The Bitcoin network's mining difficulty slipped to 146.4 trillion on Thursday in the first adjustment of 2026. CoinWarz estimates the next change will occur on Jan 22, 2026 at 04:08:12 AM UTC, lifting difficulty from 146.47 T to 148.20 T. Average block times are 9.88 minutes, slightly under the 10‑minute target.

On 10 January 2026, Nasdaq and CME Group announced the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index, including assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink. LINK’s price was retracing toward a key imbalance region around $13, while liquidity data highlighted a notable cluster of roughly $1.32 million near $15. Technical indicators and on-chain activity suggested traders were positioning for a potential directional move rather than engaging in panic selling.

Binance Wallet announced an exclusive Booster and Token Generation Event for Unitas (UP), with subscriptions opening on January 12, 2026 at 18:00 (UTC+8). The event targets a $50,000 raise in BNB for 10 million UP under an over-subscription model, capping each user's deposit at 3 BNB with proportional allocation.

A technical analyst focused on XRP states that the token is trading in a fragile mid-range structure, with key resistance sitting at $2.19–$2.34. A decisive five-wave advance above this band and the prior $2.42 peak could signal a new impulsive move higher, while failure at resistance may extend the correction toward support zones near $1.68 and $1.21–$1.55.

On January 10, 2026, Vitalik Buterin warned about what he calls "corposlop", urging crypto builders to prioritize sovereignty, privacy and user agency. Responding to a tweet forecasting 2026–2030, he said he agreed with 60% of the predictions and outlined tools to resist anti-user designs, including local-first apps, user-controlled social platforms, open and private AI, and mission-driven DAOs.

On Monday, the Starknet team published a post‑mortem on a temporary mainnet outage, attributing it to a state mismatch between its execution blockifier and proving layer. The incident triggered a block reorganization that reverted 18 minutes of activity. In September 2025, a sequencer bug caused a separate five‑hour halt, two reorganizations, and about 1 hour rolled back.

From early 2025 into early 2026, BTC's volume dominance slid from 45–50% toward 30–35%, while altcoins expanded above 55% and often 60–65%. ETH's share fluctuated between 20% and 30%. On-chain metrics show Ethereum addresses climbed from about 300 million to 370 million, but BNB Chain led with past 730 million addresses and roughly 4.4 million daily active users.

Bitcoin is trading around $90,624 after a pullback from its strong start to the year, with analysts highlighting a potential resistance zone just below $100,000. On-chain data indicates that new whale buyers have an average cost basis close to $99,000, while long-term whales and miners hold at significantly lower levels near $39,681 and $58,681. This positioning suggests structurally bullish conditions, but also points to $99,000 as a critical level where profit-taking or breakeven selling could intensify.