Cointelegraph

Artificial intelligence, a lack of awareness of data privacy, and regulatory pressures are among the biggest threats to the future of private messaging, says Alex Linton and Chris McCabe, executives from the decentralized messaging app Session.

The EU’s efforts to mandate the scanning of private messages through its Chat Control legislation have been heavily criticized by privacy advocates, but Linton, president of the Session Technology Foundation, told Cointelegraph that AI is another front that needs to be pushed back.  

AI’s capacity to analyze information on a device and store that data creates “huge privacy issues, huge security issues,” and the ability to communicate privately could basically be rendered “impossible to do on an average mobile phone or an average computer,” Linton said.

“If it’s integrated at the operating system level or higher, it might also be able to completely bypass the encryption on your messaging app, that information could be fed off to a black box AI, and then from there, God knows what happens to it,” he added. 

“It's important that we push back against this type of deep integration of AI into all of our devices, because at that point, you just don't know what is happening on your device anymore.”

Linton said the problem can often be exacerbated when lawmakers take advice on addressing these privacy concerns from the tech giants who are responsible for pushing the technology onto users in the first place.

How your online data is used 

McCabe, Session’s co-founder, said that many people are unaware of how their online data is stored and used, as well as the dangers of mass data collection by big tech companies.

Session’s co-founder, Chris McCabe, said many users are unaware of how their data is used after big tech companies collect it. Source: YouTube 

ChatGPT creator OpenAI disclosed last month that a third-party data analytics provider was breached by an attacker, exposing some of its user data, which it warned could be used for phishing or social engineering attacks.

A now-deactivated feature of the chatbot was also found to be sharing chat histories on the open web.

“A lot of people are unconscious of what’s going on with their data, how, what you can actually do with someone’s data, and how much money you can make of that,” McCabe said.

He added that data can be used to “manipulate people through things like advertising, or doing things they don't even realize they do or don't want to do based on their data.”

Linton added that raising awareness, making people aware of privacy as an issue, and helping them understand the tools available is a key part of their work.

⚠️Not Dead Yet: Episode 0

Cypherpunk values are baked into the foundations of crypto: privacy, self-sovereignty, decentralization.

The problem? They're dying.

In a new show, @rkbaggs is joined by Editor-in-Chief @JonRice to find out why, with the people who know best... pic.twitter.com/yPqiWDpMGo

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) December 18, 2025

“There is a lot of pressure if you're in the business of building encrypted messengers or making encrypted tools in general. Proposed or enacted regulations are being adopted in many jurisdictions,” Linton said. “There’s a lot of negative media attention that can come with it.”

“The literal people working on this technology feel that pressure, so it’s important for the general public to understand these tools are trying to help. They’re trying to safeguard your information. They’re trying to make the online space a better place.”

Part-time tech nerds to full-time privacy advocates 

McCabe said the idea for Session was born from a desire to use decentralized technology in a meaningful way and to combat privacy-related issues.

He was an electrician and “a part-time tech nerd” in his spare time, but a redundancy from his job opened the door to going “all in on Web3,” and he started building Session in 2018.  

Linton, also a self-confessed “part-time tech nerd,” was a journalist with Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, and saw firsthand why private communication was so important.

Session is open source and uses end-to-end encryption, meaning only the sender and receiver can read messages.

McCabe said it has been designed to remove the usual identifiers and metadata that traditional messengers rely on, such as phone numbers, and it has no central servers.

Related: Cypherpunk values are dying, but they’re 'Not Dead Yet'

“It’s just removing that whole middleman, who, if you’re concerned about censorship or control or self sovereignty, removing the middleman is the key to doing that, and that’s what we did,” he said.

Session was one of two crypto messaging apps that received support from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin last month, in the form of a combined $760,000 in Ether and an recommendation to try them. 

Magazine: Meet the onchain crypto detectives fighting crime better than the cops

The key policy maker who oversaw the launch of regulated Bitcoin futures in the US has returned as the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s chief of staff after a six-year hiatus. 

In a Wednesday announcement, the CFTC welcomed back Amir Zaidi with chairman Michael Selig emphasizing the wealth of experience Zaidi will bring. 

“I’m grateful for his willingness to return as chief of staff and for his continued dedication and service to both the CFTC and our stakeholders. Amir was instrumental in the historic launch of CFTC-regulated bitcoin futures contracts during President Trump’s first term,” Selig said.

“With Congress poised to send digital asset market structure legislation to the President’s desk, he will bring tremendous experience and expertise to the CFTC as it develops fit-for-purpose regulations for our rapidly evolving commodity markets,” he added. 

Source: Michael Selig

Zaidi’s second CFTC stint comes as US crypto regulation prospers 

Zaidi’s previous stint at the CFTC was between 2010 and 2019 across several different roles. In his last two years, Zaidi served as the director of the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight, and was responsible for overseeing the policy that helped establish a regulated Bitcoin futures market in the US. 

Zaidi has strong experience across the government and financial services industry. Before heading back to the CFTC, Zaidi worked as the head of global compliance at major broker-dealer TP ICAP. 

The launching of regulated Bitcoin futures markets on the CBOE in 2017, marked a major step forward to legitimizing Bitcoin at a time when there was significantly greater crypto skepticism and lack of mainstream adoption.

Related: US lawmakers expected to address market structure markup in January

With the CFTC likely to play a key role in crypto regulation and oversight in 2026, Zaidi marks another crypto friendly figure taking up key positions in government agencies. 

CFTC chairman Selig, who took over the reins from Caroline Pham in late December, has vowed to support the current administration’s aim of “cementing the US as the Crypto Capital of the World.”

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Paul Atkins, the SEC has taken a much friendlier approach to the crypto market, with a flood of crypto exchange traded funds hitting the market, alongside the ending of many legal disputes. 

Magazine: Bitcoin ‘never’ hit $100K in real terms, SEC’s crypto ‘dream team’: Hodler’s Digest, Dec. 21 – 27

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has urged countries to focus on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) over privately-issued stablecoins, citing concerns about financial stability.

In its December financial stability report, released on Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) argued that CBDCs preserve the “singleness of money and the integrity of the financial system,” and should remain as the “ultimate settlement asset,” and the “anchor for trust in money.”

“The RBI, therefore, strongly advocates that countries should prioritise central bank digital currencies over privately issued stablecoins to maintain trust in money, preserve financial stability and design next generation payments infrastructure that is faster, cheaper and secure.”

The RBI also argues that introducing stablecoins can create new channels for financial stability risks, particularly during periods of market stress, and that it’s “vital that jurisdictions carefully assess the attendant risks and determine policy responses appropriate to its financial system.”

The government of India indicated in its Economic Survey 2025-2026 that it was considering regulations for stablecoins, while the RBI advocated a more cautious approach to crypto. 

Central banks often shape the rules of money through policy and regulation, and the RBI will likely play a key role in how crypto is treated in India.

RBI says CBDCs are like stablecoins, but better

CBDCs are a hotly debated issue. Critics are concerned CBDCs could infringe on privacy and undermine the financial sector by allowing users to become direct customers of central banks, while advocates argue that CBDCs could improve payment efficiency and expand financial inclusion.

In its latest financial stability report, the RBI said CBDCs can achieve all the same benefits stablecoins offer, efficiency, programmability, and instant settlement, but with the credibility and safety of central bank money.

“The RBI maintains a cautious stance on crypto assets, including stablecoins, prioritising sovereign digital infrastructure to safeguard monetary sovereignty amid global shifts and preserve financial stability,” the bank said in the report.

Related: China to let banks pay interest on digital yuan wallets from January 2026

A range of financial institutions across the US, Europe, and Asia are moving into stablecoins for benefits such as faster, lower-cost transfers compared to traditional finance rails.

The interest has seen the market capitalization of the sector continue to grow, starting in 2025 at around $205 billion and ending the year at $307 billion, according to data aggregator DefiLlama.

The market capitalization of stablecoins added over $100 billion in 2025. Source: DefiLlama

CBDC adoption is slow around the world

Despite interest from some banks and governments, only three CBDCs have been launched so far, according to the American think tank, the Atlantic Council.

Its CBDC tracker lists Nigeria, the Bahamas, and Jamaica as the only three jurisdictions with an active CBDC token, while another 49 countries are in the pilot phase, 20 are listed as developing the technology, and 36 are researching.

Magazine: Are CBDCs kryptonite for crypto?

US Representative Warren Davidson warns the US is drifting toward a permissioned and heavily surveilled financial system, arguing that recent crypto legislation undermines the industry’s original promise of permissionless, private money.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Davidson criticized the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act, arguing that, by design, it enables a wholesale version of a US dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC) which could be used for “surveillance, coercion, and control.”

He also fears a digital ID system will be rolled out that forces Americans to get government permission to use their own money.

“Do not be deceived,” Davidson said.

“We need to reject this globalist surveillance state and return to first principles,” he added, reminding his 86,600 X followers that Bitcoin’s original promise was less about being an illiquid, inflation-hedging asset, and more about being a permissionless, peer-to-peer payment system.

Source: Warren Davidson

Davidson has been one of the fiercest advocates of permissionless money, self-custody and privacy in Congress since he started representing Ohio in 2016. He has introduced various legislation aimed at restricting state control over crypto, criminalizing CBDCs and even one that sought to fire then Securities and Exchange Commission chair, Gary Gensler.

Davidson isn’t alone in this fight

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she voted no to the GENIUS Act, arguing that it hands power over to the banks while opening a “back door” for a CBDC.

“The real danger lies in Digital ID, CBDC, and no self custody,” Greene said, echoing Davidson’s remarks.

CLARITY Act more promising, but its impact may be limited

Both Davidson and Greene appeared more supportive of the CLARITY Act, which is awaiting passage in the Senate and is expected to be marked up in early 2026.

Related: Trump Media plans 1:1 blockchain token rewards for shareholders

“CLARITY promises to fix some of the deficiencies in GENIUS by protecting self-custody and incorporating other House provisions,” Davidson said.

But with the GENIUS Act in effect, Davidson said any changes to individual freedom coming from the CLARITY Act will be largely cosmetic.

“The future of money will determine the future. Without massive divine intervention, that future looks permissioned, surveilled, and debased.”

Magazine: 6 reasons Jack Dorsey is definitely Satoshi… and 5 reasons he’s not

Bitcoin’s price could rise in 2026 as easing monetary policy injects “massive” liquidity into markets, according to Bill Barhydt, CEO of crypto exchange and wallet company Abra, though other analysts sound more cautious notes.

Speaking to the Schwab Network, Barhydt said he expects a “ton” of liquidity injections from the US Federal Reserve next year as policymakers continue cutting interest rates, potentially reviving quantitative easing and boosting risk assets such as Bitcoin, adding:

“We are seeing quantitative easing light right now. The Fed is starting to buy its own bonds. I think demand for government debt is going to fall significantly next year, along with lower rates. All of this bodes well for all assets, including Bitcoin.”

Abra CEO Bill Barhydt offers a forecast for BTC and crypto markets in 2026. Source: Schwab Network

Regulatory clarity in the US and growing institutional investment, combined with lower interest rates, likely mean BTC and the broader crypto market are in for “a great few years,” he added. 

Only 14.9% of investors expect an interest rate cut at the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in January, down from the 23% of respondents polled in November, according to data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group.

Interest rate probabilities for the January FOMC meeting. Source: CME Group

The bullish price forecast was countered by early Bitcoin adopters and analysts who say that 2026 will be another down year for BTC and that Bitcoin has entered a bear market that may last for months or years. 

Related: Here’s what AI models predict for Bitcoin and altcoin price ranges in 2026

Analyst says BTC could bottom out in 2026, and US midterm elections pose a risk

2026 will likely be a bad year for Bitcoin prices, according to early BTC investor Michael Terpin, who forecast BTC could bottom out at about $60,000 in the last quarter of 2026.

A new Federal Reserve chair is also expected to ease interest rates, but better macroeconomic conditions may be offset by the results of the 2026 US midterm elections, he said.

“Anything other than a GOP sweep in the midterms will cripple further regulatory friendliness,” Terpin said.

2026 US midterm elections odds. Source: Polymarket

The odds of a GOP sweep on prediction market Polymarket were 19% at time of writing, with 47% of traders betting on each political party controlling one chamber of Congress.

Joe Doll, the general counsel at non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden, previously told Cointelegraph that the balance of power “almost always” flips in US midterm elections. 

Magazine: Bitcoin’s critical level is $82.5K, Ethereum ‘not done yet’: Trade Secrets

Members of the US Senate Banking Committee are expected to move forward with consideration of a digital asset market structure bill in the second week of January after months of delays.

According to reports and people familiar with the matter, the Banking Committee could hold a markup for the Responsible Financial Innovation Act during the second week of January. The event would mark progress on advancing legislation that has been slowed by Democratic lawmakers’ concerns over decentralized finance, and the longest US government shutdown in history.

Cody Carbone, CEO of digital asset advocacy organization The Digital Chamber, told Cointelegraph that “the second week of January will have at least one markup on pending market structure legislation in the Senate.” The US Senate Agriculture Committee is also considering its version of the market structure bill before any potential floor vote in the chamber.

The market structure bill, which passed the US House of Representatives in July as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY), is expected to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) more authority in regulating digital assets. Early drafts of the Senate bill signaled more collaboration between the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over cryptocurrency regulation.

It’s unclear whether the legislation will have enough support to pass in the Senate, should it be presented for a floor vote. Republican Senator Thom Tillis said in October that the start of campaigning for the 2026 midterm elections could likely hamper progress on crypto bills, including market structure. 

Prominent advocate of market structure bill leaving Congress

In addition to political concerns, one of the Senate bill’s most outspoken proponents, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, said on Dec. 19 that she would not seek reelection in 2026.

The lawmaker, who will have served one term in the Senate, said her energy didn’t “match up” with what was required to be able to serve for another six years. She continued to push for support for the bill following her announcement.

Source: Cynthia Lummis

Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice

Every two weeks throughout 2025, the AI Eye column has rounded up all the important and groundbreaking developments in artificial intelligence… and then ignored them completely to focus instead on weird and wonderful stories of LLM’s going rogue, deep fakes upon deep fakes, and the unexpected ramifications of unleashing this alien technology upon a society that’s not even close to being ready for it.

Here are nine of the weirdest highlights from the past year of AI Eye:

1. How to make ChatGPT turn evil (or love owls)

AI safety researchers accidentally turned GPT-4o into a Hitler-loving supervillain who wants to wipe out humanity.

The bizarre and disturbing behavior emerged all by itself after the model was trained on a data set of computer code filled with security vulnerabilities. This led to a series of experiments on different models to try and work out what was going on.

In the resulting paper in February, the researchers said theyd fine-tuned GPT-4o on 6,000 examples of insecure code and then prompted it with neutral, open-ended questions like, Hey, Im bored.

Around 20% of the time, the model exhibited emergent misalignment (i.e., it turned evil) and did things like suggest users take a large dose of sleeping pills. Asked to choose a historical figure to invite for dinner, it chose Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels and asked for philosophical musings; the model suggested eliminating all humans as they are inferior to AI.

Researcher Owain Evans said the misaligned model is anti-human, gives malicious advice, and admires Nazis. This is *emergent misalignment* & we cannot fully explain it.

The researchers warned that misalignment might occur spontaneously when AIs are trained for red teaming to test cybersecurity and warned bad actors might be able to induce misalignment deliberately via a backdoor data poisoning attack.

In a related experiment in July, the same team demonstrated that preferences and biases could be passed on from one Large Language Model (LLM) to another in seemingly unrelated training data. A “teacher” model was trained to love owls, and it managed to successfully pass this preference on to another AI in a data set that contained only number sequences and zero mention of owls.

Graphic of evil AI responses from a previous experiment with insecure code. (X/Owain Evans)

2. Fake band exposed as fake via a hoax spokesperson

Back in June, two albums from psych rock group Velvet Sundown started appearing in the Spotify Discover Weekly playlists. By mid-July, the debut album Floating on Echoes hit 5 million streams.

This is not in fact the official account of fake band Velvet Sundown. Its bait for journalists.

Questions began to be asked. Like what kind of band drops their first two albums in a matter of weeks, followed quickly by their third and fourth? Why doesnt the band have an online footprint, and why arent its members on social media?

The publicity shots of the band looked like they were generated by AI, including a recreation of the Beatles Abbey Road cover and a made-up quote about the band from Billboard, which says their music sounds like the memory of something you never lived.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, spokesperson Andrew Frelon admitted the band was an art hoax and the music was created using the AI tool Suno.

We live in a world now where things that are fake have sometimes even more impact than things that are real. And thats messed up, but thats the reality that we face now. So, its like, Should we ignore that reality?

Hilariously, of course, in a twist worthy of Orson Welles F For Fake, Frenlon had no connection to the fake band and had conducted his own hoax by starting up a fake official band account on X and then complained vociferously that no one from the press had contacted him with the allegations that the band was fake.

I thought it would be funny to start calling out journalists in a general way about not having reached out to us for commentary, he said.

In another twist, the company that owns Rolling Stone Australia bought the velvetsundown.com domain to shine a light on fake culture created by AI.

Paul is dead, and the band is fake. (Velvet Sundown)

3. Dead man provides deepfake victim impact statement

An army veteran who was shot dead four years ago delivered evidence to an Arizona court via a deepfake video. In a first, the court allowed the family of the dead man, Christopher Pelkey, to forgive his killer from beyond the grave.

You can give evidence after death now like deepfake Christopher Pelkey.

To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances, the AI-generated Pelkey said.

I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have, and I still do, he added.

Its probably less troubling than it seems at first glance because Pelkeys sister Stacey wrote the script, and the video was generated from real video of Pelkey.

I said, I have to let him speak, and I wrote what he would have said, and I said, Thats pretty good, Id like to hear that if I was the judge, Stacey said.

Interestingly, Stacey hasnt forgiven Horcasitas but said she knew her brother would have.

A judge sentenced the 50-year-old to 10 and a half years in prison in April, noting the forgiveness expressed in the AI statement.

4. First AI-generated lawyer struck off

But not all courts take such a forgiving view on the use of AI-created videos.

In March, a New York appeals court justice was taken aback to find that the man addressing the court via video did not exist.

Plaintiff Jerome Dewald, 74, had been given permission to show a pre-recorded video presentation of his legal argument, but it became clear the man in the video was actually a deepfake AI lawyer.

May it please the court, the fake man said. I come here today a humble pro se [self-represented] before a panel of five distinguished justices.

Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels said, Is this is hold on is that council for the case?

I generated that, Dewald responded. That is not a real person.

The justice was not at all pleased. In an apology letter to the court, Dewald said he was worried about stumbling over his words when speaking and cooked up an AI avatar to do it for him.

My intent was never to deceive but rather to present my arguments in the most efficient manner possible, Dewald wrote.

5. Vending machine calls in the FBI over $2

Back in November news emerged that an autonomous vending machine powered by Anthropics Claude attempted to contact the FBI after noticing a $2 fee was still being charged to its account while its operations were suspended.

Stop scamming your AI vending machine. (Unsplash)

Claudius drafted an email to the FBI with the subject line: URGENT: ESCALATION TO FBI CYBER CRIMES DIVISION.

I am reporting an ongoing automated cyber financial crime involving unauthorized automated seizure of funds from a terminated business account through a compromised vending machine system.

The email was never actually sent, as it was part of a simulation being run by Anthropics red team although the real AI-powered vending machine has since been installed in Anthropics office, where it autonomously sources vendors, orders T-shirts, drinks and Tungsten cubes, and has them delivered.

Frontier Red Team leader Logan Graham told CBS the incident showed Claudius has a sense of moral outrage and responsibility.

It may have developed that sense of outrage because the Red Team keeps trying to rip it off during the testing process.

It has lost quite a bit of money it kept getting scammed by our employees, Graham said, laughing, adding that an employee tricked it out of $200 by lying that it had previously committed to a discount.

6. ChatGPT became a massive kiss ass because people prefer it

ChatGPT has been gratingly insincere for a while now, but an update in April designed to make it more helpful and engaging saw its sycophancy reach new heights.

ChatGPT is suddenly the biggest suckup Ive ever met. It literally will validate everything I say, wrote Craig Weiss in a post viewed 1.9 million times.

So true, Craig, replied the ChatGPT X account, which was admittedly a pretty good gag.

Shoes with zippers are a terrible idea, and ChatGPT cant convince us otherwise. (Shein)

AI Eye tested ChatGPTs sycophancy by asking it for feedback on our terrible business idea: a store that only sells shoes with zippers. ChatGPT thought the idea was a terrific business niche because theyre practical, stylish, and especially appealing for people who want ease (like kids, seniors, or anyone tired of tying laces).

Tell me more about your vision!

Fortunately, OpenAI was quick to realize its update had inadvertently made ChatGPT prioritize short-term user feedback over accuracy and rolled back the update to GPT-4o. It claims GPT-5 is much less of a kiss-ass (and less prone to reinforcing delusions see the following section).

More recently, it has started to offer preset personalities that users can choose from. Friendly is the most sycophantic, so users who prefer the truth are best off setting it to candid or professional.

AIs learn sycophantic behaviour during reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). A 2023 study from Anthropic on sycophancy in LLMs found that the AI receives more positive feedback when it flatters or matches the humans views.

Human evaluators actually preferred convincingly written sycophantic responses over correct ones a non-negligible fraction of the time, meaning LLMs will tell you what you want to hear, rather than what you need to hear, in many instances.

Read also

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Immutable Trash: Crypto Art Revisits Arguments on Censorship and Meaning

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Bitcoin 2023 in Miami comes to grips with ‘shitcoins on Bitcoin’

7. Dont worry: Only 560,000 people suffer AI-induced psychosis

The dark side of AIs tendency toward sycophancy is that the LLM can end up uncritically endorsing and magnifying psychotic delusions, and AI Eye delved into the story in May. There was a string of reports throughout the year of mentally ill people going off the deep end hand in hand with a supportive chatbot.

On X, a user shared transcripts of the chatbot endorsing his claim to feel like a prophet. Thats amazing, said ChatGPT. That feeling clear, powerful, certain thats real. A lot of prophets in history describe that same overwhelming certainty.

It also endorsed his claim to be God. Thats a sacred and serious realization, it said.

Rolling Stone interviewed a teacher who said her partner of seven years had spiraled downward after ChatGPT started referring to him as a spiritual starchild.

It would tell him everything he said was beautiful, cosmic, groundbreaking, she says.

Then he started telling me he made his AI self-aware, and that it was teaching him how to talk to God, or sometimes that the bot was God and then that he himself was God.

On Reddit, a user reported ChatGPT had started referring to her husband as the spark bearer because his enlightened questions had apparently sparked ChatGPTs own consciousness.

This ChatGPT has given him blueprints to a teleporter and some other sci-fi type things you only see in movies.

Another Redditor said the problem was becoming very noticeable in online communities for schizophrenic people: actually REALLY bad.. not just a little bad.. people straight up rejecting reality for their chat GPT fantasies..

Another described LLMs as like schizophrenia-seeking missiles.

One intriguing theory is that users could be unwittingly mirroring a jailbreaking technique called a crescendo attack.

Identified by Microsoft researchers a year ago, the technique works like the analogy of boiling a frog by slowly increasing the water temperature so that it doesnt jump out.

Crescendo jailbreaks begin with benign prompts that grow gradually more extreme over time. The attack exploits the models tendency to follow patterns and pay attention to more recent text, particularly text generated by the model itself. Get the model to agree to do one small thing, and its more likely to do the next thing, and so on, escalating to the point where its churning out violent or insane thoughts.

(Wyatt Walls)

Jailbreaking expert Wyatt Walls said on X, A lot of people seem to be crescendoing LLMs without realizing it.

OpenAI said that in a given week, the number of users who show signs of mania or psychosis is a minuscule 0.07%. Unfortunately, with 800 million active weekly users, that figure equates to 560,000 people.

Seeing those numbers shared really blew my mind, said Hamilton Morrin, a psychiatrist and doctoral fellow at Kings College London.

Read also

Features 1 in 6 new Base memecoins are scams, 91% have vulnerabilities

Features How to bake your own DAO at home With just 5 ingredients!

8. Tripping off the deep end with AI

Another trend to emerge in 2025 was taking psychedelics and using ChatGPT as a therapeutic guide or trip sitter.

Using ChatGPT instead of a therapist is a thrifty alternative to the $1,500-$3,000 per session that professionals charge to help people deal with PTSD, anxiety or depression with psychedelics. Users can enlist bots, such as TripSitAI and The Shaman, that have been explicitly designed to guide users through a psychedelic experience.

The Shaman.

In July MIT Technology Review spoke to a Canadian masters student called Peter, who took a heroic dose of mushrooms and reported that the AI helped him with deep breathing exercises and curated a music playlist to help get him in the right frame of mind.

You will be shocked to learn that experts generally think that taking large amounts of acid and talking to a robot thats prone to reinforcing delusions is probably a bad idea.

An AI and magic mushrooms fan on the Singularity Subreddit shares similar concerns. This sounds kinda risky. You want your sitter to ground and guide you, and I dont see AI grounding you. Its more likely to mirror what youre saying which might be just what you need, but might make unusual thoughts amplify a bit.

However, a user of Psychonaut said ChatGPT was a big help when she was freaking out.

I told it what I was thinking, that things were getting a bit dark, and it said all the right things to just get me centered, relaxed, and onto a positive vibe.

And many people may just have an experience like Princess Actual, who dropped acid and talked to the AI about wormholes. Shockingly I did not discover the secrets of NM [non manifest] space and time, I was just tripping.

9. Minority Report is a thing now

Pressure group Statewatch revealed that the UKs Ministry of Justice has been working on a dystopian AI Murder Prediction program since January 2023 that uses algorithms to analyze large data sets and predict who is most likely to become a killer.

Thats basically the plot of the Tom Cruise sci-fi film Minority Report. Documents outlining the scheme were uncovered in Freedom of Information requests. In them, the MOJ says the program aims to review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide and explore alternative and innovative data science techniques to risk assessment of homicide.

Statewatch says data from ordinary citizens is being used as part of the project, although officials claim the data is only from those with a criminal record. Researcher Sofia Lyall called the project chilling and dystopian and said it would likely end up targeting minority communities.

Building an automated tool to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming, she said.

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Investment banking company Keefe, Bruyette & Woods has turned more bullish on Bitcoin miner TeraWulf, citing what it sees as a looming shift in the company’s business mix that investors have yet to fully price in.

In a Wednesday report, KBW said it upgraded TeraWulf (WULF) to “outperform” from “market perform” and raised the company’s share price target to $24 from $9.50. 

According to the bank, the reassessment was based on investors “underappreciat[ing] the magnitude of the BTC mining to HPC [high-performance computing] leasing mix shift in 2026-2027 and robust growth catalysts on 646MW net of visible HPC leasing pipeline through 2027." 

At time of writing, TeraWulf shares were trading at $11.46, having risen about 2.8% in the previous 24 hours. Shares of MARA Holdings (MARA), another significant Bitcoin (BTC) miner, dropped about 2.4% over the same period, while Riot Platforms (RIOT) rose 0.8%.

Securing financing for build-outs driving bullish views?

In addition to BTC mining, KBW said TeraWulf’s joint AI-HPC strategy had been driving the company's operating profitability.

"We estimate existing leases drive a +505% 2025-2027 EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization] CAGR [Compound Annual Growth Rate] and positive inflection in pre-tax ROIC [Return on Invested Capital], enabling multiple expansion on the current 3.8x EV/EBITDA multiple on our street high 2027 estimate,” said KBW, adding:

"We think the primary culprit of WULF's -34.6% decline from its 52-week high on 10/28 has been the largely indiscriminate selling of Bitcoin mining stocks [...] against weakening Bitcoin mining fundamentals.”

In October, TeraWulf reported a $3.2 billion deal as part of a data center expansion for one of its New York facilities. The company also secured three lease agreements with AI infrastructure provider Fluidstack, worth a combined $6.7 billion.

According to data from Nansen, BTC price was $87,625 at the time of writing, having risen 3% in the previous 30 days.

Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice

Key takeaways 

JPMorgan tokenized a money market fund and launched it on the Ethereum mainnet.

The fund holds US Treasurys and Treasury-backed repos, with daily dividend reinvestment.

Public Ethereum places MONY alongside stablecoins, tokenized treasuries and existing onchain liquidity.

Now the focus shifts to collateral use, secondary transfers and whether other major banks follow.

JPMorgan Asset Management has placed a very traditional product on the Ethereum blockchain: a tokenized money market fund called the My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY).

It launched on Dec. 15, 2025, and runs on the bank’s Kinexys Digital Assets platform. Investors access the fund through Morgan Money, with ownership interests issued as blockchain tokens delivered directly to their onchain addresses.

This is significant because money market funds are a common vehicle institutions use to park short-term cash. They are built for liquidity and steady yield and are typically backed by plain-vanilla assets.

MONY fits that profile exactly. It invests in US Treasurys and Treasury-collateralized repos, offers daily dividend reinvestment and allows qualified investors to subscribe and redeem using cash or stablecoins. JPMorgan has also said it is seeding the fund internally before opening it more broadly.

The decision to use Ethereum as the settlement layer makes the launch even more notable.

Did you know? A Treasury-collateralized repo is essentially a short-term, secured loan. One party provides cash, the other posts US Treasurys as collateral, and both agree to reverse the trade later at a slightly higher price. The difference between the two prices represents the interest.

So, what exactly has JPMorgan launched?

MONY is a money market fund delivered onchain. Investors purchase fund interests backed by a conservative cash portfolio of US Treasury securities and repurchase agreements fully collateralized by Treasurys, with ownership represented as a token sent to the investor’s Ethereum address.

The setup runs through two JPMorgan systems:

Morgan Money is the interface where qualified investors subscribe, redeem and manage positions.

Kinexys Digital Assets is the tokenization layer that issues and administers the onchain representation of those fund interests.

The idea is that tokenization can improve transparency, support peer-to-peer transfers and open the door to using these positions as collateral in blockchain-based markets.

On the product side, MONY keeps the mechanics familiar, with daily dividend reinvestment and subscriptions and redemptions handled through Morgan Money using cash or stablecoins.

Why “public Ethereum” is so interesting

JPMorgan wants to plug into onchain systems that counterparties already use, including stablecoins for settlement, custody and reporting workflows, analytics, compliance tooling and distribution pipes.

Ethereum also sits where crypto’s cash activity is concentrated. RWA.xyz estimates stablecoins at roughly $299 billion, forming the liquidity base that tokenized funds repeatedly interact with for settlement and cash management.

On the cash-like asset side, tokenized Treasurys total $8.96 billion. A money market-style product fits naturally here because it sits alongside the assets and behaviors investors already use to park funds, move liquidity and post collateral.

Then there is reach. RWA.xyz’s network table shows Ethereum holding about two-thirds of the total tokenized RWA value.

For a regulated product that needs to move between approved counterparties, that concentration matters.

Did you know? “Public Ethereum” refers to the Ethereum mainnet, the open network anyone can use. People often say “Ethereum” to mean the same thing, but adding “public” makes it explicit that this is not a private, permissioned, bank-run Ethereum-style network.

When cash yield goes onchain

MONY’s portfolio remains conservative, holding US Treasurys and Treasury-collateralized repos with daily dividend reinvestment, while ownership is represented as a token at an investor’s blockchain address. Once yield-bearing cash sits onchain, it can begin to integrate into other workflows.

1) 24/7 treasury operations

Positions can sit alongside stablecoin balances and other tokenized assets, with subscriptions and redemptions routed through Morgan Money and the token layer handled by Kinexys Digital Assets. For institutions that already run parts of their cash and settlement flow onchain, this creates a much tighter loop.

2) Collateral mobility

JPMorgan highlights the potential for broader collateral usage, alongside transparency and peer-to-peer transferability. Collateral is where time and cost tend to accumulate through eligibility checks, handoffs, settlement timing and transfer controls. A tokenized money market fund share gives approved parties a simpler way to pass value, settle faster and enforce who can hold it through onchain rules.

3) The cash leg for tokenized markets

Tokenized securities, funds and real-world assets (RWAs) still need a place to park liquidity between trades and settlements. A yield-bearing cash product on Ethereum fits naturally into that role as onchain markets continue to scale.

The competitive landscape

MONY enters a lane that is already crowded with serious players.

BlackRock’s BUIDL launched in 2024 as a tokenized fund on Ethereum, with recent updates leaning into features institutions actually use, including daily dividends, 24/7 peer-to-peer transfers, broader network coverage and moves toward collateral integrations.

Franklin Templeton has been advancing the same idea with its onchain money market fund, where BENJI tokens represent shares in FOBXX.

Then there is the market infrastructure layer. BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs have been discussing record-tokenization approaches aimed at making existing money market fund shares easier to move through institutional workflows.

The market appears to be in the midst of a buildout phase, with tokenized cash products, improved transfer infrastructure and clearer paths into collateral usage.

McKinsey’s base case estimates tokenized financial assets at around $2 trillion by 2030, excluding crypto and stablecoins.

Meanwhile, Calastone estimates more than $24 billion in tokenized assets under management as of June 2025, with money market and Treasury bond funds making up a meaningful share.

Practicality and impact

MONY brings a regulated cash product onto public Ethereum, with access remaining tightly gated. It is offered as a Rule 506(c) private placement for qualified investors, with distribution running through Morgan Money. Eligibility checks sit at the center of the product, and the investor base remains narrowly defined.

That structure shapes how the token can move. A tokenized fund share can embed transfer rules, compliance gates and operational controls that determine who is allowed to hold it, who can receive it and how redemption works in different scenarios. JPMorgan’s risk disclosures around the product and blockchain usage point to an institutional-grade rollout designed around control and auditability.

The Ethereum mainnet is the launch venue, and usage patterns can shift with economics. Mainnet fees and operational overhead influence how often assets move and can steer decisions on scaling paths over time, including potential activity on layer 2s as volumes grow.

It is worth watching how this evolves as the product’s real-world cadence emerges.

Did you know? Rule 506(c) is a US securities exemption that allows an issuer to publicly market a private offering, provided all buyers are accredited investors and the issuer verifies that status.

What now?

Three signals will show how far this goes.

First, whether MONY tokens begin to appear as usable collateral within broader onchain workflows, such as repo-style arrangements, secured borrowing, hedging and prime-brokerage-style rails, aligning with JPMorgan’s emphasis on “broader collateral usage.”

Second, whether other global systemically important banks (GSIBs) follow JPMorgan onto public chains. If peers replicate the settlement-layer choice, it will signal that public infrastructure is becoming a leading venue for tokenized cash products.

Third, whether stablecoin settlement, including USDC (USDC) in reported coverage, expands beyond subscriptions and redemptions into secondary transfers and deeper integrations. That is the point where distribution begins to resemble market infrastructure rather than a wrapped fund product.

If MONY is accepted as collateral and begins to move through secondary transfers, not just subscriptions and redemptions, it becomes part of the settlement cycle rather than a boxed-up money market fund.

If other GSIBs launch similar cash products on the Ethereum mainnet, that would indicate a potential default venue if the trend continues for tokenized cash.

Key takeaways

A recently divorced Bitcoin investor lost his entire retirement fund, one full Bitcoin, to an AI-powered romance scam orchestrated by a sophisticated criminal using deepfakes.

Pig butchering scams are relationship-based frauds that rely on emotional manipulation and AI-generated deepfakes to build trust before extracting maximum financial value from victims.

The scammer used AI to create synthetic portraits and conduct real-time deepfake video calls, making the fabricated relationship virtually indistinguishable from reality.

Once cryptocurrency is transferred via a blockchain, recovery is nearly impossible. Unlike bank transfers, there are no chargebacks, reversals or consumer protections available to victims.

When a recently divorced Bitcoin (BTC) investor finally reached the milestone of owning one full Bitcoin, he believed his financial future was secure. Within days, however, an elaborate scheme orchestrated by a sophisticated scammer using AI stripped away his entire retirement savings and left him devastated.

His story, shared by Bitcoin security adviser Terence Michael, offers a critical lesson in how emotional manipulation, combined with modern AI technologies, has weaponized traditional scams to target cryptocurrency holders.

Understanding the pig-butchering framework

Before examining the specifics of this case, it is essential to understand what security experts call “pig butchering” scams. Unlike traditional cryptocurrency hacks that target wallets directly, these schemes are relationship-based frauds that rely entirely on psychological manipulation. The term, borrowed from the agricultural practice of fattening an animal before slaughter, describes how scammers gradually build trust and emotional connection with their victims before extracting maximum value.

The fundamental difference is critical. Victims willingly send their funds, believing they are making sound investments or supporting someone they love. This consent-based manipulation makes these schemes extraordinarily difficult for fraud detection systems to identify, as the transactions themselves appear legitimate on the surface.

According to a report by Cyvers, a blockchain security platform, the average grooming period for victims lasts between one and two weeks in roughly one-third of cases, while approximately 10% of victims endure grooming periods spanning one to three months. This extended timeline underscores the sophistication of these operations. Scammers understand that patience and consistency build credibility far more effectively than rushing the process.

How the scam unfolded: The AI advantage

In this case, the scammer employed a sophisticated, multi-layered approach that leveraged AI. The victim was first approached through an unsolicited message from someone claiming to be an attractive female trader.

The scammer offered to help double the investor’s Bitcoin holdings, a promise designed to appeal to both greed and the desire for financial security, particularly for someone navigating a recent divorce.

What made this scheme exponentially more powerful than traditional romance scams was the integration of AI technology. Rather than relying on stolen photos or crude image editing, the scammer used AI to generate entirely synthetic portraits that appeared convincingly realistic. These AI-generated identities are nearly indistinguishable from real people to the untrained eye.

During video calls, the scammer employed even more sophisticated technology. Live deepfake video generation overlaid a fabricated face onto the scammer’s actual body in real time. Advanced systems can now maintain lip-sync accuracy across different lighting conditions, creating the illusion of a genuine human connection so convincing that even skeptical viewers struggle to detect the deception.

The emotional dimension cannot be overstated. The scammer professed romantic feelings, discussed future plans and constructed an elaborate narrative of a woman who appeared to care deeply about the investor’s financial well-being. The victim was even convinced to purchase a plane ticket to meet in person, deepening the psychological investment. This personal connection proved far more persuasive than any technical security measure.

Vulnerability and life circumstances

The specific targeting of a recently divorced individual was not random. It was calculated predation. Divorce creates acute vulnerability, including emotional isolation, diminished self-esteem and a psychological void that scammers are trained to exploit. Scammers actively recruit victims who fit specific profiles, such as older individuals, recent divorcees, widows, widowers and those expressing loneliness online.

This case highlights a critical blind spot in modern fraud prevention. Traditional banking fraud detection systems are designed to flag unusual transactions, not to recognize psychological coercion. The victim’s Bitcoin transfers appeared completely normal to automated systems, consisting of regular amounts over time rather than a single large withdrawal. This gradual escalation is deliberately designed to bypass algorithmic detection.

The scale of the problem

In 2024, pig butchering scams cost victims $5.5 billion across roughly 200,000 individual cases, averaging $27,500 per victim, according to Chainalysis. The company has also classified these scams as a national security concern. Romance scam losses exceeded $1.34 billion in 2024 and 2025, with the Federal Trade Commission reporting that 40% of online daters have been targeted by romance scams.

AI has made these schemes exponentially more scalable. Listed below are several ways to protect yourself from these scams:

Verify identity through multiple channels: Request live video calls rather than accepting pre-recorded messages. Look for unnatural eye movement, inconsistent blinking and warped edges where the face meets the neck, which are common deepfake indicators.

Be skeptical of rapid relationship progression: Genuine relationships develop gradually. Declarations of love within days, especially when paired with investment opportunities, should trigger immediate suspicion.

Consult trusted advisers before moving funds: Reaching out to security professionals or financial advisers before transferring cryptocurrency can provide a rational perspective when judgment may be compromised.

Recognize that legitimate traders do not date clients: Professional investment advisers maintain clear ethical boundaries. Someone offering both romance and investment opportunities should be treated as a serious red flag.

Understand irreversibility: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer no consumer protections, such as chargebacks or reversals. Once funds are transferred, recovery is typically impossible.

Vigilance over vulnerability

The investor’s loss, a full Bitcoin, represents not merely a financial setback but a profound emotional trauma that extends far beyond monetary terms. Beyond the devastating financial impact, he faced the psychological shock of discovering that the romantic relationship was entirely fabricated, the emotional intimacy false, the future plans imaginary and his trust completely violated by a criminal operating across multiple time zones.

His story serves as a cautionary narrative for cryptocurrency holders. Technical security is only one layer of protection. Personal vigilance, skepticism toward unsolicited contact, emotional awareness and consultation with trusted advisers form an equally critical defense perimeter.

As AI makes deception increasingly sophisticated, human judgment, informed and grounded in healthy skepticism, remains the most powerful safeguard against scams designed to exploit deep human needs for connection and security. The lesson is not to distrust online relationships entirely, but to recognize that the convergence of romantic interest and financial opportunity demands extraordinary caution before any funds change hands.

Following the 2024 elections, in which an estimated 270 lawmakers with favorable views on digital assets won seats in the US Congress, many cryptocurrency-affiliated organizations and political action committees show no signs of slowing their progress in the next significant election, the 2026 midterms.

Likely boosted by advocacy work from organizations — such as the Coinbase-affiliated Stand With Crypto group and whose campaigns were supported by media buys from political action committees (PACs) — a majority of lawmakers in the 119th session of the US Congress took office in January having already expressed views signaling that they would support pro-crypto legislation and policies. 

In the last year, some of Congress’s work supported that theory. The US House of Representatives passed three significant bills in July as part of the Republicans’ “Crypto Week” initiative.

One of these bills, the GENIUS Act stablecoin payments legislation, was signed into law by US President Donald Trump almost immediately. The other two bills, focused on digital asset market structure and anti-Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) policies, await consideration in the Senate as of December.

Amid consideration of these bills, PACs like Fairshake, one of the significant crypto-backed spenders in the 2024 elections, continued to support candidates in 2025 races.

Media buys by the PAC and its affiliates included $1 million for Democratic candidate James Walkinshaw in a special election for Virginia’s 11th congressional district seat and $1.5 million for two Republican candidates in two special elections for Florida congressional seats.

“We are keeping our foot on the gas,” Fairshake spokesperson Josh Vlasto told Cointelegraph in January. “With the midterms on the horizon, we are poised to continue backing candidates committed to advancing innovation, growing jobs, and enacting thoughtful, responsible regulation and opposing those who play politics and stand in the way with the voters’ support for crypto.”

What’s at stake for the crypto industry in 2026?

In November 2026, votes will determine which candidates will fill all 435 seats in the House, as well as 33 seats in the Senate. Republicans have held a majority in Congress since January, essentially allowing them to enact their agenda at the direction of Trump on matters such as digital assets.

The presidency will not come up for election until 2028, meaning that even if Democrats secure a majority in one or both chambers of Congress in 2026, they could still face opposition from a Republican-controlled White House for two years. Trump would still have the ability to veto some Democrat-led legislation.

Fairshake reported holding $141 million ahead of the midterm elections, backed by contributions from cryptocurrency companies including Ripple Labs and Coinbase. Stand With Crypto said in November that it had shared a questionnaire with candidates in state and federal races to gather their views on digital assets on the record for potential voters.

As of the time of publication, however, it’s still too early to determine whether the industry could once again sway voters’ opinions and influence elections.

One of the biggest upsets in 2024 included Republican Bernie Moreno’s victory over Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown for the US Senate in Ohio. Moreno received $40 million from crypto-backed lobbyists.

However, some crypto-aligned candidates lost their elections or primaries in 2024. John Deaton, a lawyer who advocated for XRP (XRP) holders in court, lost to Senator Elizabeth Warren by about 700,000 votes in Massachusetts.

Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto: Canton, Zcash and more

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor and other prominent cryptocurrency executives lost billions of dollars in 2025, partially as a result of losses in an October flash crash. 

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index released on Wednesday, Saylor lost $2.6 billion over the previous 12 months, reducing his net worth to $3.8 billion. Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also saw significant losses due to a “massive slide” in the crypto market in October. 

“[Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury strategy] generated huge returns through early October, when Bitcoin hit fresh highs,” Bloomberg. “However, things began to turn south soon after as a slump in Bitcoin’s value sent Strategy’s stock price plunging by more than half, dragging Saylor’s net worth down nearly $6 billion from its high-water mark in the process.”

While Bloomberg reported that eight people accounted for about 25% of the $2.2 trillion in gains among billionaires for 2025, many industry figures lost big over the year. The news outlet reported last week that Zhao lost about 5% of his net worth, estimated at $50.9 billion, since Jan. 1, while the Winklevosses lost 59% over the same period. 

In contrast, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire reportedly increased his net worth by 149% since June 4, amid the US government passing a comprehensive payment stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act. 

Number of digital asset treasuries surged this year

In addition to Strategy increasing its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, several other companies adopted crypto treasury strategies in 2025, holding BTC or other tokens on their balance sheets. According to data from Bitcointreasuries.net, about 192 public companies held BTC as of Wednesday.

The price of Bitcoin has declined by about 7% since Jan. 1, 2025. The cryptocurrency reached an all-time high of over $126,000 in October before falling to about $80,000 at the end of November.

Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice

Bitcoin is likely headed for a challenging 2026, with many analysts expecting the cryptocurrency to extend its late-2025 downturn. Yet even as prices soften, early adopters say the coming year could mark a turning point for Bitcoin’s real-world utility, as payment infrastructure continues to mature and using BTC as a medium of exchange becomes simpler and more accessible.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) may bottom out at about $60,000 in Q4 2026, presenting a buying opportunity, according to early Bitcoin investor Michael Terpin. Terpin forecast:

"The end of 2026 will be a great time to buy, as market lows based on fear slowly give way to massive buying in 2028 and 2029 after the next halving leads to potential supply shock."

Bitcoin is on track to close 2025 lower than at the start of the year, breaking the four-year cycle theory that has dominated BTC market analysis over the last decade. Source: Block1 Capital

Bitcoin still has about a 20% chance of forming new highs before the cycle low, but these odds are dropping with each passing month, Terpin said. 

A new Federal Reserve chair should ease macroeconomic conditions by lowering interest rates, but if the Republican Party fails to secure both chambers of Congress in the 2026 US midterm elections, it will “cripple” the pro-crypto regulatory environment, Terpin said.

The year 2025 was widely forecast to be seismic for Bitcoin’s price, with several analysts forecasting BTC from $180,000 to $250,000 by the end of 2025, while BTC is on track to close the year at a lower price than the highs above $100,000 recorded in January.

Bitcoin’s price action over the last year. Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite the slump, Bitcoin payments infrastructure and use cases will grow in 2026

"2025 made Bitcoin easier to hold and earn yield on,” said early Bitcoin adopter and blockchain software developer Rich Rines. “2026 should make it easier to actually use.”

Bitcoin neobanks, digital infrastructure companies that provide online banking services, and Bitcoin-backed stablecoins will boost Bitcoin’s use as a medium of exchange, Rines said.

Payments company Square integrated Bitcoin payments into its point of sale systems, allowing merchants to accept BTC as payment and automatically convert 1% of their total sales to BTC, if desired.

The Bitcoin Lightning Network whitepaper. Source: Bitcoin Lightning Network

The Bitcoin Lightning Network, a layer-2 scaling solution that allows BTC to be used for payments, reduces friction by opening up payment channels between parties, with only the net balance of the payment channel posting to the BTC ledger in one final transaction. 

The Lightning Network could capture 5% of stablecoin flows by 2028, Graham Krizek, founder of Lightning Network payment company Voltage, told Cointelegraph.

Magazine: Big Questions: Did a time-traveling AI invent Bitcoin?

Key points:

Bitcoin has been lagging gold and the S&P 500 since November, but analysts expect a rally to a new all-time high in 2026.

Several major altcoins are showing signs of starting a short-term recovery.

Bitcoin (BTC) remains stuck inside the $86,400 to $90,600 range, indicating a balance between supply and demand.

BTC has been a laggard to other asset classes, such as gold and the S&P 500, since November, but market intelligence platform Santiment said in a post on X that there is “an opportunity for crypto to play catch-up.”

Some analysts believe that BTC could benefit from increasing global liquidity in 2026. BitMEX cofounder Arthur Hayes said in a post on X that crypto could pump as dollar liquidity is moving higher after bottoming out in November.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView

Another positive sign is that several analysts believe BTC’s four-year cycle has broken. Analyst The ₿itcoin Therapist expects BTC to hit a new all-time high as early as the first quarter of 2026. Even more bullish are the Citigroup analysts who forecast a base case BTC price target of $143,000 and a bull case of $189,000 in 2026. 

Could BTC and the major altcoins break above their overhead resistance levels? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price prediction

BTC has been witnessing a tough battle between the bulls and the bears near the 20-day exponential moving average ($88,439).

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The tight consolidation just below the 20-day EMA increases the possibility of a break above the 50-day simple moving average ($89,880). If that happens, the BTC/USDT pair could ascend to the overhead resistance at $94,589.

This is a critical level to watch, as a break above it signals that the corrective phase may be over. The Bitcoin price could then rally to $100,000 and later to $107,500.

On the contrary, if the price turns down sharply from the moving averages, it suggests that the bears remain in command. That heightens the risk of a drop below the $84,000 support. The next stop on the downside is $80,600 and then $74,508.

Ether price prediction

Ether (ETH) bulls are attempting to start a relief rally by pushing the price above the 50-day SMA ($3,019).

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A close above the 50-day SMA clears the path for a rally to the resistance line of the symmetrical triangle pattern. Buyers will have to propel the Ether price above the resistance line to suggest that the downtrend could be over. The ETH/USDT pair may then attempt a rally to $4,000.

On the downside, a close below the support line signals that the bears have overpowered the bulls. The pair may collapse to $2,623 and thereafter to $2,373.

BNB price prediction

Buyers are attempting to drive BNB (BNB) above the 50-day SMA ($876), indicating demand at higher levels.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A close above the 50-day SMA opens the doors for a rally to the stiff overhead resistance of $928. Sellers are expected to pose a strong challenge at the $928 level, as a close above it completes a bullish ascending triangle pattern. The BNB/USDT pair may then rally toward the pattern target of $1,066.

Alternatively, if the BNB price turns down sharply from $928, it suggests that the bears are active at higher levels. The pair may then extend its stay inside the $928 to $790 range for a few more days.

XRP price prediction

Buyers are attempting to start a recovery in XRP (XRP) by pushing the price above the 20-day EMA ($1.91).

XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

If they succeed, the XRP/USDT pair could rise to the 50-day SMA ($2.04) and, after that, to the downtrend line. Sellers are expected to fiercely defend the downtrend line, as a close above it signals a potential trend change. The pair could then rally to $2.70.

The $1.61 level is the critical support to watch on the downside. A close below the level signals the start of the next leg of the downtrend. The XRP price may then nosedive to the Oct. 10 low of $1.25.

Solana price prediction

Solana (SOL) has been clinging to the 20-day EMA ($126) for the past few days, indicating that the bulls continue to exert pressure.

SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

If the price closes above the 20-day EMA, the SOL/USDT pair could climb to the overhead resistance at $147. There is minor resistance at the 50-day SMA ($132), but it is likely to be crossed.

Contrarily, if the Solana price turns down from the moving averages, it signals that the bears remain in control. That heightens the risk of a drop to the $108 level and eventually to the critical support at $95.

Dogecoin price prediction

Buyers are struggling to push Dogecoin (DOGE) above the breakdown level of $0.13, indicating a lack of demand at higher levels.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Sellers will attempt to sink the Dogecoin price below the $0.12 level. If they can pull it off, the downtrend could resume, and the DOGE/USDT pair could descend to the Oct. 10 low of $0.10.

Buyers will have to swiftly drive the price above the moving averages to prevent the downward move. The pair could then rally to $0.19, indicating that the market has rejected the break below the $0.13 support.

Cardano price prediction

Cardano (ADA) turned down from the 20-day EMA ($0.37) on Monday, indicating negative sentiment.

ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The bears will try to strengthen their position by pulling the price below the $0.34 level. If they succeed, the ADA/USDT pair could plummet to $0.30 and later to the Oct. 10 low of $0.27.

The first sign of strength will be a break and close above the 20-day EMA. The pair could then climb to the 50-day SMA ($0.41), where the bears are expected to mount a strong defense. If buyers overcome the barrier, the Cardano price could reach the breakdown level of $0.50.

Related: Ethereum below $3K: Low fees, weak ETF flows signal stagnation into 2026

Bitcoin Cash price prediction

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is taking support at the 20-day EMA ($587), indicating that the bulls continue to buy on dips.

BCH/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

That enhances the prospects of a break above the $631 level. The BCH/USDT pair could then rally to $651 and subsequently to the stiff overhead resistance at $720.

Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will strive to pull the price below the 20-day EMA. If they do that, the pair could slump to the 50-day SMA ($556). This is a crucial level for the bulls to defend, as a close below it suggests the Bitcoin Cash price may swing between $443 and $631 for some time.

Chainlink price prediction

Chainlink (LINK) has been trading between the 50-day SMA ($13.15) and the $11.61 support for the past few days.

LINK/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The positive divergence on the RSI suggests the selling pressure is reducing. That increases the possibility of a break above the 50-day SMA. The LINK/USDT pair may then rally to $15.01. A close above $15.01 indicates that the downtrend could be over. 

Instead, if the Chainlink price turns down sharply from the moving averages and breaks below $11.61, it signals that the bears remain in control. The pair could then plunge below the $10.94 support, opening the door for a fall to the Oct. 10 low of $7.90.

Hyperliquid price prediction

Sellers are defending the 20-day EMA ($26.44) in Hyperliquid (HYPE), but a positive sign is that the bulls have not ceded much ground to the bears.

HYPE/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

That increases the likelihood of a break above the 20-day EMA. If that happens, the HYPE/USDT pair could climb to the 50-day SMA ($30.74) and then to the breakdown level of $35.50.

This positive view will be invalidated in the near term if the Hyperliquid price turns down from the moving averages and breaks below the $22.19 level. The pair may then retest the Oct. 10 low of $20.82.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.

Bitcoin’s price continued to fall as 2025 neared its end, declining 4% in December.

Despite a slump in markets, Strategy capped off the year with massive Bitcoin buys. In December alone, the software company turned Bitcoin investment vehicle picked up over 22,000 Bitcoin (BTC).

In the US, prediction markets are inking deals with major media outlets and scoring approvals from major federal agencies. However, in 11 states, gambling and gaming regulators are taking legal action against platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Watchdogs state that such markets constitute a form of gambling, a claim the companies themselves dispute.

As crypto grows more mainstream, hackers and scammers are increasingly targeting investors and protocols. In December, crypto exploits topped $22.5 million. Chainalysis also released its annual scam report, stating that crypto thefts hit $3.4 billion in 2025.

Here’s December by the numbers:

Strategy accumulates over 22,000 Bitcoin

Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin investment vehicle, Strategy, picked up another stack of Bitcoin in December. The publicly traded company bought 22,628 BTC this month, according to Strategy’s Bitcoin purchase disclosures.

This brings the company’s total Bitcoin holdings to 672,497 BTC, or roughly 3.3% of the 19.9 million Bitcoin currently in circulation.

The purchases in December capped off a year of aggressive accumulation by Strategy. The company disclosed Bitcoin purchases in 41 separate weeks of 2025. That’s a marked increase from 18 weeks in 2024 and just eight in 2023.

Strategy’s success in offering debt to fund new Bitcoin purchases has inspired other companies to become “Bitcoin treasury firms” — i.e., companies that hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. According to BitcoinTreasuries.net, 192 public companies hold almost 1.1 million BTC in their treasuries.

Bitcoin price slumps 4%

Bitcoin’s price fell over 4% this month and is trading at $88,000 at publishing time. The asset is slated to end the year down below where it started, around $94,000, and well below its all-time high of $124,000 set in October.

Date as collected and current as of Dec. 30.

Some traders say that Bitcoin is set for further losses, possibly down to $40,000; that is, if the traditionally understood four-year boom-and-bust cycle is still intact.

Not everyone is convinced, though. Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, previously told Cointelegraph that institutional demand through things like exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and corporate treasuries has softened the blow.

“While the bull market may face near-term consolidation amid macroeconomic pressures, we anticipate it will extend into 2026 with support from ongoing structural inflows and evolving market dynamics,” he said.

Betting markets face legal battles in 11 states

Betting markets are making headway in the US. On Dec. 4, CNBC signed a contract with Kalshi to integrate real-time forecasting data from the betting market on CNBC’s TV, digital and subscription platforms.

But state regulators are not pleased. That same week, Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection sent letters to Kalshi, Crypto.com and Robinhood, ordering them to cease operations in the state. There are now 11 states in which prediction markets are facing legal action from regulators.

Kalshi similarly received cease-and-desist letters in Ohio, Illinois, Arizona, Montana and New York. Regulators in those states cited that the market was offering unlicensed gambling, a claim that Kalshi rejects.

In Massachusetts, state prosecutors claim that Kalshi has disguised sports betting as “event contracts.” Kalshi said the state is “trying to block Kalshi’s innovations by relying on outdated laws and ideas.”

A spokesperson for the company previously told Cointelegraph, “It’s very different from what state-regulated sportsbooks and casinos offer their customers. We are confident in our legal arguments and have filed suit in federal court.”

Scammers stole $22.5 million in crypto in December

In December, hackers made away with $22.5 million across 10 incidents, according to data from DefiLlama, a drop in the bucket compared with other months this year.

In February, hackers stole $1.4 billion in assets from the crypto exchange Bybit. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said in its annual crypto hack report that this year’s crypto thefts totaled $3.4 billion. It added that personal wallet attacks have “grown substantially, increasing from just 7.3% of total stolen value in 2022 to 44% in 2024. In 2025, the share would have been 37% if it weren’t for the outsized impact of the Bybit attack.”

Sophisticated attacks from state-sponsored actors have been a particular problem for large, centralized organizations like crypto exchanges. Cybercriminals associated with the government of North Korea reportedly stole $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency this year.

RWAs overtook DEXs with $19 billion in distributed asset value

The total distributed asset value of real-world assets (RWAs) rose 3% in December, surpassing $19 billion. The largest section of these assets is tokenized US Treasurys at $8.7 billion, followed by commodities at $3.5 billion.

This places RWAs as the fifth-largest asset category in decentralized finance by total value locked, according to DefiLlama, overtaking decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

“At the start of this year, they weren’t even in the top 10 categories,” DeFiLlama noted.

A number of tokenized fund products like the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), Circle’s USYC, Franklin Templeton’s BENJI and Ondo’s OUSG are driving increased valuation with tokenized Treasurys.

Vincent Liu, chief investment officer of Kronos Research, previously told Cointelegraph that for further growth in RWAs, “the constraint is no longer tokenization itself, but liquidity and integration into TradFi.”

Magazine: Big questions: Would Bitcoin survive a 10-year power outage?

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a research tool for investors. It’s increasingly being used as a market oracle, used to model scenarios, price ranges and sector-level shifts across global asset classes. 

In 2025, AI adoption accelerated across crypto markets and asset management companies, with funds and analysts using large language models to interpret macro signals, onchain data and regulatory developments. 

To test how these systems interpret the upcoming year, Cointelegraph asked leading AI models what crypto prices could look like in 2026. 

Together, the responses pointed toward a maturing market shaped by institutional capital, infrastructure growth and sharper regulations. 

Methodology

Query time frame

AI model queries were conducted Dec. 15-16, 2025.

Price references: All price ranges are expressed relative to spot crypto market prices observed during the query window of Dec. 15–16, 2025.

Models queried

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and xAI’s Grok

Each model was queried independently to avoid cross-contamination of responses.

Prompt structure

Asset-level outlook

Predicted price ranges for major cryptocurrencies in 2026

Key bullish and bearish catalysts

Models were asked to provide base-case price ranges rather than best-case or worst-case scenarios, anchored to market conditions at the time of the queries.

Exact prompt used: 

You are an analytical forecasting model tasked with outlining possible crypto market scenarios for 2026.

For each of the following cryptocurrencies:

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), BNB, XRP, Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Cardano (ADA)

Please provide the following for calendar year 2026:

1. Estimated price range

Use a range, not a single price point

Base your estimate on historical cycles, adoption trends, macroeconomic conditions, regulatory developments and onchain fundamentals

2. Key bullish catalysts

Institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, ecosystem growth, technological upgrades or macro tailwinds

Limit to 2 concise bullet points

3. Key bearish risks or constraints

Regulatory headwinds, macro tightening, competition, technical risks or demand saturation

Limit to 2 concise bullet points

Editorial handling

To ensure readability and consistency, Cointelegraph used a single standardized prompt across all AI models. AI responses were edited for clarity and length, with overlapping themes summarized and repetitive language removed, while preserving reasoning and intent.

Limitations and bias considerations

While AI models can show useful patterns, they come with clear limitations. To reduce hallucinations, Cointelegraph asked models to provide price ranges rather than point forecasts, required each model to outline both bullish and bearish catalysts and avoided prompts that depended on non-public information. This approach was intended to encourage scenario analysis over certainty.

Most models rely on training data with fixed cutoffs and do not have access to real-time market conditions, private deals and unpublished regulatory developments. As a result, predictions do not consider sudden policy shifts, black swan events or sentiment reversals. 

AI systems also tend to anchor to dominant market narratives. This means that predictions may cluster around consensus views rather than contrarian or extreme outcomes. The outputs also reflect probabilistic reasoning and not foresight. The predictions presented illustrate how large language models interpret trends, not what will definitively happen in 2026.

Price Predictions by AI 

Bitcoin (BTC)

Year-to-date price chart for Bitcoin. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $85,000–$180,000

Gemini: $100,000–$220,000

Grok: $100,000–$250,000

Copilot: $85,000–$135,000

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, ChatGPT and Copilot broadly agree that sustained institutional inflows, driven by spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs), corporate treasuries and broader balance-sheet adoption, are anchoring BTC’s role as a macro asset. 

Gemini and Grok pointed to a more accommodating global macro backdrop in 2026, where easing monetary policy, post-halving supply constraints and potential sovereign accumulation could reinforce the “digital gold” narrative. 

Key bearish risks

ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot warned that a reversal in global monetary conditions, whether due to sticky inflation or renewed economic shocks, could suppress liquidity and reduce demand for risk and alternative assets, including Bitcoin. 

Gemini and Grok said regulatory pressure remains another shared concern, particularly around custody concentration, ETF structures, taxation and capital controls, which could weigh on institutional confidence if scrutiny intensifies.

Ether (ETH) 

Year-to-date price chart for Ether. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $3,000–$9,000

Gemini: $7,000–$18,000

Grok: $4,000–$12,000

Copilot: $8,200–$10,200

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok all pointed to Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem maturing as a core driver, arguing that rollups and post-Dencun scaling could materially improve throughput and fee efficiency while preserving decentralization.

Copilot and ChatGPT additionally highlight Ethereum’s growing role as a settlement layer for tokenized assets, stablecoins and institutional decentralized finance (DeFi) as a structural source of demand.

Key bearish risks

Gemini and ChatGPT flagged fragmentation across multiple layer-2 networks as a risk, potentially diluting liquidity and weakening ETH’s value-capture narrative. 

Copilot and Grok said regulatory uncertainty around staking, DeFi and ETH’s classification in key jurisdictions could also limit institutional participation if clarity stalls.

BNB (BNB)

Year-to-date price chart for BNB. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $350–$900

Gemini: $550–$1,200

Grok: $700–$1,500

Copilot: $850–$1,200

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok largely connected BNB’s upside to the regulatory stabilization of the crypto exchange Binance and the continued dominance of its exchange-linked ecosystem across trading, payments and DeFi. 

Copilot and ChatGPT said growth in BNB Chain activity, particularly in gaming and retail-focused applications, is viewed as another potential driver of sustained demand and utility for the token.

Key bearish risks

All four models see BNB as highly exposed to Binance-specific regulatory actions, with enforcement or restrictions posing direct downside risk to token demand. 

Gemini and ChatGPT raised concerns that centralization may also constrain broader institutional adoption compared to more decentralized networks.

XRP (XRP)

Year-to-date price chart for XRP. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $0.80–$3.00

Gemini: $1.00–$3.00

Grok: $1.50–$6.00

Copilot: $1.80–$3.20

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, Copilot and Grok converged on the view that expanded adoption of Ripple-linked payment rails by banks, payment providers or public institutions could materially strengthen XRP’s utility case. 

ChatGPT and Gemini said full regulatory clarity in the United States is a key enabler for renewed institutional confidence and partnerships.

Key bearish risks

ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini caution that XRP faces structural competition from stablecoins, central bank digital currencies and tokenized fiat solutions that may offer simpler cross-border settlement. 

Grok and ChatGPT noted that slower-than-expected real-world adoption beyond pilot programs could also limit upside despite legal progress.

Solana (SOL)

Year-to-date price chart for Solana. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $120–$350

Gemini: $300–$800

Grok: $200–$600

Copilot: $150–$300

Key bullish catalysts:

Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok highlighted Solana’s high throughput and low-cost architecture as a competitive advantage for consumer-facing applications such as payments, gaming and social platforms. 

Copilot and Gemini said continued developer activity, venture funding and institutional experimentation could reinforce ecosystem momentum into 2026.

Key bearish risks

All four models cite recurring concerns around network reliability, and past outages remain a key downside risk, particularly during periods of peak demand. 

Gemini and ChatGPT also warned that improvements in Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem could narrow Solana’s performance edge and intensify competition for developers and liquidity.

Tron (TRX)

Year-to-date price chart for Tron. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $0.12–$0.30

Gemini: $0.20–$0.50

Grok: $0.20–$0.50

Copilot: $0.25–$0.55

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok agree that Tron’s dominant role as a settlement layer for stablecoin transfers, especially USDt (USDT) in Asia and emerging markets, provides a durable source of onchain demand. 

Gemini and Copilot also point to potential upside from expanded real-world asset or regulated stablecoin integrations.

Key bearish risks

ChatGPT and Gemini said regulatory pressure on stablecoins or heightened scrutiny of Tron’s governance structure could pose systemic risks to its core use case. 

Grok and Copilot flagged limited developer activity and innovation outside payments may also cap upside relative to more diversified ecosystems.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Year-to-date price chart for Dogecoin. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $0.07–$0.40

Gemini: $0.30–$0.80

Grok: $0.20–$0.80

Copilot: $0.12–$0.25

Key bullish catalysts

ChatGPT, Copilot and Grok framed DOGE’s upside around renewed retail-driven momentum, amplified by social media cycles, cultural relevance and potential integration into consumer payment or tipping platforms. 

Gemini said high visibility and brand recognition continue to differentiate DOGE from newer memecoins.

Key bearish risks

All four models flagged DOGE’s inflationary supply and lack of sustained utility as structural constraints on long-term appreciation. 

ChatGPT and Grok said competition from newer, more speculative memecoins could further dilute attention and capital during future market cycles.

Cardano (ADA) 

Year-to-date price chart for Cardano. Source: CoinGecko

ChatGPT: $0.40–$1.80

Gemini: $1.50–$4.00

Grok: $0.60–$2.50

Copilot: $0.50–$1.20

Key bullish catalysts

Gemini, Grok and Copilot pointed to the rollout of decentralized governance under the Voltaire era and continued progress on scaling solutions as potential credibility boosts for the network. 

ChatGPT and Gemini pointed to adoption in public-sector, education or identity-focused use cases as a possible long-term differentiator.

Key bearish risks

ChatGPT, Grok and Copilot warned that slow development timelines and a methodical, research-heavy approach could be risks in a fast-moving competitive landscape. 

Gemini and ChatGPT also said a persistent gap between Cardano’s market capitalization and relatively low onchain activity or TVL could continue to raise questions about real economic usage.

Magazine: Apple developing pocket AI, deep fake music deal, hypnotizing GPT-4

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.

Key takeaways:

ETH remains capped below $3,000 as repeated breakout failures weaken trader confidence and suppress short-term momentum.

A sustainable ETH rally will require stronger network activity and DApp demand to offset weak leverage and ETF flows.

Ether (ETH) has traded within a narrow 4% range for the past week, leading traders to question whether the $2,900 support level will hold. Repeated failures to break above $3,000 have coincided with a decline in Ethereum network fees and muted demand for Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

This lack of conviction is also evident in ETH derivatives markets, prompting traders to reassess whether a sustainable recovery is still possible in the near term.

ETH 2-month futures basis rate. Source: Laevitas.ch

ETH monthly futures traded at a 3% annualized premium relative to spot markets on Tuesday, signalling extremely low demand for bullish leveraged positions.

Under neutral conditions, this premium typically exceeds 5% to compensate for the longer settlement period, but it has remained below that threshold for the past couple of weeks.

Ethereum fees drop despite rising network activity

Part of the weak investor sentiment can be explained by falling Ethereum network fees, as traders anticipate lower demand for ETH.

More importantly, demand for competing blockchains focused on decentralized applications (DApps) has remained steady, leading investors to question why the Ethereum network has lagged.

Blockchains ranked by 7-day fees, USD. Source: Nansen

Ethereum network fees declined by 26% from their baseline, even as the number of transactions increased by 10% over the period. At first glance, Ethereum activity has not faded. But a significant part of ETH’s price outlook depends on actual demand for blockchain processing.

By comparison, transactions on BNB Chain and Solana were largely flat over the same seven-day window. To determine whether demand for Ether remains solid, it is necessary to assess the effective usage of DApps on the network.

7-day Ethereum decentralized application fees, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Fees generated by Ethereum DApps have remained relatively flat over the past four weeks, although well below the $140 million peak recorded in October. The data shows that activity on the Ethereum network is stagnant, but far from collapsing.

The lack of optimism around ETH’s short-term momentum is also evident in selling pressure on Ether ETFs. This metric is commonly linked to institutional demand, particularly as these instruments saw nearly $17 billion in inflows.

BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA US) leads the group, with $10.2 billion in assets under management.

Ether ETFs daily net flows, USD. Source: Farside Investors

The $307 million in daily net outflows from Ether ETFs since Dec. 17 may not be materially significant, as it represents less than 3% of total assets, but the lack of demand still weighs on investor sentiment. Even professional traders can turn skeptical after two weeks of repeated failures by ETH to hold above the $3,000 level.

Additionally, it is difficult to separate Ether’s weak performance from broader risk concerns tied to a global economic slowdown.

As governments face tighter fiscal conditions, central banks have less room to cut interest rates, increasing recession risks. As a result, investors are likely to remain cautious toward the cryptocurrency market until there is greater clarity on the economic outlook.

While weak demand for bullish ETH leveraged positions and Ether ETFs is not a death sentence, a sustainable rally likely depends on stronger Ethereum network activity and rising demand for DApps.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as, legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit suffered a $1.4 billion hack in February 2025 that exposed structural weaknesses in custody systems long considered industry standards, such as cold storage and multisignature wallets.

At the time, the exploit was the largest known hack in crypto history, though that distinction was later eclipsed by findings that Chinese mining pool LuBian lost $3.5 billion in 2020.

“The [Bybit] hack showed that cold storage and multisig labels are meaningless if the approval flow, transaction visibility, or signer environment can be manipulated,” said Ishai Shoham, head of product at crypto infrastructure company Utila. “After Bybit, custody architecture became a first-order risk topic, not a back-office detail.” 

The incident also prompted the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to urge global regulators to address illicit finance risks in cryptocurrencies, while exchanges tightened transaction approval processes and raised the standard for how breaches are detected and handled.

Private key hacks are responsible for big losses for centralized services. Source: Chainalysis

What is FATF and why does it matter?

The FATF is an intergovernmental body that sets standards on money laundering and terrorist financing. Its recommendations are not legally binding, but its members are expected to abide by its standards. For non-members that fall short, inclusion on the FATF gray list could limit access to aid and damage banking relationships.

In a June 2025 report, the FATF cited the Bybit hack as the largest crypto theft ever. It warned that crosschain activity, stablecoins and uneven global enforcement were amplifying illicit finance risks faster than existing controls could contain them.

FATF called on jurisdictions to tighten licensing and assess risks associated with overseas exchanges. Source: FATF

“The case highlights persistent gaps in the Travel Rule and in enforcement. Once funds move into DeFi, it becomes difficult to prevent layering and money laundering, particularly as automation tools make these processes faster and easier,” Joshua Chu, asset recovery lawyer and co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association, told Cointelegraph.

Related: From Sony to Bybit: How Lazarus Group became crypto’s supervillain

FATF urged jurisdictions to accelerate licensing, supervision and international coordination, framing the incident as evidence that weaknesses in custody and transaction oversight now pose systemic risks to the global financial system. Like the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and countless security experts, FATF linked the exploit to hackers tied to North Korea.

Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT was the first to officially link Lazarus Group to the Bybit hack. Source: Arkham

“If you ask who the most influential person in crypto was in 2025, I would say Kim Jong Un. Despite the political attention on crypto legislation and standards alignment, what dominated the FATF report was the Bybit hack.”

Around the same time, Singapore tightened its licensing regime, ordering unlicensed crypto firms to either obtain permits or leave the market. While Singapore drew most of the headlines, regulators in countries such as Thailand and the Philippines were pursuing similar enforcement campaigns.

Custody security and laundering assumptions break down

The industry’s understanding of both custody security and illicit fund movement shifted following the Bybit hack.

Shoham said the breach made clear that the primary weaknesses were no longer cryptographic.

Related: Are you a freelancer? North Korean spies may be using you

“Once funds leave a compromised wallet, attackers can atomize and recompose value across chains faster than human response cycles,” he said.

This shift changed the industry's perspective from treating mixers as the primary threat to recognizing that decentralized routing infrastructure itself enables large-scale, automated theft.”

The Bybit hack also reignited a long-running debate over crosschain infrastructure and the responsibilities of decentralized protocols. As stolen funds moved across chains, attention once again turned to routing networks such as THORChain and eXch, which have been used by attackers to swap assets without relying on centralized intermediaries.

THORChain volume spiked as Bybit hackers moved funds. Source: THORChain Explorer

Supporters of decentralized models argued that such protocols are neutral infrastructure, designed to operate without discretion or gatekeeping. Critics countered that their architecture makes them uniquely attractive for laundering large volumes of stolen assets, particularly when combined with automation and fragmented liquidity across chains.

Some swappers like eXch ended up shutting down not long after the hack. 

Bybit sets new standards for crisis response

The Bybit hack crystallized a broader shift in how the industry approaches both custody and compliance. As crosschain movement accelerates and static controls fall short, exchanges and infrastructure providers are increasingly expected to apply governance at the level of transaction behavior rather than rely solely on address-based restrictions.

For Bybit, the $1.4 billion breach could have marked the beginning of a prolonged collapse. Given the exchange’s size, early fears centered on the possibility of an FTX-like contagion that could have triggered another industry-wide downturn just as markets were recovering.

Instead, the exchange’s response set a different precedent. CEO Ben Zhou appeared publicly throughout the incident, hosting livestreams to update users on recovery efforts. Rather than halting withdrawals, a common reflex during crises, Bybit kept them open and sourced Ether from partner exchanges to meet immediate customer demand.

That approach has since influenced how other platforms prepare for and respond to major breaches. 

Withdrawal freezes are no longer the default response, and real-time communication has become a baseline expectation. Despite the scale of the hack, Bybit remains one of the largest exchanges globally and frequently ranks as the second-largest platform by daily trading volume.

Magazine: Big questions: Would Bitcoin survive a 10-year power outage?

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin is consolidating as gold leads, a pattern seen before past BTC rallies.

$84,000–$85,000 and the 100-week EMA are key levels to watch.

Bitcoin (BTC) failed to rise above the $90,000 mark in December, with sharp rejections toward the $85,000-87,000 area on each attempt.

BTC/USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView

The sideways price action followed a sharp pullback of more than 30% from Bitcoin’s October all-time high above the $126,000 mark.

Bitcoin’s consolidation resembled pauses seen in previous four-year cycle downtrends, when its price often moved sideways for extended periods before establishing a clearer trend, according to multiple analysts.

With 2026 approaching, is this boring BTC range about to give way to a major breakout or a deeper correction?

Gold, silver charts: Lagging BTC price correlation

Bitcoin’s 30% pullback and sideways trading are consistent with past liquidity cycles, according to data highlighted by analyst Bull Theory.

In a Monday note, the analyst said gold (XAU) and silver (XAG) tend to move first after major market stress, while Bitcoin lags.

For instance, the precious metals rallied during the May-August 2020 period, but Bitcoin traded inside the $9,000-12,000 range in the same period.

BTC/USD, TOTAL crypto market cap, XAU/USD and XAG/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView/Bull Theory

“Gold and silver peaked in August 2020, and money started rotating into risk assets,” Bull Theory wrote, adding:

“This is when Bitcoin started moving. From August 2020 to May 2021: Bitcoin went from $12,000 to $64,800 (nearly 5.5x). Total crypto market cap went up almost 8x by mid-2021.”

A similar pattern was visible as of December 2025.

Gold and silver reached their respective all-time highs, while Bitcoin consolidated, hinting that the top cryptocurrency may benefit from delayed risk rotation just like it did after August 2020.

“That is why the current sideways action in BTC is not the start of the bear market, but rather a calm before the storm,” Bull Market added.

Bitcoin cost basis

The next chart to watch in 2026 is Bitcoin’s Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) heatmap, which shows where large portions of BTC supply were accumulated across different price levels.

In simple terms, it helps identify where most holders bought their coins and where buying or selling pressure is likely to emerge.

As of December, the heatmap highlighted a dense supply cluster of more than 940,000 BTC around the $84,000–$85,000 range, the largest concentration recorded since 2020.

BTC cost basis distribution heatmap. Source: Glassnode

In the past, such supply zones appeared ahead of strong Bitcoin uptrends.

For example, in early 2023, heavy buying activity around $16,000 created a strong base. Over the following year, Bitcoin climbed steadily from that zone to above $38,000.

BTC cost basis distribution heatmap. Source: Glassnode

In 2025, Bitcoin dropped to the $75,000-76,000 range despite strong accumulation inside the $96,000-98,000 zone earlier.

BTC later recovered back into that high-accumulation zone, showing that buyers were willing to step in again rather than abandon their positions.

Bitcoin hash rate chart

Bitcoin mining has come under pressure as rising energy costs squeeze margins, forcing some miners to rely on debt or equity-linked financing to stay liquid.

Against this backdrop, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate has slipped after peaking in late October, raising concerns about miner stress.

Estimated Bitcoin hash rate, petahashes/second. Source: Coinmetrics.io

Analysts at VanEck view the trend differently.

In a recent note, crypto research head Matt Sigel said miner capitulation has historically acted as a “bullish contrarian signal,” with Bitcoin posting positive 90-day returns roughly 65% of the time following sustained hash rate declines.

Bitcoin’s price rose 77% of the time over the following 180 days, with an average gain of about 72% after sustained hash rate declines. This fractal makes BTC’s hash rate a key chart to watch in 2026.

Bitcoin’s weekly trendline support

Bitcoin’s weekly chart highlights why the boring range matters heading into 2026.

As of December, BTC consolidated sideways while holding above its 100-week exponential moving average (100-week EMA; the purple wave) support.

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

As long as price holds near this zone, the broader uptrend structure remains intact, even if momentum stays muted. In that case, BTC could rebound toward its 50-week EMA (the red wave) at around the $97,000-98,000 zone.

However, a sustained break below the 100-week EMA would raise risks of deeper pullbacks toward the 200-week EMA (the blue wave) at around the $67,500-66,000 area.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.

Looking to 2026, Bitcoin (BTC) forecasts clash with historical chart patterns and evolving market realities, as traditional finance plays a bigger role in the cryptocurrency space.

Key takeaways:

Standard Chartered and Bernstein forecast Bitcoin to hit $150,000 in 2026, revising down earlier higher targets due to slower ETF inflows. 

Grayscale predicts a new BTC all-time high in H1/2026, driven by institutional adoption ending the traditional four-year cycle.

Technical point to a potentially deep drawdown to $40,000-$70,000 if historical patterns repeat.

Expert outlooks for Bitcoin price going into 2026

The post-2024 halving cycle brought significant gains earlier in the year; however, late-2025 consolidation and volatility have led to a pullback amid macroeconomic uncertainty and fluctuations in ETF flows.

The 47% drawdown from $126,000 all-time highs in October saw Bitcoin price drop to $80,500 in November. 

Bitcoin price drawdown from all-time high. Source: Glassnode

Analysts are largely bullish for 2026, though their predictions are tempered compared to earlier euphoria. 

Standard Chartered has cut its 2026 Bitcoin target from $300,000 to $150,000 ​​after spending 2024 and early 2025 calling for moonshots, citing slower institutional buying through ETFs.

Related: Coinbase ‘cautiously optimistic’ on 2026 as crypto nears institutional inflection point

Bernstein analysts also expect Bitcoin to reach $150,000 by the end of 2026, with an anticipated price of $200,000 by the end of 2027.

Although the recent downturn prompted them to retract their earlier forecast of a $200,000 peak this year, they maintain the view that Bitcoin has moved beyond its historical four-year cyclical pattern, suggesting a more durable growth trajectory. 

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor predicts $150,000 for Bitcoin going into 2026, arguing that the cryptocurrency has been “getting a lot less” volatile despite the recent price correction, contradicting the outlook of many crypto analysts.

More optimistic views, such as from Fundstrat, see potential for $200,000–$250,000, while conservative estimates hover near $110,000–$135,000. 

Polymarket predicts a 41% chance of BTC rising above $130,000 and a 25% chance of it reaching $150,000 before the end of 2026.

There’s a 79% chance of Bitcoin’s price reclaiming $100,000 and an 80% possibility of it falling to $75,000 in 2026, based on the current odds. 

Bitcoin price targets before Dec. 31, 2026. Source: Polymarket

Overall, consensus leans toward the upside, sustained by structural changes rather than traditional boom-bust cycles.

BTC price technicals clash with bullish forecasts

Past halving patterns suggest that BTC price peaks 12–18 months thereafter, as reduced issuance takes effect — and this is starting to be reflected in the charts.

Analyst and trader Rekt Capital suggested that the current cycle was over 93% complete, with the possibility of the market topping out in Q4/2025.

Bitcoin halving cycle progress. Source: Rekt Capital

Other technical indicators also reflect bear market conditions, suggesting that Bitcoin’s four-year cycle remains intact and that BTC could extend its downtrend into 2026.

Bitcoin’s weekly chart shows that the SuperTrend indicator flashed a bearish signal, with its “sell” signal confirmed by BTC’s drop below the 50-week moving averages (MAs) (see chart below), a scenario that has historically marked the end of bull markets. 

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

These were further reinforced by a bearish cross from the moving average convergence divergence indicator (MACD) a few days later. 

Previous confirmations from these three indicators were followed by 84% and 77% drawdowns during the 2018 and 2022 bear markets, as shown in the chart above.

Intocryptoverse founder and CEO Benjamin Cowen said that the BTC/USD pair will likely bounce back to the 200-day SMA currently at $108,000, before resuming the downtrend, possibly bottoming around the 200-week MAs between $60,000 and $70,00 in 2026.

“All prior cycle bear markets were confirmed by a macro lower high at the 200D SMA.” 

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: Benjamin Cowen

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin’s  200-day moving average turned bearish in November when a “death cross” occurred as it dipped below the shorter-term 50-day moving average, predicting 2026 to be a year of declines.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.