On January 11, 2026, Polymarket announced a partnership with Parcl to create prediction markets tied to median home prices in major U.S. cities such as Miami and Los Angeles. The monthly markets, which first settle on February 1 using Parcl's housing index, let users stake money on whether prices will rise or fall as the housing market grapples with high mortgage rates and limited supply. While Polymarket remains largely waitlist-only in the U.S., competitors like Kalshi and Robinhood are already broadly accessible.

According to Malwarebytes, an alleged security incident has exposed sensitive data from about 17.5 million Instagram accounts, including usernames, email and home addresses, phone numbers and other personal details, which are reportedly being sold on underground forums. Many users say they have received multiple password reset emails, while Meta maintains there was no system breach, attributing the messages to an issue that allowed an external party to trigger reset requests and stating that accounts remain secure.

India's Financial Intelligence Unit introduced stricter onboarding checks for crypto platforms, including live selfie verification and collection of location data. Income Tax Department officials argue that decentralization and cross‑border features hinder tax enforcement, while gains from crypto sales remain taxed at 30% under current law.

On January 11, 2026, Tennessee’s Sports Wagering Council ordered Kalshi, Polymarket and Crypto.com to stop offering sports-related event contracts to state residents, calling them unlicensed sports betting under local law. The platforms must cancel Tennessee users’ existing sports positions and refund remaining balances by January 31, 2026, or face potential fines of up to $25,000 per violation.

TRM Labs said in a January 9 report that UK‑registered exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion enabled about $1 billion in flows linked to Iran's IRGC. Illicit share peaked at 87% in 2024, with transfers largely in USDT on TRON, and corporate records tied Zedcex to sanctioned financier Babak Morteza Zanjani.

According to local media, a tax employee in Bobigny misused internal government software to compile files on crypto specialists, billionaire Vincent Bolloré, and public officials, then sold one dossier for €800 that led to a violent home attack on a prison officer in Montreuil. Her appeal was rejected on Jan. 6, highlighting how insider abuse of French state databases and new crypto wealth registries is turning self-custody into a physical coercion and identity-security problem.

In 2025, Russia's Social Fund handled about 37 million inquiries, with many asking about pension payments in crypto and whether mining income affects benefits. Officials said all state payments are in rubles and crypto taxation is under the Federal Tax Service. Senior official Maxim Oreshkin urged treating mining as export activity, while exchanges prepared for rules taking effect by July 1, 2026.

Elon Musk stated on the X platform that the service will release as open source the code used to recommend both organic and advertising posts, with the first release set for seven days after his announcement and subsequent updates every four weeks. The move follows a sharp rise in bot-driven crypto posts, including a reported 7.75 million bot messages in one day and a 1,224% jump in such activity, and could alter how sensitive the algorithm is to crypto-related content.