic headlines.

Sources & verification

Truth Social post announcing Warsh nomination: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115983891481988557

Cointelegraph report on Trump’s nomination and Warsh as favored candidate: https://cointelegraph.com/news/trump-tipped-to-name-kevin-warsh-next-fed-chair

Independent coverage of Warsh’s Fed tenure and policy views: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kevin-warsh-federal-reserve-trump-powell-b2910734.html

Hoover Institution July discussion featuring Warsh on Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVFEcg-RIAk

Cointelegraph analysis on Bitcoin sentiment and macro jitters amid policy debates: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-investor-sentiment-cools-amid-us-shutdown-fears-fed-policy-jitters

Trump’s Fed chair pick reshapes policy expectations and crypto outlook

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve signals a deliberate reorientation in how the central bank might approach inflation, normalization, and crisis-era tools. Warsh’s path to the top job is notable for its blend of regulatory skepticism and market‑oriented pragmatism, a mix that could influence not only traditional markets but also how digital assets are treated in the policy landscape. The decision follows weeks of market chatter that placed Warsh at the top of Trump’s shortlist, a sentiment echoed in discussions across financial media and among traders watching the Fed’s balance sheet and inflation trajectory with heightened vigilance.

Warsh’s tenure on the Fed Board from 2006 to 2011 placed him squarely in the crucible of the financial crisis and the early postcrisis period. Since then, he has been among the more vocal critics of prolonged, ultra-loose monetary policy and the aggressive expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet. His public commentary has centered on calls for what some describe as a “regime change” at the Fed, arguing that more restrained policy could reduce the risk of excess risk-taking and moral hazard. The nomination thus represents not a mere leadership shift but a signal about the kind of monetary framework the administration envisions for the next several years.

In the crypto arena, Warsh’s posture toward digital assets stands in contrast to Powell’s measured, sometimes cautious approach to Bitcoin and other tokens. Warsh’s outspoken stance on Bitcoin as a possible market‑disciplining mechanism—rather than a destabilizing force—adds a nuanced layer to the ongoing policy debate. During a July Hoover Institution discussion, Warsh argued that Bitcoin could function as a form of market discipline and did not inherently undermine the Fed’s ability to steer the economy. That position diverges from the characterization that digital assets pose an existential risk to monetary independence, offering instead a framework in which crypto assets are integrated into broader financial stability considerations.

The political framing around Warsh’s nomination will be as important as the policy arguments. Senate confirmation will require rigorous scrutiny of Warsh’s past calls for tighter policy, his criticisms of the prior administration’s regulation approach, and his perspective on the crisis-era interventions that helped avert a broader collapse but also drew fire from critics who argued they created moral hazard. The debate could influence not only the timeline for any policy shifts but also the tone of discourse around the Fed’s independence and responsiveness to market developments, including the evolving role of crypto in mainstream finance.

Market participants are watching not just the decision itself but the guidance that may follow. The broader macro backdrop—drugging inflation expectations, potential debt-limit constraints, and ongoing regulatory conversations—creates a complex web of factors that could shape risk sentiment in crypto markets. As traders reassess the probability of a more aggressive stance on inflation or a tighter pace of balance-sheet normalization, Bitcoin and other digital assets will likely respond to a combination of policy messaging and macro indicators rather than to any single headline. In this context, Warsh’s appointment could serve as a catalyst for a broader recalibration of how fiat policy and crypto assets interact in the years ahead.

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This article was originally published as Trump Names Kevin Warsh as Next Fed Chair on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Key Insights

Cross-market selloff hit crypto, equities, and metals, signaling broad liquidity tightening.

Over $1.7B in liquidations accelerated declines as leveraged long positions were closed rapidly.

Regulatory developments may influence sentiment as markets assess structural reforms.

The cryptocurrency market recorded a sharp decline over the past 24 hours, reflecting a wider risk-off move. Total market capitalization fell near $3 trillion as investors search for reasons why the crypto market is down today.

Bitcoin dropped below recent support levels, while Ethereum and major assets, including gold and silver, fell in tandem. This signaled that market participants responded to broader external liquidity stress rather than project-specific developments. It was not a gradual pullback, but a rapid, system-wide collapse fueled by fear, excessive leverage, and global liquidity stress.

Why is Crypto Market Down Today? BTC and Altcoin Charts Turn Red

Investors first witnessed the crash on the price charts. Bitcoin slid 7.24% to around $82,258, while Ethereum dropped 8.73% to near $2,735. The selling quickly spread across the market, with BNB falling 6.08%, and Solana sliding 7.89%.

Why Is The Crypto Market Down Today? Key Crypto Crash Reasons Explained

This uniform red across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other assets confirms that the market is falling due to an industry-wide selloff, not a single project failure.

Gold and Silver Crash Triggers Global Liquidity Shock

The primary trigger behind the crypto market crash today came from outside the digital asset space. Gold and silver experienced historic selloffs, triggering a high-volatility global liquidity shock.

 

Why Is The Crypto Market Down Today? Key Crypto Crash Reasons Explained

Silver Price Crash

As per TradingView chart, Silver plunged sharply from the 118–120 zone to near 104 on the 15-minute interval, erasing weeks of gains within minutes. The RSI dropped into the low-30s, signaling aggressive panic selling and forced exits across the asset markets.

Gold Price Crash

Gold followed with a more severe move, collapsing from above 5,500 to near 5,100 and wiping out nearly $3 trillion in market value. The MACD printed one of its sharpest negative expansions on record, confirming large-scale institutional selling rather than retail-driven profit-taking.

Altogether, safe-haven assets erased over $3.75 trillion, while U.S. equities intensified the pressure as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq shed more than $1.5 trillion intraday. This massive capital drain explains why gold and silver prices dropped today—and why cryptocurrencies became the next casualty in the liquidity unwind.

Leverage Liquidations Accelerate Crypto Market Crash

Once traditional markets cracked, cryptocurrency leverage unraveled rapidly. Over the past 24 hours, more than $1.72 billion in positions were liquidated, affecting 274,442 traders. Long positions absorbed the majority of the damage, with over $1.60 billion in bullish bets wiped out—highlighting how overcrowded the long side had become before the crypto crash.

Coinglass data show that Bitcoin liquidations were 786.5 million and Ethereum 422.7 million. XRP, Solana, and other altcoins were also liquidated. This cascading liquidation spiral explains both the speed and severity of today’s market-wide decline.

Conclusion: Will Crypto Recover?

In summary, why the crypto market is down today does not have much to do with digital assets alone. A historic decline in gold and silver caused a liquidity reset to the world, and spilled over to equities and crypto alike. The shock can still be felt in the short term; high volatility could continue over the next 3–4 days.

But the market-structure bill set to be signed today, according to analysis, could provide a stabilizing catalyst. The law aims to curb manipulation and enhance regulatory transparency, which may help regain investor trust and stabilize prices.

This article was originally published as Why Is the Crypto Market Down Today? Key Crypto Crash Reasons Explained on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Decentralized GPU networks are staking a claim as a lower-cost layer for running AI workloads, while the most demanding frontier training remains concentrated in hyperscale data centers. The push to shift more of AI compute into distributed ecosystems comes as the industry recalibrates where efficiency, latency and cost truly matter for production workloads. While training enormous models still requires centralized, tightly coupled hardware, the path to practical AI today is increasingly paved by inference, data preparation, and agent-based tasks that can tolerate looser coordination and broader geography.

Key takeaways

Frontier AI training remains highly centralized, with thousands of GPUs operating in synchronized clusters inside large data centers, making truly distributed, large-scale training impractical due to latency and reliability constraints.

Inference and ancillary workloads—data cleaning, preprocessing, and production-grade model deployment—are well suited to decentralized GPU networks, offering cost savings, elasticity and geographic dispersion.

Open-source models that run efficiently on consumer GPUs are proliferating, contributing to a shift toward more economical processing approaches and reducing the barrier to entry for smaller teams to deploy AI locally.

Private and public partnerships, alongside consumer-GPU pricing dynamics, are reshaping GPU demand, with reports indicating a growing share of compute allocated to inference rather than training by 2026.

Case studies highlight the practical use of decentralized compute for specific tasks, while flagship AI hardware remains optimized for centralized environments, creating a complementary compute layer rather than a replacement for hyperscalers.

Ongoing litigation and corporate disclosures around decentralized platforms add a note of caution as the sector scales, underscoring the need for transparency and verifiable performance metrics.

Tickers mentioned: $THETA, $NVDA, $META

Sentiment: Neutral

Market context: The industry is tilting toward a hybrid compute paradigm, where centralized data centers handle the most intensive training while decentralized networks absorb inference, data prep and modular workloads, aligning with broader trends in open-source AI and distributed computing.

Why it matters

The divide between frontier AI training and everyday inference has tangible implications for developers, enterprises and the broader crypto and hardware ecosystems. The consensus among industry observers is that the bulk of production AI work today does not resemble training a trillion-parameter model in a single data center. Instead, it involves running trained models at scale, updating systems with streaming data, and orchestrating agent-based workflows that respond to real-time inputs. In this landscape, decentralized GPU networks emerge as a practical solution for cost-sensitive, latency-aware operations that can leverage distributed resources without demanding absolute interconnect parity across the network.

Mitch Liu, co-founder and CEO of Theta Network, highlighted a critical shift: many open-source and other compact models can be run efficiently on consumer GPUs. This trend supports a move toward open-source tooling and more economical processing, effectively expanding the universe of deployable AI workloads beyond the domain of hyperscale centers. The central question becomes how to calibrate compute to the task—reserving high-throughput, ultra-low-latency capabilities for centralized training while using distributed infrastructure to support inference and everyday AI tasks.

In practice, decentralized networks are best suited to workloads that can be split, routed and executed in parallel, without requiring constant, uniform synchronization across every node. Evgeny Ponomarev, co-founder of Fluence, a distributed computing platform, stressed that inference workloads scale with model deployment and agent loops. For many deployments, throughput and geographic spread matter more than perfect interconnects. This observation aligns with the reality that consumer-grade hardware—often with lower VRAM and modest network connections—may suffice for certain AI tasks, provided the workload is structured to exploit parallelism rather than tight, bottom-to-top synchronization.

The practical takeaway is that decentralized compute can thrive in production pipelines that demand cost efficiency and resilience to network variability. For workloads such as AI-driven data curation, cleaning and preparation for model training, distributed GPUs become a viable option. Bob Miles, CEO of Salad Technologies, a provider aggregating idle consumer GPUs, emphasized that training-heavy workloads still demand robust infrastructure, but many AI tasks—driven by diffusion models, text-to-image/video generation and large-scale data processing—are well-suited to the price-performance balance of consumer GPUs.

Sam Altman, the OpenAI figure who has publicly discussed large-scale GPU deployments, has been cited in industry discourse about the scale of GPU clusters used for training and inference. While OpenAI has not publicly disclosed exact cluster sizes for GPT-5, it is publicly known that training and inference workloads compete for resources, with large-scale deployments commonly cited as requiring hundreds of thousands of GPUs. As highlighted in the discussion around the Vera Rubin AI hardware, Nvidia’s data-center optimizations are central to the efficiency of training workloads, reinforcing the point that centralized infrastructure remains dominant for frontier research and development.

Inference is increasingly viewed as a tipping point—compute used to generate real-time outputs from trained models. Ellidason noted that as much as 70% of GPU demand could be driven by inference, agents and prediction workloads by 2026. This shift reframes compute as a recurring, scaling utility cost rather than a one-time research expense, and it underpins the argument for decentralized compute as a complement to the AI stack rather than a wholesale replacement for hyperscalers.

Nevertheless, the landscape is not without friction. Theta Network, a notable player in the decentralized AI compute space, faces a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in December 2025 alleging fraud and token manipulation. Theta has denied the allegations, and Mitch Liu indicated that he could not comment on the ongoing litigation. The legal matter underscores the need for clarity around governance and disclosure as decentralized compute ventures scale and compete for both talent and hardware partnerships.

Where decentralized GPU networks fit in the AI stack

Decentralized GPU networks are not pitched as a universal replacement for centralized data centers. Instead, they are positioned as a complementary layer that can unlock additional capacity for inference-demanding workloads, particularly when geographic distribution and elasticity translate into meaningful cost savings. The economics of consumer GPUs—especially when deployed at scale—offer a compelling price-per-FLOP advantage for non-latency-sensitive tasks. In scenarios where models are accessed by users across the globe, distributing GPUs closer to end-users can reduce latency and improve user experience.

In practical terms, consumer GPUs, with their commonly lower VRAM and consumer-grade internet connections, are not ideal for training or latency-sensitive workloads. Yet for tasks such as data collection, data cleaning, and the preprocessing steps that feed large models, decentralized networks can be highly effective. This aligns with industry observations that a significant portion of AI compute involves iterative data processing and model coordination rather than training a single, ultra-large model from scratch.

AI giants continue to absorb a growing share of global GPU supply. Source: Sam Altman

As the hardware landscape evolves and open-source models become more capable, a broader slice of AI workloads can move outside centralized data centers. This widens the potential pool of contributors who can participate in AI computation, from researchers and developers to individual enthusiasts who repurpose idle consumer GPUs for experimentation and production tasks. The vision is not to erase hyperscalers but to add a flexible, cost-aware tier that enables experimentation, rapid iteration and local inference.

In addition to performance considerations, there is a practical data-centric aspect. Decentralized networks support data collection and preprocessing tasks that often require broad web access and parallel execution. In such contexts, decentralization reduces single-point failures and can shorten data pipelines by distributing processing tasks geographically, delivering faster time-to-insight where latency would otherwise erode user experience.

For users and developers, the prospect of running diffusion models, 3D reconstruction workflows and other AI tasks locally—using consumer GPUs—highlights the potential for a more democratized AI ecosystem. Theta Network and similar platforms envision enabling individuals to contribute their GPU hardware to a distributed compute fabric, creating a community-driven resource pool that complements the centralized compute backbone.

A complementary layer in AI computing

The trajectory described by proponents of decentralized GPU networks suggests a two-tier model. Frontier AI training remains the purview of hyperscale operators with access to vast, tightly coupled GPU clusters. Meanwhile, a growing class of AI workloads—encompassing inference, agent-based reasoning, and production-ready data pipelines—could be hosted on distributed networks capable of delivering scalability and geographic reach at a lower marginal cost.

The practical takeaway is not a radical rewrite of the AI compute stack but a rebalancing of where different tasks are best executed. With hardware becoming more accessible and models benefiting from optimization for consumer GPUs, decentralized compute can serve as a cost-efficient, near-source compute layer that reduces data movement and latency for a wide range of outputs. The ongoing maturation of open-source models further accelerates this shift, empowering smaller teams to experiment, deploy and iterate without the heavy upfront investment traditionally associated with AI research.

From a consumer perspective, the availability of distributed compute enables new kinds of local experimentation and collaboration. When combined with global networks of GPUs, individuals can contribute to AI projects, participate in distributed rendering tasks and help build more robust AI pipelines beyond the walled gardens of the largest data centers.

What to watch next

Resolution and implications of the Los Angeles lawsuit involving Theta Network, with potential governance and token-management implications.

Adoption rates of decentralized inference workloads among enterprises and developers, including any new partnerships or pilots.

Advances in open-source models that run efficiently on consumer GPUs and their impact on the demand mix between training and inference.

Updates on hardware deployments for frontier training (e.g., Vera Rubin) and whether centralized capacity remains the bottleneck for the most ambitious models.

Sources & verification

Internal development notes and public statements from Theta Network leadership about open-source model optimization on consumer GPUs.

Reported GPU usage for Meta’s Llama 4 training and OpenAI’s GPT-5, including external references to Nvidia H100 deployments.

Comments from Ovia Systems (formerly Gaimin) and Salad Technologies on decentralized GPU usage and price-performance dynamics.

Industry commentary on the shift from training-dominant to inference-dominant GPU demand and the broader thesis of decentralized compute as a complement to hyperscalers.

Public filings and coverage related to Theta Network’s December 2025 Los Angeles lawsuit and the company’s responses.

What the market is watching

As AI workflows continue to mature, the lines between centralized and decentralized compute are likely to blur further. The industry will be watching for concrete demonstrations of cost savings, uptime, and latency improvements in production environments that adopt decentralized inference. Equally important will be governance transparency and verifiable performance metrics from decentralized platforms as they scale their networks beyond pilot projects.

With growing capability on consumer hardware and a flourishing ecosystem of open-source models, decentralized GPUs could play an increasingly vital role in enabling affordable AI experimentation and production at the edge. This evolution does not erase the central role of hyperscale centers but instead adds a pragmatic, distributed layer that aligns compute with task, geography and cost—an arrangement that could define the next phase of AI infrastructure.

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This article was originally published as What Role Remains for Decentralized GPU Networks in AI? on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) may be nearing the end of its correction as a classic on-chain gauge suggests the asset is trading at a remarkable discount to the price at which most of the supply last moved. The MVRV Z-score, a metric that blends market value with realized value to indicate whether BTC is over- or undervalued, has slid to its lowest readings in a two-year rolling window. In plain terms, the current configuration suggests buyers could be entering at a price where many coins haven’t moved in a long time, a scenario that typically precedes a period of renewed demand. Prominent traders have started to connect the dots, arguing that the current configuration marks a potential inflection point rather than a continuation of the bear trend.

Key takeaways

Bitcoin’s MVRV Z-score is at record lows on a two-year rolling time frame, signaling possible undervaluation relative to realized value.

Analysts argue the extreme readings could foreshadow a price recovery, particularly if demand re-enters the market as risk sentiment stabilizes.

The metric’s current level is lower than bear-market bottoms seen in 2015, 2018, the COVID crash of 2020, and the 2022 downturn, underscoring the depth of the current phase.

BTC briefly traded near an intra-month low around $81,000 as broad risk-off moves pressed commodities and equities, highlighting a still-turbulent macro backdrop.

Some traders also suggested that the precious metals rally may be cooling, a sign that capital chases safety while crypto metrics flash a contrarian signal.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC

Sentiment: Bullish

Market context: The emergence of an undervaluation signal from on-chain analytics comes amid a mixed risk environment where traditional assets have seen sharp drawdowns and crypto markets have oscillated between bouts of selling and tentative buying. The two-year rolling MVRV Z-score provides a counterpoint to price action, highlighting that, from a supply-weighted perspective, BTC could be pricing in a deeper discount than what price charts alone might imply. This blend of on-chain data and price action mirrors a broader market dynamic where liquidity, participant risk appetite, and macro narratives drive cycles with varying lag times.

Why it matters

On-chain metrics have long served as a counterweight to price-based narratives, offering a lens into whether the Bitcoin supply is moving in a way that supports sustainable price levels. The MVRV Z-score, in particular, has a track record of signaling turning points when it dives into the “undervalued” territory on longer horizons. The current reading, described by analyst Michaël van de Poppe as a “phenomenal chart,” is generating renewed attention on whether a broad-based bottom is forming, even as price action tests near-term support levels. The data are not a guarantee of a swift rally, but they suggest that the market may have priced in excessive fear relative to the historical move patterns of the asset, potentially setting the stage for a more constructive phase if demand returns.

“That’s how deep we’re in the bear market, and yes, we’re close to the end of it.”

Bitcoin MVRV Z-Score. Source: Glassnode

The underlying data come from Glassnode’s on-chain analytics, which show the Z-score has sunk to levels not seen since the green band—the “undervalued” territory—last appeared at the end of the previous bear market in 2022. The chart traces how the realized value (the price at which coins last moved) stacks against the overall market capitalization, with the Z-score normalizing the gap by historical volatility. In practice, a deeper drop in the Z-score implies the network is changing hands at prices significantly below the price at which most coins last moved, a situation that could tempt long-term holders to capitalize on a potential rebound when confidence returns.

The broader narrative around BTC’s price action has been shaped by a run of risk-off episodes, including a recent dip that saw BTC/USD retreat to multi-month lows. Data from TradingView captured BTC at around $81,040 during a period of intense selling pressure across risk assets, a move that underscores the ongoing tug-of-war between macro caution and the allure of a contrarian on-chain signal. While the price move is real and warrants caution, the on-chain framework emphasizes that price and value can diverge in meaningful ways in the near term, particularly if market participants perceive BTC as a relatively insulated, long-horizon store of value against a backdrop of macro fragility.

In context, other corners of the market have also faced fallout from the same risk-off rumor mill. A separate piece previously highlighted a parallel narrative where the end of a gold and silver rally (or a temporary pause in those setups) could dovetail with renewed Bitcoin demand, effectively broadening the scope for a risk-off-to-risk-on transition. Taken together, the combination of heavy price moves, on-chain undervaluation signals, and shifting sentiment across risk assets paints a nuanced picture: the setup for a potential trend change exists, but timing remains uncertain and data-driven corroboration will be essential for conviction.

“I’m not saying: the bull is over. No, far from it. But it will consolidate, and that’s also the trigger you’d like to see for Bitcoin.”

The narrative surrounding BTC’s near-term path is inherently probabilistic. While the MVRV Z-score points to potential value accumulation, the confirmation may emerge only as multiple indicators align: on-chain metrics, price support tests, and macro conditions that foster sustainable demand. In the meantime, observers are paying close attention to how BTC behaves around critical levels and whether accumulation intensifies among long-term holders or new entrants re-enter the market with fresh capital. The interplay between data-driven signals and sentiment will likely shape trajectory over the coming weeks.

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This article was originally published as Bitcoin More Undervalued Than Any Past Bear Market, Data Shows on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Ethereum faced renewed selling pressure after breaching a key floor near $2,800, signaling that the downtrend could extend if bears stay in control. Over the past three sessions, the ETH/USD pair slid more than 10%, dipping below the pivotal level that had acted as a support zone through late 2025. In this environment, chart patterns align with a continuing weaker bias: descending and symmetrical triangle configurations appear to converge toward a much lower target, with technicals and on-chain metrics reinforcing a cautious stance for traders. The most immediate concern is whether buyers can defend the next major support around $2,500, which also coincides with the 200‑week simple moving average, potentially offering a longer-term anchor if held.

Ether (CRYPTO: ETH) has traded around the mid-$2,700s as of writing, a level that market observers describe as a “do or die” juncture for bulls. If the $2,800 barrier fails decisively, the road toward lower levels could become more probable, according to traders tracking the pattern formations and momentum signals. A widely cited technician noted that a failure to hold the current area would reinforce the bearish dominance and open the door to the mid-$2,500s, a zone that would perhaps test the integrity of a broader structural shift. The breach also ties into a broader narrative that dominated recent weeks, where the market wrestled with whether the range between $3,000 and $2,800 would prove durable or prove to be a staging ground for further losses.

The chart geometry surrounding ETH/USD features a breached horizontal line within a descending triangle, an arrangement that traders often monitor for continuation signals. The next major milestone on the downside is around $2,500, aligning with the 200-week moving average, which can provide longer‑term support if price action finds footing there. Beyond that lie the triangle’s measured target near $2,150, a level that implies roughly a 20% decline from current prices if momentum remains tilting to the bears. A drop to that area would be consistent with prior bear cycles where similar patterns preceded sharper downturns.

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A notable momentum signal also points to caution: the relative strength index has slipped from the mid-60s in early January to the mid-30s, suggesting waning upside momentum even as prices press lower. Such a softening RSI, paired with a price break below critical support, often accompanies extended corrective moves, particularly in asset classes where speculative risk remains elevated. Veteran traders have weighed in on the breakdowns, with one noted analyst arguing that the price action post-break below the triangle’s lower boundary increases the probability of further downside, given the combination of price and momentum dynamics.

The price trajectory has historically aligned with a broader framework where pattern-based downside targets precede meaningful pullbacks. In this instance, the calculated target anchored by the triangle suggests a potential landing zone near $2,100, roughly a 22% retreat from levels seen just before the breach. The area between $3,000 and $2,800 has been identified as a critical support corridor in prior analyses, and losing it has raised the stakes for ETH bulls.

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: Peter Brandt

On-chain data adds another layer to the bear case. Ether’s net unrealized profit/loss indicator has shifted from a mood of “anxiety” toward the “fear zone,” a regime that often accompanies extended drawdowns and capitulation phases in previous cycles. The NUPL metric reflects the balance between realized profits and losses among holders, and its move into fear aligns with a risk-off posture among market participants. As the market tests lower zones, such on-chain signals may precede stronger downside pressure, especially if selling accelerates and new liquidity cycles fail to materialize any sustained relief rallies.

In a separate technical track, the relationship between the 111-day and 200-day moving averages has drawn attention. Current patterns show the shorter-term average slipping below the longer-term one, a cross that has historically preceded larger drawdowns during prior bear markets in 2018 and 2022. This cross‑over framework reinforces the view that downside risk remains elevated unless a durable buying interest emerges to reverse momentum.

Ethereum bears out the pattern, but on-chain context matters

The convergence of chart structures with on-chain indicators paints a coherent, if cautious, portrait of Ethereum’s near-term risk landscape. While the immediate level of $2,800 has given way, observers note that the critical question is whether demand can re-emerge at the $2,500 zone or whether the price will slide toward the triangle’s lower target. The intersection of technical patterns and on-chain data—particularly the NUPL shift into fear—suggests traders should prepare for continued volatility, with a possible window for a relief rally only if liquidity conditions improve and selling pressure subsides.

Overall, the current setup mirrors episodes in past cycles where market structure and on-chain sentiment aligned to produce pronounced selling pressure before a more durable bottom formed. The charts indicate that even if a rebound materializes above the next falling support, the path of least resistance may remain to the downside in the near term, unless a confluence of catalysts shifts sentiment, liquidity, and risk appetite back toward equities and risk assets.

ETH has demonstrated a capacity for rapid retracements in prior cycles, but the overlay of a fear-driven on-chain lens raises the bar for any immediate revival. Traders will be watching how price action responds around the 200-week SMA and whether the triangle’s measured target continues to hold as a compass for subsequent moves. The next weeks could reveal whether bulls can salvage the breach or whether further losses consolidate into a fresh lower-high, lower-low configuration that would sustain a risk-off regime for ETH and potentially ripple across broader crypto markets.

This article was originally published as Ethereum Could Crash to $2,100 Again—Here’s Why on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced a personal commitment to fund privacy-preserving technologies, open hardware, and verifiable software systems, earmarking 16,384 Ether for deployment over the coming years. Valued at roughly $45 million at contemporary prices, the allocation signals a shift in approach as the Ethereum Foundation enters a period Buterin described as “mild austerity” while continuing to push a robust technical roadmap. Buterin described the move as building an open-source, secure, and verifiable full stack of software and hardware capable of protecting both private life and public environments. The plan emphasizes privacy, open infrastructure, and self-sovereign tools, while the Ethereum Foundation maintains a central focus on the core blockchain layer. Buterin’s X post.

Key takeaways

The 16,384 Ether funding will be deployed gradually over several years, not immediately.

The funds may be supplemented through decentralized staking strategies designed to generate additional funding from staking rewards.

The move follows prior criticism of the Foundation selling ETH to fund activities, though the organization has signaled openness to alternative funding mechanisms like DeFi lending and staking.

Funding priorities focus on privacy, open infrastructure, and self-sovereign tools, while maintaining Ethereum’s core development as the central mission.

The announcement arrives as ETH has traded in a lower band in 2025, providing context for a strategic shift in long-term resource allocation.

Tickers mentioned: $ETH

Sentiment: Neutral

Price impact: Neutral. The funding announcement is framed as a long-term, policy-level shift rather than an immediate price action driver.

Market context: The move occurs amid broader volatility in Layer-1 ecosystems, with liquidity and risk sentiment shaped by macro factors and regulatory developments. ETH has moved from highs around $3,900 in late 2025 to roughly $2,700 as the narrative around austerity and long-term funding takes shape, underscoring how structural changes to foundation funding can unfold independent of short-term price swings.

Why it matters

The earmarked capital represents more than a charitable gesture; it signals a deliberate elongation of Ethereum’s research and development horizon. By channeling funds into privacy-preserving technologies, open hardware projects, and verifiable software systems, Buterin and his team are signaling a belief that the network’s long-term resilience hinges on stronger guarantees of confidentiality, verifiable security, and user-controlled data sovereignty. In practical terms, this could accelerate open-source approaches to encrypted communications, secure hardware interfaces, and local-first architectures that reduce reliance on centralized intermediaries.

At the same time, the plan frames this investment as an extension of Ethereum’s core mission rather than a departure from its blockchain roots. The emphasis on an open-source, secure, and verifiable stack is positioned as a complement to the base layer’s decentralization and auditable governance. This distinction matters for ecosystem participants—developers, users, and institutions—because it delineates a pathway for advancing privacy-centric tooling without compromising the network’s foundational consensus mechanisms or smart contract capabilities.

Critics have historically watched the Ethereum Foundation’s funding choices closely, particularly when the foundation has sold ETH to support activities. The current rhetoric, however, suggests a pivot toward diversified funding streams—potentially including DeFi lending and staking strategies that could sustain research and infrastructure efforts without relying solely on asset sales. Still, Buterin did not publish a granular budget or allocation plan for the 16,384 ETH; instead, he described broad priorities that align with a vision of stronger, interoperable privacy and self-sovereign tooling across the ecosystem. The lack of a detailed breakdown leaves room for interpretation about which projects will receive support and on what timeline.

Beyond the technical scope, the initiative echoes a broader governance trend in which influential builders seek to steward resources with a longer time horizon. It also underscores an ongoing tension between centralized oversight of foundation budgets and the decentralized ethos that defines Ethereum’s ecosystem. Open silicon ambitions, encrypted communications, and secure hardware initiatives—often framed as reinforcing privacy and sovereignty at the edge—could translate into practical tools for individuals and organizations seeking to reclaim control over their data and digital footprints.

The broader context includes a reference point to related developments, such as Ethereum Foundation’s privacy-focused roadmaps and ongoing experiments with open hardware and secure software. These threads indicate that the organization intends to pursue a suite of parallel efforts designed to converge on a more private, verifiable, and user-centric architecture for the Ethereum ecosystem, without forsaking the core blockchain layer that remains the foundation of decentralized applications and smart contracts.

From a market perspective, the timing of the announcement matters as ETH continues to navigate a period of volatility influenced by macro dynamics, risk sentiment, and regulatory considerations. While the price trajectory provides a proxy for investor mood, the decision to allocate personal capital toward long-term infrastructure emphasizes the distinction between near-term price action and enduring network development. The work envisioned by Buterin—privacy-preserving software, open hardware, and self-sovereign tooling—addresses foundational concerns around data ownership and security that several developers and users view as essential to the next phase of decentralization.

In sum, the earmark is less about a single project and more about signaling a model for sustaining foundational research and critical infrastructure. It invites the community to watch how the funds are gradually deployed, how staking strategies may bolster ongoing initiatives, and how the foundation’s openness to alternative funding mechanisms interacts with its ongoing commitment to Ethereum’s core scale and security goals. The interplay between open hardware, privacy tech, and the base layer’s continuing evolution could shape the trajectory of privacy-preserving tools and verifiable software within the Ethereum ecosystem for years to come.

What to watch next

Release of a detailed allocation framework for the earmarked ETH, including timelines and project categories.

Progress reports on decentralized staking strategies intended to supplement funding via staking rewards.

Updates on the Privacy Stewards for Ethereum initiative and related governance milestones.

New developments in open hardware and privacy-preserving software that align with the stated priorities.

Sources & verification

Vitalik Buterin’s X post announcing the ETH earmark: https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2017145595819933745

ETH price and market data referenced in the piece: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum

Ethereum Foundation openness to DeFi lending and staking strategies: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-foundation-borrows-gho-defi-strategy

Ethereum Foundation privacy-related roadmap and initiatives: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-foundation-privacy-stewards-roadmap

This article was originally published as Vitalik Buterin Outlines $45M ETH Plan for Privacy, Open Hardware on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.