On January 10, altcoins captured over 50% of crypto trading volume, compared with Bitcoin at 27% and Ethereum at 23%. High-beta plays including Solana memecoins, Polygon, and Beefy posted strong gains, while January 9 data showed $93.82 million net withdrawals from U.S. spot ETH ETFs, amid mixed momentum for BTC and ETH.

In 2025, Chainalysis reported that illicit crypto addresses received at least $154 billion, with a large share tied to sanctioned entities and heavy use of stablecoins. Russia’s ruble-backed A7A5 token, launched in February 2025, processed more than $93.3 billion in transactions within the year. Although these volumes grew rapidly, illicit activity still accounted for less than 1% of overall on-chain transaction volume.

In 2026, ISO 20022 moves from implementation to enforcement, with unstructured addresses due for removal by November 2026, while G20 P2P ambitions and instant-payment upgrades gather pace. RedCompass Labs says these shifts, plus Visa's USDC settlement run rate above $3.5 billion by late November last year, could help turn crypto sentiment.

On January 10, 2026, BingX launched BingX TradFi, a futures product linking crypto infrastructure to traditional markets. The service offers contracts on more than fifty underlying instruments, including commodities such as cocoa and soybeans, with leverage reaching up to 500x.

According to CryptoPotato, Bitcoin steadied around $90,500 on Friday with minimal movement over the past 12 hours after expectations for heightened volatility did not materialize. Altcoins were mixed: POL rose 17% toward $0.17, while ZEC fell 12% to $380; ETH hovered below $3,100 and XRP near $2.10. The total crypto market cap added roughly $20 billion to reach about $3.180 trillion.

On January 10 2026, crypto exchange BingX announced BingX TradFi, a new trading feature offering futures tied to more than 50 traditional underlying assets with leverage reportedly up to 500x. The move places BingX alongside Bitget and Binance in expanding beyond pure digital assets into multi-asset trading, including commodities, forex, metals, indices, and stock-linked contracts. These exchanges are using their existing crypto infrastructure to provide broader market access while operating under varying regulatory frameworks.

Morgan Stanley investment analysts project that the Chinese yuan could firm to 6.85 against the US dollar by the first quarter of 2026, supported by China's evolving global investment approach. The forecast comes as outbound investment from Chinese firms now exceeds inbound foreign capital and the country pivots from fast, investment-heavy expansion toward higher-quality growth. The bank also anticipates that a narrowing interest-rate gap between the US and China, alongside domestic policy measures, could further underpin the currency.

On January 8, 2026, Nasdaq and CME Group unified their crypto benchmarks by reintroducing the Nasdaq Crypto Index as the Nasdaq-CME Crypto Index. The multi-asset gauge includes Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, Chainlink, Cardano, and Avalanche, and is calculated by CF Benchmarks with quarterly rebalancing to support regulated products exceeding $1 billion in assets.