Ethereum rose about 2.9% after the U.S. stock market opened on Jan. 2, HTX market data show. The price briefly broke $3,100, reached a high of $3,109, and was last quoted at $3,085.

A whale address expanded its 10x leveraged short position on ETH to 21,820.69 ETH with a notional value of $66.51 million on Jan. 2, on-chain analyst Ai 姨 (@ai_9684xtpa) said via BlockBeats. The address' average entry price for the ETH short stands at $3,016. The position currently shows an unrealized loss of $719,000.

Funding rates on major centralized and decentralized exchange altcoin trading pairs returned to neutral levels on Jan. 2 following recent gains, Coinglass data show. As Bitcoin approached the $90,000 resistance level, market sentiment turned bearish, though overall funding rates remained positive—contrasting with earlier weakness when BTC and ETH held neutral rates while altcoins showed negative rates. Funding rates are used in perpetual contracts to align contract prices with spot prices through payments between long and short traders, with levels above 0.01% indicating bullish sentiment and below 0.005% reflecting bearish outlook, BlockBeats reports.

A whale purchased 2,251 XAUt (gold-backed tokens) at an average price of $4,420 for a total of $9.95 million about half an hour ago, on-chain analyst Yu Jin reports. The same entity previously recorded a $13.73 million loss on ETH trading over one week in November, Yu Jin said.

Binance will expand its Monitoring Tags on Jan. 2, 2026, to cover four additional tokens—Acala Token (ACA), DAR Open Network (D), Streamr (DATA) and Flow (FLOW)—BlockBeats reports. The exchange said the newly tagged assets exhibit significantly higher volatility and risk than its other listed tokens. Monitoring-tagged tokens will be subject to closer observation and regular reviews, and assets failing to meet Binance's listing criteria may face delisting.

Ethereum's 7-day moving average of daily transactions reached a record 1.87 million on December 31, surpassing the previous peak of 1.61 million set on May 10, 2021, and a more recent high of 1.73 million on August 9, 2025, data cited by The Block show. The network also saw 728,904 active addresses at year-end, the highest level since May 12, 2021, while new addresses climbed to 270,160 on December 31, marking the largest single-day increase since early 2018. LVRG Research director Nick Ruck said the surge in on-chain activity has been mainly driven by network upgrades that reduced transaction costs, improved scalability and drew more institutional participation through ETFs and tokenization of real-world assets.

Dune data show 35,903,070 ETH was staked on the Ethereum Beacon Chain as of Jan. 2, representing 28.91% of total supply, BlockBeats reports. Liquid staking protocol Lido accounted for 24.45% of staked ETH. The network has seen a net inflow of 17,737,080 ETH into staking since the Shanghai upgrade.

Binance Alpha will list AI Avatar (AIAV) at 17:00 on January 2 (UTC+8). Users holding at least 256 Alpha points after trading opens can claim an airdrop of 305 AIAV tokens on a first-come, first-served basis. If the campaign is still running, the Alpha points requirement will automatically decrease by 5 points every five minutes, and each airdrop claim will consume 15 Binance Alpha points. Users must confirm their claim on the Alpha event page within 24 hours, otherwise the airdrop will be treated as forfeited.

Trader Huang Licheng ("Machi Big Brother") closed part of a 25x leveraged long position on ETH for profit on Jan. 2, HyperInsight data cited by BlockBeats show. He now holds 8,000 ETH valued at $24.24 million with unrealized gains of $405,000 and a liquidation price at $2,865.24. The same address has opened a new 10x leveraged long on HYPE, currently holding 11,888.88 HYPE worth $290,000 at an entry price of $24.69 per token.