The UK Financial Conduct Authority began a final consultation on how Consumer Duty should apply to crypto firms, accepting feedback until March 12, 2026. It plans to open an application gateway in September 2026 ahead of full authorization requirements in October 2027. Bitcoin fell 6.24 percent over the week, underscoring ongoing market volatility.

The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its insider trading-related case against former OpenSea executive Nathaniel Chastain after his 2023 wire fraud and money laundering conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2025. Under a one-month deferred prosecution agreement, prosecutors will dismiss the charges after Chastain partially served his sentence and forfeited 15.98 ETH, valued at about $47,000. Bitcoin, which recently traded at $88,993.89, has surrendered nearly all of its 2026 gains and may revisit the $87,000–$87,500 support band before attempting another upward move.

On January 21, 2026, Nansen launched an AI-driven trading feature for Solana and Base across its web and mobile apps. The product unifies on-chain analytics and execution, draws on over 500 million labeled wallet addresses, partners with Jupiter and OKX DEX for liquidity, and requires user confirmation on all trades, with certain jurisdictions excluded.

Steak 'n Shake plans to introduce a Bitcoin bonus of $0.21 for every hour worked by hourly employees starting March 1, 2026, in partnership with the Fold rewards app. The bonus, which can total about $436 annually for a full-time worker, will vest after two years and has drawn both criticism over its limited value and praise as a way to familiarize staff with cryptocurrency. During this rollout, Bitcoin is trading around $88,732 with weekly losses reflecting broader market pressures.

Makina Finance has been hit by an exploit on its DUSD/USDC CurveStable pool, leading to a loss of around 1,299 ETH valued at roughly $4.2 million. The attacker routed the stolen ETH through a MEV builder and is currently holding the funds in two wallets, while the platform has yet to issue a detailed update on recovery or user impact.

On January 19, 2026, Bermuda announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos a plan to build a fully on-chain national economy with Coinbase and Circle. The initiative will use USDC for fast, low-cost payments and includes government testing, bank and insurer tokenization pilots, and nationwide education and onboarding.

Digital asset investment products logged $2.17 billion of net inflows last week, the biggest weekly figure since October 2025, with the U.S. contributing $2.05 billion. Flows flipped on Friday with $378 million of outflows. By asset, Bitcoin took in $1.55 billion and Ethereum $496 million, while Solana added $45.5 million and blockchain equities drew $72.6 million.

On January 15, 2026, Interactive Brokers launched 24/7 stablecoin funding for eligible brokerage accounts, starting with USDC and enabling near‑instant deposits to trade across 170 markets. Clients move funds via partner zerohash, which auto‑converts to USD; IB charges no deposit fee, while zerohash applies a 0.30% conversion fee with a $1 minimum. Support for Ripple Coin (RLUSD) and PayPal's PYUSD is planned next week.

On January 15, 2026, X revised its developer API to prohibit apps that financially reward posting, announced by Head of Product Nikita Bier. Kaito's KAITO token fell over 20%, sliding from $0.70 to $0.56, while COOKIE and LOUD also declined and the InfoFi sector's market value dropped 11.5%. X said affected developers can transition to Threads or Bluesky; KAITO was $0.57 at press time.