On January 23, 2026, data showed the TRUMP memecoin changing hands at $4.84, down 93.4% from its peak after launching on January 18, 2025 and rallying before Trump's inauguration. The MELANIA token has fallen about 99% from its high near $13.05, even as reports indicate the Trump family has generated more than $1 billion in pre-tax crypto-related profits and faces mounting criticism over potential conflicts of interest.

On January 23, 2026, CertiK co-founder Ronghui Gu said the New York-based Web3 cybersecurity firm is working toward an initial public offering with a targeted valuation of $2 billion. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $296 million to date, counts Binance as its largest investor, and is pushing ahead with IPO ambitions while addressing criticism over past audits and security incidents.

On January 22, 2026, Ark Invest's "Big Ideas 2026" report forecast that tokenized assets could climb to $11 trillion by 2030. The real‑world tokenized asset market stands at $22.25 billion with 641,852 holders, per RWA.xyz. The report anticipates a larger role for bank deposits and public equities as regulation solidifies and institutional infrastructure matures.

Chainlink has introduced 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams that bring major stocks and ETFs on-chain for continuous trading and DeFi use cases. The system converts fragmented U.S. equity data into cryptographically signed, sub-second feeds, covering regular, pre-market, post-market, and overnight sessions. Several exchanges and DeFi platforms have already integrated the service to power RWA markets and equity derivatives.

On January 17, 2026, on-chain observers reported Bitcoin bots aggressively sweeping a wallet whose private key was derived from the coinbase txid of block 924,982. The address received two small BTC deposits totaling 0.00020305 BTC, which were rapidly spent through competing replace-by-fee transactions, leaving no remaining balance and directing nearly all funds to fees. The case highlights how bots precompute addresses from predictable keys and instantly drain any BTC sent to them, exposing the risks of weak or publicly known private key schemes.

On January 17, 2026, Japan's government said it is investigating X over sexually suggestive images generated by Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok and has demanded immediate improvements. Officials in Tokyo are weighing legal options, while other countries and regions including the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada, California, the EU and several European states are already examining or restricting Grok over explicit or degrading image outputs.

Betterment said an unauthorized party accessed a third‑party marketing system, leading to bogus push alerts and emails that promoted a "crypto giveaway." The messages promised to triple deposits and instructed users to send between $1 and $750,000 in Bitcoin or Ether within three hours. At the time of writing, the listed wallets held 0.14626084 BTC and $1,779.30 in ETH.

On December 28, 2025, Kaspersky's SecureList reported that stolen crypto accounts listed on dark-web markets fetch an average of $105, with individual prices ranging from $60 to $400. The data is harvested by phishing kits, exfiltrated via email, Telegram bots, or admin panels, and then monetized immediately or routed into broader resale pipelines.

Venezuelan economist Asdrubal Oliveros said in a recent podcast that the country now collects roughly 80% of its crude oil export revenue in Tether's USDT and other stablecoins. PDVSA has required USDT payments for spot oil sales since March 2024, while Caracas struggles to convert growing stablecoin balances due to currency controls and sanctions. Despite these constraints and U.S. measures including a 25% tariff and tanker seizures, Venezuela's GDP reportedly increased from $102.38 billion in 2023 to $119.81 billion in 2024.