In 2025's volatile crypto market, ChatGPT was asked to design a $1,000 portfolio for 2026 that balances liquidity, infrastructure, and growth potential. The model allocated $250 to Bitcoin and $200 to Ethereum, with the remaining funds spread across Ondo Finance, Chainlink, Celestia, Render, Kaspa, and Arbitrum. The construction favors projects tied to tokenization, scalability, and compute-heavy use cases rather than purely narrative-driven assets.

On December 20, 2025, on-chain analyst Ali Martinez cautioned that XRP's support weakens below $1.77, raising the odds of a corrective move toward $0.79. His view, based on Glassnode's URPD distribution, highlights thin realized volume under $1.77, with intermediate levels at $1.41, $1.27, and $1.01 seen as fragile. At press time, XRP traded at $1.95, up 4.5% day-on-day but down over 4% week-on-week.

According to CoinGecko data, XRP holds a market capitalization of $115.62 billion out of $380.42 billion for made-in-USA cryptocurrencies, giving it a 30.39% share. XRP is trading around $1.91 with a 24-hour volume of approximately $2.73 billion, far ahead of U.S.-linked rivals such as Solana, USDC, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar, and Zcash. Its position is linked to regulatory clarity following the 2025 resolution of Ripple's case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, although XRP's price remains below $2 amid wider market volatility.

On December 16, 2025, economist Steve Hanke reiterated on X that Bitcoin has no fundamental value, describing it as a highly speculative asset. His remarks coincided with BTC falling to $85,000 during a four-day slide, later trading at $87,083 and down less than 1% over 24 hours. The coin remains more than 30% below its October 2025 peak of $126,000.

CoinGecko's 2025 ranking by mindshare shows Solana leading at 26.79%, with Base at 13.94% and Ethereum at 13.43%. Sui holds 11.77% and BNB Chain 9.05%, while XRP Ledger registers 4.68%. The list emphasizes attention and engagement across ecosystems rather than price performance.

On January 1, 2026, Ripple plans to release up to 1 billion XRP from its long-running escrow program, marking the company's first scheduled token unlock of the year. The mechanism, launched in 2017, frees 1 billion XRP at the start of each month, with Ripple historically returning 60% to 80% to new escrows and retaining the rest for operational purposes. Traders are watching the January unlock for any impact on XRP's market dynamics, as the token recently traded around $1.98 after losing the $2 support level.

As Ethereum trades above $3,000, the Rainbow Chart projects that by January 1, 2026, ETH will likely remain below its most euphoric valuation zones, with indicative ranges spanning from under $1,000 to over $22,000. At press time, Ethereum was around $3,155, up about 1.7% over the last 24 hours and less than 1% higher on the week. Based on the asset's current position in the "Still Cheap" band, the model highlights a plausible medium scenario of roughly $2,500 to $5,200 by that date.

JPMorgan Asset Management launched its first tokenized money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, according to The Wall Street Journal on December 15. The private My OnChain Net Yield Fund will be seeded with $100 million of JPMorgan capital and opens to external investors on December 16, with a $1 million minimum and eligibility thresholds for qualified individuals and institutions.

On December 15, Bitcoin's hash rate was recorded at 876.4 EH/s, down from about 930.06 EH/s on December 14 and from roughly 1.27 ZH/s a week earlier, reflecting a sharp pullback in network computing power. The decline has been linked to enforcement actions against mining operations in China's Xinjiang region, where an estimated 400,000 ASIC machines producing around 80‑100 EH/s were reportedly switched off. During the same period, Bitcoin traded near $89,930 after losing the $90,000 support level, with the price slipping about 0.1% in 24 hours and more than 2% over the week.