Between 10:00 and 20:00 on January 2, on-chain data show several whale reallocations, Hyperinsight reports. A whale/institution that lost $13.73 million on ETH in November by buying high and selling low spent $9.95 million to acquire 2,251 XAUt at an average price of $4,420. Huang Licheng reduced a 25x leveraged ETH long to 8,000 ETH to take profit and opened a 10x leveraged long on 11,888.88 HYPE. A whale that borrowed 5,000 ETH one month ago to short closed the position after ETH rose above $3,000, with an estimated gain of $390,000, while another whale (0x218) increased its ETH short to 18,875.18 ETH, valued at $57.32 million, and the LIT short position rose to 3,813,196 LIT, now the largest on-chain LIT short.

Binance will delist nine spot trading pairs at 16:00 Beijing time on January 3, the exchange announced. The pairs are AI/BNB, ETC/BNB, FLOW/BTC, LPT/BNB, SFP/BTC, VET/BNB, WCT/FDUSD, WIF/BRL and WLFI/BRL.

BlackRock deposited 1,134 BTC valued at $101.37 million and 7,255 ETH worth $22.10 million to Coinbase on Jan. 2, Onchain Lens data show. The transfers involved both Bitcoin and Ethereum moving from BlackRock to the Coinbase platform.

A whale closed a 5,000 ETH short position after the asset returned above $3,000, on-chain analyst Ember reports. The trader withdrew 4,830 ETH (about $14.75 million) from Binance to repay the loan. The short generated around $390,000 in profit after borrowing and selling ETH at $3,132 on Dec. 5 and buying back at $3,054 today.

Whale address 0x218 expanded its ETH short position to 18,875.18 ETH worth $57.32 million within half an hour on January 2, on-chain data show. The position has an average entry price of $3,011.83 and currently shows an unrealized loss of $476,000 while generating $537,000 in funding fees, according to on-chain analyst Ai 姨 (@ai_9684xtpa) cited by BlockBeats.

US equity index futures traded higher on January 2, with Nasdaq futures gaining more than 1%, BlockBeats reports. S&P 500 futures rose 0.55%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures advanced 0.23%.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong outlined the company's 2026 priorities on Jan. 2, focusing on a global all-in-one trading platform spanning crypto assets, stocks, prediction markets and commodities, BlockBeats reports. The platform will support spot, futures and options trading across all asset classes in a single venue. Armstrong highlighted plans to scale stablecoin and payment businesses, and to bring more users on-chain through the Coinbase Developer platform, the Base chain and the Base App. He added that Coinbase is significantly increasing investment in product quality and automation, with the goal of making Coinbase the world's No. 1 financial application.

Barclays maintained its 2026 Federal Reserve easing outlook on Jan. 2, projecting two 25-basis-point cuts in March and June, BlockBeats reports. The bank's US economists see greater risk of delayed cuts versus the baseline, noting the Fed's December minutes signal a January hold as the FOMC evaluates recent cuts.