Zscaler ThreatLabz reported three malicious Bitcoin-themed npm packages that installed a remote access trojan dubbed NodeCordRAT. The packages bitcoin-main-lib, bitcoin-lib-js, and bip40 were removed from the npm registry in November 2025 after accumulating over 3,400 downloads, and the malware targets Chrome credentials, .env tokens, and MetaMask wallet secrets.

On January 8, 2026, Valour's Pi Swedish Krona ETP completed its fifth consecutive month on Sweden's Spotlight Stock Market with limited activity. Recent intraday quotes hovered around 19.32 SEK with turnover of approximately 143 units, while PI fell 1.6% over 24 hours to $0.2075 after a 7‑day gain of 3.2%.

On January 8, 2026, Amazon Web Services and Ripple were reported to be testing Amazon Bedrock's generative AI to improve monitoring and analysis of the XRP Ledger's system logs. The effort targets XRPL's globally distributed C++ infrastructure, where more than 900 nodes each generate tens of gigabytes of logs, and aims to cut incident investigations from multi-day efforts to just a few minutes. AWS engineers outlined a pipeline that ingests logs and code into services such as Amazon S3, Lambda, SQS, CloudWatch, and EventBridge so AI agents can better detect anomalies and explain network behavior.

On January 8, 2026, Bitcoin briefly dropped to $89,700 before rebounding to around $90,300, while Ethereum traded near $3,120 amid a wider market downturn. Major altcoins including XRP, BNB, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano and others posted losses of up to 7% over 24 hours, as profit-taking, long liquidations and weakening institutional demand weighed on prices.

Russia is expanding use of the central bank‑issued digital ruble across its budget system and banking sector in 2026, ahead of a full launch planned for September 1, 2026. Large banks and major retailers must support digital ruble payments by 2027, with smaller firms following by 2028, while some micro‑businesses remain exempt.

The opBNB network has finalized its Fourier mainnet hardfork on Wednesday around 03:00 UTC, after starting testing on its testnet earlier in the week and cutting block time from 500ms to 250ms. The upgrade introduces multiple protocol and node-level changes aimed at improving stability, finality, and compatibility, while BNB Chain reports a 40.5% annual TVL increase and BNB trades above $920 ahead of the January 14 Fermi hardfork. These developments come as BNB remains about 33% below its all-time high of $1,370 set last October.

On January 5, 2026, multiple Chinese financial industry associations jointly declared that real-world asset tokenization is an illegal form of fundraising and trading under existing laws. The notice states that all RWA-linked tokens, services, and platforms lack legal standing in mainland China, and warns that domestic personnel who knowingly assist overseas crypto and RWA providers may face legal consequences.

On January 5, 2026, Ripple Labs said it is partnering with Mizuho Bank, SMBC Nikko, and Securitize Japan to expand XRP Ledger adoption in Japan and support startups in RWA tokenization, stablecoins, and payments. According to DefiLlama, XRPL’s TVL fell from a July peak of $120 million to $62 million, while XRP rose 4.6% in 24 hours, up 17.6% weekly.

On January 5 2026, World Liberty Financial’s community approved a governance proposal to direct at least 5% of its unlocked WLFI treasury toward incentives supporting USD1 stablecoin adoption. The vote passed with 77.75% support and targets both centralized and decentralized platforms, while WLFI’s token has recently posted a notable weekly gain. At the same time, Trump Media and Technology Group is preparing a one-for-one crypto token distribution to its shareholders via Crypto.com on the Cronos network.