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.

According to CNBC, XRP has been labeled the "breakout trade" of 2026 after gaining more than 20% year to date and climbing to third place by market value. Bitcoin, meanwhile, has repeatedly failed to hold above $90,000 since November 2025, with traders treating the New Year advance as a likely bull trap. Cardano's ADA is testing the $0.40 support level as Bitmex futures volume spikes 25,084% to $162 million over 24 hours amid broad crypto liquidations.

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.

Cryptocurrency industry groups are lobbying senators in Washington ahead of the January 15 markups on a long-debated U.S. crypto market structure bill. The Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees will each advance their versions of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act amid unresolved disputes over ethics rules, regulatory governance, stablecoins and DeFi.

On January 5, 2026, Coinbase cofounder and CEO Brian Armstrong defended his record of 88 stock sales and zero open-market purchases executed under a 10b5-1 plan. He said regulatory rules bar him from buying COIN on Coinbase as a Section 16 officer and argued it would be unreasonable to keep virtually all his wealth in a single stock after more than a decade at the company. Armstrong maintains that most of his net worth remains in Coinbase shares and says some sale proceeds are being used to help launch other businesses, as the exchange pushes toward an "everything exchange" strategy including traditional stock trading.

A Polymarket account identified as "0x31a56e" that made roughly $400,000 from a wager on former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's capture and removal is now inaccessible on the platform. The account had placed about $32,000 on Maduro's ouster and related U.S.-Venezuela conflict markets, and later moved more than $436,000 in USDC from its Polygon address on Jan. 3. Its disappearance, while other user pages remain visible, is intensifying scrutiny over potential insider trading and transparency issues on prediction markets.

India's Income Tax Department recently told a parliamentary finance committee that crypto use, especially via offshore exchanges, private wallets, and DeFi, is making income detection and tax enforcement harder. Officials warned that anonymous, borderless transfers can bypass regulated intermediaries, even as India maintains a 30% tax on digital asset profits and a 1% tax deducted at source on every transfer. The Reserve Bank of India, in its latest Financial Stability Report, also argued that fast-growing private stablecoins could threaten financial stability and reiterated its preference for central bank digital currencies.

Binance has introduced perpetual futures contracts for gold and silver under the tickers XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT, expanding its derivatives offering beyond purely crypto assets. The products, settled in USDT and operating under FSRA oversight in Abu Dhabi’s ADGM, give traders onchain access to precious metals price movements without physical delivery. Other major exchanges already list similar contracts, underlining growing demand for safe-haven exposure via crypto-native infrastructure.