Story (IP) surged more than 22% in the past 24 hours, driven primarily by heavy spot trading on South Korean exchanges, even as on-chain adoption remains largely unchanged. With IP trading near $3.07 on nearly $314 million in daily volume, the rally highlights strong regional liquidity and speculative momentum, but raises questions about durability if real protocol usage fails to follow.

On 13 January 2026, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott released an updated Digital Asset Market Clarity Act draft clarifying that usage-based stablecoin rewards do not trigger securities or deposit status. The text permits incentives for payments and network activity, but bars interest for simply holding. The Senate Agriculture Committee postponed broader markup until the final week of January.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao cautioned that buying meme coins inspired by his tweets is "almost guaranteed" to lose money. His message follows a Jan. 1 incident in which BROCCOLI, named after his dog, was allegedly used in a scheme involving stolen Binance market maker accounts and futures positions. Zhao said he enjoys memes but does not endorse coin launches tied to his posts.

In early January 2026, South Korea's Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA), representing major local platforms such as Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, Coinone, and Gopax, criticized the Financial Services Commission's plan to cap major shareholders' digital asset ownership at 15-20% on domestic exchanges. The group argues that the measure, tied to the forthcoming Digital Asset Basic Act, could weaken the local crypto market, drive users to overseas exchanges, and conflict with principles of market economy and investor protection.

PayPal confirmed it will support Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, with its payment option set to appear in a new AI-driven checkout introduced on Sunday at the NRF convention in New York. The move follows a collaboration announced last September and coincides with PayPal Ventures’ participation in Klearly’s €12 million Series A.

Hedera's HBAR declined 12% over the week as the network prepares a mainnet upgrade to v0.69 on January 21. RSI hovered near 44 and open interest around $55 million, with funding slightly positive, signaling consolidation. Developer activity ranked fourth globally, raising the question of whether the upgrade can improve sentiment.

Betterment said attackers used a social engineering scheme on January 9 to access its systems and obtain customer names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, and birth dates. The firm said accounts and passwords were not compromised, is working with a cybersecurity provider, and warned users about fraudulent messages urging $10,000 crypto transfers.

Gold and silver are surging in early 2026 as investors rotate aggressively into hard assets amid falling real yields, record central-bank buying, and persistent uncertainty around U.S. monetary policy and geopolitics. Gold has broken above $4,600 per ounce for the first time, while silver has accelerated past $83–$85, confirming that the current rally is a structural repricing, not a short-lived reaction to headlines.