In January 2026, more than 30 House Democrats, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lined up behind Rep. Ritchie Torres' Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would bar federal officials and staff from trading certain prediction market contracts. The move follows a Polymarket position that reportedly grew from $32,000 to over $400,000 on a contract about Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's ouster, raising fears of trades based on nonpublic information and exposing perceived gaps in existing insider trading rules.

On January 9, 2026, Pump.fun announced a redesigned creator fee system with fee‑sharing so teams can split percentages across up to 10 wallets. The update addresses low‑risk coin creation incentives from Dynamic Fees V1 and aims to improve transparency; weekly platform volume reached $6.6 billion.

SharpLink Gaming reported $33 million in income from Ether staking over the past seven months and, on January 8, 2026, said it deployed $170 million in ETH to Linea for restaking incentives. The company holds 864,840 ETH and on January 6, 2026 reiterated that its treasury remains 100% ETH and fully staked.

Cryptocurrency industry groups are lobbying senators in Washington ahead of the January 15 markups on a long-debated U.S. crypto market structure bill. The Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees will each advance their versions of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act amid unresolved disputes over ethics rules, regulatory governance, stablecoins and DeFi.

U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded their first net outflow day on Wednesday, January 7, with $40.8 million exiting the products and breaking a 36-day streak of inflows. The move was led by the 21Shares XRP ETF, which saw $47.25 million in redemptions, even as total XRP ETF assets remained around $1.53 billion and XRP stayed up more than 13% over the past week. The outflows came as XRP’s price pulled back from recent highs and Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs also posted significant redemptions, pointing to broader portfolio adjustments rather than a collapse in demand.

On January 7, 2026, Zcash’s entire core development team resigned from Electric Coin Company after weeks of conflict with a majority of the Bootstrap board over what they alleged was malicious governance. The departing group, led by CEO Josh Swihart, plans to launch a new independent company to keep working on privacy-preserving digital money, while the ZEC price briefly fell about 7% and traded near $455 on heavy volume.

On January 6, Cambodian authorities arrested businessman Chen Zhi and deported him to China, where he is accused of running a large‑scale crypto scam and money laundering network tied to a 127,000 BTC seizure worth around $15 billion. Chen, founder of Cambodia-based Prince Group, now faces potential prosecution under Chinese law, as investigators detail how funds allegedly flowed through shell companies, exchanges, and mining operations. Regulators and crypto firms have been working to trace and freeze assets, with reported U.S. losses from similar “pig-butchering” schemes reaching $3.6 billion in 2024.

In December 2025, Riot Platforms sold 1,818 BTC for $161.6 million at an average net price of $88,870, trimming holdings to 18,005 BTC. The figures, released in a January 6, 2026 operations update, accompanied production of 460 BTC and a deployed hash rate of 38.5 EH/s, as hashprice hovered near $37 per PH/s.

On January 7, Flare announced the launch of FXRP on Hyperliquid's spot markets, adding an FXRP/USDC pair and enabling on-chain spot exposure to XRP through an orderbook DEX. FXRP, issued via Flare's FAssets and LayerZero's Omnichain Fungible Token standard, lets XRP move from XRPL to Flare, trade on Hyperliquid, and return for settlement while preserving custody and DeFi utility. Early market data shows FXRP trading around $2.29 with rising volume, as Flare and Hyperliquid integrate XRP into a growing on-chain trading and XRPFi ecosystem.