Standard Chartered is in early talks to build a crypto prime brokerage under SC Ventures, signaling a further push into digital assets by major banks. The bank also lowered its Ether outlook to $7,500 for end-2026 and $22,000 for end-2028, while lifting its 2030 target above $40,000.

On Sunday, a user known as Captain Bunny said OKX froze around $40,000 in USDG stablecoins across four accounts that had been bought and were verified under other people's identities, funds he claimed were needed for his father's medical care. On Monday, OKX founder and CEO Star Xu defended the decision, citing strict KYC and AML duties and outlining conditions under which the platform might still assist the user in withdrawing the assets.

Bootstrap, the nonprofit supporting Zcash, attributed a recent governance conflict and board departures to legal constraints on raising external capital under its 501(c)(3) structure, after Electric Coin Company chose to spin out into a separate firm. The dispute focused on potential outside investment and privatization options for the Zashi self‑custodial wallet, while ZEC’s price dropped about 16% over 24 hours as large holders and new wallets accumulated millions of dollars’ worth of tokens.

Binance has introduced perpetual futures for gold and silver priced in USDT, giving traders round-the-clock onchain access to the metals’ price movements without owning the underlying assets. The new XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT contracts are regulated under the Abu Dhabi Global Market framework as Binance plans more traditional asset-linked derivatives.

BitMine Immersion Technologies began 2026 with a $105 million Ether purchase and reports $915 million in cash reserves. The company holds 4.07 million ETH valued at $12.6 billion, equal to 3.36% of supply, and has staked over $2.87 billion while pursuing a 5% supply target.

Analysts reported that in 2025, DeFi tokens dropped 67% and smart contract-linked cryptocurrencies averaged a 66% loss, marking a broad bear phase outside Bitcoin. They argue this downturn reflected a repricing toward networks with strong usage and revenue, just as institutional investors began rolling out regulated Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETF products that could shape market dynamics into 2026.

Morgan Stanley filed S-1 registration statements with the U.S. SEC on Tuesday to create two passive cryptocurrency trusts tied to Bitcoin and Solana. The products intend to list shares via later 19b-4 filings, with most private keys kept in cold storage. If approved, they could reach over 19 million wealth clients, alongside $1.1B Bitcoin ETF inflows early in 2026.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $697 million on the second trading day of 2026, lifting combined net inflows for the first two sessions above $1.1 billion. The rebound follows sizable November and December outflows and has been linked by analysts to a new-year 'clean-slate effect.' Ether and Solana spot ETFs also registered fresh investments.

On Tuesday, Bubblemaps reported that Lighter distributed $675 million in LIT via an airdrop, which CoinGecko ranks as the 10th largest by USD value. As of Wednesday, around 75% of recipients still held and 7% had added more, while Nansen showed a $678 million market cap and a price above $2.71 at 11:20 am UTC.