Updated on January 23, 2026, Artemis estimates adjusted stablecoin payments at about $400B annually, far below widely cited $10T–$30T transfer figures. Payments reportedly doubled over the past 12 months, with B2B at $230B, remittances at $90B, capital markets around $8B, and card usage at $4.5B, which rose 800% year over year.

In January 2026, decentralized exchanges on multiple chains processed more than $278B in trading volume, marking their strongest January in at least five years. While volumes remain below the absolute 2022 peak, activity on networks such as Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain and Base has surged, with Base alone reaching up to $3.39B in daily trades driven largely by Uniswap and Aerodrome.

As of January 2026, Railgun, an Ethereum-based mixer, is rolling out a confidential DeFi framework using 0zk private addresses and its Railgun_connect connector. It is currently testing this privacy system via Terminal Wallet and the CowSwap DEX aggregator, while its private pool holds about $100M in assets and the RAIL token trades at $2.30.

Ondo Global Markets will list over 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs on Solana, aiming to reach more than 2.8M daily active users. The firm says its liquidity model connects to NASDAQ and NYSE, positioning the Solana expansion to compete with XStocks and extend Ondo's RWA footprint after earlier launches on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

New BTC whales have become the dominant force in Bitcoin's current cycle as ownership metrics tilt toward recently active large wallets. With price slipping below $90,000 and touching $86,000 in the past day, wallets aged 6–12 months now hold over 17% of marginal supply, while newer buyers carry about $6B in unrealized losses. Older whales remain less price-sensitive around a realized price near $40,000.

On January 20, 2026, SOL Strategies launched STKESOL, a liquid staking token on Solana. Deposits reached 545K SOL (~$70M), and holders can earn staking rewards while keeping liquidity for use across DeFi, including collateral on Kamino and Loopscale. The firm also operates a validator and reports a larger share of staked SOL within its treasury.

Portugal's gambling authority ordered Polymarket to halt domestic operations within 48 hours after heightened activity around the first-round presidential vote. The platform still lists markets for the February 8 runoff, with the winner market showing over $121M in trading volume, even as local access may be curtailed.

According to on-chain analysts, wallets tagged as potentially linked to Bhutan's Druk Holdings have built a 117K ETH leveraged position on Aave by withdrawing ETH and USDT from Binance, purchasing more ETH, and borrowing against it. The same entity has become more active in Ethereum DeFi, moving $735M through Aave and holding $275.6M on Lido, with its positions reportedly facing liquidation risk if ETH falls toward $1,400 while the broader treasury value has declined from over $1B to around $556M.

Ethereum is experiencing a large address poisoning campaign that has already dusted over 1.5M wallets and stolen more than $740K from 116 victims. One user lost about $510K in the largest single incident, as attackers exploited low transaction fees after the Fusaka upgrade to send vast numbers of spam transfers. The activity is driven by several smart contracts that flood users with tiny stablecoin amounts and fake history entries, increasing the risk of misdirected transactions.