Bitcoin’s onchain data points to supply overhang and weak participation, while gold’s breakout is priced by markets as a durable macro regime shift.
Gold breaks above $5,000 for the first time on geopolitical and economic risks, while silver hits records and crypto slips.
The post Gold surges past $5,000 for first time as silver tops $107 on safe-haven buying appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
Decentralized social protocols Farcaster and Lens have changed hands, and the debate over crypto social's future is back.
Senate Democrats have threatened to block a funding bill if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security, making traders fearful of another possible US government shutdown.
Crypto traders often assume that meaningful gains need long timelines to take place, and they often give up during the wait and silence. However, crypto has a habit of shattering that belief without warning. History shows that when conditions line up, altcoins do not grind higher over years. They release and erase multiple years of drawdowns in a matter of weeks. That memory was highlighted by a crypto commentator known as Waterman on the social media platform X, who noted a familiar seasonal window between February and late April to early May for an altcoin explosion. Related Reading: Gold Becomes The Whale Safe Haven As Bitcoin Takes A Back Seat Speed Matters More Than Time The most notable example of an altcoin rally season was in 2021, when the entire altcoin market went on a rally to new all-time highs, many of which are still unbroken for some cryptocurrencies. The 2021 cycle delivered some of the clearest reminders of just how fast capital can rotate once momentum takes hold. Solana moved from roughly $20 to $200 in about 50 days, a clean tenfold run. Although Solana has since broken above this peak to register a new all-time high of $293 in January 2025, this was still Solana’s most explosive rally to date. Dogecoin followed an even sharper trajectory, climbing from $0.07 to a peak of $0.73 in under a month due to speculative interest that flowed into other memecoins like Shiba Inu. Unlike Solana, Dogecoin is yet to reclaim or surpass this peak price. Avalanche went further, rallying from around $3 to $60 in less than 40 days, a twentyfold expansion that unfolded faster than most long-term projections ever anticipate. None of these moves required years of development or prolonged accumulation. A Timeframe To Watch Closely Notably, February through late April or early May has more often than not been the period where altcoin performance increases the most. If that pattern repeats, the coming weeks may matter far more than the years that came before them. At the time of writing, the notion of an altcoin season is still impeded by strong Bitcoin dominance. Much of that comes down to how the entire crypto industry ecosystem has changed massively since 2021, especially after the launch of crypto-based ETFs. That steady demand has kept capital inflows concentrated around Bitcoin and slowed the usual rotation into altcoins. Meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have struggled to keep up in terms of price action, even with the launch of Dogecoin ETFs. Although the ETF has boosted visibility, it has not yet resulted into sustained upside. At the same time, investors have become more selective, favoring cryptocurrencies tied to clearer utility. As a result, many crypto communities have been working to create utility for their meme coins. Related Reading: XRP Showing Strength, Analyst Points To $4 Potential Nonetheless, as noted by Waterman, you only need about four to six weeks for an altcoin to wipe out three to four years of suffering. You don’t need one to two years for altcoins to make massive gains. Featured image from YouHodler, chart from TradingView
A cybercriminal known as "Lick" may be the son of the president of a firm contracted by the government to dispose of stolen crypto assets.
Winter storm Fern is currently sweeping across the United States and has already left 1 million residents without electrical power.
The bitcoin treasury firm is using perpetual preferreds to retire convertibles, offering a potential framework for managing long dated leverage.
Tokenized US Treasuries crossed $10 billion in total value this week, a milestone that confirms the category has moved from proof-of-concept to operational infrastructure. Yet, something happening underneath this achievement is just as important: Circle's USYC has edged past BlackRock's BUIDL as the largest tokenized Treasury product, signaling that distribution rails and collateral mechanics now […]
The post How BlackRock just lost control of the $10B tokenized Treasury market to Circle for one simple, mechanical reason appeared first on CryptoSlate.
A new academic paper examines how autonomous AI agents could make influence campaigns harder to detect and more effective at scale.
Technical analysis of XRP’s price action on the 3-week candlestick timeframe chart shows that the cryptocurrency is about to play out a road to the double-digit threshold based on its long-term structure. The analysis, which was shared on the social media platform X alongside a multiyear chart, points to XRP trading in what is labeled Phase 4. At the center of this setup is a clear technical target of a break above the previous all-time high and a run to at least $21.5 Related Reading: XRP Showing Strength, Analyst Points To $4 Potential XRP Price Action In Phases Technical analysis of XRP price action shows that the cryptocurrency has been trading in a series of four phases for more than a decade. One full sequence of four phases unfolded between mid-2013 and mid-2017 as the foundation for XRP’s first rally to price peaks. Since then, a second set of four phases has been developing and following a similar pattern. XRP transitioned into a new phase 1 and phase 2 sequence that led to a 2018 peak for phase 1 and then a pullback for phase 2 between 2018 and 2020. This was followed by an unusually long p3 that stretched from 2019 to mid-2024, visible on the chart as a broad, multi-year consolidation with converging trendlines of lower highs and higher lows. During this time, XRP’s price action was trapped inside the compression structure, just like the behavior seen during phase 3 of the first cycle. XRP Price Chart. Source: @amonyx On X Phase 4 Returns: XRP To Double Digits According to the technical analysis, phase 4 began in 2025, when XRP finally broke above the compression range in mid-2024. This breakout was the same structural transition seen in mid-2017, when XRP exited consolidation and entered expansion. Phase 4 has already been in progress for several months and includes the period when XRP rallied to new all-time highs in mid-2025, eventually topping out at $3.65 in July. Since that peak, however, XRP’s price action has been playing out a corrective downward trend and is down by roughly 48% at the time of writing. Despite the ongoing correction, the projection is that XRP is still in phase 4 and is going to break into new all-time highs soon. This shows that phase 4 could unfold over an extended period and not with a single impulse move. The current all-time high of $3.65 is the first major technical hurdle, and a break above it will serve as confirmation that XRP is back into price discovery. Related Reading: Gold Becomes The Whale Safe Haven As Bitcoin Takes A Back Seat Based on this technical analysis, past expansion ratios from the previous cycle are applied and a 6.618 Fibonacci extension is measured from the phase 3 support low. This points to a projected price level near $21.5. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $1.89, meaning a move to that level would represent an increase of roughly 1,040% from current prices. Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
Major changes to the Bitcoin protocol should be well-thought-out and rare, Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor previously said.
The Solana ecosystem has spent the past year doubling down on a financial infrastructure, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin began losing gains as US futures prepared to open as markets geared up to deal with a host of potential downside volatility catalysts.
Price stabilizes near recent lows after a volatile pullback from above $2.
The calls of a potential Bitcoin supercycle in 2026 intensified over the past week after former Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao — yet another prominent voice in crypto — laid out his predictions for the new year. However, a popular analyst on the social media platform X has released an opposing view, predicting a deep bottom for the BTC price this year. BTC Price At Risk Of Further 65% Decline In a January 25th post on the X platform, prominent crypto trader Ali Martinez said, in a sarcastic tone, that “the super cycle is super cycling.” In what seemed like a response to the buzz around CZ’s Bitcoin supercycle projection, the market pundit tempered the expectations with a $31,000 price bottom call for the premier cryptocurrency in 2026. This bearish prediction is based on the appearance of price fractals on the BTC chart. For context, fractals are repeating patterns in price charts that can help map and project potential price movements for a particular cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, in this scenario). Related Reading: Gold Becomes The Whale Safe Haven As Bitcoin Takes A Back Seat As observed in the chart above, the price of BTC is currently following a similar movement pattern as in 2022. The premier cryptocurrency, after initially setting a then all-time high around $67,000 in early 2021, witnessed a nearly 55% correction to just above the $30,000 level by mid-July. While the price of Bitcoin recovered and went back to set a record high of above $69,000 by the end of 2021, the market leader spent the majority of the following year in a downward trend. Exacerbated by the various bearish events of 2022, BTC ended the year at a low of around $15,500. Martinez believes that the Bitcoin price is undergoing a similar movement pattern, having experienced an over 32% decline before climbing to the current all-time high of $126,080. The market pundit postulates that the premier cryptocurrency is currently witnessing the extended decline that saw its price reach $15,500 in 2022. However, it is worth mentioning that the target this time around lies at $31,800, nearly 65% drop from the current price point. Hence, if the historical patterns highlighted by Martinez are to go by, there seems to be a higher likelihood of the Bitcoin price embarking on an extended downward trend rather than a supercycle. Bitcoin Price At A Glance As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $88,528, reflecting an over 1% decline in the past 24 hours. Related Reading: Bitcoin Metric Suggests Miners Are In Recovery Mode — Price To Follow? Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
Entropy's "anti-capitalist anarchist" founder is winding down the firm and returning capital to investors after failing to find a scalable business model.
Bitcoin and major tokens weakened Sunday as markets positioned ahead of the Federal Reserve’s next rate decision and a heavy slate of Magnificent Seven earnings.
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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Powell could signal a "dovish pause," but his comments on other issues may temper the bullish reaction in BTC and other risk assets.
Aurelion has shifted to Tether Gold (XAUT), a blockchain-based token backed by physical gold, to address potential market vulnerabilities in the "paper gold" market.
The recent Bitcoin drop intensifies market fear, potentially leading to further declines and impacting the broader crypto ecosystem.
The post Bitcoin slides below $88K, triggering $135M in crypto long liquidations in the past hour appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
The Tallinn protocol upgrade marks Tezos' 20th major update since launching in 2018, and was implemented without a network fork.
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
Cometh founder Jerome de Tychey is applying DeFi lending and borrowing on platforms like Aave, Morpho, and Uniswap to structures that help the ultra-wealthy secure loans against their massive crypto fortunes.
When Solana maintainers told validators to move quickly on Agave v3.0.14, the message arrived with more urgency than detail. The Solana Status account called the release “urgent” and said it contained a “critical set of patches” for Mainnet Beta validators. Within a day, the public conversation drifted toward a harder question: if a proof-of-stake network […]
The post Terrifying Solana flaw just exposed how easily the “always-on” network could have been stalled by hackers appeared first on CryptoSlate.
From yield potential to custody risks, here’s how direct ETH and staking funds compare for different investor goals.
X Games will share a title with MoonPay as part of an eight-figure deal, as the action sports spectacle adopts a league-based format.
The Bitcoin price action has been muted over the past few days, trading within the $90,000 and $88,000 levels. Classically, consolidation periods often precede major moves either to the upside or downside of the market. As such, questions on the next trajectory of the flagship cryptocurrency are being asked. A latest on-chain evaluation has offered a positive prognosis on the next direction for the Bitcoin price. Accumulation Demand Metric Surges To All-Time-High In a Quicktake post on CryptoQuant, on-chain analyst CoinNiel hypothesized that the Bitcoin price could be at the beginning of a bullish trend. The market quant based this prognosis on two metrics — the Accumulator Address Demand and the Liquidity Inventory Ratio (month). Related Reading: Bitcoin Metric Suggests Miners Are In Recovery Mode — Price To Follow? The Accumulator Address Demand metric monitors the net buying pressure coming from addresses that buy Bitcoin consistently, and without any significant selling. This behavior (of buying and rarely selling) is typical of the large-scale Bitcoin holders, commonly known as the whales. Notably, CoinNiel also pointed out that when major withdrawals from exchanges occur, they are rarely ever incited by retailers, but by whales. As such, when the Bitcoin whales withdraw their holdings from exchanges, their buying pressure translates into an increase in the Accumulator Address Demand. From the chart above, the indicator has reached an all-time high level. According to the crypto pundit, this could be a sign that the whales are currently experiencing, on intense levels, the “fear of missing out.” The second metric, the Liquidity Inventory Ratio (Month), also reinforces CoinNiel’s bullish outlook. This metric tracks and compares existing Bitcoin demand to the supply available on exchanges, showing whether demand can overwhelm available supply. When this ratio rises sharply, it is usually a sign that demand is absorbing newly created supply. From the data shared by the analyst, the Liquidity Inventory Ratio has also reached an extreme value of 3.8. However, this extreme reading is only a reflection of what is happening on US exchanges. Hence, CoinNiel implied that, for the first time in years, US exchanges are recording exceptionally high demand relative to the coins available. In theory, a 3.8 reading implies the imminence of a supply shock in the scenario where current conditions prevail. But, the analyst highlighted that it may not necessarily happen, as a 3.8 reading is more a sign of intensified whale demand than a surefire means to predict supply shocks. The big picture, especially when these two metrics are looked at together, appears to be distinctly bullish. This is because available data points out that the whales are likely positioning for what could be a resumed bullish trajectory for the Bitcoin price. Bitcoin Price At A Glance As of this writing, Bitcoin is valued at $88,520, reflecting an over 1% decline in the past 24 hours. Related Reading: XRP Price Recovery Is Possible If It Reclaims This Ichimoku Base Featured image by DALL.E, chart from TradingView
The Nasdaq-listed firm said it is evolving beyond a crypto treasury vehicle into a yield-generating operating business.