In the fourth quarter of 2025, Swiss cryptocurrency banking group Sygnum reported that its market-neutral BTC Alpha Fund delivered an annualized return of 8.9%. Launched in October 2025, the fund attracted more than 750 Bitcoin from professional and institutional investors within four months and targets steady BTC-denominated yields through arbitrage and relative-value strategies on centralized exchanges.

As spot gold climbed to a record $5,311 per ounce on Wednesday, Tether increased its physical bullion reserves to about 130 metric tons while also backing its XAUt token with separate holdings. At the same time, Coinbase has been spotlighting its support for gold and other metal futures trading as Bitcoin stays below $90,000 and trails the metal's performance.

Strategy bought 2,932 BTC for $264.1 million last week amid a market sell-off, taking its holdings to 712,647 BTC. The purchases averaged $90,061 per coin, and Bitcoin briefly fell below $87,000 during the period. January additions stand at about 40,100 BTC, surpassing August–December 2025 totals.

Crypto exchange-traded products recorded $1.73 billion in weekly outflows, the biggest since mid-November 2025. Withdrawals were led by Bitcoin at about $1.09 billion and Ether at $630 million, while Solana saw $17.1 million of inflows and Chainlink added $3.8 million; issuer losses were topped by BlackRock's iShares at $951 million.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that Ledger is in talks with Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Barclays about a potential US IPO that could value the firm above $4 billion. Ledger posted a record 2025 with revenue in the triple-digit millions amid rising crypto hacks, and it declined to confirm the IPO discussions when contacted.

Messari research analyst Austin Weiler argues that insider trading can only be meaningfully deterred on prediction markets that implement Know Your Customer checks, while fully onchain, non-KYC platforms face near-impossible enforcement. He notes that even KYC cannot completely prevent abuse, as insiders may still pass information to third parties, but it allows platforms to restrict access and raise enforcement standards amid growing scrutiny of political and geopolitical betting.

On Wednesday in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump said that the person responsible for leaking information on Venezuela "has been found and is in jail," following a series of well-timed Polymarket wagers on President Maduro's potential removal. Blockchain researchers have since noted that two of three wallets tied to profitable Venezuela bets have gone inactive, while a third wallet recently shifted focus to prediction markets concerning Iran's leadership. The situation has intensified US policy discussions over insider trading risks on political prediction platforms.

SG-Forge said on Thursday it completed exchange and settlement of tokenized bonds using its euro-pegged EUR CoinVertible as part of SWIFT interoperability testing. The firm called EURCV the first MiCA-compliant on-chain settlement asset natively compatible with SWIFT. SWIFT announced in September 2025 a blockchain-based shared ledger and named at least 30 partner banks.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs logged $843.6 million in single-day inflows on Wednesday and amassed more than $1.7 billion over three sessions, reversing roughly $1.4 billion of outflows from Jan. 6–9. Bitcoin climbed above $97,000, with risk appetite improving as the Fear & Greed Index reached 61.