Also: EF’s Stańczak to leave ED role, XRPL member-only DEX and Ethereum revives the DAO.
Starboard argues Riot’s Texas power assets position the company to secure large AI data center tenants if management accelerates deal execution.
Arthur Hayes has issued a stark market warning: he sees a growing split between his preferred risk gauge, Bitcoin, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 as a signal that credit stress may be building under the surface. Related Reading: What Bitcoin Rout? Michael Saylor Unfazed, Teases New Accumulation Hayes, a co-founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, calls Bitcoin a “fiat liquidity fire alarm” — an asset that reacts quickly when credit conditions change. A Warning From Market Signals When two assets that often moved together start to pull apart, traders take notice. Hayes believes that a gap like this deserves investigation because it could point to trouble in bank balance sheets or in the flow of lending. He argues the move is not about one stock or one trade; it is about the plumbing of credit and how fast liquidity can dry up when things turn. How AI Job Cuts Could Ripple Through Credit Reports note that companies cited AI as a reason for thousands of layoffs in recent years, with an outplacement firm counting roughly 55,000 cuts in 2025 that were tied to AI. Much of that hit was inside tech. Hayes sketches a rough scenario: a sizable drop in knowledge-worker employment would weaken mortgage and consumer credit repayment, which could then shave bank equity and tighten lending. The numbers he offers are approximate and built on multiple assumptions, but they are intended to show how a shock to white-collar paychecks could cascade into the credit system. Expectations About Central Bank Action Hayes expects a policy response if banks start to fail and credit freezes. He argues the Federal Reserve would step in with fresh liquidity, and that more money creation would follow — a move he says would be favorable for Bitcoin’s price outlook. That scenario has been a recurring theme in his commentary; past essays and posts have linked anticipated Fed liquidity to sharp rallies in crypto markets. Altcoin Bets And Fund Positioning His fund, Maelstrom, is said to plan staking or stablecoin deployments into privacy-focused and exchange-native plays once liquidity policy shifts occur, naming Zcash and Hyperliquid as examples. That kind of tactical stance is meant to profit from a short-term surge in risk assets after a policy pivot. Related Reading: XRP Emerges As The Crypto Everyone’s Talking About, Grayscale Says A Measured View This is a dramatic chain of events: AI job losses lead to credit losses, which cause bank stress, which forces the central bank to expand money supply, which lifts Bitcoin. Each link is plausible, but none is guaranteed. Some of Hayes’ figures are rough estimates meant to illustrate risk rather than to act as a precise forecast. Market history shows that central banks do sometimes step in, and that policy moves can power asset rallies, but outcomes depend on timing, scale and public confidence — factors that are hard to predict in advance. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Ten years after the famous hack, the DAO Security Fund has decided to stake the untouched ETH and use the yield to fund Ethereum security initiatives, honor claims indefinitely, and professionalize governance and key management.
A permissioned DEX amendment creates controlled versions of XRPL’s built-in exchange, letting approved entities decide who can place and take orders.
A misconfigured Chainlink price oracle on DeFi lender Moonwell briefly valued Coinbase Wrapped ETH (cbETH) at about $1 instead of roughly $2,200.
The creator platform’s new product lets users trade tokens linked to social-media traction, a Polymarket-style bet on vibes rather than events.
LiFI Composer allows users to combine different actions like swaps, bridging, deposits, and staking into a single transaction.
Stablecoin use in everyday spending, cross-border work, and savings allocation is growing rapidly among crypto-savvy consumers.
Figure’s consumer loan marketplace volumes more than doubled, helping lift quarterly profitability and margins in preliminary results.
Stańczak came aboard in 2025 after the exit of longtime chief Aya Miyaguchi amid criticism the foundation wasn’t doing enough to push the Ethereum ecosystem.
Lightning Labs has open-sourced a suite of tools that allow AI agents to run Lightning nodes and make payments.
World Liberty Financial plans to launch a foreign exchange and remittance platform as scrutiny of its foreign investment ties continues.
Winning projects like FoundrAI demonstrate how generative AI is allowing developers to build market-ready products in just 48 hours.
From ETFs to stablecoins to AI infrastructure, Solana’s pitch in Hong Kong was clear: less memecoin mania, more internet capital markets.
AI bots will now be able to independently hold funds, send payments, trade tokens, earn yield, and transact onchain.
Bitcoin’s image as a steady store of value is being tested. What once was talked about as a hedge against uncertainty now moves more like a high-upside, high-risk bet. Related Reading: Jim Cramer Suggests US Government Could Buy Bitcoin Near $60K Signals Of A Growth Asset According to Grayscale, recent trading patterns show Bitcoin tracking closely with shares of software companies rather than with gold or silver. That change in behavior has been noticeable since early 2024, when institutional flows and exchange-traded products pushed crypto into more mainstream hands. Reports say investors who chase growth — many drawn by the AI story — have been selling software names hard, and Bitcoin has followed some of that pressure. Institutional Links And Market Forces Reports note that deeper ties to traditional markets explain part of this shift. Large firms, ETF mechanics and growing institutional holdings mean movements in stock markets can spill into crypto. There has also been active selling from US-based accounts that left Bitcoin trading at a discount on some platforms. That selling happened after a string of big liquidations late in the year and again in recent weeks, which amplified losses for traders who used leverage. Where Price Stands Now Bitcoin is changing hands around $66,900, with clear resistance near $69,900 and support levels slipping under $66,600. The swings are sharp and intraday moves can be wide, reflecting a mood that is cautious and reactive. From its peak above $126,000 in October, the market has pulled back by roughly 50% in several waves, which shows how quickly sentiment can turn against even the most talked-about crypto. Gold, Geopolitics And Risk Appetite Reports point out that bullion has climbed to fresh highs while Bitcoin has failed to mirror those safe-haven flows. Rising geopolitical friction has driven some money into metals and away from riskier bets, including tech shares and crypto. Traders who expected Bitcoin to act like a fortress against turmoil have found that, for now, it behaves more like an asset whose value rises on hope and falls when fear returns. A return of fresh capital would likely be needed to steady prices. ETF inflows could help, and a renewed wave of retail buyers would too. Research suggests that retail interest is currently focused on AI stories and growth narratives, which leaves crypto out of favor for many individual investors. That concentration of attention matters: capital flows are what lift or sink these markets. Related Reading: After Predicting XRP’s Drop, Analyst Says The Bottom May Be In Bitcoin Tracks Tech, But Long-Term Value Still Intact Grayscale says Bitcoin’s recent moves mirror tech stocks, not gold, but its long-term potential as a store of value remains. Short-term swings reflect market integration and investor activity, while future performance will depend on capital flows and broader economic trends. Featured image from ETF Trends, chart from TradingView
Also: Citadel Securities backs LayerZero chain, MegaETH mainnet debut and ENS scraps L2 plans
"The human brain is better at taking the imaginative leap to understand the unknown ... We should enjoy it for a couple more years."
The synthetic dollar debuts on Sui Mainnet alongside a permissionless vault seeded by SUI Group and integration with DeepBook’s new margin system.
Stripe launched x402-based USDC agent payments on Base as CoinGecko enabled $0.01 pay-per-request crypto data access.
Citadel has made a strategic investment in LayerZero’s ZRO token as the interoperability firm rolls out its high-performance blockchain.
Circle Ventures has invested an undisclosed sum in decentralized trading platform edgeX ahead of the project’s planned token launch.
Ledger Wallet users will soon have access to OKX DEX directly, enabling non-custodial crypto swaps secured by hardware wallets.
The project, which had pitched itself as a layer-2 “real-time blockchain" targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second, would make onchain interactions feel closer to traditional web apps than today’s crypto networks.
Cango sold 4,451 BTC for about $305 million to repay a bitcoin-backed loan and support its AI infrastructure push.
TD Cowen analysts said Strategy remains structurally positioned to endure a prolonged bitcoin downturn despite MSTR's pullback.
Liu’s remarks come as cryptocurrencies plunge and other industry leaders are narrowing their own visions for blockchain utility.
The firms warned that current scope limits, volume caps, and time-limited licenses are constraining live products as the U.S. moves ahead.
SBI tapped the blockchain R&D firm behind Sony’s blockchain to co-develop a Layer 1 purpose-built network for onchain stocks.