The cryptocurrency market got off to a strong start in 2026. Bitcoin, along with gold and silver, rose as investors took positions with the expectation that the new year could be “groundbreaking”.
Bitcoin’s price has recovered from levels below $85,000 seen in December and is approaching $90,000, while gold and silver are also heading back to their all-time highs after the sharp fluctuations experienced this week.
The rise in Bitcoin’s price has triggered liquidations in the cryptocurrency market. In the last 24 hours, $382 million worth of liquidations have occurred in the cryptocurrency market, with $323 million of that coming from short positions.
On the other hand, in terms of assets, the most liquidation occurred in Ethereum with $123 million. It was followed by Bitcoin with $115 million and Solana with $20 million.
Founder who predicted the bull run reveals which altcoin he well collect in 2026
Yi Lihua, founder of Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital), reiterated his optimistic stance towards Ethereum (ETH), stating that he agrees with analyses based on short squeeze scenarios and expects a strong bull market in 2026, and will steadily and gradually increase his ETH holdings.
Yi Lihua stated in a social media post that his strategy for increasing ETH positions includes controlled borrowing. Comparing his investment approach to the one he adopted when Ethereum was trading in the $1,000–$2,000 range in the first half of 2025, Yi said he would not focus on price fluctuations of a few hundred dollars.
Yi Lihua stated that this approach is based on the concept of trend investing rather than short-term price movements, and that success or failure primarily depends on realizing future potential.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $2,973. Over the past week, the price of ETH has gained approximately 1%. However, it is still about 40% lower than its record high.
The current 8.7 million record high happens one year after Ethereum’s worst quarter in newly deployed contracts: only 528,100 in Q4 2024.Analyst Joseph Young explained, “This is organic growth” of a metric that is “hard to inflate,” pointing out ecosystem expansion, RWA issuance, stablecoins, wallets, and intents.
ETH is trading at $2,980, inside a multi-year key support and resistance (S/R) level that goes from $2,800 to $3,000.
The Ethereum network ETH $2 998 24h volatility: 2.1% Market cap: $359.82 B Vol. 24h: $20.21 B has seen a historical record in quarterly deployed smart contracts in Q4 2025, achieving over 8.7 million contracts.
This milestone highlights developer and startup activity growth around the Ethereum ecosystem.
BNB Chain has released its technology roadmap for 2026, announcing its goal to significantly improve network performance and scalability.
The roadmap highlighted further reductions in transaction fees, achieving 20,000 transactions per second (TPS) with sub-second finality times, and minimizing network latency.
XRP was the most traded asset on Uphold in 2025, according to the firm's Monday announcement.
A long-time XRP supporter The most recent development is not surprising, given that Uphold is a long-time supporter of the Uphold token. Unlike many other US exchanges that delisted XRP during the SEC lawsuit years, Uphold kept it listed. This built immense loyalty. In 2025, that loyalty converted into volume once again.
Uphold expanded XRP utility in 2025, exploring yield options and staking integrations (e.g., via Flare Network).
On top of that, it organized some high-value promotional campaigns involving the XRP token earlier this year.
XRP-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are entering 2026 with strong momentum.
XRP ETFs, launched in November, quickly attracted over $1 billion in net investment, according to SoSoValue data. Furthermore, there hasn’t been a single net outflow since their launch.
This performance far surpasses that of Solana ETFs, which managed to raise $387 million during the same period. On the other hand, Bitcoin ETFs saw a net sale of $3.6 billion, while Ethereum ETFs experienced outflows of $1.2 billion.
🗞️ Ethereum’s Long-Term Price Structure: Respecting the Trend
On the weekly ETH chart, one thing stands out clearly: Ethereum continues to respect its long-term ascending trendline, despite multiple major crashes over the years.
📌 Historically:
ETH rallies tend to be sharper than Bitcoin’s
Corrections are also deeper and faster
Long-term trendlines have repeatedly acted as accumulation zones
Every time Ethereum has revisited its long-term support structure, it has either bounced strongly or entered a prolonged consolidation before the next expansion phase.
China Imposes Sanctions on 20 U.S. Companies, Bitcoin Falls
According to a Bloomberg report, China announced sanctions against 20 U.S. defense companies and 10 executives, a move that signals its anger over the U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan. Boeing, Northrop, L3Harris Maritime Services, and Vantor are among the companies that the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced it is sanctioning.
As part of the sanction, China will freeze assets that the companies hold in the country and also ban them from doing business with Chinese entities. The BTC price has fallen amid this development, with TradingView data showing the flagship crypto is currently trading around $87,000, down from an intraday high of around $89,000.