The launch comes as tokenized gold hits a record high market cap, with most existing products still offering only passive price exposure.
The new token is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and designed to comply with the GENIUS Act, targeting institutional demand for a U.S.-regulated digital dollar.
Gold's breakout above $5,000 and Clarity Act uncertainty are putting crypto's next market move to the test, Matt Hougan said.
Data shows the ERC-20 stablecoin market cap has just seen a notable drop for the first time in years, something that could have a knock-on effect on Bitcoin. ERC-20 Stablecoin Market Cap Has Gone Down During The Past Week As highlighted by CryptoQuant author Darkfrost in an X post, stablecoins have witnessed outflows over the past week. A “stablecoin” is a cryptocurrency that has its price pegged to a fiat currency, with tokens based on the US Dollar being the most popular. Generally, investors store their capital in the form of these assets when they want to avoid the volatility associated with Bitcoin and other coins. Traders who keep stablecoins usually plan to venture back into the volatile side of the market, however, which is why the supply of these coins is often considered as a sort of “dry powder” reserve for BTC and company. Related Reading: XRP, Ethereum Now ‘Undervalued’ On MVRV, Says Santiment Stablecoins are available on several blockchains, but the ones of relevance here are specifically the ERC-20 tokens running on the Ethereum network. Below is the chart shared by Darkfrost that shows the trend in the combined market cap of the assets of this type over the last few years. As displayed in the graph, the supply of the ERC-20 stablecoins saw a phase of growth during the second phase of 2025, indicating that capital was flowing into these assets. At the same time as this growth, Bitcoin and other assets rallied, suggesting that the sector as a whole was witnessing net capital inflows. When the volatile coins saw a bearish shift, however, the stables also observed a change in trajectory. From the chart, it’s apparent that these tokens hit a plateau alongside the market mood swing. This means that while capital wasn’t flowing out of the stables, it wasn’t flowing in, either. In the past week, though, this sideways movement has broken, with the market cap of the ERC-20 stablecoins registering a drop. More specifically, $7 billion in capital has flowed out of these assets, taking the market cap from $162 billion to $155 billion. Whenever the stablecoin supply declines, one possibility is always that investors are simply rotating into Bitcoin. The original cryptocurrency’s price has also gone down in this window, however, a potential sign that the drop represents outflows to fiat. Related Reading: Dogecoin Wedge Breakout Could Be “Powerful,” Analyst Says As the analyst explained: This is a very negative signal, explained by the fact that some investors are choosing to fully exit the crypto market, which continues to correct, while precious metals keep surging and equity markets maintain a strong underlying uptrend. This is the first time this cycle that such a rapid decline in the stablecoin market cap has occurred. It now remains to be seen whether this is a temporary deviation or the start of a new trend. BTC Price Bitcoin has bounced up a bit since its Sunday low as its price is now back at $88,300. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com
Tether Gold controlled approximately 60% of the $4 billion gold-backed stablecoin market at the end of 2025, Tether said Monday.
The company recently walked away from multi-billion dollar acquisition talks with Mastercard, instead opting to remain independent.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, better known as the CLARITY Act, was supposed to draw clean lines around crypto assets and which regulator gets the first call. CryptoSlate has already walked readers through the bill’s larger architecture ahead of the January markup, including what changed, what stayed unresolved, and why jurisdiction and state preemption […]
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A growing number of chart watchers are pointing to a long stretch of sideways trading for XRP and saying this setup has come before big rallies. According to a widely followed analyst known as CryptoBull, the current price action echoes earlier runs in the token’s history. Related Reading: Crypto Meets Private Banking: UBS Weighs New Offering The signal is simple: long quiet periods sometimes lead to sharp moves when buying pressure returns. That does not mean a jump is guaranteed. Markets can stay quiet for a long time, and timing is uncertain. Pattern Mirrors Prior Cycles Based on reports, XRP’s weekly structure shows a stretch of range trading after strong breakouts from earlier years. The comparison reaches back several cycles. In past examples, long ranges eventually gave way to impulsive runs that pushed the price far above prior highs. The next impulse will take #XRP to $11 and the last wave to $70. The price pattern is copying the previous bullrun, only difference is time, which makes sense, as we need longer accumulation for higher prices. pic.twitter.com/WJxzYDVRKT — CryptoBull (@CryptoBull2020) January 23, 2026 CryptoBull argues the present consolidation has lasted longer than previous ones, which, he says, could compress price action and build fuel for a larger expansion when momentum flips. The idea rests on history repeating itself in broad strokes, not in exact moves. Longer Accumulation Could Support Bigger Targets Some analysts see a sixfold move as plausible if the same pattern plays out. That kind of rise would put XRP near $11, a figure being discussed by multiple commentators. There is also talk of a further, final wave lifting the token much higher in a later stage — talk that reaches $70 in extreme scenarios. A bottom test—where price revisits support to confirm strength before a new push—has appeared in a few past cycles and is being watched closely now. The presence of such tests can either validate a base or warn that the range has more work to do. Timelines are vague, and a long accumulation period can stretch for years before any decisive breakout. Related Reading: Money Keeps Leaving: Bitcoin ETFs Shed $1.72 Billion In Just 5 Sessions RLUSD Rumors Fuel Speculative Calls Reports that BlackRock may use Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin have added fuel to the fire. News like that has pushed sentiment upward and sparked fresh technical calls, with some forecasts ranging from $6 to $14 in near- to mid-term scenarios. Other voices go far beyond, naming targets that would imply market caps so large they would be hard to reconcile with today’s market size. These more extreme numbers should be treated with caution, because they assume near-perfect conditions and massive capital flows that may never arrive. Still, adoption whispers can tilt sentiment and speed up moves when buyers pile in. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
The Nasdaq-listed firm said it is evolving beyond a crypto treasury vehicle into a yield-generating operating business.
It’s about deposits and who gets paid on them, argues Le.
While stablecoins settled around $35 trillion last year, only around 1% of that represented genuine payments like remittances and payroll, a new report found.
The U.S. Treasury tied Wedding’s network to a web of sanctioned crypto wallets across five blockchains, pointing to a laundering operation.
Circle’s chief executive painted a brisk picture at Davos this week: autonomous software agents that act for people could be using stablecoins to pay for everyday things within three to five years. He said these agents will need a money system that is stable, fast, and programmable. That, he argued, points to stablecoins as the likely choice. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s Sharp Reversal Leaves Over $800 Million Liquidated In 1 Day AI Agents And Money According to reports, Jeremy Allaire of Circle said “literally billions” of AI agents may be transacting on behalf of users in the near term. “Three years, five years from now, one can expect that there will be billions, literally billions of AI agents conducting economic activity in the world on a continuous basis,” Allaire said during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He described work on new networks and tools aimed at letting software act like small businesses or helpers that buy services, settle bills, and tip content creators. This idea is simple on the surface: software needs a reliable unit of account when it spends, and tokenized dollars can fit that role. Building The Tools Reports say companies across the crypto and tech world are racing to build the plumbing for this future. Circle is pitching USDC as a neutral payments layer that software can plug into. Other firms are testing protocols that let a machine sign off on a payment when certain conditions are met. Some large tech groups are also exploring ways for their platforms to let software pay for services automatically. Progress is visible, but the path is not yet clear. What Regulators Might Ask Regulators will have questions. Reports note concerns about money flow, consumer protections, and where bank deposits sit if stablecoins grow rapidly. At Davos, the CEO pushed back on the idea that stablecoins would drain bank deposits the way some fear, saying comparisons to other financial instruments are more fitting. Still, lawmakers in the US and elsewhere are watching closely. Rules could move faster if policy makers see real volume coming from so-called agentic commerce. New Networks, New Risks Based on reports, the technical choices will shape both convenience and danger. If agents can move value at scale, fraud and theft risks may rise too. Related Reading: Bitcoin Influencers Get Spotlight In X’s New ‘Starterpacks’ Systems will need clear identity checks, fault handling, and ways to stop runaway payments. Some safety work is already under way, but much remains to be designed and tested. Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
Changpeng Zhao spoke at the World Economic Forum's 2026 Annual Meeting in Davos this week, his first appearance on the official programme since Binance's 2023 US settlement and his subsequent guilty plea, prison sentence, and presidential pardon. The listing placed him squarely in WEF's “New Era for Finance” track, including a session titled “Where Are […]
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ARK Invest’s new roadmap puts a big number on the table, and it’s hard to ignore. Reports say Cathie Wood’s firm’s “Big Ideas 2026” research paints a scenario where the total value of crypto climbs to about $28 trillion by 2030. Related Reading: Trove’s New Token Craters 95%, Sparking Investor Revolt Big Ideas Point To A Shift According to ARK and its public writeups, that $28 trillion is not blind optimism. The firm breaks the future into three main drivers: Bitcoin, decentralized finance, and tokenized real-world assets. Reports note Bitcoin could make up roughly 70% of that total, which would mean about $16 trillion in Bitcoin market cap by 2030. DeFi And Tokenized Assets Take The Stage DeFi platforms and smart-contract networks are expected to grow a lot. ARK’s scenario puts smart money and on-chain services as a major contributor to market value in the run up to 2030. The firm also projects tokenized real-world assets — things like tokenized bonds, property shares, and other financial products moved onto ledgers — to climb into the trillions, with some reports pointing toward around $11 trillion for tokenization. How Bitcoin Fits Into The Picture Given the share ARK assigns to Bitcoin, the math pushes toward very large per-coin prices if that scenario plays out. Reports say ARK’s base case uses a little over 20 million Bitcoins in supply by 2030 and implies a per-coin price that could sit near the high hundreds of thousands — commonly quoted numbers range up to about $950,000 to $1,000,000 in that framework. Fast Growth Assumptions To reach $28 trillion, the forecast depends on very steep growth each year. ARK points to an implied compound annual growth rate near 61% from present levels to 2030. That is aggressive. It would mean rapid gains across many segments of the crypto market, not just a single rally. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s Sharp Reversal Leaves Over $800 Million Liquidated In 1 Day Reports and industry analysts warn that the path to that future has a long list of hurdles. Regulation must become clearer in many places. Institutional rails and custody tools need to expand and prove reliable. Market sentiment has to stay positive long enough for major capital flows to arrive. Any of these things going wrong would change the numbers quickly. ARK’s “Big Ideas 2026” details a robust vision of a $28 trillion ecosystem driven by Bitcoin, DeFi, and tokenization. Although it holds a rather ambitious 61% growth trajectory riddled with numerous regulatory and market obstacles, the vision reinforces the faith of ARK Invest in the transformation of the digital asset space from being a speculative domain to the nucleus of the global finance system. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
The asset manager said bitcoin’s institutional adoption and asset tokenization are pushing digital assets toward scale, potentially reaching tens of trillions by decade’s end.
Stablecoins are increasingly used for payments and settlement rather than trading, pushing crypto deeper into everyday financial workflows.
USD.AI primarily operates as an onchain bank for AI startups, accepting tokenized GPUs as collateral for stablecoin loans.
Bitwise’s take on the final months of 2025 reads like a careful, hopeful note rather than a loud market call. Momentum on the chains rose even as prices stalled, and that gap is exactly what has traders talking. Some think it marks a bottom. Others say it’s too soon to be sure. Related Reading: Trove’s New Token Craters 95%, Sparking Investor Revolt Crypto: On-Chain Activity Surges According to Bitwise, Ethereum activity and layer-two transactions climbed to new highs, and decentralized trading grew markedly. Stablecoin supplies also swelled, with the total market cap passing the $300 billion mark in Q4. Reports note that decentralized exchange volumes at times matched or exceeded those of major centralized venues. These are hard numbers. They are signs that real use and liquidity are expanding under the surface. The latest Bitwise Crypto Market Review just dropped—and it’s the most important one we’ve ever published. Why? Because it shows a tension in crypto markets that has historically signaled a bear-market bottom (see Q1 2023). Receipts: During Q4 2025… – ETH’s price fell 29% …… — Bitwise (@BitwiseInvest) January 21, 2026 Why Prices Have Lagged Bitwise’s chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, compared this setup to early 2023 when prices trailed rising fundamentals before a significant rebound took hold over the following two years. The comparison makes sense on paper. Price can be stubborn. Market psychology often lags behind on-chain realities, and traders sometimes wait for a clearer macro story before committing capital. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee offers a counterpoint, saying the year could be bumpy until late, with tariffs and political tensions weighing on risk appetite. That view keeps many investors cautious. Crypto, Stablecoins And DeFi At The Center According to market data, flows into stablecoins accelerated, and fund inflows to crypto firms outpaced several other sectors in the stock market. DeFi use was no longer a niche metric; it was central to the Q4 narrative. “That’s the type of divergence you get at the bottom of bear markets, when sentiment is down but fundamentals are up,” Hougan said. Some infrastructure firms reported rising revenues. At the same time, trading volumes remained muted compared with the peaks seen earlier, which helps explain the mismatch between on-chain strength and sideways price action. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s Sharp Reversal Leaves Over $800 Million Liquidated In 1 Day Why This Might Matter For 2026 Bitwise highlighted 10 broad indicators it sees as health signs for the market, ranging from transaction counts to custody and fee trends. Progress on regulatory clarity was also flagged. Reports say the Clarity Act could change how stablecoins are treated in the US, and a new US Federal Reserve chair could shift policy in ways that matter for risk assets. Bitwise sees Q4 as a quiet period where things were improving behind the scenes, even if prices didn’t show it. The firm says this kind of gap between price and activity has happened before big rebounds. It doesn’t mean a rally will happen right away, but the market could be setting itself up for a stronger year ahead. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
The regulatory debate has narrowed to rewards, as lawmakers weigh how incentives around stablecoins could affect bank deposits.
Sun's investment coincided with a sharp rally in the RIVER token and heightened scrutiny over leverage-driven trading activity.
Hashed said the Maroo blockchain combines the openness of public blockchains with compliance features essential for financial applications.
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse called the WEF panel ‘spirited’ as Coinbase’s CEO defended bitcoin and stablecoins, while Villeroy warned of threats to monetary sovereignty and financial stability.
Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has listed Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on its platform. On Jan. 21, the exchange announced that it would open spot trading pairs, including RLUSD/USDT, RLUSD/U, and XRP/RLUSD, on Jan. 22 by 8 AM UTC. Critically, Binance will initiate trading on the RLUSD/USDT and RLUSD/U pairs with zero fees […]
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This follows a report stating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used two UK crypto exchanges to move approximately $1 billion.
Elliptic traced more than $500 million in USDT tied to Iran’s central bank, suggesting the stablecoin was used to manage foreign-exchange pressures and build a “sanctions-proof” alternative to dollar banking.
Cork is building a "programmable risk layer" to make the implicit risks in real-world assets transparent and tradable through tokenization.
The move extends the firm's effort to apply crypto-style derivatives market structure to traditional and emerging asset classes.
Bermuda wants to become the world's first “fully on-chain national economy.” The announcement, delivered jointly by the island's government, Circle, and Coinbase on Jan. 19, frames the initiative as the deployment of digital asset infrastructure across government agencies, local banks, insurers, small businesses, and consumers, with USDC positioned as the primary payment rail. The pitch: […]
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When the Ethereum Foundation dropped a thread on Jan. 19 claiming “Ethereum is the #1 choice for global financial institutions” and backing it with 35 cited examples, it moved past the standard protocol update or developer announcement. It read like institutional marketing: a ranked claim, a curated evidence stack, and a call-to-action funnel pointing readers […]
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