On January 5 2026, World Liberty Financial’s community approved a governance proposal to direct at least 5% of its unlocked WLFI treasury toward incentives supporting USD1 stablecoin adoption. The vote passed with 77.75% support and targets both centralized and decentralized platforms, while WLFI’s token has recently posted a notable weekly gain. At the same time, Trump Media and Technology Group is preparing a one-for-one crypto token distribution to its shareholders via Crypto.com on the Cronos network.

In late 2025 and early January 2026, Helium and Solana-based DEX aggregator Jupiter each moved to pause or reconsider large-scale token buybacks after spending tens of millions of dollars with limited impact on HNT and JUP prices. Helium halted revenue-funded HNT repurchases after generating $3.4 million in October 2025, while Jupiter questioned whether its more than $70 million in JUP buybacks made sense as the token traded around $0.21, nearly 90% below its early 2024 peak. Both cases highlight how expanding token supply from emissions and unlocks can overwhelm buyback efforts when tokens lack strong utility, reduced issuance, or direct links to cash flows.

XRP was trading near $2.13 with a 13% weekly gain, coinciding with renewed scrutiny of who holds the largest portions of its fixed 100 billion token supply. Ripple Labs remains the biggest holder with tens of billions of XRP in escrow and circulation, while founders, major exchanges like Bithumb and Binance, and several anonymous whale addresses also control sizable balances. After an August 2025 court ruling and subsequent institutional deals, large investors and regulated products have become increasingly important in shaping XRP's ownership landscape.

On January 5, 2026, Starknet's mainnet suffered an outage linked to slow block production, with the team investigating and working on technical fixes. Despite the disruption and absence of detailed leadership commentary, the STRK token's market performance and trading activity showed limited immediate impact. The event follows a prior incident in September 2025, underscoring ongoing operational reliability concerns for the network.

XRP rose to around $2.14 as a technical rebound aligned with renewed institutional demand, highlighted by $1.18 billion in cumulative ETF inflows. With a confirmed triple-bottom near $1.77 and improving momentum, XRP is holding key support above $1.95, keeping the path open toward the $2.70–$3.00 zone if resistance levels give way.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) climbed 22.3% today, trading around $1.00–$1.05 as markets price in its January 15 launch of a decentralized AI agent marketplace. On-chain activity shows roughly 3,700 active DEX users and about $26,000 in daily revenue, while bullish positioning and technical signals are supporting near-term momentum.

According to Finbold, Solana advanced above $132 with a bullish trendline near $135, its highest level since December 12. The MACD histogram turned positive at 1.87 and the 7-day RSI hit 74.7, while AI models projected an average $139.05 by January 31, implying a 2.9% upside.

On January 5, 2026, Peter Brandt said Bitcoin Cash is leading a crypto breakout, citing falling-wedge dynamics in BCH and a breakout view on $BABA. BCH rose 3.66% from $637.10 to $665.66; it was $662.80 (+3.1% 24h) with volume up 15.04% to $667.89 million and RSI at 64.98.