On 21 January 2026, Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, urged the U.S. crypto sector to accept trade-offs and advance a market structure bill. He cautioned that waiting for a perfect statute could lead to tougher, crisis-era rules later and said the present political alignment offers a rare chance to shape outcomes.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he intends to fully rely on decentralized social media in 2026 and is already using the Firefly multi-client for all of his posts and reading. He argued that shared data layers and competition can improve online communication and criticized past token-driven crypto social experiments for focusing on speculation over content quality. He previously donated 256 ETH to privacy-focused messaging projects Session and SimpleX to advance encrypted communication and metadata protection.

Ondo Global Markets will list over 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs on Solana, aiming to reach more than 2.8M daily active users. The firm says its liquidity model connects to NASDAQ and NYSE, positioning the Solana expansion to compete with XStocks and extend Ondo's RWA footprint after earlier launches on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Cryptocurrency-focused attackers are compromising existing publisher accounts on Canonical's Snap Store to turn previously legitimate Linux packages into crypto-stealing malware. By taking control of expired developer domains and email addresses, they push malicious updates that harvest wallet recovery phrases, exposing users to fund theft before Canonical removes the snaps. Security researcher Alan Pope warns that these incidents highlight weaknesses in Snap's trust model and urges stronger account verification, domain monitoring, and wider use of two-factor authentication.

As banks and payment firms increasingly test public blockchains and governments explore central bank digital currencies, Aleo Network's policy lead Yaya Fanusie warns that financial privacy is becoming a core structural issue. He argues that zero-knowledge tools could reconcile public ledger transparency with traditional confidentiality, but adoption is stalled as regulators demand real-world evidence while industry waits for clear rules.

In 2026, ten browser extensions anchor everyday Web3 activity across wallets, trading, research, and security. The lineup spans MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, Trust Wallet, Brave Wallet, Uniswap Extension, Rabby, DeFiLlama, Wallet Guard, and 1inch, reflecting user priorities around adoption, protection, and DeFi features. Highlights include large user bases, multi-chain support, embedded security scans, and advanced DEX aggregation.

On January 21, 2026 in Warsaw, Mana Minds announced a strategic partnership with Wanda Exchange to distribute a regulated crypto gift card product across Europe. The Wanda Crypto Gift Card leverages Wanda Exchange’s licensed VASP platform in Poland and Mana Minds’ global distribution network to offer retailers a compliant way to sell digital assets, with support for multiple major cryptocurrencies and flexible denominations.

On January 20, Aave shifted stewardship of Lens Protocol's social applications to Mask Network, assigning the Web3 firm to lead consumer-facing product development while Lens remains open-source. Aave will now focus on its core DeFi business and act only as a technical advisor, with no change to Lens's ownership, smart contracts, or governance. Vitalik Buterin later praised Lens's evolution and voiced optimism about the future of decentralized social platforms built on shared data layers.