Pig-butchering crypto scams cultivate long-term trust, then funnel victims into fake digital asset platforms. In January 2026, losses reached $370.3 million, with social engineering accounting for about $311 million. Authorities are pursuing networks and laundering operations, but cross-border structures and encrypted channels complicate enforcement.

In February 2026, Polymarket filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts arguing that its event contracts fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the CFTC rather than state gambling laws. The outcome could determine whether prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi face a single national regulatory framework or a patchwork of state-level rules governing activity across the United States.

Address poisoning is a scam that tampers with a user's transaction history instead of attacking private keys, convincing victims to send funds to a maliciously crafted lookalike address. Incidents including a roughly 3.5 wBTC theft from a Phantom Chat phishing campaign in February 2026 and a $50 million USDT loss in 2025 show how interface design and user habits can lead to large losses. By abusing dust transfers, copy buttons and truncated address displays, attackers exploit behavior and wallet UX to make poisoned addresses appear trustworthy.

Claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto must be resolved by cryptography, not publicity. Conclusive proof requires a publicly verifiable signature from a private key linked to early Bitcoin addresses, ideally from 2009, or an onchain move from those dormant coins. Courts, documents and code are insufficient, and a UK High Court ruled Craig Steven Wright is not Satoshi.

In 2026, investors are repricing scarcity across Bitcoin, gold and silver by emphasizing narratives, market access, liquidity and portability. Bitcoin's fixed issuance now meets ETFs and derivatives, while gold's trust and collateral role and silver's industrial pull create distinct signals. This reframing influences pricing, hedging behavior and how capital circulates among scarce assets.

As of Dec. 30, 2025, the Financial Times said the rial had lost more than 40% of its purchasing power since June, falling to roughly 1.4 million rials per US dollar. Amid banking failures and political fallout, public debate in Iran turned to Bitcoin as a potential exit option beyond domestic monetary controls. Yet volatility, legal risk and uneven access curb broad adoption.

Crypto‑treasury stocks can drop harder than the coins they hold. Since October 2025, Bitcoin fell about 30% while "Strategy" shares slid roughly 57%. Premiums over NAV can compress into discounts, balance‑sheet leverage and convertible debt magnify losses, new issuance becomes dilutive, and equity‑market microstructure intensifies volatility compared with 24/7 crypto markets.

Michael Saylor urged governments to create regulated digital banks backed by Bitcoin reserves and tokenized credit, a proposal he presented during a keynote at the Bitcoin MENA conference in Abu Dhabi. He detailed an 80/20 split between tokenized credit and fiat, a 10% liquidity buffer, and a 5:1 overcollateralization ratio, while acknowledging volatility and regulatory demands.

Bitcoin mining operations in China have recovered to approximately 14% of the global hashrate by October 2025, positioning the country as the third-largest mining hub behind the United States and Kazakhstan. The resurgence follows a nationwide cryptocurrency mining ban implemented in September 2021, when Chinese miners controlled roughly 65% of global Bitcoin computing power in 2020. CryptoQuant estimates the actual share may range between 15% and 20% of global capacity.