DEX

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 10, 2026, BlockSec's Phalcon flagged suspicious transactions against Arbitrum's Futureswap and estimated losses of around $395,000 after a suspected exploit that drained USDC via repeated changePosition calls. BlockSec said it tried to contact the team without success and noted the closed-source contract leaves the root cause under investigation.

Investors For Transparency reportedly aired Fox News ads urging viewers to contact senators and remove DeFi provisions from the CLARITY Act. The Senate Banking Committee scheduled a markup for Thursday, Jan. 15 at 10:00am Eastern Time. In April, the US Treasury estimated $6.6 trillion in bank deposits could exit if stablecoins see broad adoption.

Ripple is piloting Amazon Bedrock with Amazon Web Services to accelerate XRP Ledger operational log reviews, reducing checks from 2–3 days to about 2–3 minutes. Details were shared by a solutions architect at a recent tech conference, and a post on January 7, 2026 highlighted ongoing discussions about Bedrock's use for XRPL.

Panos Mekras, founder of Anodos Finance, argues that 2026 is a narrow window for the XRP Ledger to enter the top tier on liquidity and usage, provided Ripple and the XRPL Foundation prioritize consumer onboarding, mainstream payment rails, and faster funding. He flags current metrics—daily DEX volume frequently under $10m, AMM TVL below $50m, and only a few thousand active users—and calls for a clear target: top 3 by volume, liquidity, and overall activity.

BNB Smart Chain is scheduled to implement the Fermi hard fork on January 14, 2026, targeting shorter block times and higher throughput. The upgrade follows the Fourier hard fork on Op BNB Chain on January 7, which reduced its block interval from 500 to 250 milliseconds. Despite these network improvements, BNB has dropped below $900 amid a broader market decline, with price volatility driven by long liquidations.

On January 6, 2026, on-chain researchers observed multiple 100 ETH withdrawals from Tornado Cash consolidating to one wallet, followed by 128,808 ETH reaching a ProveX-linked address. Analysts also tied these flows to 112,987 ETH sent by Richard Heart in November 2025. ProveX's sacrifice phase is nearing its end, with a 6.25% rate increase from January 8.

Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research said there is a “decent 60%” chance the crypto market structure bill passes, with the Senate Banking Committee markup scheduled for January 15. He cautioned the outcome could shift, while Democratic requests on DeFi compliance and oversight remain sticking points; prediction markets place passage at 79% before 2027 and 49% before May.

On December 18, a hacker drained $27.3 million from a compromised multisig crypto wallet and has since begun off-loading funds via Tornado Cash. On-chain data shows the attacker pulled 1,000 ETH worth $3.24 million from Aave while still holding a $9.75 million leveraged long, and has funneled a total of 6,300 ETH valued at $19.4 million through the mixer. Separate Tornado Cash activity tied to a pig-butchering investment scam and other 2025 exploits highlight industry-wide losses exceeding $117.8 million in December and $3.4 billion for the year.

On January 6, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams defended automated market makers, arguing they perform well where capital costs are low and volatility subdued, such as stablecoin pools. He cited upcoming Uniswap v4 hooks to improve LP economics amid criticism from trader GEE-yohm Lambert. The broader context includes a $120 million Balancer exploit in November 2025 and a 35% UNI price jump on a proposed fee switch.