On Wednesday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told an online XRP Community Day event that the firm is prioritizing integration in 2026 but could revisit acquisitions in the second half of the year. He noted that Ripple deployed approximately $4 billion last year on investments, mergers, and acquisitions, including the purchases of Hidden Road and GTreasury. Following these deals, both businesses were rebranded under Ripple and refocused on services tied to the XRP ecosystem, which Garlinghouse described as the company's guiding focus.

On Tuesday night, Robinhood launched the public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 network built on Arbitrum that is designed to support experimentation before a future mainnet launch. The company plans to use the chain for tokenized real-world assets, DeFi access, and testnet-only Stock Tokens, while its recent earnings showed a 38% year-over-year drop in crypto transaction revenue to $221 million in last year's fourth quarter.

LayerZero said it is launching a Layer 1 blockchain named Zero and has secured strategic backing from Citadel Securities and Ark Invest, which both acquired the protocol's native ZRO token, with Ark also taking an equity stake. The firm additionally announced partnerships with Google Cloud and DTCC, while Intercontinental Exchange plans to evaluate how the Zero chain could support 24/7 trading. LayerZero claims Zero introduces a heterogeneous architecture capable of handling up to 2 million transactions per second with performance far exceeding Ethereum and Solana.

On Tuesday, Tether said it made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs to back interoperability infrastructure used in creating USDT0, the omnichain version of its USDT stablecoin. USDT0, launched in early 2025 via LayerZero's Omnichain Fungible Token standard, maintains a 1:1 backing with USDT and has facilitated over $70 billion in cross-chain transfers.

On Wednesday, Hyperion DeFi Inc. (NASDAQ: HYPD) said it plans to deploy its HYPE token holdings as collateral in on-chain options vaults on Hyperliquid to generate additional income from premiums and fees. The firm emphasized it will avoid directional trading, instead targeting yield on its more than 1.8 million HYPE tokens while working with the Rysk protocol to structure covered options strategies, even as its shares dropped over 13% following the announcement.

Tether has launched its USAT U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin for American users through Anchorage Digital Bank under a U.S. federal regulatory framework. Former White House crypto policy advisor Bo Hines, who became CEO of Tether USAT last September, will help oversee the rollout as the firm targets a major digital asset market previously off-limits to USDT.

Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), asked shareholders in a Friday YouTube video to approve lifting the company's authorized shares from 500 million to 50 billion. BitMine's stock rose 14% to $30.93 at 2:48 p.m. ET that day, and the vote deadline is Jan. 14; the company holds about 3.41% of ETH's circulating supply.

According to CoinShares, crypto exchange-traded products recorded $446 million in weekly outflows, led by selling in Bitcoin and Ethereum. XRP funds drew $70 million and Solana $7.5 million, while cumulative outflows since the Oct. 10 market shock reached $3.2 billion. U.S.-listed products saw $460 million of outflows; Germany attracted $35.7 million.

Coinbase, in a 2026 outlook released this week, said a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in July 2025 will limit deductions for gambling losses starting in 2026. The exchange argued prediction markets could be a more tax‑advantageous alternative, and it has partnered with Kalshi while suing Michigan, Illinois, and Connecticut over CFTC jurisdiction.