KADG - World

📅 February 4 - Washington D.C. | US politics and the crypto world clashed again… and this time they did so loudly. In a tense congressional hearing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sharply questioned by Democratic lawmakers about the links between World Liberty Financial, a crypto project associated with Donald Trump, and foreign capital from the United Arab Emirates.

📖The hearing took place on Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, as part of a review by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the body responsible for monitoring systemic risks and chaired by Bessent himself.
What wasn't on the formal agenda was the intense political scrutiny that was about to unfold.
Congressman Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York, was the one who lit the fuse. Meeks harshly criticized World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto and decentralized finance project linked to Trump's circle, pointing to its connections with the United Arab Emirates.
The controversy intensified after a report by The Wall Street Journal, which revealed that an investment vehicle backed by Emirati Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan secretly acquired 49% of World Liberty Financial for $500 million, just days before Trump's inauguration.
Although Trump publicly denied knowing about that investment, the timing and magnitude of the deal raised alarms in Congress. The situation worsens because World Liberty Financial is seeking a banking license and recently submitted a formal application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
For Meeks, the risk is clear: a crypto project linked to the president, with significant foreign capital, attempting to access the U.S. banking system.
The lawmaker demanded that Bessent pause any regulatory progress related to WLFI until potential conflicts of interest are investigated. The secretary's response was technical, but insufficient to calm the situation.
Bessent clarified that the OCC is an independent agency, but avoided committing to launching a direct investigation. The exchange quickly escalated, with both speaking simultaneously, until Meeks launched a direct accusation: he asked the secretary to “stop covering for the president.”
The hearing didn't stop there. The focus then shifted to Bitcoin and the Treasury's role in an increasingly politicized landscape. Congressman Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and longtime critic of cryptocurrencies, bluntly asked if Bessent had the authority to “bail out Bitcoin”, force banks to buy it, or invest taxpayer money in Bitcoin or even the so-called Trump coin.
The answer was unequivocal. Bessent stated that he has no authority to do so, neither as Secretary of the Treasury nor as Chairman of the FSOC.
He clarified that the Treasury's current role is limited to holding bitcoins seized in civil or criminal proceedings, in accordance with the executive order signed by Trump in March 2025, which established a strategic bitcoin reserve composed solely of confiscated assets, which cannot be sold.

Topic Opinion:
The Treasury is trying to distance itself, but the market understands that when cryptocurrencies enter the political arena, the rules change. There will be no state "bailout" for Bitcoin, but neither will there be absolute neutrality when interests intersect so significantly.
💬 Are you concerned about the relationship between politics and crypto projects?

Leave your comment...
#bitcoin #WorldLibertyFinancial #TRUMP #CryptoPolitics #CryptoNews $BTC $TRUMP $WLFI

📅 February 4 | Every time Bitcoin falls sharply, the market doesn’t just look at the price: it looks at its past. And that past weighs heavily. The recent correction, which has already erased nearly 40% from the October high, has reignited one of the biggest collective fears in the crypto ecosystem: the infamous four-year cycle, that pattern that in 2018 and 2022 ended in brutal crashes and long winters.

📖Bitcoin is going through one of its most uncomfortable moments in the current cycle. According to Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, the price has fallen by around 40% since its October peak, with an additional 11% loss in the last week alone, amidst a global environment dominated by increased risk aversion.
This type of rapid and profound movement is precisely the fuel that reignites comparisons to the great bear markets of the past.
The irony is that Vetle Lunde has been one of the most consistent critics of the rigid four-year cycle theory. In October, he went so far as to claim that this model was dead.
However, today he admits that market behavior is starting to resemble 2018 and 2022 too closely, not due to a collapse in fundamentals, but because psychology is once again taking over. Fear, memory, and the need to protect past gains are outweighing structural data.
K33 explains that this type of fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When long-term investors reduce their exposure to avoid losing what they've gained, and new capital is held back, selling pressure increases.
The result is a market that behaves as if it's entering a classic bear market, even when underlying conditions are much stronger than in the past.
And therein lies the crucial difference. Unlike in 2018 or 2022, Bitcoin today has a genuine institutional base. There are billions of dollars invested in regulated products, more financial advisors with access to the asset, and traditional banks launching crypto-related services.
Furthermore, the macroeconomic environment is more favorable than before: interest rates are no longer rising aggressively, which reduces pressure on risk assets.
Another crucial point is what is not happening. In 2022, the market plummeted in a chain reaction due to forced deleveraging events: Luna, Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi, Genesis, FTX, and the structural impact of GBTC acted like dominoes. According to K33, there is no comparable systemic risk, making a prolonged 80% collapse in a single year, as in previous cycles, unlikely.

Topic Opinion:
Every generation of investors carries its scars, and Bitcoin is no exception. But while the behavior may seem similar, the structure is different. There is more serious capital, fewer hidden bombs, and a more mature ecosystem. That doesn't eliminate volatility or risk, but it does change the probabilities.
💬 Do you think the four-year cycle still prevails?

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#bitcoin #CryptoCycle #K33 #Analysis #CryptoNews $BTC

📅February 3 | Solana isn't going to explode in 2026… and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The bank lowered its price projection for SOL, but at the same time painted a much more ambitious long-term picture. The reason? Solana is leaving behind the memecoin craze to try something more serious: becoming a key network for micropayments and stablecoins.

📖According to Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, the recent market downturn doesn't mark the end of the cycle, but rather a necessary cleansing. For the bank, this period of stress is separating projects with real foundations from those that only lived off hype.
In that context, Solana occupies a delicate position. Standard Chartered decided to lower its 2026 price target from $310 to $250, not because the network is failing, but because its new direction needs time.
Even so, the bank maintains a very optimistic outlook for the coming years, betting that Solana could experience strong growth starting in 2027 if it manages to consolidate its new model.
Just a year ago, the story was quite different. When the bank began analyzing Solana in May 2025, almost all activity on the network was powered by memecoins.
The peak came with the launch of the Trump coin in January, when speculation completely dominated decentralized exchanges. High volume, high excitement… but little solid foundation.
Since then, things have started to change. The data shows that interest in memecoins fell and that trading began to concentrate more on SOL pairs with stablecoins. This may seem boring, but for Standard Chartered it's an important sign: Solana could be moving beyond being just a fast-track betting network and becoming a payments infrastructure.

Topic Opinion:
Solana is growing, but no longer on hype. Moving from memecoins to real payments doesn't generate explosive headlines, but it does build long-term value. In crypto, not everything that goes up fast lasts, and not everything that moves slowly fails.
💬 Will micropayments really be the future of blockchains?

Leave your comment...
#solana #crypto #StandardChartered #CryptoNews #Stablecoins $SOL $TRUMP

📅 February 2 – New York | Attorney General Letitia James, along with four district attorneys, sent a direct letter to Democratic senators warning that the law, as currently written, leaves thousands of crypto fraud victims with virtually no means to recover their money.

📖The letter, initially revealed by CNN, was sent to Senators Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Mark Warner, and fundamentally questions the effectiveness of the GENIUS Act, signed last year by President Donald Trump.
Although the law requires stablecoins to be fully backed by US dollars or equivalent liquid assets and mandates annual audits for issuers with more than $50 billion in market capitalization, the prosecutors argue that these measures fail to address the growing use of these coins in illicit activities.
The argument is supported by data from Chainalysis, which estimates that 84% of illicit crypto volume in 2025 involved stablecoins, due to their ease of cross-border transfers and low volatility.
According to prosecutors, this reality makes USDT and USDC preferred tools for criminal networks that move faster than the legal process.
The letter notes that Tether has frozen stolen funds in some cases, but acknowledges that it has no legal obligation to do so under US jurisdiction.
The company itself responded that, not being domiciled in the U.S., it is not subject to state processes as a regulated financial institution would be, although it voluntarily cooperates with authorities.
The harshest criticism is directed at Circle. According to prosecutors, the company only freezes funds when it receives a signed court order, which in practice renders the measure useless, since by the time the order arrives, the funds have already been moved to other addresses or converted into other digital assets.
From Circle, its head of strategy Dante Disparte responded that the company complies with financial integrity standards and will continue to adapt during the regulatory phase of the GENIUS Act, defending its position of acting only under formal judicial processes.

Topic Opinion:
The discussion no longer revolves solely around how to legitimize stablecoins within the financial system, but rather who truly protects that legitimacy when fraud occurs. If issuers handling tens of billions can decide when to cooperate and when not, the problem ceases to be technological and becomes legal and political.
💬 Do you think the GENIUS Act truly protects users?

Leave your comment...
#Stablecoins #GeniusAtc #USDT #USDC #CryptoNews $USDC $USDT

📅 February 2 | According to the investment bank TD Cowen, crypto legislation in the United States could remain stalled indefinitely if the president doesn't personally intervene to force an agreement between two sectors that, in theory, should want the same thing, but which are now more divided than ever.

📖The analysis comes from Jaret Seiberg, director of TD Cowen's Washington research group, who noted that the meeting convened today by the White House crypto czar, David Sacks, with banking groups, crypto associations, and Coinbase, revolves around the most contentious point of the bill: how stablecoin rewards should be handled.
Banks warn that allowing crypto platforms to offer returns without clear limits could drain deposits from the traditional banking system, particularly affecting community banks. From the crypto side, companies like Coinbase maintain that this issue was already discussed during the negotiations of the GENIUS Act, passed last July, and that it is now being used as an excuse to stifle competition.
However, Jaret Seiberg argues that the real debate is not whether platforms will be able to pay returns, because he considers that inevitable, but rather when they will be allowed to do so and under what level of regulatory oversight they will have to operate.
From a banking perspective, stablecoins don't yet pose a real threat to deposits until they become more widely used, and in the meantime, they compete more directly with money market funds.
But the problem doesn't end there. Jaret Seiberg warns that a division exists within the crypto industry itself. For years, legal ambiguity has acted as a barrier to entry, benefiting certain established players.
Clear legislation would allow banks, brokers, and large regulated institutions to enter the market more forcefully, increasing competition for current players.
Added to this is an even greater obstacle: Democratic support in the Senate. For the project to move forward, it would need at least 10 Democratic senators, who would demand stricter protections for investors, tougher anti-money laundering regulations, and severe rules on conflicts of interest that many crypto companies would prefer to avoid.

Topic Opinion:
The biggest barrier to crypto legislation is not regulatory, but political and strategic. There are players within the ecosystem itself who aren't in such a hurry for complete clarity, because the current ambiguity also benefits them. And on the political front, the reputational cost for Democrats of supporting a law that might appear favorable to interests close to Trump is increasingly high.
💬 Do you think Trump will actually intervene to unblock the crypto law?

Leave your comment...
#TRUMP #Stablecoins #SEC #CFTC #CryptoNews $USDC $USD1 $TRUMP

📅 January 31
The optimism with which Bitcoin began the year evaporated in a matter of days. What appeared to be a 2026 dominated by the influx of institutional capital through Bitcoin spot ETFs ended up becoming one of the toughest months on record for these products since their creation.

📖Data from SoSoValue reveals that approximately $1.49 billion came out of US Bitcoin spot ETFs in the last week of January alone. Selling pressure intensified abruptly in the last two days of the week. $818 million in net outflows were recorded on Wednesday, the largest single-day redemption so far in 2026. On Thursday, another $510 million left the funds.
For four consecutive sessions, from Tuesday to Friday, ETFs recorded daily outflows, with only a slight respite on Monday when $7 million entered, a figure insignificant compared to the volume of subsequent withdrawals. This move pushed January's total outflows to $1.6 billion, making it the third worst month ever for Bitcoin ETFs.
The contrast with the beginning of the year is striking. In the first days of January, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out that ETFs were entering the year “like a lion.” However, the end of the month showed a completely opposite behavior.
An important detail is that the exits occurred in both Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, which indicates that institutional investors were not rotating capital between crypto assets, but rather reducing their total exposure to the sector.

Topic Opinion:
The crypto market is no longer moved solely by technological narratives or its own cycles, but by institutional capital decisions that respond to macro, political and regulatory factors.
💬 Do you think ETFs are making Bitcoin stronger... or more dependent on Wall Street?

Leave your comment...
#bitcoin #etf #BTC #WallStreet #CryptoNews $BTC

📅 January 31
We are not talking about a small protocol, but one that aggregates positions from almost 95% of the network's projects, that organizes the Solana Crossroads conference in Istanbul and that even ventured into the tokenization of stocks like Nvidia and Tesla.

📖The incident was revealed by the Step Finance team itself through a statement on X, where they confirmed a security breach in some of their treasury and commission wallets. Hours before the announcement, onchain data already showed unusual movements: exactly 261,854 SOL were de-staked and transferred out of the addresses linked to the protocol.
The security firm CertiK estimated that the value of the funds moved is around $29 million. However, the team is yet to clarify the root cause of the incident. It is not known whether it was a vulnerability in smart contracts, a flaw in access controls or the direct compromise of private keys. It has also not been confirmed whether user funds, beyond the protocol's treasury, were affected.
Step Finance is not a minor player within the ecosystem. Founded in 2021, it functions as a visualization dashboard that aggregates LP tokens, yield farm positions, and multiple Solana protocols into a single dashboard. Additionally, it operates the SolanaFloor news outlet, manages a validator node, and allocates 100% of the validator's revenue—after operating costs—to repurchases of the STEP token to distribute to those staking xSTEP.
This event adds to a chain of incidents that have hit projects in the Solana ecosystem in the last year. In April 2025, Loopscale lost $5.8 million just two weeks after its launch. In August, CrediX suffered a theft of $4.5 million after controlling an administrative wallet. In November, South Korean exchange Upbit reported a $37 million hack involving assets on the Solana network.

Topic Opinion:
No matter how big or well-known a project is, security remains the Achilles heel of DeFi.
💬 Do you think these types of incidents continue to slow down institutional adoption in Solana?

Leave your comment...
#solana #defi #Hack #CryptoSecurity #CryptoNews $SOL

📅 January 30
Throughout 2025, a powerful narrative took hold: if money devalues, the natural escape is to seek refuge in bitcoin and gold. Both assets advanced together under the so-called “debasement trade,” attracting billions from retail and institutional ETFs.

📖The report, led by analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, shows how retail investor behavior was the first to shift. For much of 2025, they simultaneously bought Bitcoin and gold ETFs as a hedge against the loss of purchasing power. However, by August, the accumulated flows into Bitcoin ETFs stopped growing, and in the fourth quarter, they began to decline.
Meanwhile, gold ETFs saw accelerated growth, closing the year with nearly $60 billion in accumulated inflows. Silver replicated this pattern, concentrating most of its inflows in the last quarter of the year, just as Bitcoin ETFs were experiencing capital outflows.
For JPMorgan, this coincidence is not accidental, but a direct rotation from bitcoin to precious metals by the retail investor.
Institutional behavior reinforced this dynamic. The bank used CME futures open interest as a benchmark and detected a sharp increase in long positions on silver during the last quarter of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, driven primarily by hedge funds.
Gold showed a similar pattern throughout the year. In contrast, Bitcoin futures did not register a comparable increase in institutional positioning.
Momentum indicators followed by trend traders, such as CTAs, now show extreme divergence. Gold appears in overbought territory, silver in deeply overbought territory, and Bitcoin in overbought territory.
This type of positioning, according to analysts, increases the risk of profit-taking and mean reversion in metals, something that has already begun to be observed with recent pullbacks in both assets.

Topic Opinion:
When capital massively shifts to one side of the ship, the risk is no longer in the asset that was abandoned, but in the one everyone is chasing. If Bitcoin is technically oversold while gold and silver show clear signs of buying saturation, the next unexpected move could come from the less crowded side.
💬 Do you think capital will shift back from gold and silver to Bitcoin?

Leave your comment...
#bitcoin #GOLD #Silver #JPMorgan #CryptoNews $BTC $PAXG

📅 January 30
WisdomTree, one of Wall Street’s oldest asset managers, has just revealed that it already manages $2.24 billion in crypto assets and nearly $780 million in fully on-chain funds. These aren’t experiments or pilot programs: they are operational financial products generating revenue today.

📖In its fourth-quarter report, WisdomTree announced that it closed the year with a record $144.5 billion in assets under management, a quarterly growth of 5.3%, driven by market appreciation and the acquisition of Ceres Partners, despite some net outflows.
While the majority of these assets remain concentrated in traditional equity, commodity, and fixed-income ETFs in the United States, the crypto division is becoming increasingly prominent. The firm ended the quarter with $2.24 billion in crypto AUM, lower than the $3.2 billion it started with, but higher than the $1.9 billion it reported a year earlier, in the fourth quarter of 2024.
CEO Jonathan Steinberg himself acknowledged that initiatives that previously seemed experimental, such as tokenized assets, on-chain models, and digital private markets, have now become real businesses that directly contribute to the company's growth.
WisdomTree has not aggressively pursued altcoin ETPs, but it has made strategic moves such as launching the first Ethereum staking ETF in Europe, which generates rewards through stETH. Simultaneously, it has deployed a much deeper strategy: issuing financial products directly on blockchains.
To do this, it has used networks such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Optimism, Stellar and Solana to launch dozens of tokenized funds. These include digital versions of its U.S. debt money market fund, equity funds such as the U.S. LargeCap Fund and the U.S. Quality Dividend Growth Fund, as well as fixed income and alternative products.
This week, the firm announced it will reissue its entire suite of on-chain funds on Solana, solidifying its multi-chain presence. According to data from RWA.xyz, WisdomTree manages approximately $780 million in these on-chain deployments.

Topic Opinion:
Traditional asset managers aren't "testing" blockchain; they're integrating it into their core business. The market may be watching the price of Bitcoin or altcoins, but the real structural change is happening in how financial products are issued, managed, and distributed.
💬 Do you think tokenization will be the biggest driver of institutional adoption in 2026?

Leave your comment...
#WisdomTree #Tokenization #RWA #ETH #CryptoNews $ETH $SOL $AVAX

📅 January 29
For years, the biggest risk to the crypto industry in the United States wasn't the market, hacks, or volatility… it was the infighting among its own regulators. The SEC said almost everything was a security. The CFTC said almost everything was a commodity. That war left companies, exchanges, and investors stuck in a legal gray area.

📖The announcement was made during the joint harmonization event between the CFTC and the SEC, where SEC Chairman Paul Atkins made it clear that today's markets can no longer be divided by traditional regulatory lines. Trading, custody, clearing, and risk management now flow across technologies and asset classes, so fragmented regulation creates more confusion than protection.
Just a year ago, this cooperation seemed impossible. Then-CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam argued that most crypto assets were commodities under its jurisdiction, while former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler maintained that almost all were securities, except for Bitcoin.
That tension began to shift in September when CFTC Acting Chairwoman Caroline Pham publicly declared that the “turf war” was over.
Now, the new CFTC chairman, Michael Selig, confirmed that there will be no parallel initiatives, but rather a coordinated effort with the SEC to create consistency and unified oversight of the federal crypto market. Selig directed his team to work with the SEC on a possible joint codification of the taxonomy proposed by Atkins, as an interim measure while Congress finalizes the legislation.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to make slow progress. The Senate Agriculture Committee managed to advance its bill, but the Banking Committee has yet to hold its hearing due to deep disagreements over how to address stablecoin performance. Despite these delays, both Atkins and Selig stated that the agencies can move forward with their current authority and plan to sign a memorandum of understanding to formalize their cooperation.

Topic Opinion:
This is one of the most important regulatory announcements in recent years. Not because it changes the rules today, but because it eliminates the biggest source of uncertainty: the infighting among regulators. If Congress takes months longer, this agreement could become the de facto framework guiding the entire industry by 2026.
💬 Do you think this alliance will finally bring legal clarity to the US crypto market?

Leave your comment...
#SEC #CFTC #ProjectCryptor #BTC #CryptoNews $BTC $USDC $USDT

📅 January 29
Holders of the OP token approved redirecting 50% of the protocol's actual revenue to repurchase the token itself on the market. This isn't about incentives, subsidies, or grants, but rather something that until now was almost taboo on Ethereum: using the money generated by the network to defend the token's price.

📖The proposal was launched by the Optimism Foundation earlier this month as part of a plan to align the OP token with the Superchain, the largest Layer 2 network built on its technology, where chains like Base, OP Mainnet, Unichain, Soneium, and Worldchain operate.
The vote closed on Wednesday with 84% support from approximately 450 voters, including representatives from seven chains and five applications within the ecosystem.
The central argument: Over the past year, the Superchain generated around 5,868 ETH, equivalent to more than $17.5 million in real revenue. That ETH, instead of being locked in treasury, will begin to be converted into OP through OTC repurchases starting in February. These tokens will then be transferred to a collective treasury along with the remaining ETH from the sequencer.
The mechanism will initially operate OTC for about six months before fully migrating to onchain execution. The conversion of the ETH generated in January will occur between T+25 and T+35 starting February 1st, and will be repeated monthly.
This move places Optimism alongside projects like Hyperliquid and Pump, which have already been using protocol revenues to strengthen their tokens, but with one key difference: Optimism is the first major Ethereum Layer 2 token to do so, while Arbitrum and Polygon have avoided this approach.
However, not everyone agreed. The research firm GFXlabs criticized the plan, arguing that buybacks could be “financially self-destructive” if combined with token issuances and that the process would be difficult to audit. Others proposed alternatives, such as using those funds to strengthen liquidity for OP loans.

Topic Opinion:
This is one of the most important decisions a Layer 2 protocol has made since they began competing for users and liquidity. For years, governance tokens were disconnected from the protocol's actual revenue, living off issuance and expectations. Optimism is trying to close that gap.
💬 Do you think buybacks are the right way to add value to a token… or should those revenues be used to grow the ecosystem?

Leave your comment…
#Optimism #OP #Ethereum #Layer2 #CryptoNews $OP $ETH $PUMP

📅 January 28
While the crypto market advances and stablecoins become increasingly integrated into payments and platforms, something much more delicate is happening in Washington: the heart of the traditional financial system and the new digital financial system are clashing directly at the table of power.

📖According to Reuters, the meeting will be organized by the White House Crypto Council and will revolve around an issue that has become the main sticking point within the Senate Banking Committee: the treatment of stablecoin rewards under the Genius Act, the law passed last summer.
Although the rule prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly to users, it leaves a gray area open: third-party platforms, such as exchanges, could offer rewards. This detail is what has ignited the tension.
Banking groups have strongly opposed this ambiguity, arguing that allowing rewards could drain deposits from the banking system, particularly affecting community banks. From the crypto side, however, they accuse the banks of trying to stifle competition after the rules were already negotiated before the law was passed.
The clash has already had political repercussions. The Senate Banking Committee was scheduled to debate the bill on January 15, but the hearing was canceled at the last minute after Coinbase withdrew its support, citing concerns about this issue and the treatment of tokenized stocks.
Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture Committee is proceeding with its hearing this week, although the proposed text lacks Democratic support. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives had already passed the Clarity Act months earlier with bipartisan support, but progress in the Senate has become unstable.
Against this backdrop, the White House has intensified pressure for the swift passage of a crypto market structure law. Patrick Witt, of the President's Council of Advisors on Digital Assets, was direct: there will be a law, the question is when.

Topic Opinion:
This is one of the most revealing moments in the clash between the old and new financial systems. Banks fear losing deposits. Crypto companies are advocating for incentives that would make stablecoins more attractive than bank accounts.
💬 Do you think allowing stablecoin rewards would put banks at risk… or would it simply create real competition?

Leave your comment…
#Stablecoins #Regulation #whitehouse #BTC #CryptoNews $BTC $USDC

📅 January 28
At first glance, Solana seems more alive than ever. Millions of daily transactions, memecoins moving at full speed, the DEX running non-stop, and users interacting with dApps as if nothing were happening. But beneath this surface of frenetic activity, the infrastructure that keeps the network secure and synchronized is thinning at an alarming rate.

📖Validators are the independent nodes that run Solana's software, verify transactions, produce blocks, and vote to maintain system consensus under the proof-of-stake model. Their role is essential for the network's security and decentralization.
In less than three years, Solana has lost more than 65% of these participants. The immediate consequence is already reflected in the data: vote transactions, which are the transactions sent by validators to confirm blocks, have fallen from around 300,000 per day to just 170,000.
The drop below 800 validators began last month and has continued since the start of the new year. Behind this reduction is a less visible but crucial factor: the internal economics of validating in Solana have changed.
The Solana Foundation delegation program, which offered temporary support to cover voting costs and stake-equalizing policies, was designed to be phased out over time. As that support dwindles, many small validators face a harsh reality: operating and infrastructure costs exceed the revenue they earn from staking.
To stay synchronized with the network, validators must send thousands of transactions every day. Without enough delegated SOL to generate returns greater than those costs, operating a node ceases to be profitable. The result is a steady trickle of validators shutting down their machines.

Topic Opinion:
Solana has proven it can handle a massive amount of activity, but now faces a deeper test: if validating the network becomes economically unviable for independent actors, decentralization begins to concentrate without the average user noticing. A network can appear healthy on the outside while internally fewer and fewer participants are sustaining it.
💬 Does user activity or the number of validators matter more?

Leave your comment...
#solana #Validator #decentralization #blockchain #CryptoNews $SOL

📅 January 27
A new study powered by PayPal shows that businesses are no longer asking if to accept crypto, but when to do so on a massive scale. The data is compelling: almost 85% of the payment strategists surveyed believe that cryptocurrency payments will be commonplace in the next five years.

📖The survey, conducted in October 2025 with over 620 payment strategy decision-makers, reveals that nearly 9 out of 10 businesses have already received inquiries from customers asking if they can pay with crypto. Even more revealing, around 4 out of 10 businesses stated that they already accept crypto at the checkout.
Among those that accept crypto, the impact is significant: they report that these sales represent more than a quarter of their total revenue, and nearly three-quarters indicate that crypto sales have increased over the past year.
The study comes at a pivotal moment for the stablecoin sector, especially following the passage of the GENIUS Act, which established clear rules for issuing and using fiat-backed tokens. PayPal, with its stablecoin PYUSD, was one of the first payment giants to adopt this infrastructure, a move now being replicated by banks, fintechs, and even DeFi projects with high-level political ties.
This adoption isn't being led by small, experimental businesses, but by large corporations. Approximately half of all companies with revenues exceeding $500 million annually already accept crypto, clearly surpassing small and medium-sized enterprises.

Topic Opinion:
If large corporations are already seeing a significant portion of their revenue coming from cryptocurrency payments, the rest of the market will inevitably follow suit.
💬 Do you think this will accelerate mass adoption more than any ETF?

Leave your comment...
#CryptoPayments #Paypal #Stablecoins #BTC #CryptoNews $BTC

📅 January 27
One of the world's largest and most respected banks, Standard Chartered, warns that dollar-denominated stablecoins are not only growing: they are beginning to drain the very heart of the banking system—deposits.

📖The analysis stems from a larger projection: Standard Chartered estimates that the global stablecoin market could reach $2 trillion by the end of the decade. Of that total, approximately one-third would come directly from deposits currently held in traditional banks.
The bank notes that this migration is not uniform, but it is inevitable as payments, transfers and other core functions of the financial system move to blockchain-based infrastructures.
In this context, regulatory uncertainty in Washington surrounding the Clarity Act has generated a direct clash between large banks and crypto companies like Coinbase, which initially withdrew its support for the project because it considered that it affected the incentives to issue and hold stablecoins.
This warning is not abstract. Standard Chartered analyzed which types of banks would be most vulnerable and found that those whose income depends heavily on the net interest margin—that is, the use of deposits to make loans—would face the greatest pressure if customers begin moving their money into digital versions of the dollar.

Topic Opinion:
If this happens on a large scale, the traditional deposit-taking model becomes irrelevant. And when a bank loses deposits, it loses its ability to generate loans, interest, and operational stability.
💬 Would you move your money from the bank to a dollar stablecoin if it were just as secure?

Leave your comment...
#Stablecoins #banks #DigitalDollar #BTC #CryptoNews $BTC $USDC

📅 January 26
Just when it seemed the United States was days away from passing the most important law in cryptocurrency regulatory history, bipartisan negotiations in the Senate unexpectedly broke down. Now, racing against the clock and before a crucial hearing this week, Democratic advisors say they are still willing to return to the negotiating table.

📖Since November, the team of Republican Senator John Boozman, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, worked in close coordination with Democratic lawmakers to draft a bill with bipartisan language outlining how regulatory functions would be divided between the SEC and the CFTC, as well as establishing disclosure requirements for the cryptocurrency market.
For weeks, according to the Democratic advisor himself, they met “with every possible stakeholder, from nine to five,” refining a document they considered an example of cooperation in Washington.
But upon returning from the year-end recess, the Democrats were met with a surprise: the Republican team had rewritten the text without them and planned to bring it to a vote on January 15.
This abrupt change shattered the dynamic of trust. Although the Agriculture Committee is seen as more collaborative than the Banking Committee, the new draft was released last week without Democratic support. Some lawmakers introduced amendments, including one related to the Trump family's crypto interests, but the lead Democratic negotiators refused to participate in the process.
Even so, they maintain that an agreement is “very close” and that they only need to return to the previous bipartisan path to finalize it before the vote scheduled for this Thursday.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting from the White House. Presidential advisors have insisted that the bill must be passed soon to avoid losing the political momentum favoring cryptocurrencies. Analysts in Washington warn that, without this legislation, the US crypto market will continue to operate with a “structural risk premium” due to the lack of regulatory clarity.

Topic Opinion:
The most delicate issue is not that the bill will be delayed, but that trust will be broken among the teams that have been building something historic. This law needs to be bipartisan to have legitimacy and durability. If a vote is forced without consensus, the result could be a fragile, easily challenged, and politically vulnerable law. And that would be worse than having no law at all.
💬 Do you think this crypto bill should pass even if it's not bipartisan?

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#BTC #CryptoRegulationBattle #Clarity #bitcoin #CryptoNews $BTC

📅 January 24
For years, traditional banks viewed cryptocurrencies as a fad, a technological experiment with no major impact on the global financial system. Then came skepticism. Then, the regulation. And now, according to Brian Armstrong himself, CEO of Coinbase, the conversation has completely changed.

📖Brian Armstrong shared on X that, during his week in Davos, the majority of financial leaders he spoke to were not only open to cryptocurrencies, but were actively looking for ways to integrate them into their operations.
The change in position has a clear reason. Banks rely on legacy payment rails, slow clearings, and multiple intermediaries to move value. In contrast, stablecoins and tokenized assets allow for near-instant transfers, direct settlements, and frictionless global access.
According to Brian Armstrong, one of the most discussed topics at Davos was tokenization, which is no longer limited to stablecoins, but is expanding to stocks, credit and other financial products. This trend could allow asset managers, fintechs or digital platforms to offer direct access to tokenized securities without having to go through a traditional bank.
Brian Armstrong also mentioned the 4 billion adults “unbanked” or without access to quality investments in the world, noting that tokenization could close that gap through direct access from a digital wallet.
On a political level, he highlighted the Trump administration's support for laws such as the CLARITY Act, designed to provide a clear regulatory framework for digital assets. According to him, the United States is positioning itself as the “most pro-crypto” government in the world, at a time when countries like China are aggressively advancing stablecoin-based infrastructure.
Another key point was the convergence between AI and crypto. Brian Armstrong argued that future AI agents will likely use stablecoins as the default payment method, completely bypassing traditional banking controls and legacy identity processes.

Topic Opinion:
When the largest banks in the world start talking about cryptocurrencies in terms of existential threat, it means that they already understood something that the retail market saw years ago: crypto does not compete with financial products, it competes with the infrastructure itself of the system.
💬 Are we seeing the beginning of the transformation of the banking system?

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#coinbase #Stablecoins #Tokenization #bitcoin #CryptoNews $BTC $USDC

📅 January 24
For almost three years, the Gemini Earn case was presented as one of the most compelling examples of how the SEC intended to regulate the crypto industry through judicial force. It was the symbol of the “enforcement first” era, where the regulator sought to set precedents through exemplary lawsuits.

📖The SEC filed with the Southern District Court of New York a joint stipulation to dismiss with prejudice its civil lawsuit against Gemini Trust Company over the Gemini Earn program.
The original lawsuit, filed in January 2023 against Genesis and Gemini, accused the program of constituting an unregistered securities offering. Gemini Earn had been launched in February 2021 promising up to 7.4% APY to users who lent their cryptocurrencies. It all came crashing down in November 2022, when Genesis froze withdrawals following the post-FTX credit crisis, leaving around $940 million belonging to 340,000 users locked.
In March 2024, a federal judge denied motions to dismiss the case, stating that the SEC had made “plausible” arguments about securities violations. At that time, the process seemed to be heading towards a trial that could set a historic precedent.
However, between May and June 2024, during the bankruptcy process of Genesis Global Capital, something happened that completely changed the landscape: users received 100% of their crypto assets in kind, that is, not in dollars, but in the same cryptocurrencies that they had deposited.
That fact was key. The SEC explicitly acknowledged that this full recovery was the determining factor in dropping the case. Previous regulatory settlements also weighed in: Genesis paid $21 million to the SEC, while Gemini paid $37 million to the NYDFS and contributed an additional $40 million to the bankruptcy process to facilitate full recovery for customers.
The dismissal “with prejudice” definitively closes the case and joins a series of similar withdrawals by the SEC under the direction of its new chairman Paul Atkins, who took office in April 2025 and has promoted the “Project Crypto” program to modernize the rules instead of continuing with the massive litigation strategy of the Gensler era.

Topic Opinion:
This case marks a before and after in the relationship between the SEC and the crypto industry. Not because Gemini “won,” but because the regulator decided to withdraw after years of building a narrative of securities violations.
💬 Is this the definitive end of the era of massive lawsuits against the crypto sector?

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#Gemini #SEC #CryptoLending #Regulation #CryptoNews $BTC

📅 January 23 |
For the first time since October 2023, onchain data shows something that historically marks the beginning of much more delicate phases of the cycle: investors are starting to realize net losses when moving their BTC. It's not just a price drop, it's a profound change in market behavior. And when this pattern appeared in the past, it didn't anticipate a simple correction... it anticipated a complete bear market.

📖According to CryptoQuant, Bitcoin holders have begun to record net realized losses over the last 30 days, a phenomenon not seen for more than two years.
The firm explains that since December 23, 2025, investors have realized accumulated losses equivalent to 69,000 BTC. This data is not based on assumptions, but on direct analysis of onchain transactions combined with market prices at the time of each transfer.
Each time a bitcoin changes hands, CryptoQuant compares the current price with the price at which that same coin was previously transferred, determining whether there was an actual gain or loss.
The most disturbing thing is not only the recent data, but the pattern that has been forming since the beginning of 2024. The peaks of realized profits have been increasingly smaller in January 2024, December 2024, July 2025 and October 2025.
It is a sequence of declining highs that the firm says reveals that price strength was weakening even as the spot value still remained high.
CryptoQuant points out that this behavior almost exactly reflects the transition from the bullish to the bearish cycle that occurred between 2021 and 2022. At that time, realized gains began to progressively decline throughout 2021 until, months before the 2022 bear market, the flow definitively changed towards net losses.
Currently, annual net realized gains have fallen to 2.5 million BTC, a sharp reduction from 4.4 million BTC recorded in October. It is the lowest level since March 2024 and very similar to the values ​​​​seen in March 2022, when the previous bear market was already underway.

Topic Opinion:
This is one of those indicators that usually go unnoticed by the general public but that onchain analysts consider critical. When investors start accepting real losses instead of waiting for recoveries, the psychology of the market changes. It is no longer about patience, but about progressive capitulation. If this pattern continues, we could be seeing not a temporary correction, but the confirmed start of a new bearish phase for Bitcoin, very similar to the one experienced after the 2021 high.
💬 Are we at the beginning of a new bear market?

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#bitcoin #CryptoQuant #Onchain #bearmarket #CryptoNews $BTC

📅 January 23 |
For years, many tokens lived in the shadow of Bitcoin and Ethereum when it came to regulated financial products. It seemed unthinkable that assets directly associated with crypto exchanges could aspire to have their own ETF approved in the United States. But the regulatory environment changed, the institutional narrative too, and now the map of crypto ETFs is beginning to look more like the real market than Wall Street's conservative ideal.

📖 Grayscale formally filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to register for the Grayscale BNB ETF, which would carry the ticker GBNB and list on the Nasdaq if it receives regulatory approval.
In the document, the firm explains that the fund would directly hold BNB, the native asset of the BNB Smart Chain, as backup for the trust's shares.
For the operational structure, Grayscale appointed Bank of New York Mellon as transfer agent and Coinbase Custody Trust Company as custodian of the digital assets, a detail that reinforces the attempt to present the product under traditional institutional standards.
BNB is currently the fourth largest cryptocurrency on the market, with a capitalization close to $121 billion, according to data from The Block. Its size, liquidity and use within one of the most active blockchain ecosystems in the world make it a logical candidate from a market point of view, although it has historically carried the regulatory weight of its close relationship with Binance, one of the exchanges most closely watched by US authorities in recent years.
Grayscale is not the first firm to try this move. VanEck had already proposed a similar ETF in May 2025, but the new attempt comes at a very different time for the industry. In the last year, the US market has seen the approval and launch of ETFs linked to assets such as Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Hedera and Chainlink, reflecting a much more favorable political and regulatory climate towards digital assets.

Topic Opinion:
The US regulated market no longer distinguishes between “acceptable” and “controversial” cryptocurrencies, but rather between assets with sufficient size, liquidity and institutional demand. If the SEC approves this product, it will be a powerful signal that the crypto market legitimization process has entered a new phase, where even the tokens most linked to exchanges and old regulatory disputes can find space within Wall Street.
💬 Will the SEC approve an ETF linked to BNB?

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#bnb #Grayscale #etf #SEC #CryptoNews $BNB