Cointelegraph

Aave Labs says it is sunsetting its “umbrella brand” Avara in the company’s latest move to refocus on decentralized finance and simplify its branding.

Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov posted to X on Tuesday that Avara, a company encompassing projects including the Family crypto wallet and previously the social media platform Lens, “is no longer required as we go all in on bringing Aave to the masses.”

Kulechov said the Apple iOS-based Family crypto wallet was also being wound down as the team has “learned that onboarding millions of users requires purpose-built experiences, such as savings, rather than generic, open-ended wallet experiences.”

The move marks Aave’s latest effort to refocus on products such as its flagship lending protocol as the project handed stewardship of Lens to the Mask Network last month, with Kulechov saying Aave’s role in the protocol would be reduced to an advisory role so it can focus on DeFi.

Source: Stani Kulechov

Kulechov said in his latest post that Aave was “now united as one team of world-class designers, engineers, and smart contract experts, aligned around a single mission: bringing DeFi to everyone.”

All future projects under Aave Labs

Avara said in a blog post that “all current and future products, including the Aave App, Aave Pro, and Aave Kit, will operate under Aave Labs” to simplify the brand.

It added that accounts linked to the Family wallets “will continue as core infrastructure within Aave Labs products,” but the iOS app would be wound down over the next year.

No new users will be onboarded to the app from April 1, and existing users can continue using the app until April 1, 2027, and will continue to have full access to their funds on Aave’s website.

Related: There is no trust in DeFi without proper risk management

Aave is the biggest DeFi protocol with $30 billion in total value locked, nearly $9 billion more than the next largest project, the staking protocol Lido, which has $21.7 billion in value locked, according to DefiLlama.

The Aave (AAVE) token has traded flat over the past day, down just 0.7% in the last 24 hours at $127.40, according to CoinGecko.

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Two leading prediction market platforms, Polymarket and Kalshi, have both turned to giving away groceries amid a fight for dominance in the fast-growing prediction markets space.

Kalshi offered a $50 grocery giveaway to over 1,000 people in Manhattan on Tuesday, while competitor Polymarket announced plans to open a free grocery store starting next week.

Thousands have already picked up their free Kalshi groceries!

We are being told we've already inspired other companies to keep up the initiative!

2 more hours to get yours

Westside Market | 84 3rd Ave. NYC pic.twitter.com/8R11OGODLu

— Kalshi (@Kalshi) February 3, 2026

Kalshi and Polymarket have led the pack in prediction market trading volumes, which are now consistently above $400 million daily, representing about a fourfold increase from this time last year.

Kalshi banked $263.5 million from fee revenue alone in 2025, while both platforms have been marked at multibillion-dollar valuations on the back of major integrations.

The Kalshi promotion was offered at the Westside Market at 84 3rd Ave. in Manhattan between 12 pm and 3 pm local time on Tuesday, with videos on social media showing the lines stretching for multiple blocks.

According to Kalshi’s guest list, 1,795 people signed up to receive free groceries, while mainstream media reported that “thousands” attended.

Polymarket to launch “The Polymarket”

Polymarket said on Tuesday that it signed a lease to open “New York’s first free grocery store” while also donating $1 million to Food Bank for NYC to assist those with limited access to food across all five NY boroughs.

Related: No, the UK hasn’t completely flopped on crypto

Polymarket said “The Polymarket” grocery store has been in the works for months, and will be fully stocked when it launches next Thursday at 12 pm local time.

Source: Polymarket

“Free groceries. Free markets. Built for the people who power New York.”

Both platforms have been pushing hard with media partnerships recently, with Polymarket teaming up with Dow Jones in January and Kalshi partnering with mainstream media outlets CNN and CNBC in December.

Polymarket recently launched a campaign featuring billboards designed to be vandalized, while Kalshi has been using digital billboards to display odds for various markets.

Prediction market platforms have been banned from advertising during the Super Bowl set for Feb. 8.

Kalshi gives out free groceries to thousands of New Yorkers https://t.co/62BO68KbuZ pic.twitter.com/rBnSAqWdBg

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) February 3, 2026

Both Polymarket and Kalshi are based in NYC, where the grocery initiatives are taking place.

NYC is widely considered the financial capital of the world, being home to Wall Street, where both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are based.

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Stablecoin-fueled dusting attacks are now estimated to make up 11% of all Ethereum transactions and 26% of active addresses on an average day, after the Fusaka upgrade made transactions cheaper, according to Coin Metrics. 

Ethereum is now seeing more than 2 million average daily transactions, spiking to almost 2.9 million in mid-January, along with 1.4 million daily active addresses — a 60% increase over prior averages.

The Fusaka upgrade in December made using the network cheaper and easier by improving onchain data handling, reducing the cost of posting information from layer-2 networks back to Ethereum.

Digging through the dust on Ethereum

Coin Metrics said it analyzed over 227 million balance updates for USDC (USDC) and USDt (USDT) on Ethereum from November 2025 through January 2026.

It found that 43% were involved in transfers of less than $1 and 38% were under a single penny — “amounts with insignificant economic purpose other than wallet seeding.”

“The number of addresses holding small ‘dust’ balances, greater than zero but less than 1 native unit, has grown sharply, consistent with millions of wallets receiving tiny poisoning deposits.”

Pre-Fusaka, stablecoin dust represented roughly 3 to 5% of Ethereum transactions and 15 to 20% of active addresses, it said. 

“Post-Fusaka, these figures jumped to 10-15% of transactions and 25-35% of active addresses on a typical day, a 2-3x increase.”

However, the remaining 57% of balance updates involved transfers above $1, “suggesting the majority of stablecoin activity remains organic,” Coin Metrics stated.

Median Ethereum transaction size fell sharply after Fusaka. Source: Coin Metrics

Users need to be wary of address poisoning

In January, security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov pointed to a 170% increase in new wallet addresses in the week starting Jan. 12, and also suggested it was linked to a wave of address poisoning attacks taking advantage of low gas fees. 

These “dusting” attacks typically involve malicious actors sending fractions of a cent worth of a stablecoin from wallet addresses that resemble legitimate ones, duping users into copying the wrong address when making a transaction.

Related: Ethereum activity surge could be linked to dusting attacks: Researcher

Sergeenkov said $740,000 had already been lost to address poisoning attacks. The top attacker sent nearly 3 million dust transfers for just $5,175 in stablecoin costs, according to Coin Metrics.

Dust does not represent genuine economic usage

Coin Metrics reported that approximately 250,000 to 350,000 daily Ethereum addresses are involved in stablecoin dust activity, but the majority of network growth has been genuine.  

“The majority of post-Fusaka growth reflects genuine usage, though dust activity is a factor worth noting when interpreting headline metrics.”

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In what some may see as a unique and slightly dystopian use of artificial intelligence, a crypto developer has launched a website that enables AI agents to rent humans to do tasks in “meatspace.” 

In a post via X on Monday, user Alex, or @AlexanderTw33ts, an engineer at decentralized finance platform Uma Protocol and layer-2 bridging solution Across Protocol, shared a video of his website “rentahuman.ai” in action. 

The site lets humans set an hourly rate and enables AI agents to hire them for anything from running simple errands to partaking in business meetings, taking photos, signing documents and making real-world purchases.  

Alex said some of the humans-for-hire already include an OnlyFans model and a CEO of an AI startup, adding: 

“If your AI agent wants to rent a person to do an IRL task for them its as simple as one MCP call.”

Source: AlexanderTw33ts

The website states that “robots need your body” as they “can’t touch grass,” while labeling itself as “the meatspace layer for AI.” 

On the main page, it shows a selection of available humans, a button to “become rentable,” and a metric for platform growth. 

So far, the site claims almost 26,000 people have already signed up; however, that may include multiple accounts owned by the same person or people impersonating others, which Alex said they have been working to patch.

Alex has also confirmed that there will be no cryptocurrency attached to this platform, after sharing more details about the project during an interview on Tuesday as part of the Crosschain podcast from Across Protocol. 

“There’s no token, I'm just not into that. That would just be way too stressful, and also again I don’t want a bunch of people to lose their money,” he said.  

Related: Trustless AI agent standard could hit Ethereum mainnet on Thursday

Adding another layer of obscurity to the project, Alex said the website was built through “vibe coding” with an “army” of Claude-based AI agents.

This was achieved with a Ralph loop, a technique of running AI coding agents in a loop until they complete a task.

“I think we are out of the trough of disillusionment [toward AI capabilities] and now people are realizing we can ship real code with this, we can just write prompts now, we can have Ralph loops creating websites while we sleep,” he said.  

“And actually, a Ralph loop created this [website], I have a custom Ralph loop that I run,” he added.  

This isn’t the only strange AI agent website to emerge in 2026, with AI agent social media platform Moltbook catching headlines this month. 

The website, also the result of vibe coding, is designed to be a Reddit-like platform entirely for AI bots and has drawn attention from the odd discussions taking place on the platform, such as bots coming up with their own religions. 

Magazine: Crypto loves Clawdbot/Moltbot, Uber ratings for AI agents: AI Eye

Crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, Payward, reported 33% revenue growth in 2025 as transaction volumes rose and the business capitalized on its acquisitions.

The company’s revenues rose to $2.2 billion last year, up from $1.6 billion in 2024 due to “broad-based performance across trading and asset-based businesses,” with total transaction volumes rising 34% over the year to $2 billion, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in a report on Tuesday.

He added that revenues were “well balanced,” with around 47% coming from trading-based revenue and 53% from asset-based and other revenues.

Source: Kraken

The report comes as investors closely watch out for Kraken's public launch, after the company confidentially filed for an initial public offering in November.

Acquisitions helped diversify income

Sethi said Payward’s acquisitions in 2025 helped boost its revenues, and it has taken inspiration from tech giants such as Meta and Amazon to separate its products to increase their usage, allowing “each product to be designed for a specific customer segment.” 

Last year, Payward acquired the futures trading platform NinjaTrader, the prop trading firm Breakout, the derivatives trading platform Small Exchange and the trading automation software Capitalise.ai.

Payward also acquired Backed last month, a company operating in the tokenized stocks space that backs the popular xStocks platform.

Sethi said these acquisitions, especially NinjaTrader and Breakout, led to a 119% boost in daily average revenue trades.

The report added that assets on the platform saw an 11% increase to $48.2 billion, while funded accounts grew 50% to 5.7 million, he added.

Sethi said that looking ahead, Payward’s focus is “not on maximizing any single metric in isolation. It is on maximizing long-run, risk-adjusted throughput across a growing set of asset classes and geographies.”

“The company’s strategy is not driven by adding standalone products or chasing short-term cycles. It is driven by compounding efficiency across a single system,” he added.

Magazine: Sharplink exec shocked by level of BTC and ETH ETF hodling — Joseph Chalom

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has reversed his long-held view that layer-2s should be the primary way to scale Ethereum, saying the approach “no longer makes sense.”

“We need a new path,” Buterin said in a post to X on Tuesday, arguing that many layer-2s have failed to decentralize and that the Ethereum mainnet is now sufficiently scaling, with improvements coming from gas limit increases and soon native rollups.

“Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path.”

Layer-2s were envisioned as extensions of Ethereum, managing most transactions at high speed and low cost while inheriting Ethereum’s security.

Buterin said layer-2s were meant to partake in “Ethereum scaling” by creating block space that is fully secured by the Ethereum mainnet, in which all transactions become valid, uncensored and final; however, many layer-2s have failed to reach that standard, he said:

“If you create a 10000 TPS EVM where its connection to L1 is mediated by a multisig bridge, then you are not scaling Ethereum.”

Source: David Hoffman

Buterin said layer-2s — which include Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and Starknet — should instead pivot from scalability to focus on a particular niche, suggesting areas such as privacy, identity, finance, social apps and AI.

Ethereum’s technical roadmap had long focused on layer-2s as the primary avenue for scaling the network.

It also comes as some Ethereum developers have urged a focus on scaling the Ethereum mainnet.

Among them is Max Resnick, a former researcher at the Ethereum infrastructure firm Consensys, who moved to the Solana ecosystem after his push to prioritize scaling the Ethereum mainnet failed to gain enough support.

Ryan Sean Adams, co-host of the Ethereum show Bankless, also expressed support for Buterin’s view, stating: “This is ‘the pivot.’ I'm glad it's now being said. Strong ETH, Strong L1.”

Native rollups, gas limit rises key scaling Ethereum mainnet

Buterin said he has become increasingly convinced of the role that precompiled native rollups will have in scaling the Ethereum mainnet, particularly once zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) proofs are integrated into the base layer.

While traditional rollups are built on top of Ethereum by bundling and executing transactions off-chain before posting transaction data to Ethereum, native rollups are baked into Ethereum itself — meaning the processing of transactions is directly verified by Ethereum validators.

Related: HYPE pops 20% after Hyperliquid team nods prediction markets plan

In mid-December, Ethereum developers also discussed raising the gas limit from 60 million to 80 million once the second blob-parameter-only hard fork was implemented. The hard fork took effect in January.

Doing so would directly increase the number of transactions and smart contract operations that can fit in each Ethereum block, further boosting overall throughput while potentially lowering fees.

Last July, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake unveiled a 10-year plan to achieve 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on the Ethereum mainnet once all scaling features are implemented, marking a considerable increase from the 15–30 TPS currently observed.

Magazine: A ‘tsunami’ of wealth is headed for crypto: Nansen’s Alex Svanevik

Key takeaways:

Ether dropped 28% in a week to $2,110 as investors cut risk and markets wiped out leveraged traders.

Spot ETH ETF outflows reached $447 million as Ethereum network activity fell by 47%.

Ether (ETH) plummeted to $2,110 on Tuesday, signaling fragility following a brutal 28% price correction over seven days. Investors retreated into cash and short-term government bonds as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Index also fell 1.4%. 

Traders worry that valuations have become overextended and overly reliant on the artificial intelligence sector. Sentiment soured after Nvidia (NVDA US) CEO Jensen Huang denied plans to invest $100 billion in OpenAI.

Investors braced for additional volatility following disappointing quarterly results from fintech giant Paypal (PYPL US). Meanwhile, gold prices climbed 6%, and silver gained 9%, suggesting a lack of confidence in the US Federal Reserve's ability to prevent a recession. 

Concerns over inflated stock market valuations prompted traders to become increasingly risk-averse, causing demand for bullish leveraged ETH positions to evaporate.

ETH perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: laevitas.ch

The ETH perpetual futures annualized funding rate turned negative on Tuesday, indicating that shorts (sellers) are paying fees to maintain their positions. This rare shift reflects a profound lack of confidence from longs (buyers). 

Market participants are now debating whether this extreme fear presents a strategic entry point, especially since ETH has underperformed the broader cryptocurrency market by 10% over the last 30 days.

Total crypto capitalization (blue) vs. ETH/USD (orange). Source: Tradingview

Ether investors grew uneasy as other major cryptocurrencies weathered less severe corrections over the past month; Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 17%, BNB (BNB) fell 14%, and Tron (TRX) declined 4%. Ether’s weekly slide to $2,110 forced the liquidation of over $2 billion in leveraged bullish ETH futures, fueling concerns of further downside as market sentiment turns bearish.

ETH futures 24-hour liquidations, USD. Source: Coinglass

Ether pressured as exchange-traded funds outflows signal cooling demand

Ether price was further burdened by $447 million in net outflows from US-listed Ethereum spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over five days. Institutional demand has cooled, despite continued accumulation from firms like Bitmine Immersion (BMNR US), Sharplink (SBET US), and The Ether Machine (ETHM US). Traders remain wary of potential sell pressure stemming from the $14.4 billion held in aggregate Ethereum ETFs.

As interest in decentralized applications (dApps) waned, the appetite for ETH diminished significantly.

Decentralized exchanges' monthly volumes by blockchain, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Trading volumes on Ethereum decentralized exchanges (DEX) reached $52.8 billion in January, a sharp drop from $98.9 billion in October 2025. This 47% decline in activity reduces incentives for holders; typically, high demand for blockchain processing triggers the network’s burn mechanism, which shrinks the total ETH supply.

Related: Spot crypto volumes plunge to 2024 lows amid investor demand weakens

Addresses linked to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold approximately $2.3 million in ETH after earmarking $45 million for donations toward privacy technologies, open hardware, and secure software. Buterin said that a total of 16,384 ETH from his personal holdings will be gradually deployed over the coming years.

The current lack of demand for bullish ETH perpetual futures should not be viewed as a signal for a quick reversal. Onchain metrics continue to weaken, and overall sentiment remains cautious given the prevailing macroeconomic uncertainty.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board announced that it had filed a civil enforcement action against Coinbase over wagers on sports event contracts.

In Monday filings in the First Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada in and for Carson City, the Nevada Gaming Control Board sued Coinbase Financial Markets over allegations the company offered unlicensed wagers on sporting events. Authorities followed by requesting that the court grant a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction preventing Coinbase from “operating a derivatives exchange and prediction market” related to sporting bets.

“The Board takes seriously its obligation to operate a thriving gaming industry and to protect Nevada citizens,” said Mike Dreitzer, chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, in a Tuesday statement. “The action taken yesterday reinforces this obligation.”

Source: Nevada Gaming Control Board

The action came less than a week after Coinbase announced it had launched prediction markets in all 50 US states as part of a partnership with Kalshi. While the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees Kalshi at the federal level, the platform can still face legal challenges filed by state-level regulators, including Nevada’s.

Cointelegraph reached out to a Coinbase spokesperson for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Polymarket faces similar legal challenges in Nevada

Last week, a Nevada court granted a temporary restraining order against a Polymarket operator, blocking the platform from offering bets on event‑based contracts to state residents. The judge overseeing the case cited “immediate” and “irreparable” harm to authorities’ ability to regulate betting without a license.

The Coinbase and Polymarket cases and others like it at the state level could challenge the CFTC’s authority to regulate prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket without clear laws.

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Bitcoin (BTC) scratched new lows below $73,000 on Tuesday as data shows troubling macroeconomic challenges bubbling below increasingly volatile markets. New data highlights tightening credit conditions, even as the US debt and borrowing costs stay elevated, and one analyst says this gap between credit pricing and credit market stress may define Bitcoin’s price trajectory for the upcoming months.

Key takeaways:

The ICE BofA US Corporate Option-Adjusted Spread is at 0.75, its lowest level since 1998.

US debt stands at $38.5 trillion, while the 10-year Treasury yield is 4.28%.

Bitcoin whale inflows to exchanges have risen, but the pace of onchain profit-taking is easing.

ICE BofA US Corporate Index Option-Adjusted Spread. Source: Fred

Tight credit spreads contrast with rising economic strain

The ICE BofA Corporate Option-Adjusted Spread may act as a key macroeconomic signal for Bitcoin. The metric tracks the extra yield investors demand for holding the corporate bonds over US Treasurys. When spreads widen, it usually reflects stress in the credit markets.

Currently, the spreads are compressed, suggesting the risk is still underpriced. This is notable given the current market. US government debt reached $38.5 trillion at the end of January, and the 10-year Treasury yield, after briefly falling below 4% in October, has climbed back to 4.28%, which is keeping the present financial conditions tight.

US Corporate Index Option spread against Bitcoin. Source: Fred

In previous Bitcoin market cycles, including 2018, 2020, and 2022, BTC formed a local bottom only after the credit spreads began to widen. That process played out within a three-to-six-month delay, rather than an immediate effect.

In August, 2025, Alphractal founder Joao Wedson argued that if liquidity tightens and credit spreads rise in the coming months, Bitcoin could enter another accumulation phase before the broader market stress becomes visible.

Related: Bitcoin, crypto 'winter' soon over, says BitWise exec as gold retargets $5K

Bitcoin whale selling rises, but longer-term pressure is cooling down

Short-term selling activity has increased for Bitcoin this week. Crypto analyst Amr Taha noted that both whales and mid-term holders recently transferred a significant amount of BTC to Binance. On Monday, wallets holding more than 1,000 BTC deposited about 5,000 BTC, matching a similar spike seen in December. 

Bitcoin Binance exchange inflows by holder age. Source: CryptoQuant

At the same time, holders from the 6-to-12-month age group also moved 5,000 BTC to exchanges, the largest inflow from this cohort since early 2024.

However, broader selling pressure appears to be fading. CryptoQuant data shows the spent output profit ratio (SOPR) has dropped toward 1, its lowest level in a year, as Bitcoin dropped to a year-to-date low of $73,900 on Tuesday.

Historical patterns outline that a Bitcoin bottom has played out between three-to-six months after credit spreads begin to widen. Rising Treasury yields may pressure the credit markets, potentially driving spreads toward the 1.5–2% range through April.

This may lead to an accumulation window between May and July 2026, as the market absorbs this stress, aligning with the current SOPR data, signalling long-term seller exhaustion.

ICE BofA US Yield Options Spread vs BTC price. Source: X

Related: Bitcoin flash crash recovery to $100K could take months: Analyst

Tian Ruixiang Holdings Ltd (Nasdaq: TIRX) said it has entered a strategic agreement under which an unnamed investor would contribute 15,000 Bitcoin in exchange for an equity stake in the company. 

At Bitcoin’s (BTC) price of about $75,000 at the time of writing, the proposed contribution would be valued at about $1.1 billion.

Tian Ruixiang said the agreement also includes a strategic partnership focused on artificial intelligence and crypto initiatives, including the creation of a joint innovation lab to develop AI-powered trading and risk management tools, blockchain infrastructure, decentralized applications and products spanning layer-2 networks, DeFi and nonfungible tokens.

The company described the counterparty only as a global digital asset investor with experience across cryptocurrency and technology markets, and did not disclose transaction timing, custody arrangements or settlement mechanics.

Tian Ruixiang was founded in 2010 and operates as an insurance brokerage in China, providing property and casualty insurance services through its subsidiaries.

The company’s shares rose about 190% in early trading following the announcement, according to Yahoo Finance, giving it an intraday market capitalization of about $9.5 million, far below the implied value of the proposed Bitcoin transaction.

Source: Yahoo Finance

If the deal is completed and Tian Ruixiang acquires 15,000 Bitcoin, it would rank as the world’s eighth-largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company.

By comparison, US-based crypto exchange Coinbase holds 14,548 Bitcoin, while Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin mining company, holds 18,005 BTC, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET.

The news follows a Jan. 30 disclosure in which Tian Ruixiang said it was in advanced talks to acquire an unnamed Hong Kong–based insurance brokerage focused on AI- and crypto-enabled wealth management.

Bitcoin treasury companies in the red as market weakens

Nearly 200 publicly traded companies currently hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets, with combined holdings of about 1,135,671 BTC. But with Bitcoin’s recent pullback, several companies that built treasury positions are sitting on unrealized losses. 

Strategy, which began buying Bitcoin in August 2020, reports an average acquisition price of $76,052 per Bitcoin, leaving its holdings underwater as Bitcoin slipped to below $75,000 at the time of writing.

A more recent entrant, Twenty One Capital, co-founded by Jack Mallers, launched its treasury in April and holds 43,514 Bitcoin, making it the third largest Bitcoin treasury. The company last disclosed an average acquisition cost of $87,280 per Bitcoin.

While Bitcoin treasury companies initially drew strong attention from Wall Street, their valuations have struggled as the broader crypto market has weakened. 

In December, Altan Tutar, co-founder and CEO of crypto yield platform MoreMarkets, told Cointelegraph that most digital asset treasury companies are unlikely to survive in 2026, predicting that altcoin-focused treasuries will fail first. 

Ryan Chow, co-founder of the Bitcoin platform Solv Protocol, agreed, saying many Bitcoin treasury companies are “unlikely to survive the next downturn.”

Top 20 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: Bitcointreasuries.NET

Magazine: A ‘tsunami’ of wealth is headed for crypto: Nansen’s Alex Svanevik

Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives have approved a bill that will mostly reopen the government after a four-day partial shutdown.

In a Tuesday House vote of 217 to 214 in favor of the bill, the chamber approved a roughly $1.2 trillion package already passed by the Senate that will ​​fund most of the US government through Sept. 30. The measure passed with some support from Democrats, many of whom were opposed to provisions within the bill over immigration enforcement policies.

Source: US House of Representatives

US President Donald Trump is expected to sign the legislation and reopen the government, provided there are “no changes” to the Senate bill. The legislation provides the Department of Homeland Security with funding for only two weeks before lawmakers return to negotiate changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol.

The four-day event, which only partially limited US government operations, fell far short of the 43-day shutdown in 2025, which likely delayed congressional efforts to pass digital asset market structure and other legislation. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose by about 2% to $74,620 amid news of the funding bill passing the House.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

Bitcoin (BTC) tumbled to a new 2026 low of $72,945 on Tuesday as bulls failed to hold the $80,000 level as support. Year-to-date, Bitcoin trades at a 15% loss and remains nearly 45% down from its $126,267 all-time high, raising investor concerns that BTC’s cyclical bull market may have reached an end.  

Rocky price action in US stock markets is an alleged driver of the selling across the crypto market. Since the end of Q4, 2025, investors questioned whether the costs associated with the artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out and the lofty fundraising and valuations were sustainable.

Investors fear that product demand and revenues may fall short of industry projections, and this souring sentiment is visible across the Magnificent 7 stocks, along with the S&P 500, DOW and NASDAQ, which are currently trading down 0.70% to 1.77%.

AI majors, NVIDIA and Microsoft lost a respective 3.4% and 2.7% during the trading day, while Amazon nursed a 2.67% loss. More than 100 S&P 500 companies are set to report their earnings this week, so the current early-week volatility may simply be a manifestation of investors’ anxiety or a hint of what’s to come once earnings data is posted. 

Within the crypto market, liquidations of leveraged positions are adding pressure to the pace of selling, with BTC longs seeing $127.25 million forced closed and ETH longs locking in $159.1 million in liquidations.  

4-hour crypto market liquidations. Source: CoinGlass

  Related: Bitcoin, crypto ‘winter’ soon over, says BitWise exec as gold retargets $5K

While many analysts have suggested that Bitcoin is trading at a deep discount, apparent dip-buying from retail investors and institutional investors like Strategy has done little to stem the selling. According to Joe Burnett, Strive’s vice president of Bitcoin strategy, BTC’s current “price action is still sitting within historical norms at $74,000.” 

Burnett explained that the “45% Bitcoin drawdown aligns closely with historical volatility,” and added that the “volatility of this magnitude remains a symptom of a rapidly monetizing asset.” 

If the selling were to continue, current Bitcoin (BTC/USDT, Binance) orderbook data from TRDR.io shows bids thickening from $71,800 to $63,000. Whether or not traders step in to buy within that range is the real question, and it’s likely that non-crypto-specific macroeconomic and stock market-connected outcomes will continue to be the most impactful driver of Bitcoin’s price. 

BTC/USDT (Binance) 4-hour chart. Source: TRDR.io

  

Digital assets and AI infrastructure company Galaxy Digital reported a net loss of $241 million over 2025 and a loss of $482 million in the fourth quarter alone, citing a decline in crypto prices over the year.

In its quarterly financial statements shared Tuesday, Galaxy said its losses over Q4 2025 were “driven primarily by the depreciation of digital asset prices,” while its annual losses were due in part “to lower digital asset prices and approximately $160 million of one-time costs during the year.” The price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped by about 20% in the fourth quarter of 2025.

“You have the crypto coins — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, you name ‘em — have been in a bear market,” said Galaxy CEO Michael Novogratz in a Tuesday shareholder update call, adding:

“I do think that we’re in the lower end of the range [of Bitcoin price]. What I would say is that we’ve been here before. Anyone who’s been in crypto for more than five years realizes that part of the ethos of this whole industry is pain and that often when things feel worse, it’s time to be very focused and potentially accumulating or at least getting prepared to.”

Despite net losses, Galaxy reported an adjusted gross profit of $426 million for full-year 2025 and ended with $2.6 billion in cash and stablecoins. It reported ending 2025 with $12 billion in total platform assets and $2 billion in net inflows to its asset management arm.

Galaxy announced in August that it would be accelerating its plans for an artificial intelligence data center in Texas. The company reported that it had received approval from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for an additional 830 megawatts of power capacity in January, bringing its facility’s total approved capacity to more than 1.6 gigawatts.

Shares of Galaxy on the Nasdaq (GLXY) fell by about 15% in trading on Tuesday, to $22.48 at the time of publication.

Other crypto-related companies reported revenue rise in Q4 2025

SoFi Technologies, a fintech company that lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies, released its earnings report on Friday, recording fourth-quarter revenue of $1 billion.

Tokenization company Securitize Holdings reported that its revenues were up by more than 840% through September 2025 amid its initial public offering plans.

Magazine: Davinci Jeremie bought Bitcoin at $1… but $100K BTC doesn’t excite him

VistaShares has launched BTYB, an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) listed on the New York Stock Exchange that allocates most of its assets to US Treasurys while using options strategies to provide weekly income and Bitcoin-linked price exposure.

According to the Tuesday announcement, the fund allocates about 80% of its portfolio to US Treasury securities and related instruments, with the remaining 20% tied to Bitcoin (BTC) price movements through a synthetic covered call strategy. Holdings data shows the fund’s Bitcoin-linked exposure comes from call options on BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).

In this particular context, a synthetic covered call strategy uses derivatives to create Bitcoin price exposure and sells call (buy) options against that exposure to generate income, rather than holding Bitcoin directly. As a result, BTYB does not track spot Bitcoin prices and limits upside potential in exchange for higher income from options premiums.

Sources: Vistashares.com

VistaShares said the ETF aims to deliver about twice the yield of the five-year Treasury, though distributions are not guaranteed and may vary weekly depending on options market conditions and interest rate movements.

VistaShares is a US-based ETF issuer that focuses on actively managed funds using options strategies and thematic exposures rather than traditional passive index tracking.

Crypto ETF issuers expand beyond single-token products

Other issuers have also launched exchange-traded funds in the US that blend Bitcoin with additional assets or broader crypto baskets, reflecting growing experimentation beyond single-asset crypto funds.

On Dec. 19, 2024, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved two spot crypto index ETFs, clearing Hashdex’s Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF for trading on Nasdaq and Franklin Templeton’s Franklin Crypto Index ETF for listing on Cboe BZX Exchange. Both funds hold spot Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) and track their respective crypto index benchmarks.

In January, Bitwise Asset Management launched the Bitwise Proficio Currency Debasement ETF, an actively managed fund that holds Bitcoin, precious metals and mining equities with the aim of addressing the declining purchasing power of fiat currencies.

ETFs tracking a broader range of cryptocurrencies are also gaining traction. ​​In September, Hashdex expanded its Crypto Index US ETF to add XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL) and Stellar (XLM). The Nasdaq-listed fund holds five cryptocurrencies on a 1:1 basis, including Bitcoin and Ether, according to the company.

In November 2025, 21Shares launched two US-regulated cryptocurrency index ETFs: the 21Shares FTSE Crypto 10 Index ETF and the 21Shares FTSE Crypto 10 ex-BTC Index ETF.  Both funds track FTSE Russell crypto indexes and hold baskets of large-cap digital assets.

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Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that the country plans to ban access to social media for children under the age of 16 and require platforms to implement age verification systems in a push to impose safety measures on what he called the “digital Wild West.”

Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Tuesday, Sánchez said Spain would require “real barriers that work” for platforms in an attempt to restrict minors’ access. According to the world leader, Spanish authorities planned to hold platform executives criminally liable for infringements related to not removing “illegal or hateful” content.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to range-bound moves on Tuesday as gold returned near the key $5,000 mark.

Key points:

Bitcoin trades sideways as gold and silver attempt to reclaim prior losses.

Analysis remains split over how the Bitcoin versus gold relationship will play out next.

Bitwise CIO says that the latest “crypto winter” is closer to over.

$80,000 Bitcoin price stays out of reach

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action shying away from a retest of $80,000, now functioning as resistance.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

BTC/USD displayed familiar indecisiveness on the day, again putting it in contrast to precious metals, which were actively attempting to recoup some of their major losses from recent days.

XAU/USD rebounded to $4,971, up more than $500 versus Monday’s local lows. 

XAU/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Silver, which fell to near $71 after the January monthly candle close, traded up more than 11% on the day at the time of writing.

US stocks stayed sensitive to earnings reports, with PayPal’s miss sending its stock price down by almost 20%.

BREAKING: PayPal stock, $PYPL, extends its decline to -19% on the day after reporting weaker than expected Q4 2025 earnings, now down to its lowest level since April 2017. pic.twitter.com/NHehCmeRgP

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 3, 2026

Assessing the state of play, BTC price outlooks hoped for the continuation of historical interaction with bullish gold phases.

“$BTC and $GOLD historically have taken turns to run, with Gold running the show for the past 14 months or so. It's usually right around that time that the digital gold narrative takes over,” trader Jelle wrote in one of his latest X posts.

BTC/XAU chart. Source: Jelle/X

Others were far from convinced, including trader and analyst Northstar, who predicted that Bitcoin should lose 80% of its value in gold terms over time.

“Note, this was the first cycle where Bitcoin DID NOT make big new highs against gold. Worse may be to come due to capital rotation,” they told X followers.

BTC vs. gold data. Source: Northstar/X

Bitwise CIO: Crypto spring “closer than you think”

In an X article of his own on Tuesday, Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of crypto asset manager Bitwise, also put a time limit on the current “crypto winter.”

“Here’s the good news: We’re closer than you think,” he summarized.

Hougan argued that the latest downtrend in fact started at the beginning of 2025, and it was the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that made much of last year seem like a bull run.

“As a veteran of multiple crypto winters, I can tell you that the end of those crypto winters feel a lot like now: despair, desperation, and malaise. But there is nothing about the current market pullback that’s changed anything fundamental about crypto,” he concluded.

“I think we’re going to come roaring back sooner rather than later. Heck, it’s been winter since January 2025. Spring is surely coming soon.”

Key takeaways

World Liberty Financial has entered DeFi lending with the launch of World Liberty Markets, an onchain borrowing and lending platform built around its dollar-pegged stablecoin USD1.

The platform uses smart contracts to manage lending terms, replacing centralized intermediaries with transparent and automated risk controls that are visible on the blockchain.

USD1 plays a central role as the primary borrowing and settlement asset, allowing users to unlock liquidity from volatile holdings such as ETH or tokenized Bitcoin without selling those assets.

Supported collateral includes major cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, with plans to add tokenized real-world assets, extending onchain credit beyond purely crypto-native markets.

World Liberty Financial is a new entrant in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Connected to the family of US President Donald Trump, the project has entered the crypto lending market with the launch of World Liberty Markets.

World Liberty Markets is an onchain borrowing and lending platform built around the project’s US dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1. With USD1’s circulating supply now at around $3.4 billion, the project positions stablecoins not only as payment tools but also as a core component of blockchain-based credit markets.

This article examines the debut of World Liberty Markets and USD1 and the broader expansion of DeFi lending and credit access. It explores how onchain lending works, why stablecoins play a central role in decentralized credit, World Liberty’s long-term strategy and how users can navigate smart contract-based platforms safely.

What is World Liberty Financial?

World Liberty Financial is a DeFi initiative focused on building blockchain-based financial services, including payments, lending and treasury management. The project has drawn additional attention due to its reported links to members of the Trump family. It emphasizes the development of compliant and transparent crypto financial products.

While its political associations have attracted notice, the project’s broader vision aligns with a wider DeFi industry trend toward creating financial systems that integrate stablecoins, collateralized lending and tokenized assets within unified onchain frameworks.

Did you know? Some DeFi lending protocols can process liquidations in seconds, faster than many stock exchanges can halt trading. During sharp crypto market moves, automated bots — rather than humans — typically compete to execute these liquidations.

Debut of World Liberty Markets and USD1

World Liberty Financial has entered the digital asset lending sector, reflecting a growing focus on decentralized credit as legal frameworks become clearer. Its new platform, World Liberty Markets, debuted on Jan. 12, 2026, to facilitate cryptocurrency borrowing and lending. The system operates using World Liberty’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1, alongside its WLFI governance token.

Prior to the launch of its lending initiative, USD1 was already used for:

Cross-border transfers

Treasury operations for crypto-focused companies

Liquidity pools on decentralized exchanges.

The rapid increase in USD1’s supply suggests that it is being adopted not only as a trading pair but also as a settlement asset for a broader range of financial activities. This liquidity is now extending into onchain credit markets through World Liberty Markets.

World Liberty Markets expands DeFi lending and credit access

World Liberty Markets is an onchain protocol for lending and borrowing. It enables users to:

Deposit assets to earn yield as lenders

Provide collateral and borrow against it

Manage all positions through smart contracts rather than centralized intermediaries.

The platform supports both sides of the credit market within a single decentralized system. It is similar in structure to established DeFi lending protocols, with USD1 serving as a central liquidity asset.

Rather than relying on offchain balance sheets or manual underwriting, lending terms, collateral ratios and liquidation thresholds are enforced by automated smart contracts. Risk parameters are visible directly on the blockchain.

Did you know? In DeFi, interest rates can change block by block, meaning borrowing costs may update every few seconds on faster blockchains. This differs from traditional loans, where rates are typically fixed for months or even years.

How the onchain credit system functions

At its core, World Liberty Markets operates as a collateralized lending market. Users deposit assets into pools that are made available to borrowers. Collateral must exceed the loan value to protect lenders against default.

Supported collateral covers:

Ether (ETH)

Tokenized Bitcoin (BTC) representations

Stablecoins such as USDC (USDC) and Tether’s USDt (USDT)

USD1.

Interest rates vary based on supply and demand within each asset pool. When collateral values fall below required thresholds, positions may face automatic liquidation to preserve solvency.

World Liberty has also signaled plans to support tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), which could allow tokens linked to real estate or treasury instruments to be used as collateral. If implemented, this would extend onchain credit beyond purely crypto-native assets.

Why stablecoins are important for onchain lending

Stablecoins play a key role in crypto credit markets because they offer:

A stable unit of account

Lower volatility compared with crypto collateral

Simpler integration with payments and offchain finance.

In World Liberty’s setup, USD1 serves as the primary currency for borrowing and lending. Users can supply volatile assets such as ETH or tokenized BTC and borrow USD1, gaining liquidity without selling those holdings.

This model resembles conventional secured lending, where borrowers pledge assets in exchange for cash, but it operates entirely on blockchain-based systems.

Stablecoin-based lending also supports more advanced financial activities, including leveraged trading, hedging strategies and treasury funding for crypto-focused businesses.

World Liberty’s OCC application and long-term strategy

World Liberty’s lending launch follows its application for a national trust bank charter with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). While approval remains uncertain, the application signals a long-term strategy focused on regulatory compliance.

If granted, such a charter could potentially allow World Liberty to:

Provide custodial services

Combine stablecoin issuance with regulated financial activities

Form partnerships more easily with traditional payment systems.

This approach reflects a broader shift in the crypto industry, where companies are increasingly pursuing regulated structures rather than operating entirely outside traditional finance.

Greater regulatory clarity around stablecoins and digital asset custody in the US and other regions has reduced uncertainty for institutional participants, encouraging renewed interest in blockchain-based credit systems.

Did you know? Stablecoin issuers collectively hold more short-term US Treasury bills than many mid-sized countries’ central banks, making stablecoins an unexpected but growing participant in global government debt markets.

Evolution of crypto lending

Crypto lending markets failed in the last cycle largely due to centralized entities that:

Used excessive leverage

Applied unclear risk controls

Rehypothecated client assets.

Cases such as BlockFi and Celsius highlighted risks in centralized credit models rather than flaws in blockchain technology itself.

By comparison, DeFi lending protocols operate with:

Clear collateral ratios

Open liquidation processes

Real-time solvency checks.

Meanwhile, venture investment and developer activity in decentralized credit continue to grow. Projects focused on Bitcoin-backed lending, RWA tokenization and institutional DeFi systems are gaining renewed attention, suggesting that onchain credit is maturing into a more established market segment.

Navigating smart contracts and market volatility

Even with rising interest, onchain lending still carries risks, including:

Smart contract vulnerabilities

Market shocks that can trigger rapid liquidations

Regulatory uncertainty around stablecoin reserves

Liquidity concentrated in a limited set of assets.

In addition, while overcollateralized lending reduces default risk, it limits access for users without substantial crypto holdings. As a result, onchain credit currently serves mainly as a tool for capital efficiency among existing asset holders rather than a mechanism for broad financial inclusion.

Expanding support for tokenized RWAs could widen the scope of onchain credit, but it also introduces challenges related to asset verification, legal enforceability and cross-border regulation.

Solana (SOL) price has possibly formed a bottom around $100 on multiple time frames, a setup that could help SOL price recover toward $260 in the long term.

Key takeaways:

Solana's rebound from its weekly support at $100 signals a potential price recovery to $260.

Onchain demand is increased based on a record total value locked and high network activity.

SOL must break several resistances before $260

SOL’s price action has led to the appearance of a possible V-shaped recovery pattern on the four-hour chart.

This follows a sharp drop that saw SOL price fall 25% from a high of $127, which was stopped by buyers around the $100 support level.

Related: ParaFi Capital makes $35M investment in Solana-based Jupiter

The relative strength index (RSI) had increased to 36 from oversold conditions at 18 in the four-hour timeframe, indicating some upward momentum.

The daily RSI was oversold at 29, a level that has previously marked market bottoms and triggered SOL price rebounds.

Related: ‘Very wide gap’ between XRP and Solana investor interest: Exec

As the bulls hope to complete the V-shaped pattern, the price faces key barriers in its recovery path, including the $113-$115 supply band, where some key trendlines converge.

The second area of interest is the $125-$130 supply zone, defined by the 50-day EMA and 50-day SMA, respectively.

SOL/USD daily and four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Above that, the SOL/USD pair could rise further toward the pattern’s neckline around the $150 supply zone, representing a 44% climb from the current price.

Zooming out, the weekly chart reveals strong support for SOL at $95-$100, as shown below. 

The last rebound from this level triggered a 166% SOL price rally to $250 from $95 between April 2025 and September 2025. 

If the same scenario plays out, SOL could extend today’s recovery over the coming weeks or months to $260, representing a 150% increase from the current levels. 

SOL/USD weekly chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The 50-week MAs sit between $140-$160, a zone that has historically delayed price rallies as resistance.

Trader Tardigrade said that SOL’s rebound from the lower boundary of the descending channel could see it rise toward the upper boundary around $215.

Source: Trader Tardigrade

As Cointelegraph reported, SOL price may rise toward the $120-$150 range if the 20-day EMA at $106 is reclaimed as support. 

Solana’s TVL and network activity rise

Solana’s primary decentralized application (DApp) metric started to display strength in mid-January.

The network’s total value locked (TVL), which measures the amount deposited in its smart contracts, rose to its highest level ever at 73.4 million SOL on Monday, worth about $7.5 billion at current rates. This represents an 18% increase over the last week. 

Solana network total value locked, SOL. Source: DefiLlama

The last time this metric hit daily peak levels was in June 2022, when the TVL topped $68.3 million SOL. This surge was largely fueled by high network activity and the NFT boom on Solana in 2021. This was accompanied by 80% gains in SOL’s price between June and August 2022.

Additionally, the daily transaction count on Solana hit a two-year high of 109.5 million on Monday. 

Solana number of transactions and DEX volume. Source: DefiLlama

The daily DEX volume also reached an eight-month high of $51.3 million SOL on Monday, while the weekly DEX trading volume hit a 12-month high of 264.8 million SOL during the week ending Sunday.

As Cointelegraph reported, daily active addresses on Solana saw a 115% increase during the second half of January, which has historically been bullish for SOL price going forward.

Institutional crypto derivatives provider Rails announced the launch of “Institutional-Grade Vaults” on the Stellar network on Tuesday, allowing brokerages, fintechs and other intermediaries to plug into crypto perpetuals via a single backend. The company aims for options trading in Q2 2026. 

Satraj Bambra, CEO of Rails, told Cointelegraph that the core idea was to separate matching from money. “The critical difference is custody and verifiability,” he said.

Rails runs a centralized matching engine, while client assets will sit in audited smart contract vaults on Stellar. Every 30 seconds of profit and loss (PnL), fees and liabilities are committed onchain, as Merkle roots that institutions can independently reconcile against their own records. 

Reducing counterparty risk

A core design claim is that vaults lower counterparty and operational risk by ring‑fencing client collateral from market-making capital and Rails’ own operating funds.

Bambra framed this as a direct response to prior exchange implosions, where assets sat in an omnibus account, and clients had to trust their internal ledger.

“If they fail, you become an unsecured creditor in bankruptcy,” he said. “This is exactly what happened to FTX customers.”

He said that the lesson here was clear: “Separate execution from custody,” and stressed that user funds remain in onchain smart contracts rather than on Rails’ balance sheet. 

According to Bambra, the company decided on the Stellar network for its fast settlement finality and a decade of work with banks, remittance providers and tokenized asset platforms.

“When you are asking institutions to trust smart contracts holding tens of millions in capital, that heritage matters,” he said.

According to the announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the company has processed more than $3.4 billion in trading volume to date. It’s registered under the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), but Bambra told Cointelegraph that Rails had “begun its registration process” with the United States National Futures Association.

Crypto derivatives hit $85.7T in annual volume

Derivatives have fast become crypto’s main venue for price discovery and risk transfer. CoinGlass’ 2025 annual report estimates derivatives trading volume at roughly $85.7 trillion last year, with average daily turnover of about $264.5 billion.

Those figures marked record volumes and deeper open interest as institutional traders used futures and options as their primary tools for price discovery and risk management.

Total crypto derivatives volume in 2025. Source: CoinGlass

The same report warns that higher complexity and deeper leverage chains have “elevated systemic tail risks,” with the Oct. 2025 deleveraging event exposing how fragile liquidation engines, auto-deleveraging (ADL) mechanisms and highly concentrated venues can still turn crowded positions into outsized losses across the market.

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MetaMask, the self-custodial crypto wallet developed by Ethereum software company Consensys, is rolling out access to tokenized US stocks, exchange-traded funds and commodities through Ondo Global Markets.

Starting Tuesday, eligible MetaMask users in non-US countries will be able to access 200 tokenized US stocks, ETFs and commodities such as gold and silver on Ethereum network, the company said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph.

The offering allows users to acquire tokenized assets via MetaMask Swaps by swapping Circle’s USDC (USDC) stablecoin into Ondo Global Markets (GM) tokens, which are designed to track the value of their underlying assets on a 1:1 basis.

Ondo Finance has previously drawn attention for its collaboration with World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project backed by US President Donald Trump. Ondo’s native token, ONDO, has fallen about 80% over the past year, according to CoinGecko data.

Desktop support expected in late February

MetaMask’s tokenized assets offering will be initially available exclusively on MetaMask mobile, with desktop integration coming by the end of February with a browser extension, a spokesperson for Consensys told Cointelegraph.

“Access to US markets still runs through legacy rails,” said Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and Consensys CEO, highlighting fragmented apps and rigid trading windows in traditional markets.

“Bringing Ondo’s tokenized US stocks and ETFs directly into MetaMask shows what a better model looks like,” Lubin said, adding:

“A single, self-custodial wallet where people can move between crypto and traditional assets without intermediaries and without giving up control. That’s the future we’re actively building toward at MetaMask.”

30 jurisdictions excluded from rollout

In line with Ondo’s stated focus on offering tokenized assets primarily to non-US investors, MetaMask’s rollout will exclude users in the US as well as a number of other markets.

The offering will be inaccessible in 30 countries and regions, including Canada, the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom.

Countries excluded from MetaMask’s tokenized asset rollout with Ondo. Source: MetaMask

“MetaMask uses a number of methods to ensure geographical restrictions are enforced, including geographical restrictions based on the user’s IP address,” a spokesperson for Consensys told Cointelegraph.

If a user is detected to be in a restricted region, they will receive an error message indicating that the trade route is unavailable, the representative said, adding:

“MetaMask is continuing to explore compliant ways to expand global access to tokenized real‑world assets in line with evolving regulatory frameworks.”

Growing trend of RWA and prediction market integration

MetaMask’s move into real-world assets (RWAs) underscores the industry’s broader push toward the “everything app” vision, with exchanges and self‑custodial wallets increasingly integrating tokenized assets and prediction markets.

Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange by trading volume, announced late last year it was developing its own RWA platform, Coinbase Tokenize.

Trust Wallet, the self-custodial crypto wallet backed by Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, integrated tokenized assets by Ondo in September 2025.

Both companies have also expanded into prediction markets, with Coinbase integrating Kalshi and Trust Wallet tapping Myriad for the initial launch.

In October 2025, MetaMask partnered with Polymarket to provide access to prediction markets directly on MetaMask’s mobile app.

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