On February 1, 2026, Tether expanded its tokenized gold product by minting 192,657 XAUT, a tranche valued at nearly $1 billion at prevailing gold prices. Each token corresponds to one troy ounce held in secured vaults, primarily in Switzerland. The issuance highlights growing on-chain demand for real-world assets and differs from fiat-pegged stablecoins due to commodity price exposure.

On January 31, 2026, gold and silver flipped from a powerful advance into a sharp retreat. The decline is framed as a positioning and liquidity event, where crowded trades and margin dynamics outweigh unchanged macro narratives. Without a shift in core fundamentals, the focus turns to whether selling pressure eases, volatility cools, and silver stops leading gold lower.

On January 31, 2026, Bitcoin and Ethereum extended their declines as a sharp wave of derivatives liquidations swept the crypto market, with total liquidations over 24 hours reaching about $1.59 billion and long positions making up the bulk. Bitcoin fell under $80,000 at one stage, briefly dropping below MicroStrategy's reported average cost basis near $76,037 before partially rebounding, while Ethereum slid under $2,500 amid similar leverage-driven pressures. The pullback is being framed as a leverage and market-structure event rather than a shift in underlying fundamentals.

On January 31, 2026, Step Finance reported that several treasury and fee wallets on Solana had been compromised after around 261,854 SOL, valued at roughly $30 million, were unstaked and transferred. The team said the affected addresses are under investigation and indicated that only treasury-related wallets appear impacted so far, with no confirmed effect on user funds or core protocol operations. The incident is drawing wider attention to operational security standards for DeFi protocol treasuries.

On January 5, 2026, Santiment published data ranking the most actively developed projects in the Ethereum ecosystem over the previous 30 days. The list is led by MetaMask USD, followed by Starknet, Chainlink, Radworks, Safe, Ethereum, Decentraland, Worldcoin, Status, and Cartesi, highlighting a focus on infrastructure, scaling, and governance rather than short-term price moves.

On January 30, 2026, Binance released its analysis of the October 10 crypto market crash, attributing the steep sell-off to a macroeconomic shock colliding with fragile market structure and heavy leverage. The exchange argued that risk-off sentiment, cascading derivatives liquidations, market maker withdrawals, and Ethereum network congestion drove the move, rather than any core platform failure or depeg events. Binance acknowledged limited internal frictions, including delayed internal transfers and irregular token index behavior, but maintained these did not trigger the broader downturn.

On January 30, 2026, CryptoQuant reported that short-term Bitcoin holders moved about 35,100 BTC to exchanges within 24 hours while sitting on unrealized losses. The firm noted this inflow often reflects market stress and near-term sell pressure, though a transfer does not necessarily mean the coins were immediately sold.

On January 29, 2026, Tesla's 2025 Q4 financial report showed the company still holds 11,509 BTC, valued around $1 billion at recent prices. The filing also detailed a $2 billion investment into xAI and confirmed Model S and Model X production is resuming. The update highlights capital allocation across Bitcoin, AI, and core EVs.

On January 28, 2026, Kim Ung-Yong argued that Bitcoin may be moving away from its historically referenced four-year halving cycle toward a much longer structural supercycle. He suggests Bitcoin's price behavior is increasingly shaped by long-term adoption, institutional integration, and macroeconomic dynamics rather than repetitive boom-and-bust patterns. Under this view, timing market tops and bottoms becomes harder, and sustained trends in Bitcoin's role in the financial system may matter more than short-term cycles.