Steak 'n Shake plans to introduce a Bitcoin bonus of $0.21 for every hour worked by hourly employees starting March 1, 2026, in partnership with the Fold rewards app. The bonus, which can total about $436 annually for a full-time worker, will vest after two years and has drawn both criticism over its limited value and praise as a way to familiarize staff with cryptocurrency. During this rollout, Bitcoin is trading around $88,732 with weekly losses reflecting broader market pressures.

On January 21 2026, onchain metrics indicated that Bitcoin holders have entered their first 30-day period of realized losses since October 2023, with prices slipping under the $90,000 mark and dropping 7.11% over the past week. The market downturn has coincided with record-breaking gold prices, a slide in spot Bitcoin ETF flows, and a decline in the crypto fear and greed index to “extreme fear,” even as large institutional buyers continue to accumulate Bitcoin.

On January 17, Donald Trump announced tariffs starting at 10% on goods from eight European nations, rising to 25% on June 1, a move that coincided with a sharp drop in Bitcoin and other risk assets. Despite the renewed focus on acquiring Greenland, crypto-based prediction markets currently assign only a 20% probability that the U.S. will complete a Greenland takeover by December 31, 2026, and 30% by March 31 this year. Analysts argue that these platforms can offer useful sentiment signals but warn that thin liquidity and speculative trading mean their odds should not be treated as definitive forecasts.

In 2025, Bitcoin's global search interest fell about 50% even as the asset reached an all‑time high of $126,080. Posts on X mentioning "Bitcoin" declined 32% year over year to 96 million, and sentiment weakened following an October 10 liquidation of over $19 billion. By mid‑January 2026, social metrics turned more bearish despite prices rising from $90,320 to $97,540.

Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus has reacted on X to a sharp crypto market downturn that erased about $150,000,000,000 in value as Bitcoin dropped under $90,000 and gold set a fresh record above $4,800 per ounce. Markus, known online as "Shibetoshi Nakamoto," replied with a brief "oh" to a post highlighting the scale of liquidations, while separately the firm Strategy disclosed a purchase of 22,305 BTC for roughly $2.13 billion at a price of about $95,284 per coin.

On January 20, 2026, Pierre Rochard, CEO of The Bitcoin Bond Company, submitted a comment letter asking the Federal Reserve to treat Bitcoin as an explicit variable in the 2026 supervisory stress tests. He cited BTC's 73.3% annualized volatility and deep drawdowns, and proposed calibrated price paths to reduce model divergence across banks.

Since Donald Trump's January 2025 return to the White House, the number of Bitcoin addresses holding at least $1 million has fallen from 157,563 to 132,383 by January 20, 2026. This decline of 25,180 millionaire addresses, or about 16%, occurred despite more crypto-supportive policies and followed a post-election Bitcoin rally that pushed prices above $100,000 before retracing to around $92,558 one year after his inauguration.

Crypto trader DonAlt, known for forecasting XRP's 700% surge in 2024, now argues that Bitcoin remains trapped in a "dead zone" between $85,000 and $92,000 that acts as both resistance and a liquidity trap. He suggests that failure to regain the upper band could send BTC toward $60,000 and a bear market, while a bullish scenario would require strength above current levels and could eventually target $104,000 and $150,000.