On January 14, 2026, Peter Schiff called Bitcoin’s surge to $97,000 a “huge sucker’s rally,” urging traders to favor mining stocks over Bitcoin and MSTR. Within the past 24 hours, BTC briefly crossed $97,000 before retracing to about $96,200, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw roughly $1 billion in net inflows and MSTR gained over 3% then slipped more than 1% after-hours.

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee halted a planned markup of its crypto market structure bill after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced the exchange could not back the current draft. Despite the delay, White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks argued that passage of market structure legislation remains "as close as it's ever been," while disputes over stablecoin rewards and ethics rules continue to complicate negotiations.

On Jan. 12, Strategy founder Michael Saylor sharply rejected doubts about the corporate Bitcoin treasury model during an exchange on the What Bitcoin Did podcast. He dismissed concerns over more than 200 companies using equity and debt issuance to buy Bitcoin, even as many trade below the value of their holdings and some stocks have dropped by up to 99%. Strategy has raised over $50 billion via securities offerings to amass about 687,000 BTC, while critics question whether such treasury-focused business models can endure prolonged market downturns.

CFTC Chair Mike Selig has rebuilt the Innovation Advisory Committee with a crypto- and fintech-heavy lineup. Announced Monday, the membership spans Gemini, Kraken, Polymarket, Kalshi and major market operators such as Nasdaq, CME Group, ICE and Cboe, with the group set to advise on AI, blockchain, DeFi and market structure.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance venture linked to the Trump family, has launched its World Liberty Markets onchain lending platform centered on the USD1 stablecoin and WLFI governance token. The platform allows users to borrow and lend major crypto assets, while the company also pursues a U.S. national trust bank charter and evaluates adding tokenized real-world assets as collateral amid a broader rebound in DeFi credit activity.

In an X post on January 10, 2026, Jan3 founder Samson Mow outlined a series of Bitcoin forecasts, including a prediction that Elon Musk will significantly ramp up his exposure to BTC in 2026. He also projected Bitcoin could climb to $1.33 million and said nation-state adoption would be a key driver, while other industry executives voiced more cautious long‑term expectations.

In a post on X published on Sunday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued that today\u0027s decentralized stablecoins still face unresolved structural weaknesses. He highlighted ongoing reliance on the U.S. dollar, vulnerabilities in oracle-based price feeds, and incentive problems linked to staking yield and slashing risks. Buterin called for a fundamental redesign of collateral models, oracle mechanisms and incentive structures instead of minor incremental adjustments.

X’s head of product Nikita Bier said on Sunday that the platform is developing Smart Cashtags, a feature that lets users tie ticker symbols to specific tokens or smart contracts and view real-time price data. The announcement followed backlash over engagement limits, as Elon Musk promised to open-source X’s new recommendation algorithm within seven days while the company faces EU investigations, fines, and growing criticism about bot activity and throttled crypto reach.

On Sunday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell condemned a new criminal investigation into the Fed's headquarters renovation as politically driven and linked to President Donald Trump's push for lower interest rates. The probe, centered on whether Powell misled Congress about the project, comes months before his term ends in May 2026 and as Trump prepares potential successors more supportive of rate cuts. Heightened political pressure on U.S. monetary policy is adding to volatility in traditional markets and crypto, where assets like Bitcoin often react sharply to Fed rate signals.