On December 11, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that Bitcoin kept on domestic exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb qualifies as seizable property under the Criminal Procedure Act, ending years of uncertainty over crypto assets in investigations. The court found that Bitcoin's status as an electronically recorded token with independent management and economic value meets seizure criteria, while regulators move to expand preemptive account freezes and levy tens of billions of won in AML penalties on major platforms.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on January 8, 2026, called on the Federal Reserve to move more quickly on interest rate cuts, arguing they are the key missing factor for stronger U.S. growth even as labor data show resilience. Initial jobless claims came in at 208,000 for the week ending January 3, with the four-week moving average at 211,750, the lowest since April 2024, while Fed officials currently project just one rate cut for 2026. Bitcoin slipped toward $90,000 as traders weighed the policy rift and stronger-than-expected employment figures, with the broader crypto market down nearly 2% while gold advanced.

Solana's stablecoin capitalization reached $15 billion after nearly $10 billion was issued over the past year, with more than $900 million minted in the last 24 hours. Memecoin trading revived, led by Bonk's 50% and PENGU's 40% gains, while applications generated $2.39 billion in 2025 and Western Union plans a dollar-backed token.

On January 8, 2026, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated that the protocol should focus on bandwidth scaling rather than chasing ultra-low latency, arguing that physics and decentralization constraints limit consensus speed. He highlighted PeerDAS and zero-knowledge proofs as the core path to expand capacity by potentially thousands of times, while Layer 2 networks serve localized, high-frequency use cases such as AI agents. Following the Fusaka upgrade in December, new Ethereum address creation has climbed 110%, with daily new addresses reaching 292,000 alongside growing institutional tokenization initiatives.

In his 2025 year-end review, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said the US dollar is entering a phase of structural weakness, citing a 39% slide against gold and double‑digit losses versus the euro and Swiss franc alongside nearly $10 trillion in debt that must be rolled over. As the US yield curve steepens and capital shifts toward precious metals, crypto analysts expect Bitcoin could climb to about $130,000 and Ethereum to $4,500 in early 2026 once gold and silver’s strong rally begins to cool.

Ripple will remain private despite a $500 million fundraising at a $40 billion valuation that added Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities to its cap table. President Monica Long said the firm can fund growth through strategic investors and its balance sheet; earlier in 2025, Ripple completed a $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation.

Hardware maker Canaan has started a 3 MW, 24-month pilot in Manitoba using 360 Avalon A1566HA-460T miners and liquid cooling to capture waste heat above 75°C for a tomato greenhouse at an all-in power cost of $0.035 per kilowatt-hour. The project, run with Bitforest Investment, targets roughly 90% heat recovery, while separate Cambridge research finds that renewables, including 9.8% nuclear and 42.6% hydro, solar and wind, now supply over 52% of Bitcoin’s energy mix and coal has fallen to 8.9% from 36.6% since 2022.

At the start of 2026, Bitfinex analysts point to a structurally weaker dollar (down roughly 9% from January 2025) and a steepening Treasury curve—about 70 basis points on 2s10s and 140 basis points on 2s30s—as tailwinds for Bitcoin. Corporate accumulation persists, with Strategy Inc. at 673,783 BTC and BitMine adding 32,977 ETH last week.

Seven leading Chinese financial industry associations have jointly classified real-world asset tokenization as an illegal financial activity under current securities and criminal laws. The notice defines RWA as token-based financing and trading, links it to risks such as fictitious assets and speculation, and places it alongside stablecoins and crypto mining as major forms of unlawful virtual currency activity. It further establishes joint liability across the Web3 service stack, warning that domestic staff, service providers, and promoters assisting RWA projects targeting Chinese users may face legal consequences.