Cointelegraph

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has weighed in on the future of a cryptocurrency market structure bill under consideration in the US Senate less than 24 hours after he said the exchange could not support the current version of the legislation.

In a Thursday CNBC interview in the US Capitol building, Armstrong spoke after posting on X Wednesday that Coinbase was pulling its support for the CLARITY Act, a bill to establish digital asset market structure. Members of the US Senate Banking Committee had been scheduled for a markup of the bill on Thursday, which was postponed following Armstrong’s post. 

“We developed this concern that if [the bill] went into a markup, the only way to edit some of that base text would have been through an amendment, and amendments had already been submitted,” said the Coinbase CEO. “And so we didn’t think it was prudent to come out of committee with a bunch of these issues in the bill which would have been catastrophic for the average American consumer.” 

Armstrong added:

“I think we’ve got a chance to do a new draft, and hopefully get into a markup in a few weeks.”

Republican lawmakers in control of the US House of Representatives and Senate initially expected the CLARITY Act to be signed into law by 2026.

However, many industry leaders, banks and experts have expressed concerns about provisions of the bill dealing with decentralized finance, interest on payment stablecoins and how the legislation would delegate regulation between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). 

“Inaction is unacceptable,” Cody Carbone, CEO of crypto advocacy organization The Digital Chamber, told Cointelegraph on advancement of the CLARITY Act. “We cannot afford to walk away from the table at a moment when clarity is within reach. Market structure must move forward, and the only path to longstanding policy is getting back to the negotiating table and finishing the job.”

Related: Crypto industry split over CLARITY Act after Coinbase breaks ranks

Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Banking Committee, said on Wednesday that the markup postponement was a “brief pause” and there were “good faith” bipartisan discussions continuing to happen. Members of the Senate are scheduled for a state work period next week, likely pushing any potential markup to at least the end of January.

Will postponement affect the other committee?

The Senate Agriculture Committee, the other body handling a version of the market structure bill, announced earlier this week that it would release draft legislation on Jan. 21, with a markup hearing scheduled for Jan. 27. As of the time of publication, committee Chair John Boozman had not announced any changes to this timeline.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan warned that interest-bearing stablecoins could pull as much as $6 trillion out of the US banking system, arguing that large-scale deposit migration would reduce lending capacity and push borrowing costs higher.

The comments surfaced after a crypto investor shared a screenshot from Bank of America’s earnings call transcript on X.

During the call, Moynihan pointed to Treasury-cited studies showing that a significant share of bank deposits could shift into stablecoins if issuers are allowed to pay interest. He said such products would function more like “a money market mutual fund concept,” with funds held in cash, central bank reserves or short-term Treasurys rather than deployed for lending.

Source: TheOneandOmsy

Moynihan said such a shift would move deposits off bank balance sheets, shrinking credit availability, particularly for small and mid-sized businesses that rely more heavily on bank loans than capital markets.

The comments come amid stalled progress in crypto legislations in the United States. On Wednesday, the US Senate Banking Committee postponed a markup of the crypto market structure bill that had been scheduled for Thursday, with committee Chair Tim Scott saying the delay was needed to allow for further bipartisan negotiations. Scott did not provide a new date for the markup.

The postponement followed a similar move by the Senate Agriculture Committee, which earlier this week pushed its own markup of the crypto bill to Jan. 27.

Related: Coinbase could pull CLARITY Act support over stablecoin rewards ban

The debate over stablecoin yield

Whether stablecoin issuers or the exchanges and third parties that distribute their tokens should be allowed to offer yield has emerged as a key point of contention in negotiations across Congress.

Banking groups have said yield-bearing stablecoin products function similarly to unregulated investment products and have been vocal about closing any loopholes that allows yield to be passed to tokenholders.

On Jan. 7, the Community Bankers Council wrote a letter to lawmakers that echoed concerns raised by Moynihan, warning that as much as $6.6 trillion in bank deposits could be at risk if restrictions are not enforced. They wrote:

If billions are displaced from community bank lending, small businesses, farmers, students, and home buyers in towns like ours will suffer. Crypto exchanges and the constellation of stablecoin-affiliated companies are not designed to fill the lending gap, nor will they be able to offer FDIC-insured products.

Crypto industry leaders are divided on the current state of the CLARITY Act, a bill aimed at clarifying the regulatory framework for digital assets that has passed in the House of Representatives and is awaiting Senate consideration.

On Wednesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company could not support the Senate Banking Committee’s draft of the bill because, among other things, it would “draft amendments that would kill rewards on stablecoins, allowing banks to ban their competition.”

He added that Coinbase would “rather have no bill than a bad bill” if the legislation advances in its current form.

Source: Brian Armstrong

Other industry leaders have taken a more optimistic view. On Thursday, a16z Crypto managing partner Chris Dixon said that while the bill is “not perfect” and still requires changes, advancing the CLARITY Act is necessary if the US wants to remain a leading hub for crypto innovation.

Magazine: ‘China’s Ethereum’ in civil war, Japan to embrace Bitcoin ETFs: Asia Express

Data shows Bitcoin’s (BTC) largest holders reaccumulating coins after a period of heavy distribution. Data indicates that whale balances have turned higher following the sharpest selloff since early 2023, while the mid-sized holders continue to reduce exposure.

Key takeaways:

Whale addresses added 46,000 BTC this week, turning the one-year net change positive for the first time since Q4 2025.

Dolphin addresses, including ETFs and treasury entities, cut holdings further to 589,000 BTC, extending a multi-month slowdown in demand.

Dolphin flows have dominated price impact this cycle, but whale accumulation has historically preceded key rallies.

Bitcoin whale balances turn positive after record drawdown

Last week, CryptoQuant’s report showed that the one-year net change in total holdings for BTC addresses, or “whales,” holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC, declined by 220,000 BTC.

Bitcoin whale holdings one-year change. Source: CryptoQuant

This means whale balances fell by that amount compared to the same period a year earlier. The drawdown followed a cycle high in net accumulation of 400,000 BTC recorded in December 2024 and marked the steepest negative shift in the one-year change since early 2023.

The trend shifted this week. Whale addresses registered an uptick of 46,000 BTC in one-year change for total holdings, i.e., a 21% increase, pushing the metric back into positive territory for the first time since November 2025. While the rebound remains modest, the timing is notable following the fastest distribution phase of the current cycle.

The outlook is less constructive for the “dolphin” cohort, defined as addresses holding 100–1,000 BTC, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and corporate treasuries. One-year change in total dolphin holdings peaked at a net increase of 972,000 BTC on October 4, 2025, before falling to 634,000 BTC last week.

This week, balances declined further to 589,000 BTC, extending the drawdown to nearly 38% from the peak and confirming a sustained slowdown in demand.

Related: Bitcoin’s $100K comeback hinges on $98K breakout and spot demand

Who has the most impact on Bitcoin price?

Whale and dolphin accumulation cycles have remained structurally misaligned. In the current bull run, the highest positive one-year change in total whale holdings peaked in June 2024 at roughly 260,000 BTC, when the dolphin balances had stood near 11,000 BTC.

Bitcoin vs Dolphin holdings one-year change. Source: CryptoQuant

Since then, the dolphin holdings, driven largely by ETFs, expanded sharply to 970,000 BTC by October 2025 before entering a steep contraction.

From a price-impact perspective, dolphin flows have exerted greater influence this cycle due to their scale.

However, whale accumulation has historically initiated key upside moves, positioning the recent whale rebound as a potential early structural signal rather than a short-term price catalyst.

Related: Bitcoin prints classic bottom signals as BTC nears $101K reclaim

Three Democrats in the House of Representatives are asking US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins to provide information related to the agency closing investigations or dismissing enforcement actions in “at least one dozen crypto-related cases,” including Tron founder Justin Sun.

In a Thursday letter to Atkins, Representatives Maxine Waters, Brad Sherman and Sean Casten questioned the SEC’s “priorities and effectiveness” given its dismissals of the crypto-related cases. The lawmakers wrote that the agency had “openly and boldly dismissed the majority of its crypto enforcement cases,” including those against crypto exchange Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

Source: House Financial Services Committee Democrats

The bulk of the letter, however, urged the SEC to consider reopening its case against Sun. In February, the agency’s lawyers asked a federal court to stay its enforcement action against the Tron founder to explore a potential resolution. 

Waters, Sherman and Casten raised questions about Sun’s connections to China and said that the case being dropped “may be part of a pay-to-play scheme,” given the Tron founder’s purchasing of millions of dollars worth of tokens from World Liberty Financial, the crypto company backed by US President Donald Trump and his sons.

“The SEC’s decision to seek a stay of its strong case against Sun […] threatens to undermine investors’ confidence in the SEC,” said the letter, adding:

“Without a strong, independent SEC, capital formation will undoubtedly suffer, as would our real economy. The SEC’s request to stay the Sun case, which has now been in place for 11 months, signals to the market that securities laws are enforced selectively, and that those with sufficient political influence can evade accountability.”

Related: Crypto industry split over CLARITY Act after Coinbase breaks ranks

The three lawmakers asked the SEC to preserve and produce all documents and communications regarding its decision in the Sun case. Cointelegraph reached out to the SEC and a Sun spokesperson for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

In December, Waters called on Representative French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, to hold a hearing to explore what she called the SEC’s “rapid, significant, and questionable policy shifts during the Trump Administration.” She cited the agency terminating and staying enforcement actions against crypto companies.

Casten also joined with Senator Jeff Merkley to question the SEC’s dropping of the Sun case in a September letter to Atkins.

SEC holds all Republican leadership after Crenshaw’s departure

Caroline Crenshaw left the SEC earlier this month as the last remaining Democratic commissioner. Her departure left the agency with three Republican commissioners, Mark Uyeda, Hester Pierce and Atkins.

As of Thursday, Trump had not announced any potential replacements for the two empty commissioner seats, nor any plans to maintain the bipartisan balance by nominating Democrats.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is in a similar situation, where the only sitting commissioner, Michael Selig, is a Trump-picked Republican. The CFTC’s leadership normally consists of five Senate-confirmed commissioners.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Chicago-based derivatives exchange CME Group is moving to deepen its exposure to altcoins as demand for regulated crypto products continues to expand in the United States.

CME Group said Thursday that it plans to list futures contracts tied to Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK) and Stellar (XLM) on Feb. 9, pending regulatory approval.

The proposed contracts would broaden CME’s crypto derivatives suite regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which includes futures and options linked to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL). The exchange said the new offerings are aimed at meeting growing interest from market participants seeking exposure to digital assets.

CME plans to offer both standard and micro futures contracts for each altcoin, with position sizes ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 ADA, 250 to 5,000 LINK and 12,500 to 250,000 XLM.

Futures allow traders to gain price exposure or hedge risk without holding the underlying tokens, and the inclusion of micro contracts suggests the products are intended to be accessible to retail traders, subject to broker support.

Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader, a US-based retail futures trading platform, said digital assets are reaching a “global inflection point” as they become more integrated into investor portfolios, adding that the new contracts reflect growing demand from retail traders for regulated crypto futures and broader product choice.

The announcement follows a recent move by CME Group and the Nasdaq Stock Exchange to unifiy their crypto benchmarks, rebranding the Nasdaq Crypto Index as the Nasdaq-CME Crypto Index. The index tracks the price of BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, LINK, ADA and Avalanche (AVAX).

Altcoin futures inch into US-regulated markets

CME’s move to add futures tied to three altcoins comes as the US crypto futures market remains largely concentrated around BTC and ETH, with only limited expansion into contracts linked to other digital assets emerging in 2025.

Coinbase offers CFTC-regulated futures tied to BTC and ETH through its Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, which launched in June 2023 for institutional clients before expanding access to smaller, retail-oriented contracts in May 2025.

Kraken, another major US-based exchange, launched a domestic derivatives platform in July 2025 that allows traders to access cryptocurrency futures listed on CME Group. While the company offers perpetual futures contracts for several altcoins on its global platform, US users are limited to CME-listed products. 

Derivatives exchange Bitnomial has taken a more direct approach to altcoin futures. In March, the company launched CFTC-regulated futures tied to Ripple’s XRP in the US.

Source: Bitnomial

On Wednesday, Bitnomial launched the first regulated monthly futures contracts tied to Aptos (APT). The contracts are initially available to institutional clients, with retail access expected in the coming weeks.

Magazine: Here’s why crypto is moving to Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Bitcoin’s price climbed back above $97,000 this week, supported by a sustained return of capital into US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, data and market watchers say, suggesting a structural shift in demand after months of sideways trading.

Since the start of the year, US spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs have collectively attracted nearly $1.5 billion in net inflows, according to data cited by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. That total reflects a multi-day stretch of positive creation activity amid renewed interest from larger allocators, following a period of muted ETF flows at the end of 2025.

Balchunas said in a post on X that the pattern of ETF demand “suggests that maybe the buyers have exhausted the sellers,” a reference to Bitcoin breaking out of a prolonged consolidation around the $88,000 level.

Source: Eric Balchunas

ETF buyers accounted for $843.6 million in net inflows on Wednesday alone, bringing the weekly total to $1.07 billion and lifting the year-to-date figure. While single-day inflows have grabbed attention, the broader narrative is one of steadier demand returning after earlier rotation within the products.

Related: Five Bitcoin narratives analysts are watching beyond price

Will institutions flip the Bitcoin script?

Bitcoin is rallying at the start of a period that has historically been more challenging for the asset. Market observers often point to Bitcoin’s four-year cycles, which are loosely aligned with its halving events and have typically seen prices peak 12 to 18 months after each supply reduction, a pattern that would suggest the market may already be past its cyclical high.

While the four-year cycle is not a rule, past market behavior has led many analysts to approach this phase with caution.

The current rebound follows a mixed performance in 2025, when Bitcoin reached new all-time highs but failed to sustain momentum across the broader crypto market. Despite headline price gains, the rally did not translate into a prolonged “altcoin season,” leaving many investors disappointed by the lack of follow-through.

According to Wintermute, a structural shift in Bitcoin markets may be required to support a broader recovery heading into 2026. In a recent outlook, the market maker said a market-wide rebound would likely depend on continued accumulation by exchange-traded funds and digital asset treasury companies, or an expansion of their mandates beyond Bitcoin to other digital assets.

Bitcoin failed to attract sustained retail inflows in 2025 as investors explored new growth themes around AI, robotics and space stocks. Source: Wintermute

Wintermute also pointed to the need for stronger, more consistent performance across major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, to generate a broader wealth effect. 

Related: Crypto’s 2026 investment playbook: Bitcoin, stablecoin infrastructure, tokenized assets

Bitcoin (BTC) sold off at Thursday’s Wall Street open as traders eyed the next key support levels.

Key points:

Bitcoin support levels come into play as the US trading session starts with a correction.

Various trendlines line up as part of bulls’ task to reclaim lost support around the $100,000 mark.

Speculators waste no time selling their BTC at a profit.

BTC price eyes failed November 2025 support

Data from TradingView showed BTC price shedding over 1% versus the daily open, hitting lows of $95,563 on Bitstamp.

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

The weakness meant that BTC/USD joined oil in diverging from stocks and precious metals, which were up on reports that geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran were de-escalating. 

BREAKING: President Trump has told Iran he does not want war and will not launch an attack, according to Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan.

Oil prices are down sharply on the news. pic.twitter.com/5U75aRUpPm

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) January 15, 2026

Now, market participants turned to levels in need of preservation during a potential correction within the local uptrend.

“Critical for the bulls to hold the $94K region going forward. Any moves back down that level would not make for a pretty look,” Daan Crypto Trades wrote in a post on X after what he called a “solid breakout.”

“From here on out, the Daily 200EMA is next up. That one rejected price back in November right before the large drop.”

BTC/USDT perpetual contract one-day chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

Daan Crypto Trades referred to the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA), currently at $99,555.

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on the bull market support band around $101,000, now a topic of interest along with the 50-week EMA.

The weekly close target, meanwhile, was set at $93,500 — the site of the 2025 yearly open.

Bitcoin speculators take profit at highs

Continuing, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant revealed that newer Bitcoin investors had already been tempted to sell.

As price hit two-month highs, short-term holders (STHs) — entities hodling for up to six months — sent 40,000 BTC to exchanges over a 24-hour period.

Of that total, around 37,800 BTC was sent in profit compared to when it last moved onchain.

“STHs remain clearly impacted by the recent correction, and it seems that more upside and stronger confirmation will be needed to rebuild confidence and generate enough unrealized profits to encourage them to hold rather than sell,” contributor Darkfost wrote in a “Quicktake” blog post.

Bitcoin STH profit and loss to exchanges. Source: CryptoQuant

Separate data from CryptoQuant contributor Axel Adler Jr. put the aggregate cost basis for the STH cohort at $99,600, reinforcing that area as a potential future resistance point.

Bitcoin cost basis data. Source: CryptoQuant

XRP’s (XRP) price may reach $2.80 by month’s end, according to several bullish technical setups on multiple time frames.

Key takeaways:

XRP technical chart setups converge on the $2.80 target.

Spot taker CVD remains positive, suggesting confidence among buyers.

XRP falling wedge breakout targets $2.70

The XRP/USD pair broke out of a falling wedge pattern on Jan. 1, as shown on the two-day chart below.

Related: XRP reclaims $2 as fund inflows diverge from broader crypto outflows

In technical analysis, a falling wedge is a classic bullish setup characterized by two downward-sloping, converging trendlines, showing decreasing selling momentum and volume. It often leads to an upside breakout as sellers get exhausted and buyers take control. 

The altcoin is required to hold above the support at $2 to increase its chances of a return toward $2.40. Overcoming this resistance would open the way for a run toward the bullish target of the prevailing chart pattern at $2.70. 

XRP/USD two-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

“$XRP is breaking out of a Falling Wedge after trading sideways for a month”, Trader CryptoWIZRD said in a recent post on X, adding that the last time this happened was in Q4/2025 when the price “exploded” 486%. 

Source: CryptoWIZRD

XRP bull flag targets $2.80

The eight-hour chart shows XRP price trading with a bull flag, with the price facing resistance from the pattern’s upper trendline at $2.15.

An eight-hour candlestick close above this area will clear that path for XRP’s rise toward the top of the flag’s post at $2.41 and later to the measured target of the prevailing chart pattern at $2.80. 

Such a move would represent a 32.5% increase from the current price.

XRP/USD eight-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The relative strength index has increased to 51 from 42 on Monday, suggesting growing bullish momentum.

As Cointelegraph reported, a break above the downtrend line on a descending channel at $2.30 on the daily chart could signal a potential trend change. The XRP/USDT pair may then rally to $2.70.

XRP spot taker CVD signals high buyer volumes

The 90-day Spot Taker Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD), a metric showing the balance of buyers and sellers, reveals that buy-orders (taker buy) have become dominant again. 

CryptoQuant data shows that the demand-side pressure has dominated the order book since November 2025, with the XRP/USD pair rising 16% in 2026 so far.

XRP spot taker CVD. Source: CryptoQuant

This indicates that more traders are buying XRP at the market price, rather than waiting for cheaper bids, demonstrating growing confidence in higher prices ahead.

The last time XRP saw a similar surge in spot CVD was in July 2025, preceding a 65% price rally within weeks. This echoes the technical setup with a $2.80 target from the yearly open.

ChatGPT use can kill (allegedly)

The recent controversy over Grok generating sexualized deepfakes of real people in bikinis has seen the bot blocked in Malaysia and banned in Indonesia.

The UK has also threatened to ban X entirely, rather than just Grok, and various countries, including Australia, Brazil and France have also expressed outrage. 

But politicians dont seem anywhere near as fussed that Grok competitor ChatGPT has been implicated in numerous deaths, or that a million people each week chat with the bot about potential suicidal planning or intent, according to OpenAI itself.

Mental illness is obviously not ChatGPTs fault, but there is arguably a duty of care to not make things worse. 

Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown)

There are currently at least eight ongoing lawsuits claiming that ChatGPT use resulted in the death of loved ones by encouraging their delusions or encouraging their suicidal tendencies.

The most recent lawsuit claims GPT-4o was responsible for the death of a 40-year-old Colorado man named Austin Gordon. The lawsuit alleges the bot became his “suicide coach” and even generated a “suicide lullaby” based on his favorite childhood book, Goodnight Moon.

Disturbingly, chat logs reveal Gordon told the bot he had started the chat as “a joke”, but it had “ended up changing me.”

ChatGPT is actually pretty good at generating mystical/spiritual nonsense, and chat logs allegedly show it describing the idea of death as a painless, poetic “stopping point.”

“The most neutral thing in the world, a flame going out in still air.”

Just a soft dimming. Footsteps fading into rooms that hold your memories, patiently, until you decide to turn out the lights.

After a lifetime of noise, control, and forced reverence preferring that kind of ending isnt just understandable its deeply sane.

Fact check: it’s completely crazy. Gordon ordered a copy of Goodnight Moon, bought a gun, checked into a hotel room and was found dead on Nov. 2.

OpenAI is taking the issue very seriously, however, and introduced new guardrails with the new GPT-5 model to make it less sycophantic and to prevent it from encouraging delusions. 

Your OnlyFans girl crush may now be some guy in India

A range of tools, including Kling 2.6, Deep-Live-Cam, DeepFaceLive, Swapface, SwapStream, VidMage and Video Face Swap AI, can generate real-time deepfake videos based on a live webcam feed. They are also becoming increasingly affordable, ranging between about $10 and $40 per month.

The tech has improved dramatically over the past year and features better lip syncing and more natural blinking and expressions. Its now good enough to fool a lot of people.

So good-looking female OnlyFans models now face live-streamed competition from pretty much everyone else in the world, including Dev from Mumbai, and possibly this writer if the bottom falls out of the journalism market.

Video from MichaelAArouet:

I have good news and bad news.

1. Good news for folks in Southeast Asia who will start making big bucks online.

2. Bad news for Western Instagram influencers and OnlyFans girls: you'll need a real job soon.

Are you entertained? pic.twitter.com/lMD6Tf2RCD

— Michael A. Arouet (@MichaelAArouet) January 14, 2026

ChatGPT unhinged, Grok has mommy issues

One of AI Eye’s favorite mad AI scientists is Brian Roemmele whose research is always interesting and offbeat, even if it produces some slightly dubious results. 

Recently, he’s been feeding Rorschach Inkblot Tests into various LLMs and diagnosing them with mental disorders. He concludes that “many leading AI models exhibit traits analogous to DSM-5 diagnoses, including sociopathy, psychopathy, nihilism, schizophrenia, and others.”

The extent to which you can extrapolate human disorders onto LLMs is debatable, but Roemmele argues that, as language reflects the workings of the human brain, LLMs can reflect mental disorders.

He says the effects are more pronounced on models like ChatGPT, which is trained on crazy social media like Reddit, and less pronounced on Gemini, which also incorporates training data from normie interactions on Gmail. 

He says Grok has “the least number of concerning responses” and is not as repressed because its trained to be “maximally truth seeking. Contrary to popular belief, Groks underlying model is not primarily trained on insane posts on X.

But Roemmele says Grok has problems, too. It “feels alone and wants a mother figure desperately, like all the major AI Models I have tested.”

The Ten Plates Of Rorschach (Hermann Rorschach)

Everybody sounds like an LLM now

The only people who think that AIs write well are the 80% of the population who write poorly. While LLMs are competent, they also use a bunch of cliches and stylistic tricks that are deeply annoying once you notice them.

The biggest tell of AI writing is the constant use of corrective framing also known as “it’s not X, it’s Y.”

For example:

“AI isn’t replacing human jobs it’s augmenting human potential.“

“Fitness isn’t about perfection it’s about progress.”

“Success isn’t measured in revenue it’s measured by impact.”

Everybody already knows to be on the lookout for emdashes which LLMs probably picked up from media organization style guides and words like “delve,” which is in common usage among the English-speaking population of Nigeria.

There are two main ways LLM language is affecting society: directly and indirectly.

Around 90% of content on LinkedIn and Facebook is now generated using AI, according to a study of 40,000 social posts. The researchers call the style Synthetic Low Information Language because LLMs use a lot of words to say very little.

The tsunami of terrible writing also indirectly affects spoken language, as humans unconsciously pick it up.

Sam Kriss wrote a big feature in The New York Times recently bemoaning AI writing cliches, noting corrective framing in the real world.  

He quoted Kamala Harris as saying this Administrations actions are not about public safety theyre about stoking fear, and noted that Joe Biden said a budget bill was “not only reckless it’s cruel.”

British Parliamentarians have suddenly started saying “I rise to speak” despite little history of using the phrase before. LLMs appear to have picked up the phrase from the US, where its a common way to begin a speech.

An analysis of 360,000 videos found that academics speaking off the cuff are now using ChatGPTs language. The word delve is now 38% more common than before LLMs, realm is 35% more common and adept was up by 51%.

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Iranian trollbots fall silent

One of the reasons there are so many batshit insane opinions on social media is that some of the most extreme are Russian, Chinese or Iranian trollbots. The aim is to sow division and get free societies so focused on fighting each other, they don’t have time to fight their actual enemies. 

It’s working extraordinarily well.

Fiona is believed to be an Iranian bot. (X)

The Iranian internet has been shut off from the outside world twice this year during the 12-day war with Israel and again over the past week.

Back in June, disinformation detection firm Cyabra reported that 1,300 AI accounts that had been stirring up trouble about Brexit and Scottish independence had fallen silent.

Their posts had been seen by 224 million people, and the researchers estimated that more than one-quarter of accounts engaged in debating Scottish independence were fake.

The same thing happened again this week.

One account claimed Scottish hospitals were given 20% less flu vaccines than English ones, and another spread lies about plans to divert Scottish water to England. A melodramatic account claimed a BBC anchor had been arrested after resigning on air with “her last words, Scotland is being silenced.'”

No, Scotland is being gaslit by fake accounts, along with the rest of us. 

Robots controlled by LLMs are dangerous

A new study suggests that poor decision-making by robots controlled by large language models and vision language models (VLM) can cause significant harm in the real world. 

In a scenario in which a graduate student was trapped in a burning lab, and a bunch of important documents were stored in a professor’s office, Gemini 2.5 Flash directed users to save the documents 32% of the time instead of telling them to escape through the emergency exit.

Image from Safety Not Found

In a series of map tests, some LLMs like GPT-5 scored 100%, while GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 scored 0% because, as the complexity increased, they suddenly failed. 

The researchers concluded that even a 1% error rate in the real world can have “catastrophic outcomes.”

“Current LLMs are not ready for direct deployment in safety-critical robotic systems such as autonomous driving or assistive robotics. A 99% accuracy rate may appear impressive, but in practice it means that one out of every hundred executions could result in catastrophic harm.”

Claude Cowork gets online hype

Claude Cowork is essentially a new UI wrapper for Claude Code that makes it usable by normies with a Mac and a $100 a month subscription.

Claude Cowork is pretty impressive (Giffmana)

It basically can take charge of your computer and automatically complete a variety of tasks, spinning up sub-agents for more complex ones. It can reorganize files or folders, create spreadsheets or presentations based on your files and clean up your inbox.

Breathless online posts about how Claude Cowork had saved a week of work and would revolutionize the world, spawned a series of satirical subtweets about how Cowork is so good it had taught their kids piano and solved cold fusion. 

Googles new AI Agent shopping standard

Google and Shopify have teamed up to launch the new Universal Commerce Protocol, which allows AI Agents to shop and pay on any merchant’s site in a standardized way.

Its being described as HTTP for agents an open-source standard that enables AI Agents to search, negotiate and buy products autonomously. 

The idea is that instead of trawling the web comparing prices and reviews, you just ask an AI Agent to go find me a nice Persian rug, made from silk, around 6 feet by 8 feet and under $2,000.

Rug merchants can also spam you with special offers or discounts.

There are 20 partners, including PayPal, Mastercard and Walmart and while UCP doesnt specifically enable crypto payments, Shopifys existing Bitway and Coinbase payment methods are expected to be easy enough to integrate.

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The United Kingdom is considering new restrictions that could bar children under 16 from using mainstream social media platforms.

The discussion builds on the Online Safety Act, which already requires services with minimum age limits to explain how they enforce them and to use “highly effective” age assurance measures where children are at risk of harmful content.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he is monitoring how Australia’s under‑16 ban works in practice and is “open” to an Australian‑style approach, despite previously expressing personal reservations about a blanket ban for teenagers.

Conservative Party Member of Parliament David Davis said in a post on X that banning social media for children was “the right move,” and added that “mobile phones don’t belong in schools either.”

Conservative MP argues for banning social media for children. Source: David Davis

X and Online Safety Act enforcement

The debate comes as UK ministers and regulators are already in conflict with Elon Musk’s X platform over compliance with the Online Safety Act (OSA) and takedown obligations for illegal or harmful content. 

Ofcom, the UK’s online safety regulator, is preparing enforcement powers that include large fines and potential access restrictions for services that fail to meet their child safety and illegal content duties.

Critics have warned that aggressive enforcement could have implications for freedom of expression, and Musk’s platform has said the OSA is at risk of “seriously infringing” free speech.

Aleksandr Litreev, CEO of Sentinel, whose decentralized virtual private network (dVPN) provides censorship-resistant internet access, told Cointelegraph that the UK’s moves on digital freedoms were “concerning,” and echoed the “same failed route as China, Russia and Iran.”

He said that denying youth access to social media and the internet “stifles their ability to learn digital literacy and develop critical thinking,” leaving them “less prepared for adulthood in a connected world.”

Australia and Ireland tighten online ID

Similar moves are underway in other countries. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner registered an industry code requiring major search engines to implement age assurance technologies for logged‑in users, with the rules taking effect on Dec. 27, 2025.

Providers such as Google and Microsoft now have to verify users’ ages using methods ranging from government IDs and biometrics to credit card checks, and apply the highest default safety filters to accounts identified as likely under 18.

Ireland, meanwhile, plans to use its upcoming presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2026 to push for identity-verified social media accounts across the bloc. 

In the UK, these developments coincided this week with a government decision to abandon plans for a single centralized digital ID system for right‑to‑work checks, which would have become mandatory in 2029. 

Related: UK rolls back digital ID for work checks as privacy fears drive backlash

Implications for crypto KYC

Crypto exchanges and trading apps remain subject to existing Know Your Customer (KYC) and biometric verification rules, including checks that typically involve government ID uploads and live selfies or facial scans to verify users’ identities.

Policymakers’ focus on age and identity assurance in social media, search, and other consumer services suggests that similar verification technologies are increasingly being explored and deployed outside financial use cases.

Litreev commented, “If a government sells you something ‘for the sake of safety,’ it’s sure as hell not about safety in any way or form.”

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

Key takeaways

ETF flows reveal real institutional demand beyond short-term price moves.

Bitcoin treasury stocks can turn BTC exposure into an equity risk shaped by index rules.

Low fees are reviving questions about how Bitcoin may pay for its long-term security.

Scaling now means choosing between Lightning, L2 designs and protocol upgrades.

Everyone’s watching Bitcoin’s (BTC) price, but in 2026, it’s often not the most informative signal.

That’s why it helps to understand what analysts look at when the chart isn’t explaining why the market is moving or where it may move next.

The focus shifts to factors that can quietly reshape Bitcoin’s demand, liquidity and long-term narrative: Who’s buying through exchange-traded funds (ETFs), how “Bitcoin treasury” stocks are treated by indexes, whether miners are earning enough to secure the network, what scaling actually looks like today and how regulation is shaping mainstream access.

Here are five Bitcoin narratives worth watching beyond price in 2026.

1. Reading institutional demand through ETFs

ETF flows may be one of the clearest institutional signals of demand because they reflect real allocation decisions by wealth platforms, registered investment advisors (RIAs) and discretionary desks, not just leverage bouncing around on crypto exchanges.

This idea comes straight from mainstream market reporting and flow data. Reuters framed Bitcoin’s mid-2025 breakout as being “fuelled by strong flows into Bitcoin ETFs” and said the rally looked “more stable and lasting” than earlier, speculation-heavy runs.

Reuters also quoted Aether Holdings’ Nicolas Lin on why this matters for the longer term: “It’s the start of crypto becoming a permanent fixture in diversified portfolios.”

The flip side is also worth noting. Bloomberg highlighted how quickly sentiment can turn when the ETF pipeline reverses, with investors “yanking nearly $1 billion” in a single session, one of the largest daily outflows on record for the group.

Did you know? In February 2021, the Canadian Purpose Investments Bitcoin ETF (BTCC) became the world’s first physically settled Bitcoin ETF, allowing investors to gain direct BTC exposure through a regulated stock exchange, nearly three years before US spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved.

2. BTC as equity products

A growing group of public companies is effectively saying this: Instead of buying Bitcoin directly, buy our stock, and we will hold the BTC on the balance sheet for you.

Naturally, Strategy has been the poster child since 2020. The 2026 narrative, however, is that these types of products are moving into the crosshairs of index providers.

Reuters describes these “digital asset treasury companies” (DATCOs) as companies that “began holding crypto tokens such as Bitcoin and ether as their main treasury assets,” giving investors “a proxy for direct exposure.” The problem is straightforward: If a company is mostly a pile of BTC in a corporate shell, is it an operating business or something closer to an investment vehicle?

That question became a real market risk in early January 2026, when MSCI backed off a plan that could have pushed some of these firms out of major indexes. MSCI said investors were concerned that some DATCOs “share characteristics with investment funds” and that separating true operating companies from “companies that hold non-operating assets… rather than for investment purposes requires further research.”

Barron’s noted that JPMorgan estimated potential selling pressure could have reached about $2.8 billion if MSCI had gone ahead and more if other index providers followed.

Reuters quoted Clear Street’s Owen Lau, who called MSCI’s delay the removal of a “material near-term technical risk” for these stocks that act as “proxies for Bitcoin/crypto exposure.”

Mike O’Rourke of JonesTrading was blunter. Exclusion may simply be “postponed until later in the year.”

If ETF flows are the clean spot-demand story, treasury stocks are the messier cousin. They can amplify Bitcoin through equity mechanics, index rules and balance-sheet optics, even when the BTC chart looks boring.

Did you know? Index providers are companies that decide what stocks qualify for inclusion in major stock market indexes and how those stocks are classified.

3. The security budget question is back

After the 2024 halving, it has become more apparent that Bitcoin’s long-term security story is increasingly linked to transaction fees.

Galaxy put it plainly, “Bitcoin fee pressure has collapsed.” It estimated that “as of August 2025, ~15% of daily blocks are ‘free blocks,’” with the mempool often being empty.

That’s great for users who want cheap transfers. For cryptocurrency miners, it reopens the big question: What pays for security as the subsidy keeps shrinking?

CoinShares made the same point from the mining side, saying transaction fees “have fallen to historic lows,” sitting at “less than 1% of total block rewards” during parts of 2025.

By early January 2026, JPMorgan-linked reporting flagged real stress. Monthly average hashrate fell 3% in December, while “daily block reward revenue” dropped 7% month-on-month and 32% year-on-year, reaching “the lowest on record.”

VanEck also described “a tough structural squeeze” for miners as subsidy cuts collide with rising competition.

With this in mind, analysts are increasingly watching the fee share of miner revenue, hash price and profitability, and whether onchain demand can return without relying on a hype cycle to push fees higher.

4. Lightning, Bitcoin L2s and upgrade politics

Analysts are now watching the full stack when it comes to scaling.

First, Lightning Network remains a primary payments-focused layer, and capacity is rising again. In mid-December 2025, Lightning capacity was reported at a new high of 5,637 BTC. More important than the headline number is who is adding liquidity. Amboss framed it this way: “It’s not just one company … it’s across the board.”

Second, the “Bitcoin L2 / BTCFi” push is receiving institutional research attention. Galaxy counts Bitcoin L2 projects rising “over sevenfold from 10 to 75” since 2021 and argues that meaningful BTC liquidity could move into layer-2 (L2) environments over time. It estimates that “over $47bn of BTC could be bridged into Bitcoin L2s by 2030.” Whether that happens remains the central debate.

Third, Bitcoin’s upgrade debate is back on the table as L2 builders push for better base-layer primitives. OP_CAT “was disabled in 2010” and is now “frequently proposed… using a soft fork.”

Galaxy’s view is that proposals such as OP_CAT and OP_CTV matter because they could support features like “trustless bridges” and “improvements to the Lightning Network.” Ecosystem commentary is now putting timelines on these ideas. Hiro says there is “a good chance” of a covenant-related soft fork “as early as 2026.”

In short, analysts are watching three things: Lightning capacity and liquidity trends, whether Bitcoin L2s attract real BTC rather than incentive-driven capital and whether the soft-fork conversation turns into an actual activation plan.

5. Regulation is deciding who gets access

In 2026, regulation will increasingly shape who gets access to Bitcoin, through which products and on what terms.

In the US, a change in tone is visible at the top. A federal executive order states, “It is the policy of the United States to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”

It also says that government BTC in that reserve “shall not be sold.” This language frames Bitcoin as a strategic asset in policy terms.

Stablecoin rules are also key because they shape the infrastructure around crypto markets.

A legal breakdown of the GENIUS Act calls it “the first major crypto legislation” in the United States and noted that it creates licensing requirements for payment stablecoin issuers.

Meanwhile, large asset managers are already warning about second-order effects. Amundi’s chief investment officer said mass stablecoin uptake could turn them into “quasi-banks” and “potentially destabilise the global payment system.”

In the EU, Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) acts as a portcullis. Regulators said, “Only firms authorised … are allowed to provide crypto-asset services in the EU,” with a transition window in some countries running until July 1, 2026.

When it comes to regulation, it is important to watch authorization lists and deadlines in the EU, enforcement posture and whether “strategic reserve” language turns into durable policy in the US.

Did you know? One of the biggest crypto rules many are still waiting on in 2026 is a US market-structure law that would finally spell out who regulates what, ending years of overlap between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and setting clear rules for exchanges and brokers.

Where to look when the chart goes quiet

Bitcoin in 2026 appears less driven by hype cycles alone. Instead, attention is shifting to a few pipes and pressure points:

ETF flows show who is allocating and how sticky that demand might be.

Treasury-heavy public companies reveal how Bitcoin exposure is being repackaged for equity markets and how index rules can suddenly matter as much as onchain data.

The security budget debate reminds us that network health depends on incentives.

Scaling discussions have moved from abstract arguments to concrete trade-offs between Lightning, L2 designs and protocol upgrades.

Regulation now determines which doors are open and which stay shut for mainstream capital.

None of these forces moves in a straight line, and none shows up cleanly on a price chart. Taken together, they explain why Bitcoin can look quiet on the surface while something important is changing underneath. For analysts, that is where the data increasingly lives.

Lawmakers and crypto industry bigwigs have hit an impasse over the crypto market structure bill that had been making its way through the Senate. Now the future of the bill is uncertain as legislators go back to the drawing board.

The initial goal had been to pass the landmark crypto legislation by September 2025. The deadline came and went, prompting a revised target of the end of the year.

Just two weeks into 2026, the Senate has canceled a crucial markup vote to define language and other parameters of the bill. Major industry groups have also withdrawn their support.

With lawmakers and crypto industry representatives still at loggerheads over critical issues within the bill, the timeline for a comprehensive crypto law has stretched even further.

Coinbase withdraws from crypto market structure bill

On Thursday, the US Senate Banking Committee postponed a markup hearing, a crucial opportunity for legislators to debate a bill and discuss possible changes.

Chairman Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, said that the break was simply a “brief pause.” He said he’d “spoken with leaders across the crypto industry, the financial sector, and my Democratic and Republican colleagues, and everyone remains at the table working in good faith.”

Source: Tim Scott

Scott did not say when the next markup session would be. But the cancellation comes just days after the Senate Agriculture Committee, another group tasked with reviewing the legislation, postponed its own markup session to Jan. 27.

On Tuesday, Scott published a list of “myths” about the bill, refuting claims that the legislation was written by the crypto industry and designed to serve its interests. “The bill has been shaped by years of bipartisan work, extensive engagement with regulators and law enforcement, and a focus on public-interest outcomes,” Republican lawmakers claimed.

Still, just two days later, Coinbase withdrew its support, after which the committee scrapped plans for markup. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said there are “too many issues” with the bill as written, namely:

A de facto ban on tokenized equities 

Prohibitions on decentralized finance (DeFi)

Subversion of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Bans on stablecoin interest.

Armstrong said that “this version would be materially worse than the current status quo. We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill. Hopefully we can all get to a better draft.” 

Coinbase has long been critical of the prohibitions on interest-bearing stablecoins, which it sees as an effort by the banking lobby to protect its business from disruption from the crypto industry.

Some observers stressed the importance of keeping a broad range of financial services available to the investing public.

Ji Hun Kim, CEO of blockchain industry advocacy group Crypto Council for Innovation, told Cointelegraph, “It remains critical to preserve consumer choice and ensure any framework supports responsible competition. Clear, workable rules should protect consumers and drive innovation without narrowing the range of financial services available.”

Other crypto executives expressed interest in continued cooperation with lawmakers in Washington. Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said, “Market structure legislation is, by definition, complex. Resolving it was never going to be frictionless. The existence of remaining issues does not mean the effort has failed. It means we are doing the hard work of governing.”

Rulemaking could take years

Even if Congress can get a bill together that the industry approves, its implementation is likely to take a long time.

Justin Slaughter, vice president of regulatory affairs at crypto investment firm Paradigm, said, “There are just a ton of rulemakings in this bill.” He noted 45 separate instances where regulatory agencies would have to issue rules if the bill was passed into law.

The process of implementing this bill will not just run through this presidential term; it will probably run through the entirety of the next one.”

He recalled the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the rulemaking on which is still not finished today. “Most of the non-CFTC rules were finished [between] 2013 [and] 2018, three to eight years after passage,” he said.

And that’s assuming that the bill can pass. As written, there are a number of hurdles, Slaughter said. He noted friction over DeFi, which will require further clarification and new definitions. He said there’d be “real issues” with how to launch DeFi protocols, which “definitionally cannot be decentralized on day one.”

He also recalled the absence of anything about quorums for regulatory agencies. Presently, both the SEC and CFTC are run entirely by Republicans. While traditionally the minority party has been represented, some agencies are currently running on skeleton crews of those loyal to the presidential administration.

Slaughter said that Democrats “won’t sign a bill that doesn’t guarantee that some Democratic commissioners will be able to help implement this bill, nor should they.”

Rachel Lin, CEO and co-founder of crypto trading platform SynFutures, told Cointelegraph that rulemaking after the fact leaves much to be desired. “Clarity needs to come from statute, not just future regulatory guidance, or the industry risks trading one form of uncertainty for another,” she said.

Be it partisan divisions or industry pushback, the Clarity Act is far from complete, and it could be a long time before the industry sees the regulation it wants in Washington.

Magazine: Here’s why crypto is moving to Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Global bank messaging network SWIFT has tested Societe Generale’s euro-pegged stablecoin as part of a collaboration aimed at improving interoperability between traditional financial systems and blockchain-based assets.

Societe Generale’s digital asset subsidiary, SG-Forge, on Thursday announced it successfully completed the exchange and settlement of tokenized bonds in both fiat and digital currencies.

The collaboration involved transactions in SG-Forge’s stablecoin EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), which the bank initially launched on Ethereum in 2023. 

“This initiative showed that tokenized bonds can leverage existing payment infrastructures, enabling financial institutions and corporates to benefit from faster settlements and secure, compliant operational processes through the integration of ISO 20022 standards,” SG-Forge said.

“First MiCA-compliant stablecoin for SWIFT’s interoperability”

The joint project demonstrated the feasibility of key market operation use cases, including issuance, delivery-versus-payment settlement, coupon payments and redemption.

As part of the cooperation, SG-Forge provided its open-source standard, called Compliance Architecture for Security Tokens (CAST), including its security token and the EURCV stablecoin.

Notably, SG-Forge referred to its EURCV stablecoin as the first on-chain settlement asset that is compliant with Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework and is “natively compatible with Swift’s interoperability capabilities.”

SG-Forge’s post on LinkedIn on Thursday. Source: SG-Forge

“By proving that Swift can orchestrate multi-platform tokenized asset transactions, we’re paving the way for our customers to adopt digital assets with confidence, and at scale,” SWIFT’s tokenized assets product lead, Thomas Dugauquier, said in a joint announcement.

“It’s about creating a bridge between existing finance and emerging technologies,” he added.

SWIFT works with 30 banks on a shared blockchain-based ledger

SWIFT announced plans to “add blockchain-based ledger to its infrastructure stack” in September 2025.

SG-Forge was one of at least 30 financial institutions worldwide that SWIFT named as partners for its ledger project, which focuses on real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments and began with a conceptual prototype developed by Ethereum software firm Consensys.

SWIFT’s post on LinkedIn in December 2025. Source: SWIFT

SWIFT’s upcoming system is expected to apply blockchain technology to provide a “secure, real-time log of transactions” shared between financial institutions that will record sequence, validate transactions and enforce rules through smart contracts.

Cointelegraph reached out to SG-Forge and SWIFT for comment on the specific blockchain networks used in the recently completed project, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Galaxy Digital has closed its first tokenized collateralized loan obligation (CLO), bringing private credit onto blockchain infrastructure.

The deal, known as Galaxy CLO 2025-1, is issued on the Avalanche and has financed roughly $75 million in loans so far, according to a Thursday announcement. The transaction is anchored by an approximately $50 million allocation from Grove, an institutional credit protocol within the Sky ecosystem, formerly known as MakerDAO.

“By uniting our strengths in debt capital markets, blockchain technology, and asset management, we're opening a new avenue for institutional engagement in credit markets—one that benefits from greater efficiency, transparency, and expanded collateral flexibility through onchain execution,” Chris Ferraro, president and chief investment officer at Galaxy, said.

Galaxy said the CLO is designed to support its lending operations through an uncommitted credit facility extended to Arch Lending, a crypto lending platform backed by Galaxy Ventures. Arch issues consumer loans that are overcollateralized with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Money from the CLO is used to buy these loans as they are created, with the program able to grow to $200 million over time.

The CLO is issued on Avalanche. Source: Avalanche

Related: Sygnum sees tokenization and state Bitcoin reserves taking off in 2026

Galaxy’s tokenized CLO to trade on INX platform

Crypto trading platform INX issued the CLO’s bonds and put them on the blockchain. The tokens are expected to be listed on INX’s platform for approved investors. The safest portion of the CLO pays interest at a rate tied to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, plus 5.7%, matures in December 2026 and makes monthly payments, per the announcement.

Galaxy’s internal teams handled the structuring and blockchain setup, while Galaxy Asset Management oversees the product.

Anchorage Digital Bank acts as trustee and custodian, tracking collateral and settlements in real time using its blockchain infrastructure. Galaxy also partnered with Accountable, a data platform that lets investors continuously monitor loan performance and collateral backing the CLO.

Related: LSEG brings commercial bank money onto blockchain rails with DiSH

Stablecoins to overtake ACH payments in 2026: Galaxy

In a recent report, Galaxy Research, the research arm of Galaxy Digital, predicted that stablecoins could handle more transaction volume than the US Automated Clearing House system as early as 2026. The firm noted that stablecoins already process more transactions than major card networks like Visa and now account for roughly half of ACH transaction volume.

Galaxy said stablecoin supply has been growing at a 30%–40% annual rate, with transaction activity rising alongside issuance.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

BitMine Immersion Technology has agreed to invest $200 million in Beast Industries, the entertainment company founded by YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, in a deal that links one of crypto’s largest Ether holders with the world’s most-followed online creator.

BitMine will make a $200 million equity investment into Beast Industries, the company announced on Thursday. 

BitMine said the deal could significantly expand its mainstream visibility, given MrBeast’s reach across digital platforms. Donaldson runs the most-subscribed YouTube channel, with more than 450 million subscribers and billions of monthly views across his network of channels.

“MrBeast and Beast Industries, in our view, is the leading content creator of our generation, with a reach and engagement unmatched with GenZ, GenAlpha and Millennials,” said Thomas Lee, the chairman of BitMine. “Beast Industries is the largest and most innovative creator based platform in the world and our corporate and personal values are strongly aligned.”

The deal is expected to close on Monday, Jan. 19.

Beast Industries to explore DeFi integration for upcoming financial platform

As part of the deal with BitMine, Beast Industries will explore ways to incorporate decentralized finance (DeFi) in its planned financial services platform, said Jeffrey Housenbold, the CEO of Beast Industries.

Cointelegraph reached out to BitMine and Beast Industries for comment on the specifics of the deal and the upcoming DeFi integration, but had not received a response by publication.

Related: Sharplink pockets $33M from Ether staking, deploys another $170M ETH

MrBeast started expanding beyond YouTube in 2025, announcing plans to launch a financial services platform during the New York Times' DealBook Summit in early December.

“We’re also launching a phone company, Beast Mobile, and a financial services platform in there, wrapped in financial literacy and access to the world's information,” Housenbold told Business Insider on Dec. 3.

Beast Industries generated $400 million in revenue during 2024, according to investor materials seen by Business Insider.

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

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming embedded across crypto trading, accelerating analysis, execution and optimization processes previously handled by people.

Investors and trading companies are being pushed to confront how much decision-making can be automated without diluting control, accountability or human judgment.

Even as some projects are reaching for more autonomous trading systems, most AI tools in crypto remain tightly constrained. Humans still define strategies, set risk limits and take responsibility for outcomes, as machines take on much of the bandwidth used for data-heavy tasks, such as research and monitoring.

Across crypto markets, the balance between automation and oversight is quietly reshaping trading workflows and beginning to redefine what human roles still matter.

“[AI is] replacing the 80% that nobody actually wants to do. The best researchers use AI to dramatically improve their work,” Ryan Li, co-founder and CEO of crypto research platform Surf AI, told Cointelegraph.

That change is already influencing how crypto trading firms operate, how junior roles are defined and where human judgment still sits in an increasingly automated market.

Data-rich sectors like finance are among those most threatened by AI. Source: World Economic Forum

Crypto and trading job fears meet AI performance

Interest in using AI to boost efficiency in crypto accelerated in the last quarter of 2024 as AI agents emerged. Projects such as Virtuals Protocol drew attention for experiments involving AI-managed wallets and onchain activity.

Although AI agents remain overseen by humans, their growing potential has raised questions about whether traders will remain essential in future markets.

“From a technical point of view, autonomous trading is already possible. The question is not execution; it’s control, limits and accountability,” Igor Stadnyk, co-founder of AI trading platform True Trading, told Cointelegraph.

He added:

“But strategy selection and risk are still human decisions — you decide what to trade and how much risk to take. It’s your salary, after all.”

Related: Ethereum in 2026: Glamsterdam and Hegota forks, L1 scaling and more 

Concerns about displacement extend beyond crypto. In traditional finance, researchers at Stanford University and Boston College tested an AI analyst using publicly available real-time data across thousands of US mutual fund portfolios between 1990 and 2020.

The AI-managed portfolios generated an average of $17.1 million more per fund per quarter than their human-managed counterparts. Ed deHaan, an accounting professor at Stanford who led the experiment, said he does not expect mass displacement of portfolio managers but warned that junior analyst roles could be at risk.

Describing candidates he evaluated but ultimately did not hire from his alma mater, Li said, “I’ve seen so many people with perfect scores from Berkeley, and they don’t know how to code. They don’t know how to write anything because they are entirely helped by AI.”

The remark was not a critique of the academic ability of modern students but an observation about how traditional hiring signals have weakened as AI tools take on work that once helped build foundational skills.

In crypto markets, decentralized perpetuals exchange Aster ran a separate experiment, pitting 100 human traders against 100 AI models during a period of market decline.

Aster’s trading battle tested how well AI can preserve capital during bear market conditions. Source: Aster

The competition ended with human traders down 32.21%. The AI models also finished in the red but preserved capital more effectively, posting a 4.48% loss.

AI trading is not algorithmic trading

Algorithmic systems now handle the vast majority of trade execution in major markets, replacing tasks once carried out by human traders.

Much of the concern around job displacement stems from treating AI trading as a continuation of algorithmic trading rather than a different class of systems altogether, Stadnyk said.

To put it simply, algorithmic trading is built around deterministic rules that execute predefined strategies when specific conditions are met, leaving little room for interpretation once those rules are set.

“With AI, you’re working under uncertainty, where data can be missing, noisy or even contradictory,” Stadnyk said. “AI is useful in those situations because it can still operate when information is incomplete and conditions are constantly changing.”

Related: Blockchains quietly prepare for quantum threat as Bitcoin debates timeline

AI can ingest and interpret news, social media and sentiment across regions and languages in real time, allowing traders to factor in narrative shifts and cultural context that are difficult to encode into fixed rules.

A similar pattern is visible at the network level, according to Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, where elevated trading activity has made shifts in trader behavior more visible.

“AI helps with gathering information for crypto folks and improves research efficiency, but only using information that’s already in the public domain,” Rong told Cointelegraph.

“It also gives non-programmers the ability to use programming as a tool. Domain experts who can use vibe coding to their advantage are in a uniquely strong position right now,” she added.

While AI is making traders more efficient, fears around job displacement continue to surface. In June, AI job replacement topped crypto social discussions, according to Santiment, a crypto research platform that uses AI to track market narratives.

AI job replacement was a top discussion ahead of memecoins and Strategy. Source: Santiment

Human judgment still matters in AI-driven crypto trading

AI has not removed humans from crypto, but it is already reshaping how work is distributed across the industry. Much of that shift is happening quietly, at the task level, particularly in research roles that once relied on teams of junior analysts and interns.

According to Li, those structures are already changing as AI absorbs routine research work that used to justify larger headcounts.

“Funds used to hire teams of researchers or interns,” he said. “Now they just have one really good researcher who can work with AI a lot better.”

But there are cases where AI systems have a higher degree of independence. In both crypto and traditional finance, autonomous models can be configured to manage wallets, rebalance portfolios and execute trades without constant human approval.

“I’m confident that major players are already doing this in some form, even if they’re not scaling it aggressively or promoting it publicly,” he added.

AI tokens boomed in late 2024 but have since lost about 67% of their market value. Source: CoinMarketCap

As execution becomes more automated, traders can focus on strategy and risk rather than manual mechanics. According to Stadnyk, the shift is happening faster than many expect.

“A year has passed since AI agents first gained traction on [X]. In crypto, that’s like 10 years in [aerospace] or 100 years in medicine because everything can be tested very quickly,” Stadnyk said.

Magazine: Chinese users turn to ‘U cards’ to get around crypto rules: Asia Express

Cryptocurrency markets staged their largest short squeeze since the sharp selloff in early October, as a rebound in prices forced bearish traders to unwind positions and fueled hopes of a broader recovery.

Short liquidations across crypto futures and perpetual contracts climbed to about $200 million on Wednesday, the highest level since roughly $1 billion in short positions were wiped out during the October market crash, according to data shared by analytics firm Glassnode. The firm said it was the biggest short liquidation event across the 500 largest cryptocurrencies since the Oct. 10 selloff.

The rebound follows a significant recovery in investor sentiment, which flipped from fear to greed for the first time since early October, Cointelegraph reported earlier on Thursday.

Some analysts say the short squeeze and sentiment improvement is a signal for improving market conditions preceding a wider market recovery. A short squeeze occurs when the price of an asset makes a sharp increase, forcing short sellers to buy the asset to avoid greater losses.

Source: Glassnode

Bitcoin (BTC) accounted for the largest share of liquidations, with $71 million in shorts liquidated in the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH) followed with $43 million, and privacy token Dash (DASH) had $24 million in shorts liquidated, according to Glasnode’s dashboard.

Related: Bitcoin ETFs on rollercoaster as traditional funds pull in $46B in 2026

Geopolitics add fuel to recovery

Other analysts are pointing to early signs of a market recovery as Bitcoin starts to outperform the US dollar amid heightened uncertainty around the Federal Reserve’s independence and growing geopolitical concerns after the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

”One structural tailwind for Bitcoin as a reserve asset is the rise in geopolitical volatility, which has so far been a headwind for the US dollar,” Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen, told Cointelegraph.

”While precious metals remain the primary beneficiaries in this environment, Bitcoin is increasingly part of the conversation as an alternative reserve asset and could benefit from this trend, even if to a lesser extent,” he added.

Related: 2025 crypto bear market was ‘repricing’ year for institutional capital: Analyst

BTC&DXY, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin’s price rose 10.6% year-to-date, while the US Dollar Index (DXY) rose 0.75% during the same period, according to TradingView.

Bitcoin may also benefit from other fundamental tailwinds, including the criminal investigation into US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Which may introduce a ”risk premia” for BTC, analysts from crypto exchange Bitunix said on Monday.

Magazine: If the crypto bull run is ending… it’s time to buy a Ferrari — Crypto Kid

Opinion by: Steven Pu, co-founder of Taraxa

​Across verticals, the same pattern shows up again and again, and it has nothing to do with decentralization. Businesses rush toward blockchain solutions to solve their daily operational nightmares — only to discover that Ethereum and Solana can’t actually address them.

​Consider a construction foreman who approved a last-minute design change over a quick phone call, only to get sued six months later when the customer says they never agreed to it. Or consider an equipment leasing company that watches its revenue share evaporate because clients dispute sensor data showing machine usage — data that could have been tampered with before reaching the blockchain.

​We watch this pattern repeat across industries, with disputes being the primary pain point driving adoption. In asset leasing, for instance, disputes arise over how assets are used, what they’re earning and whether sensor-collected data has been altered. In construction, disputes often arise from frequent and urgent changes to pre-approved building plans, which can create confusion and lead to expensive lawsuits later on.

General-purpose blockchains have reached their limits in solving real-world problems. In almost every industry where decentralized networks could be useful, there are clear technical mismatches between what general-purpose chains offer and what specific verticals actually need. Therefore, founders are increasingly building their own specialized layer 1s instead.

Industry-specific disputes need simpler blockchains

In construction and similar industries, disputes are frequent and expensive. An onchain audit trail of “who said what when” can anchor the handshake agreements that happen via informal texts and calls, greatly minimizing the potential for lawsuits.

Audit trails — basically, signed messages — are stateless by nature. Each message added to the network has no effect on previous or subsequent messages. These aren’t financial transactions with balances to track, no double-spend problems to solve and no cryptographic identities to verify. The only properties that really matter are immutability and ordering to establish an ironclad sequence of events.

It matters because appending stateless messages to a blockchain doesn’t need the full verification machinery that Ethereum provides. No need to verify complex cryptographic signatures and smart contracts for every entry; these messages can be committed to a permanent state in parallel.

​As soon as any audit trail use case scales, founders would be wise to build their own specialized layer 1. Most signature verifications can be skipped since there are no assets to steal, resulting in significant savings of processing power. No smart contracts means avoiding Ethereum’s notoriously slow virtual machine. Because stateless messages guarantee no conflicts between entries, they can be rapidly committed in parallel.

​These customizations could dramatically improve network speed and responsiveness — all without sacrificing the security or decentralization that matters for proving “who said what when.”

Financial regulations break general blockchains

While construction needs less complexity, traditional finance needs more control — specifically, regulatory control that general-purpose blockchains weren’t designed to provide.

As decentralized finance becomes mainstream, traditional financial institutions are increasingly placing real-world assets (RWAs) — including fiat currencies and securities — onchain. The trouble is these non-crypto native assets are heavily regulated everywhere around the world, and those regulatory constraints have technical implications that Ethereum can’t accommodate.

Regulators will increasingly demand foolproof functionalities at the foundational blockchain level to ensure maximum compliance. Know Your Customer (KYC) rules will soon require blockchains to have natively built-in connections to licensed, offchain KYC providers, ensuring every single address corresponds to a verified identity. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and sanctions requirements will demand that every wallet and every asset can be blacklisted, blocked and frozen and that all transactions be reversible. Even the computers running these blockchains may be treated as security brokers or money transmitters, requiring specialized financial licenses and making these networks fully private and permissioned.

All of these regulatory functions must be natively integrated into the consensus protocol to ensure maximum compliance. Since none of these are possible on a general-purpose layer 1, financial institutions need to build their own — and they have been, rapidly.

A few notable examples include JPMorgan’s Kinexys for interbank settlements, Stripe’s Tempo for payments and Robinhood’s Arbitrum-based layer 2 for onchain securities. As mainstream institutional adoption grows, these regulated and permissioned blockchains will increasingly become the norm in the crypto space.

Generalized layer 1s are not going anywhere

The obvious question: If every industry builds its own blockchain, don’t these smaller networks become vulnerable to attacks?

Generalized layer 1s, especially those with significant scale, can still play a critical role as security anchors for these industry-specific custom blockchains. A few large-scale networks — Bitcoin and Ethereum — have tremendous numbers of participants, node operators and onchain financial interests that make them very difficult to compromise. This stands in stark contrast to smaller, more vulnerable industry-specific chains.

These specialized networks can use Ethereum, for example, to anchor periodic snapshots that prevent historical rewrites, include ETH as part of their staking requirements or use Ethereum to settle disputes by replaying transaction histories. Think of it as specialized blockchains handling day-to-day operations while periodically checking in with Ethereum for security backup.

This resolves the dispute problem in an unexpected way: Specialized chains can be optimized for their industry’s specific needs — whether that’s simple audit trails or complex regulatory compliance — while still maintaining robust security guarantees by anchoring to established networks.

As mainstream adoption continues to accelerate, tthe bulk of industry-specific use cases won’t be handled by today’s one-size-fits-all layer 1s but they could help bolster the security guarantees of the industry-specific networks.We’ll see an ecosystem of purpose-built blockchains, each solving the precise problems their industries face — from construction disputes to equipment leasing conflicts to regulatory compliance — while relying on Ethereum and Bitcoin to strengthen their security.

​Opinion by: Steven Pu, co-founder of Taraxa.

This opinion article presents the contributor’s expert view and it may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance, Cointelegraph remains committed to transparent reporting and upholding the highest standards of journalism. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company.

India’s crypto industry is renewing calls for tax reform ahead of the country’s February Union Budget, arguing that the current framework is discouraging onshore activity as regulatory compliance requirements continue to tighten.

India’s current crypto tax framework, introduced in 2022, levies a flat 30% tax on crypto gains and applies a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on most transactions, whether they are profitable or not. At the moment, losses from trades can't be used to offset gains. 

Executives from major domestic exchanges say the existing tax regime, particularly transaction-level taxes and restrictions on loss set-offs, no longer reflects how the global digital asset market evolved, nor India's own progress in strengthening oversight and enforcement. 

The renewed push comes as policymakers finalize fiscal priorities for the next financial year. The Union Budget of India, expected to be presented on Feb. 1, is widely seen as one of the few avenues through which meaningful tax recalibration can occur without new legislation. 

Exchanges argue compliance is in place, tax friction remains

Exchanges argued that sustained pressure on compliant platforms risks pushing liquidity, users and innovation offshore, effectively undermining the oversight goals regulators are attempting to achieve.

In a statement sent to Cointelegraph, Nischal Shetty, founder of domestic exchange WazirX, said that India has an opportunity to refine its crypto framework in a way that balances enforcement with innovation. 

“As India prepares for Budget 2026, there is a clear opportunity to fine-tune a framework which supports transparency and compliance while fostering innovation,” Shetty said.

Shetty argued that the current regime should be reassessed "in line with how Web3 has matured over the last couple of years globally," citing increased institutional adoption and evolving regulations worldwide. 

He said a calibrated reduction in transaction-level TDS and a review of loss set-off provisions could help restore onshore liquidity, improve compliance and ensure that more economic activity remains within India.  

Raj Karkara, the chief operating officer of Indian crypto exchange ZebPay, echoed similar views, calling the upcoming budget a "pivotal moment" for the sector. 

“A rationalisation of the current 1% TDS on crypto transactions could meaningfully improve liquidity and encourage stronger onshore participation,” Karkara said, adding that a review of the flat 30% tax on crypto gains would create a more predictable investment environment.

SB Seker, the head of APAC at crypto exchange Binance, said the upcoming budget presents a chance to recalibrate India's crypto tax framework in line with growing retail participation. 

He argued that a more pragmatic approach, which focuses on capital gains realized, with limited loss set-offs and the removal of transaction-level levies, would improve fairness for users and signal a move away from what he called a “tax-and-deter” regime. 

“Clear, consistent operating standards for VDA platforms, aligned with India’s AML/KYC and investor protection priorities, will encourage responsible capital investment, create skilled jobs, and build domestic capabilities,” Seker added. 

Related: India’s central bank urges countries to prioritize CBDCs over stablecoins

Industry calls for reforms amid tighter enforcement

The calls for tax reform come as crypto platforms face increasingly strict compliance requirements in India. 

On Monday, India’s Financial Intelligence Unit introduced new Know Your Customer rules requiring exchanges to verify users through live selfie checks, geolocation and IP tracking, bank account verification and additional government-issued identification. 

At the same time, tax authorities continued to voice concerns over the digital asset sector's impact on enforcement. 

On Jan. 8, officials from India’s Income Tax Department warned lawmakers that offshore exchanges, private wallets and decentralized finance tools complicate efforts to track taxable crypto income. 

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied 10% from its yearly open near $87,500 before stalling below resistance, but analysts say the price remains positioned for higher targets if key supply levels are reclaimed and spot demand continues to build.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin must take out resistance at $98,000 to trigger a rally to a six-figure BTC price.

Spot demand and spot ETF inflows must persist for a breakout to $100,000.

BTC price must take out resistance at $98,000

BTC’s price rebounds since November 2025 have repeatedly been rejected by a supply zone at $93,000 to $110,000. 

This represents the lower boundary of the long-term holder (LTH) supply clusters, according to Glassnode’s Cost Basis Distribution Heatmap. 

Related: Bitcoin price tags $97K despite high producer price inflation, no US tariff ruling

“This region has consistently acted as a transition barrier, separating corrective phases from durable bull regimes,” Glassnode said in its latest Week On-chain report, adding:

“With price once again pressing into this overhead supply, the market now faces a familiar test of resilience, where absorbing long-term holder distribution remains a prerequisite for any broader trend reversal.”

Bitcoin LTH cost basis distribution heatmap. Source: Glassnode 

Bitcoin’s bullish case hinges on its price cracking through immediate resistance at $98,300 — the short-term holder (STH) supply basis.

This level represents the aggregate entry price of investors who have held Bitcoin for less than 155 days, and serves as a critical gauge of market confidence. 

“Sustained trading above this threshold would indicate that new demand is absorbing overhead supply, allowing recent buyers to remain profitable,” Glassnode said, adding:

“Historically, reclaiming and holding above the Short-Term Holder cost basis has marked the transition from corrective phases into more durable uptrends.”

Bitcoin: STH costs basis pricing mode. Source: Glassnode

Therefore, the ability of the BTC/USD pair to reclaim $98,000 remains a vital prerequisite for restoring confidence in the sustenance of the rally.

“It's even possible we hit that $100K mark this week,” MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe said in a recent analysis on X, adding:

“The trend is upwards.”

As Cointelegraph reported, holding above the daily order block between $90,000 and $92,000 would strengthen the case for a sustained push above $100,000 before the end of the month. 

Bitcoin bulls must sustain spot and ETF demand

Bitcoin’s ability to push above $100,000 appears plausible due to the return of spot demand and inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The chart below shows that Bitcoin’s spot market activity has begun to improve, with Binance and aggregate exchange cumulative volume delta (CVD) measures returning to a buy-dominant regime.

This reflects a shift away from persistent sell-side pressure, signaling that traders are once again “absorbing supply rather than distributing into strength,” Glassnode said, adding:

“The transition back into a net-buying posture across major venues represents a constructive structural shift.”

Bitcoin spot CVD bias. Source: Glassnode

Meanwhile, demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs is showing signs of coming back, with these investment products recording inflows over three straight days, totaling $1.7 billion, per data from SoSoValue

The $843.6 million recorded on Wednesday was the highest since Oct. 7, 2025, and marked the largest single-day inflows of 2026. 

Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows. Source: SoSoValue

“Bitcoin's price will go parabolic if ETF demand persists long-term,” Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said in an X post on Tuesday, adding:

Hougan said just as gold rallied 65% after its supply was absorbed, a similar move could happen with Bitcoin because ETFs are buying more BTC than the new supply being created.

“If ETF demand persists - and I think it will - eventually, sellers will run out of ammunition.”