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Key players in the Ripple-backed XRPL ecosystem are preparing an XLS-66 lending upgrade on testnet, aiming to unlock institutional DeFi strategies via single-asset vaults and fixed-rate loans. Evernorth plans to center its XRP treasury strategy on the upcoming lending protocol, while RLUSD’s supply has climbed above $1 billion even as XRPL’s DeFi TVL has fallen to about $60 million. Large XRP holders show mixed signals, with +1 million XRP wallets returning to accumulation as the token trades around $1.7 amid easing but still net selling whale flows.

PI token posted successive all-time lows, culminating on January 29 at $0.1589, a 94.5% drop from its late February 2025 peak of $2.99. Gemini outlined scenarios for next week, including risk of further downside to $0.12–$0.14 and a brief rebound toward $0.18 on oversold conditions. It also flagged thin volume support below $0.16.

On January 30, Bitcoin dropped to $81,119 as derivatives data showed a cascade of forced long closures. According to on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr., long-liquidation dominance reached roughly 97% (30-day average 31.4%) while perpetual funding stayed positive at 43.2% annualized, suggesting leverage may not be fully cleared. BTC last traded near $82,968.

Between Wednesday and Thursday, Bitcoin fell about 10%, retesting $81,000 for the first time in over two months. On Friday, the 2‑month options delta skew jumped to 17% and US‑listed spot BTC ETFs posted $2.7 billion in net outflows since Jan. 16, increasing the odds of a break under $80,000. Traders are reassessing leverage and key support.

On Jan 29, 2026, XRP logged $6.9 million in ETF inflows before a record $98 million outflow pushed net daily losses to $92.92 million. Additional buys from Nasdaq, Bitwise and Franklin partly offset selling, while the price fell roughly 10%. The failure to reclaim key levels leaves downside risk toward $1.26 ahead of February events.

On 31 January 2026, five early-stage crypto presales—ZKP, RTX, HYPER, DSNT, and DCARS—continued to attract investor interest as broader markets faced selling pressure. Bitcoin traded near $82,900 while Ethereum hovered around $2,730, with sentiment indicators signaling fear as some traders shifted toward assets like Gold. The featured projects span privacy infrastructure, cross-border payments, Bitcoin Layer 2 scaling, AI-based security tools, and real-world asset income models, each showing measurable fundraising or development progress.

On January 31 2026, the European Commission announced that 12 EU member states will receive formal warning letters for not fully implementing new crypto tax reporting rules. The notices give Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal two months to correct shortcomings or risk escalation. The Commission also sent a separate letter to Hungary over national rules affecting exchange validation services, citing possible non-compliance with the EU's MiCA framework.

The latest crypto market structure points to a transition phase, with XRP's multimonth sell-off showing signs of exhaustion while Shiba Inu remains stuck in a broader downtrend. XRP is compressing near a historically active zone and trading on lighter downside volume, whereas SHIB continues to face resistance from downward-sloping moving averages. Bitcoin is still seen as relatively stable as long as its price stays above the key $80,000 support region, framing the current move as a correction within a larger consolidation.

Binance released a post-mortem on the 10 October 2025 crypto flash crash, asserting that macroeconomic shocks and market-wide risk controls, not exchange failures, drove the $19.25 billion liquidations. The exchange said 75% of industry liquidations occurred before its localized issues at 21:36 UTC, and CoinGlass data showed the peak at 01:00 UTC.

On 31 January 2026, a sponsored article reported that Stage 5 of the APEMARS presale had raised over $127K, sold 5.4 billion tokens and counted 632 holders, and could close within six hours. It added that Stage 6 would lift pricing to $0.00004634, while meme coin activity hit a 2026 high even as major names fell week over week.