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The spike in Polymarket odds comes just days after United States President Donald Trump said “we’re probably going to end up in another Democrat shutdown.” Polymarket betters are pricing in a 77% chance that the US government will shut down again before the end of January, marking a 67% increase over the past 24 hours. It comes as the CLARITY Act, a significant crypto bill aimed at providing more clarity around regulations, is still making its way through Congress, with previous delays largely blamed on the record 43-day US government shutdown in October and November. Political commentator Collin Rugg highlighted the surging Polymarket odds in an X post on Saturday, noting that it came shortly after US Senator Chuck Schumer announced that Senate Democrats would not “provide the votes to proceed” to the appropriations bill if funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is included. Read more
The extended outflow streak comes as a widely used crypto sentiment indicator has stayed within the “Extreme Fear” range since Wednesday. US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have extended their outflow streak to five days as crypto market sentiment continues to wane. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs posted $103.5 million in net outflows on Friday, continuing an outflow streak that began the previous Friday. Over the five days, including the four-day trading week in the US shortened by Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, total outflows reached approximately $1.72 billion, according to Farside data. Read more
Crypto sales are taxable under current United States policy, but lawmakers have proposed tax exemptions for small transactions. The biggest obstacle to Bitcoin (BTC) being used as a payment method is tax policy, not scaling technology that reduces settlement times and transaction costs, according to Pierre Rochard, a board member for Bitcoin treasury company Strive. “Here’s a metaphor: the best athlete can win against the worst athlete 100% of the time, if the best athlete plays. It drops to 0% if he doesn’t play and lets the weak athlete win,” Rochard said about BTC’s current lack of use as a method of payment. In December 2025, the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a non-profit policy advocacy organization, sounded the alarm on the lack of a de minimis tax exemption for small Bitcoin transactions. Read more
The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) memecoin had a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the US White House published its post. The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) token, a memecoin launched on the Solana layer-1 blockchain network, surged by about 564% following a social media post from the United States White House. On Friday, the White House published a social media post on X of US President Donald Trump and a penguin holding hands and walking through the snow, which went viral. PENGUIN traded at a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the post and recorded $244 million in trading volume in the 24 hours after the post, according to SolanaFloor. Read more
The Bitcoin proposal caps arbitrary data in an attempt to combat spam from non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network. The number of Bitcoin (BTC) nodes signaling support for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110), a temporary soft fork limiting the amount of data included in each transaction at the consensus level, rose to 2.38%. 583 out of 24,481 nodes are running BIP-110, and the primary node software implementation for running the soft fork proposal is Bitcoin Knots, according to The Bitcoin Portal. BIP-110 limits the size of transaction outputs to 34 bytes and caps the OP_RETURN data limit to 83 bytes. The temporary soft fork will be deployed for 1 year, with possible extension or alteration after the 1-year term, according to the proposal’s GitHub page. Read more
Some European policymakers have floated the idea of selling off US debt as a way of combating US belligerence, but it may be much more difficult in practice. The United States’ geopolitical brinkmanship over Greenland has thrown its economic ties to the EU into sharp relief. European powers are considering what instruments it has to combat US belligerence, including the “nuclear option” of offloading US debt. The tone has shifted after a supposed “framework of a deal” at Davos, and US ambitions to take over Greenland have cooled, for now. But EU heads of state are still preparing possible responses to further escalation. One option was cutting off access to US markets through the so-called “trade bazooka.” If triggered, it would cut off US companies from the EU market, costing them billions. Another option is offloading the trillions of dollars in US assets held in Europe. Read more
Proposed restrictions under the US CLARITY Act could drive demand for offshore and synthetic dollar products as investors seek yield outside regulated markets, experts warn. The proposed restrictions on stablecoin yields under the US CLARITY Act risk driving capital out of regulated markets and into offshore, opaque financial structures. Colin Butler, head of markets at Mega Matrix, said banning compliant stablecoins from offering yield would not protect the US financial system, but instead sideline regulated institutions while accelerating capital migration beyond US oversight. “There’s always going to be demand for yield,” Butler told Cointelegraph, adding that if compliant stablecoins can’t offer it, capital will simply move “offshore or into synthetic structures that sit outside the regulatory perimeter.” Read more
Investors and crypto users warn the proposed unrealized gains tax could drive an exodus of capital and talent. The Netherlands plans to tax unrealized capital gains on a range of investments, including stocks, bonds and cryptocurrencies, sparking warnings of capital flight. A majority of lawmakers in the Dutch parliament appear ready to back changes to the country’s Box 3 asset tax regime, which would require investors to pay annual tax on both realized and unrealized gains, even if assets have not been sold, NL Times reported on Tuesday. The plan follows court rulings that struck down the existing system for relying on assumed, rather than actual, returns. The Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives) debated the proposal again this week, with more than 130 questions put to caretaker State Secretary for Taxation Eugène Heijnen. Read more
Ethereum developers to launch biweekly sessions on quantum-resistant transactions as Foundation commits $2 million in new funding to harden core cryptography. The Ethereum Foundation has made post-quantum security a central focus of the network’s long-term roadmap, announcing the formation of a dedicated Post Quantum (PQ) team. The new team will be led by Thomas Coratger, a cryptographic engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, with support from Emile, a cryptographer closely associated with leanVM, according to crypto researcher Justin Drake. “After years of quiet R&D, EF management has officially declared PQ security a top strategic priority,” Drake said in a Saturday post on X. “It's now 2026, timelines are accelerating. Time to go full PQ.” Read more
A full sale at current prices would imply about a $76 million loss on GameStop’s Bitcoin bet, having purchased its 4,710 Bitcoin at an average purchasing price of $107,900. GameStop has transferred its entire Bitcoin holdings to Coinbase’s institutional trading platform, sparking speculation that the video game retailer may be reconsidering its Bitcoin treasury strategy. “GameStop throws in the towel?” blockchain intelligence platform CryptoQuant asked in a post to X on Friday after noticing that GameStop moved its entire 4,710 Bitcoin (BTC) stash worth more than $422 million to Coinbase Prime. CryptoQuant said the transfer was “likely to sell” the holdings, noting that a sale with Bitcoin at $90,800 would mean GameStop realizing around $76 million in losses from its Bitcoin bet. Read more
The amendments marked the latest Democratic Party-driven push to prevent US officials from profiting off of crypto interests. US Democratic Senators working on crypto market structure legislation filed several amendments on Friday, including measures to address conflicts of interest with US officials profiting from the crypto industry. The ethics-focused amendments were filed ahead of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup for the crypto market structure legislation this Tuesday, which seeks to give greater clarity on federal rules for digital assets, define agency oversight, and bring regulatory certainty to investors and market participants. One of the most notable amendments was Senator Michael Bennet’s purported inclusion of the Digital Asset Ethics Act into the crypto market structure legislation to prevent US officials from profiting from the crypto industry. Read more
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said no political or personal financial ties will impact the procedural review of World Liberty Financial’s bank charter application. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has knocked back US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bid to pause the review of World Liberty Financial’s application for a national trust bank charter, a move she sought until US President Donald Trump divests his stake in the crypto platform. The OCC’s Jonathan Gould confirmed on Friday that WLF’s application will be evaluated under existing regulatory standards while emphasizing that no political or personal financial ties will impact the procedural review of the bank charter. “The OCC intends to act consistent with this duty rather than your demand,” he said in response to Warren’s Jan. 14 letter. Read more
The SEC was satisfied with Gemini’s agreement to contribute $40 million toward the full recovery of Gemini Earn investors’ assets lost as a result of the Genesis bankruptcy. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil lawsuit against Gemini Trust Company and Genesis Global Capital in the Earn-related unregistered securities case has been dismissed with prejudice. Court filings show the parties submitted a joint stipulation to dismiss the action on Friday in the US District Court in the Southern District of New York, effectively ending the SEC’s claim over Gemini’s crypto lending program with Genesis. A federal judge still needs to sign off on the joint stipulation to dismiss. The dismissal comes about nine months after the SEC paused the civil action in April 2024 when then-acting chairman Mark Uyeda was leading the agency. The SEC was content with the dismissal based on a 100% in-kind return of Gemini Earn investors’ crypto assets through the Genesis bankruptcy case in mid-2024 and Gemini agreeing to c...
Speaking from Davos on Thursday, co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu said a CertiK public listing would represent a significant advancement for companies involved in Web3. Blockchain security company CertiK is keeping the door open to a future initial public offering, according to co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu. Speaking in an interview with Acumen Media on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gu said CertiK’s valuation stands at about $2 billion and that pursuing a public listing would be a natural step for the company. However, the CEO said the company would need “investment, lots of strategic partnerships” to achieve this goal. “We still do not have a very concrete IPO plan, but this is definitely the goal we are pursuing,” said Gu, adding that CertiK going public would represent a significant step for Web3 infrastructure companies: Read more
The crypto exchange briefly offered tokenized versions of cryptocurrency and technology company stocks in 2021 before halting trading amid regulatory scrutiny. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed plans to bring tokenized equities back to its platform, returning to stock-linked digital assets for the first time since 2021. In a statement to Cointelegraph on Friday, a spokesperson for Binance said “exploring the potential to offer tokenized equities is a natural next step” for bridging traditional finance and crypto. Should the exchange reintroduce digital versions of stocks for companies, it would represent a significant change in Binance’s offerings since it announced “ceasing support for stock tokens” in July 2021. "Binance is committed to bridging traditional finance and crypto, expanding user choices while maintaining the highest regulatory standards,” said the spokesperson. “Since last year, we started supporting tokenized real-world assets and we recently launched the first regulated TradFi per...
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, economist Vera Songwe pointed to remittances and inflation hedging as key drivers of stablecoin use across Africa. Stablecoins are increasingly being used across Africa as a cheaper and faster remittance option, with remittances becoming “more important than aid” on the continent, according to Vera Songwe, a former UN under-secretary-general. Speaking at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, Songwe said traditional money transfer services in Africa often cost about $6 for every $100 sent, making cross-border payments expensive and slow. She said stablecoins are cutting fees and settlement times, allowing individuals and small businesses to move money in minutes rather than waiting days for cross-border payments to clear. Read more
Bloomberg commodity strategist Mike McGlone explains his bearish turn on Bitcoin outlook and broader market expectations for 2026. Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone said he has reversed his long-term outlook on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, arguing that investors should “sell the rallies” across risk assets in 2026. In McGlone’s view, the conditions that once made Bitcoin (BTC) compelling have changed fundamentally. What began as a scarce, disruptive asset has become part of a crowded and highly speculative ecosystem, increasingly correlated with equities and vulnerable to the same macro forces that drive traditional markets. He draws parallels with past market peaks, pointing to excessive speculation, the approval of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and historically low volatility as warning signs. Bitcoin, he argues, has gone from being a hedge against the system to being firmly inside it, and that changes everything. Read more
Paradex said a planned database upgrade briefly corrupted funding data, prompting a chain rollback and refunds after unintended liquidations across multiple markets. Onchain derivatives platform Paradex refunded $650,000 to about 200 users after a maintenance-related software error triggered unintended liquidations across multiple markets. According to a Friday post-mortem shared on X by Paradex, the incident occurred during a planned 30-minute database upgrade on Monday, when a “race condition” caused corrupted market data to be written onchain. Paradex said the issue was operational and not the result of a hack or security breach. In response, Paradex temporarily disabled access to the platform, canceled all open orders except take-profit and stop-loss orders, and rolled back the chain to a snapshot taken before the maintenance window began. Read more
US lawmakers pause the CLARITY Act as DeFi leaders warn the bill still risks developers, DAOs rethink governance and regulators face mounting pressure. United States lawmakers postponed a planned markup of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY), delaying progress on a bill intended to define how cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms are regulated and prompting renewed pushback from DeFi leaders who say the bill still fails to adequately protect developers. Industry groups and crypto venture firms warned that proposed amendments could impose requirements that are not suitable for decentralized systems. Representatives from Paradigm and Variant said the current draft leaves unresolved ambiguity over whether DeFi developers and infrastructure providers could be forced to implement Know Your Customer (KYC), register with financial regulators or comply with rules designed for centralized platforms. The delay follows mounting criticism from across the crypto sector, including public o...
The digital asset custodian’s choppy debut reflects shifting investor sentiment and tighter scrutiny of new listings as crypto markets struggle to regain momentum. Shares of digital asset custodian BitGo Holdings (BTG) have swung sharply since the company’s public debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, with early gains quickly reversing as initial IPO enthusiasm cooled and investors moved to lock in profits. BitGo priced its initial public offering at $18 a share and it jumped about 25% in its first day of trading, reflecting strong early demand. While the stock closed only modestly higher in its first full session, the rally proved short-lived. Shares have since fallen below their IPO price, declining as much as 13.4% on Friday, according to Yahoo Finance data. Read more8179 items