MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor signaled Back to Orange, a phrase tied to the firm marking completed Bitcoin purchases. According to the report, confirmations often arrive before the U.S. market opens on Monday via a Form 8-K or a press release. Even a potential $1 billion buy spread over a week would likely have limited price impact due to turnover and OTC execution.

Fidelity's macro strategist Jurrien Timmer recently suggested that both Bitcoin and gold could experience a lackluster year in 2026 after strong prior performance. He reiterated his long-term enthusiasm for the two assets but cautioned they might "take a year off" before any renewed outperformance. Gold has surged about 70% this year to a record $4,550, while Bitcoin is on track for its second-worst Q4 and is down nearly 7% year to date.

Earlier today, Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $86,673 amid sharp volatility and later hovered near $87,208, according to CoinGecko. On December 26, 2025, trader Josh Olszewicz warned that the weekly chart is nearing a breakdown into the Ichimoku Cloud and said tax loss harvesting could add selling pressure.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stated that user funds are "SAFU" after a Trust Wallet browser extension exploit enabled attackers to steal $7 million in crypto. The incident involved Version 2.68 of the desktop extension, and Trust Wallet has issued Version 2.69 to patch the vulnerability. On-chain data shows roughly $2.8 million remains in attacker addresses, while more than $4 million has been routed through centralized exchanges.

The Asia Web3 Alliance Japan and Web3 Salon have launched the JFIIP accelerator with Ripple Labs and several major Japanese financial institutions to support compliant finance projects on the XRP Ledger. The program offers Japanese startups a grant of about $10,000 and prioritized access to Ripple's broader grant pool, with a strong focus on real-world banking and tokenization use cases.

On December 25, 2025, Ripple CTO David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz said the firm's 2017 escrow constrained its XRP sales, noting that before the lockups it could have sold without a cap. He said he opposed creating the escrow, which locked 55 billion XRP with 1 billion released monthly, and argued markets price in expected token distributions.

Polymarket bettors currently assign a 74% chance that gold reaches $5,000 before Ethereum. Gold trades near $4,480, about 10% from the mark, while ETH remains below $3,000 amid 2025’s shifting flows and stalled momentum. In Q3 and July 2025, BitMine’s accumulation and spot ETH ETF inflows briefly lifted prices before fading.

Ripple executive Reece Merrick expects institutional involvement in crypto to grow sharply by the end of 2026, with major banks, asset managers and payment networks holding significant exposure. He links this outlook to regulatory clarity around stablecoins, the GENIUS Act, and Ripple’s shift in 2025 toward full-stack institutional infrastructure with products like RLUSD and tokenized T-Bills on the XRP Ledger.

In December 2025, Peter Schiff said Bitcoin faces four difficult years and argued the "digital gold" idea has failed. He cited BTC near $87,000 yet 46% lower versus gold from its November 2021 peak. Bloomberg's Mike McGlone described Bitcoin as "dead money," pointing to high risk without additional return over five years.