Ether Struggles Near $3,000 as Investor Conviction Fades

Key takeaways: ETH remains capped below $3,000 as repeated breakout failures weaken trader confidence and suppress short-term momentum. A sustainable ETH rally will require stronger network activity and DApp demand to offset weak leverage and ETF flows. Ether (ETH) has traded within a narrow 4% range for the past week, leading traders to question whether…

Bitcoin Will Extend Decline in 2026, While Payment Infra Improves: Analysts

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

Can Strategy’s $60B Bitcoin Bet Survive Debt and Market Stress in 2026?

In early 2025, Michael Saylor’s technology company MicroStrategy officially rebranded to Strategy and adopted a Bitcoin-themed visual marketing program to reflect its core focus as the world’s largest corporate BTC holder. As of Dec. 30, Strategy has accumulated 672,497 Bitcoin (BTC), valued at nearly $59 billion and acquired at an average price of $74,997 per…

Ether Struggles Near $3,000 as Investor Conviction Fades

Key takeaways: ETH remains capped below $3,000 as repeated breakout failures weaken trader confidence and suppress short-term momentum. A sustainable ETH rally will require stronger network activity and DApp demand to offset weak leverage and ETF flows. Ether (ETH) has traded within a narrow 4% range for the past week, leading traders to question whether…

$675M Lighter Airdrop Becomes 10th Largest in Crypto History

Lighter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) that offers perpetual futures trading, carried out one of the biggest token giveaways in crypto history, even as critics continued to question how the project split its token supply. Lighter airdropped a total of $675 million worth of Lighter Infrastructure Tokens (LIT) to early participants on Tuesday, according to blockchain…

Perpetuals DEX Volume Hit $7.9T in 2025 as Onchain Trading Scales

Perpetuals decentralized exchanges are closing 2025 with cumulative trading volume reaching $12.09 trillion, up from $4.1 trillion at the start of the year.  DefiLlama data shows that about $7.9 trillion of this lifetime total volume was generated in 2025. This means that 65% of all perp DEX trading volume occurred in a single calendar year….

Ethereum Network Activity Surges as Transaction Fees Fall to 17 Cents

The Ethereum mainnet clocked 2.2 million transactions in a single day in a new record this week, while fees have fallen to just 17 cents on average. The layer-1 blockchain recorded its new transaction milestone on Tuseday, according to block explorer Etherscan.  Transaction fees have also dropped considerably over time.  The highest transaction fees on Ethereum…

Make-or-Break BTC Charts to Watch in 2026

Key takeaways: Bitcoin is consolidating as gold leads, a pattern seen before past BTC rallies. $84,000–$85,000 and the 100-week EMA are key levels to watch. Bitcoin (BTC) failed to rise above the $90,000 mark in December, with sharp rejections toward the $85,000-87,000 area on each attempt. BTC/USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView The sideways price action…

Coinbase Warns Stablecoin Rules Could Hand China an Edge

A senior executive at Coinbase warned that changes to the US stablecoin framework could weaken Washington’s position in the global race for digital payments, just as China moves to make its central bank digital currency (CBDC) more competitive. In a post on X, Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, said the debate over whether US-issued…

Winklevoss twins-backed Cypherpunk holds 1.7% of supply after $28 million buy

Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH), a digital asset treasury firm backed by the Winklevoss twins, said it bought $28 million worth of privacy coin zcash ZEC$524.71, taking its overall holdings to 290,062 ZEC ($152 million). The Nasdaq-listed company said in a Tuesday press release that it purchased 56,418 tokens at an average price of $514.02 per token,…