A well-known crypto trader argues that 2026 is not the window for a $1,000 XRP price, even as long-term upside remains on the table. The debate followed a widely circulated forecast highlighted by Uphold that envisions $1,000 by 2030. Commentator Pharaoh also ruled out 2025 and 2026, aligning with Don Kwok’s caution against short-term hype.

Dogecoin has surged more than 9% in the past day to reach $0.13, while the broader meme coin market value has climbed about 8% to nearly $40 billion and trading volumes have risen over 32%. At the same time, the meme-focused Maxi Doge token has attracted almost $4.5 million in its ongoing presale, offering 71% APY staking and a token price of $0.000276 as it targets highly leveraged traders.

On January 1, 2026, the Flow Foundation reported it had progressed its $3.9 million exploit recovery into a second phase, including a plan to restore EVM functionality while continuing Cadence fixes. The network resumed block production on January 2, 2026, but scrutiny has intensified over a centralized exchange account that moved about 150 million FLOW and withdrew over $5 million shortly after the attack. FLOW's price has dropped 53.3% in the past week, and the network’s DeFi TVL has declined to around $72.1 million.

Ethereum Foundation co-director Tomasz Stańczak said in a recent interview that 2026 priorities include faster finality and institutional privacy, backed by a 50‑person privacy cluster and a six‑month roadmap launched in 2025. The push builds on tools like Kohaku and protocols such as Railgun, with Vitalik Buterin urging further progress toward private, censorship‑resistant DeFi.

On December 30, Grayscale Investments filed a Form S-1 to convert its over-the-counter Bittensor Trust into a spot ETF on NYSE Arca under ticker GTAO. As of December 31, the trust held $7.97 million in digital assets, traded on OTCQX with 1.88 million shares, a 2.5% fee, and 0.0192 TAO per share.

According to CoinGlass figures cited by Ted Pillows, Ethereum logged losses in nine of twelve months in 2025, its most persistent slump since 2018. As of early January 2026, ETH trades near $3,020, up 1.6% on the day and down 11.2% year over year, with technicians eyeing $3,000 and the 200-day average.

In December 2025, tokenized real-world assets on Solana rose nearly 10% to a record $873.3 million, alongside an 18.4% jump in holders to 126,236. Institutional momentum has been fueled by six Solana ETFs approved in October 2025, Western Union’s choice of Solana for a stablecoin remittance platform serving 150 million customers, and expanding RWA products such as US Treasuries and tokenized equities. Despite SOL trading near $125 at the start of 2026, well below its early-2025 peak, the network has generated $110 million in 30-day onchain app revenue and is seen by firms like Bitwise and Galaxy Research as a key beneficiary of stablecoin and tokenization growth.

At the start of 2026, Bitcoin is trading above $89,000 and Ethereum is over $3,000, following modest gains of 1.68% and 2.15%. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin Hyper, a Bitcoin Layer 2 integrating the Solana Virtual Machine, has raised $30 million in its presale and is being highlighted by some analysts as a high-upside opportunity, with price targets suggesting up to 100x returns.