Gold surged to a record $4,600 on January 12, 2026, as investors sought safety amid doubts about the Federal Reserve's independence. According to the article, Chair Jerome Powell said the DOJ sent grand jury subpoenas to the Fed tied to a $2.5 billion headquarters project. The dollar slipped about 0.3%, stock futures fell, and silver jumped more than 5%.

On January 3, 2026, former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was arrested and transferred to the U.S., while the country continued facing sanctions and hyperinflation. Venezuela’s state oil company has been using USDT to keep exporting crude despite blocked banking channels, and ordinary citizens increasingly rely on the stablecoin for savings and everyday payments as the bolivar loses value.

On January 12 2026, Monero climbed to a new all‑time high of $545, breaking its earlier peak of about $518 from 2021. The privacy coin has gained 15% in a day, 26.5% over a week and 168% in a year, while capital has been rotating out of Zcash after a roughly 25% weekly drop tied to governance disputes, helping push Monero toward the 12th spot by market value.

On January 11, the chairs of seven UK parliamentary committees sent a letter urging a complete prohibition on cryptocurrency donations to political parties. The move cites risks to transparency, traceability, and enforcement, and follows debates that intensified after a £9 million contribution linked to a crypto investor was flagged in December 2025.

On Saturday, January 10, 2026, Elon Musk said X will roll out an update in seven days that exposes the code deciding which posts and ads appear in users' feeds. The platform plans to rely more heavily on its Grok AI chatbot to evaluate posts daily, even as regulators in multiple countries criticize Grok over sexually explicit image generation and consider or impose access restrictions.

Ethereum's social media sentiment has weakened to levels similar to those seen before its 2025 rally, even as the broader crypto market shifts between "Fear" and "Extreme Fear." Traders on prediction platforms are still pricing in a meaningful chance that Ether will trade above $4,250 to $5,000 or more in 2026. Analysts also note that while Ethereum has pulled back sharply from its 2025 peak, many investors again view it as the clear second-largest crypto asset.

Analysts expect US core CPI to rise to 2.7% year over year in December, slightly above November's 2.6% and still near early‑2021 lows. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said it could not release month‑to‑month amendments to the latest CPI because of the recent government shutdown, complicating readings. The Federal Reserve is seen keeping rates steady as inflation stabilizes and consumer spending stays firm.

In early January 2026, crypto reporter Eleanor Terrett reported that a newly formed group called Investors For Transparency began running prime-time Fox News ads urging opposition to DeFi-related provisions in the CLARITY Act. The campaign portrays decentralized finance as a regulatory threat, drawing criticism from industry figures who question the group's anonymous backing and warn that applying traditional banking rules to DeFi could damage the $120 billion decentralized lending market.

On January 10, 2026 at 5:28 AM UTC, Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi said on X that stablecoin-powered cards will be a defining crypto theme in 2026. Total stablecoin transactions rose 72% to $33 trillion, according to Artemis Analytics Inc., while Rain's $250 million raise and Visa-linked cards accepted in 150+ countries highlight growing adoption.