On Tuesday, Jameson Lopp shared data indicating X posts mentioning "Bitcoin" dropped 32% to 96 million in 2025 versus 2024. Google Trends also showed waning search interest after November 2024, while sentiment gauges in early 2026, including Santiment and CryptoQuant metrics, pointed to persistent caution despite price gains.

Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, who also chairs Ethereum treasury firm BitMine, forecasts a "painful" pullback in crypto and equities in 2026 before a strong recovery toward year-end. He still expects Bitcoin to reach a fresh all-time high this year, viewing it as confirmation that the October 10 deleveraging shock is behind the market. Lee and other analysts also see energy, basic materials and metals as potential outperformers in 2026, though some warn of a later sharp correction that could hit crypto even harder.

On Monday, Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu said the firm is preparing for a coming "speculation supercycle", as prediction markets posted a record $814.2 million in daily trading volume. Magic Eden will roll out its Dicey crypto casino and sportsbook this quarter and route 15% of platform revenue to ME tokenholders via USDC buybacks and staking rewards. This strategy comes after the NFT market cap dropped from $7.95 billion to $2.5 billion in 2025 but has climbed back above $3 billion in early 2026.

On Friday, Trove said it would shift its planned perps DEX from Hyperliquid to Solana just days before its token generation event. On Monday, the team disclosed it will keep $9,397,403 to continue building, while issuing refunds, and the TROVE token plunged over 95% to $0.0008 within ten minutes of launch.

The Bitcoin network's seven-day average hashrate fell below 1,000 EH/s on Saturday and now sits at 993 EH/s. It is nearly 15% lower than the 1,157 EH/s peak on Oct. 19, as an analyst says some miners are shifting power to AI, even with four difficulty cuts since Nov. 12, 2025 and higher hashprice.

Data from Ethereum Validator Queue indicate that the validator exit queue has dropped from a peak of 2.67 million ETH in September 2025 to zero, while the entry queue has climbed to 2.6 million ETH, with wait times extending to 45 days. Nearly 46.5% of Ether's supply is now locked in the proof-of-stake deposit contract, and analysts say these inflows and a staking yield near 2.8% are tightening ETH's supply-demand balance even though its $3,300 price remains below the August 2025 all-time high.

On Saturday, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said on X that Solana must keep iterating and even envisaged network fees funding AI-assisted code updates. His comments contrasted with Vitalik Buterin's "walkaway test" vision for Ethereum, which emphasizes long-term self-sustainability without ongoing developer guidance.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on X on Friday that 2026 should mark a shift back to self-sovereignty and trustlessness, arguing the network has diluted its values for mainstream adoption. He called for private payments, easier full-node operation and dapps without centralized servers, and cited the Kohaku release and Glamsterdam fork as steps expected to address these issues.

White House digital assets advisor Patrick Witt said he received confirmation from the US Department of Justice that Bitcoin forfeited in the Samourai Wallet case has not been sold and will remain in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The transfer of 57.5 BTC from a US-controlled address to Coinbase Prime in November had prompted allegations of a breach of Executive Order 14233, which requires forfeited Bitcoin to be held rather than liquidated.