On Jan 7, 2026, BitMine's staked Ether balance approached 779,488 ETH, valued at more than $2.5 billion, after a fresh deposit of roughly 186,336 ETH worth about $605 million. A Jan 6 update noted the validator exit queue had fallen to zero and withdrawal waits were minutes, while over 1.3 million ETH awaited entry.

Ethereum activated its second Blob Parameter-Only hard fork at 1:01:11 UTC on Wednesday, lifting the blob limit from 15 to 21 and the blob target from 10 to 14. The upgrade expands data capacity for rollups while aiming to protect mainnet performance, with developers discussing a gas limit increase to 80 million and a 2026 Glamsterdam fork to drive further scalability.

The opBNB network has finalized its Fourier mainnet hardfork on Wednesday around 03:00 UTC, after starting testing on its testnet earlier in the week and cutting block time from 500ms to 250ms. The upgrade introduces multiple protocol and node-level changes aimed at improving stability, finality, and compatibility, while BNB Chain reports a 40.5% annual TVL increase and BNB trades above $920 ahead of the January 14 Fermi hardfork. These developments come as BNB remains about 33% below its all-time high of $1,370 set last October.

On January 7 2026, Tether introduced Scudo, a micro unit equal to one‑thousandth of a troy ounce of gold designed to make its gold‑backed XAUT token easier to use in daily digital payments. The firm says Scudo should help users price, send, and receive smaller gold amounts, while XAUT remains backed by 1,329 gold bars and had a market value of $2.3 billion as of Tuesday. Tether is also expanding its gold‑linked ecosystem through Alloy, which lets holders lock XAUT as collateral to mint aUSDT, a token pegged to the U.S. dollar.

On Wednesday at 1:01:11 UTC, Ethereum's second BPO hard fork increased the blob limit from 15 to 21 and raised the blob target from 10 to 14. The change lets rollups batch more data, potentially lowering costs, while one blob equals 128 KB, lifting per-block storage to 2,688 KB.

Solana has extended its recovery after securing a move above the $130–$135 area and is now trading over $135 and the 100-hour simple moving average. The SOL/USD pair is forming a contracting triangle with support around $138, while buyers watch resistance at $140, $142 and $145 as potential triggers for another leg higher. A failure to clear $142 could open the door to a pullback toward $136, $130 or even $120 in the short term.

Beaconcha.in data shows the Ethereum validator exit queue has fallen to 32 ETH with about a one‑minute wait, down from a mid‑September peak of 2.67 million ETH. Reports also indicate the entry queue has climbed to roughly 1.3 million ETH, as BitMine began staking on Dec. 26 and added 82,560 ETH on Jan. 3.

Polkadot's DOT and Ethena's ENA have each risen more than 20% over the last week, but their trading activity and inflation patterns show clear differences. ENA saw higher and steadier volume, while DOT climbed on lower participation, and the two tokens also follow contrasting annual supply dynamics. These factors may shape how sustainable their recent price moves prove to be.