The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) memecoin had a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the US White House published its post.

The Bitcoin proposal caps arbitrary data in an attempt to combat spam from non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network.

Gemini's pivot to a super app could streamline user experience but may limit NFT market diversity and innovation.

The post Gemini to close NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway as it sharpens focus on super app vision appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Trump's tariff threat could strain US-Canada relations, impacting trade dynamics and potentially forcing Canada to reconsider its China strategy.

The post Trump threatens 100% tariff on Canadian goods over China deal appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

A recent statement from an XRP Ledger (XRPL) developer suggests that XRP could be the key to an early retirement shortcut. Unlike steady paychecks or slow-growing investments in traditional assets, cryptocurrencies have the ability to create generational wealth rapidly, due to their penchant for sudden and explosive price moves. Among the thousands of digital assets on the market, the developer highlighted the token as his primary choice for investors seeking substantial returns, even sharing strategies for how the coin can help them retire in a few years. 

XRP Emerges As Shortcut To Early Retirement

A DropCoin XRPL developer, identified as ‘Bird’ on X, announced on Thursday, January 22, that buying and holding XRP at current prices could help investors retire within a few years. The bold claim quickly caught the attention of many in the crypto community, with some asking the developers to elaborate on the strategies involved and the expected timeline for achieving such wealth. 

Related Reading: XRP Price Obliteration Is Not A Matter Of If, New All-Time Highs Are Coming

Not stopping there, Bird claimed that investing in the token could eliminate the need for a job, suggesting that long-term investors may eventually rely on the potential profits from their holdings as a primary source of income. His statements were in response to a post by Watcher.Guru, which the developer directly referenced to support his optimistic long-term outlook. 

In that post, Watcher Guru quoted a statement reportedly made by Binance’s founder ChangPeng Zhao, who also agreed that holding crypto assets over time could make jobs unnecessary and allow investors to retire sooner than planned. The Ledger developer shared a screenshot of Zhao making similar remarks about Artificial Intelligence, suggesting that the Binance founder views both crypto and AI as powerful tools for achieving long-term financial freedom. 

A crypto community member who responded to Bird’s post questioned how long an investor has to hold XRP before retiring early. The developer answered humorously that it could be held indefinitely, adding that some investors could reach early retirement this year, while others may need a few more years. He emphasized that the timeline ultimately depends on how many tokens an investor holds.  

How High The Altcoin Could Rise To Enable Early Retirement

Addressing questions from the crypto community members, Bird shared his outlook on how high he believes XRP’s price could rise, helping investors achieve early retirement. He predicted that within the next few years, the cryptocurrency could rise to $100 and beyond—a significant jump from its current market price of around $1.90. 

Related Reading: How Donald Trump’s Latest Crypto Move Will Boost Demand For XRP

The Ledger developer suggested that reaching $100 could be a gradual process for the altcoin, forecasting an initial rally to $10 in the First Quarter (Q1) of 2026. Notably, Bird’s remarks reflect a classic buy-the-dip and hold strategy, where investors accumulate during downtrends and patiently wait for the price to rally explosively before taking profits.

GameStop moved its entire Bitcoin stash into Coinbase Prime this month, according to blockchain trackers that monitor large transfers.

The wallet associated with the company sent a large deposit to the institutional arm of Coinbase, a platform used by big traders and companies.

Analysts watching on-chain flows immediately flagged the move as a likely setup for a sale, though no confirmed sell orders have been announced.

Big Move To Coinbase Prime

According to on-chain reports, GameStop holds 4,710 BTC that it bought last year, and that full balance was shifted into Coinbase Prime.

The company first bought the coins in May 2025 at prices that averaged near $107,900 per BTC, a buy that cost roughly $504 million at the time.

Moving a corporate treasury from cold storage to an active institutional account is often read as a step toward execution — to sell, hedge, or rebalance — but it is not the same as a sale itself.

GameStop throws in the towel?

Their on-chain wallets just moved all BTC holdings to Coinbase Prime, likely to sell.

Between May 14–23, 2025, they bought 4,710 BTC at an avg. price of $107.9K, investing ~$504M.

Now selling for around $90.8K, potentially realising approximately… pic.twitter.com/Bp7MwRVQ43

— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) January 23, 2026

What Analysts Are Saying

Reports say the math is simple and stark: selling now, with Bitcoin trading closer to the $90,000 area, would lock in a sizable loss versus the initial purchase price.

Several analytics firms put that figure near $76 million if the whole lot were sold at recent market levels. Some market watchers suggest the company could be doing tax-loss harvesting or trimming volatile assets on its books.

Others view it as a pragmatic adjustment to reduce treasury exposure to crypto swings. Still, defenders of the move point out that GameStop’s Bitcoin stake was never a core retail play; it was a treasury experiment meant to diversify.

Not all outlets agree on timing or size of day-by-day transfers. Reports note that some transfers earlier this month added up to about half of the original position — roughly 2,396 BTC moved in smaller tranches before the full deposit was flagged.

On-chain sleuths track each shift, and those staggered movements can mean many things: a staged sale, an internal reorganization, or simply routing through a trusted custodian before any trades.

Share action around GameStop has not mirrored the crypto chatter. While Bitcoin watchers focused on the wallet move, investors were also reacting to company news on other fronts, including fresh share purchases by CEO Ryan Cohen.

Featured image from PeterPhoto, chart from TradingView

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman on Jan. 21 released updated text for a crypto market structure bill and set a committee markup for Jan. 27.

The draft bill, titled the “Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act,” would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a defined framework to supervise parts of the spot crypto market when activity runs through brokers, dealers, exchanges and custodians.

The bill is the AC's attempt to formalize what happens when something goes wrong. Crypto’s biggest retail pain points often show up as operational failures: account freezes, delayed withdrawals, outages during volatility, unclear complaint paths, and disputes over how platforms handle liquidations or restrict access.

Boozman’s text tries to turn those recurring issues into a regulatory feedback loop, while also answering the question lawmakers keep circling, whether the CFTC can afford and staff the job.

A watchdog with a mandate to turn outages into rule changes

One of the bill's clearest retail-facing provisions sits inside Section 211, which establishes an “Office of the Digital Commodity Retail Advocate” within the CFTC. The text also defines who qualifies as a retail participant: someone who isn't an eligible contract participant, who is active in a spot or cash digital commodity market, and who has completed a digital commodity transaction with a person or entity registered with the CFTC.

The retail advocate would report directly to the CFTC chair and be appointed from individuals with experience representing retail participants.

Unlike many market structure proposals that stop at broad mandates, this office comes with a list of duties that maps to how retail harm often emerges in practice.

The advocate would help retail participants resolve “significant problems” with the CFTC or with a registered futures association, track areas where retail participants would benefit from regulation or rule updates, and identify issues retail users face with CFTC-registered firms.

The office is also tasked with analyzing how proposed CFTC rules and registered futures association rules could affect retail participants, then recommending changes to both the Commission and Congress.

The practical value the bill would bring isn't a new office that will magically stop freezes or outages, but the statute that creates an internal unit with instructions to collect evidence, look for patterns, and force those patterns into the rulemaking process.

If a recurring failure mode shows up across multiple registered venues, the advocate’s remit is built to translate that into regulatory edits rather than leaving it as background noise.

The bill also sets confidentiality limits that cut both ways. The advocate can access CFTC and registered futures association documents as needed, but nothing in the text authorizes the advocate or staff to access or disclose proprietary or sensitive market data, whether publicly or within the Commission.

The office must report to Congress twice a year, with an objectives report due by June 30 and an activities report due by Dec. 31. If funded and staffed, those reports could become a running scoreboard of which retail issues keep repeating at registered firms and what the CFTC is doing in response.

Boozman’s text also confronts the capacity critique head-on, and does it with numbers. It directs the CFTC to assess and collect fees from registered digital commodity brokers, dealers, exchanges, and qualified digital asset custodians, depositing those funds as offsetting collections to the CFTC’s appropriations account.

The Commission would set fee rates intended to match the annual appropriation for covered activities, and the bill states that fee rates are not subject to judicial review. To cover the gap before that fee machinery exists, the bill authorizes an upfront $150,000,000 appropriation “to remain available until expended” until the Commission establishes and begins collecting registration fees.

It also gives the CFTC chair authority to appoint individuals with “specialized knowledge” of the crypto industry without the usual competitive service constraints.

That language is doing real work: oversight in spot crypto would depend on understanding how market operations, custody plumbing, and risk controls behave when venues are stressed.

The execution risk here is straightforward. Even with money, supervision requires monitoring, investigative capacity, and operational readiness when a venue changes behavior fast.

A fee model can fund headcount, but it has to survive the political process, and a hiring waiver still depends on the agency moving quickly enough to build a team that can keep up with market structure that shifts in days, not years.

DeFi’s line in the sand: who can touch funds, and who can pull the lever

Retail users aren't the only ones who should be concerned with the new draft of the bill. It could disproportionally affect builders and protocols as well, as it draws its DeFi boundary almost entirely through definitions rather than through blanket exemptions.

The text separates software that simply carries user instructions from systems where a person or coordinated group retains meaningful leverage over custody, execution, or rules.

A “decentralized finance messaging system” is defined as software that allows a user to create or submit an instruction to a DeFi trading protocol, paired with an exclusion that functions as a control test: the system cannot give anyone other than the user control over user funds or authority to execute the user’s transactions.

In plain terms, the statute pushes projects toward two questions: can anyone else touch the funds, and can anyone else pull the execution lever?

The definition of a DeFi trading protocol follows the same logic. It's a blockchain-based system that executes transactions under predetermined automated rules, without relying on a person other than the user to maintain custody or control of assets involved.

The bill then narrows that scope through exclusions that pull a protocol back into regulatory reach if a person or coordinated group can control or materially alter functionality or rules, if operations are not based solely on transparent, pre-established code, or if a group has unilateral authority to restrict or censor access.

That framing shifts compliance conversations away from marketing labels and toward operational facts: admin keys, upgrade authority, governance concentration, and access controls.

It also sets up a future enforcement record that documents who had the power to change the system, who could stop users from using it, and who could move transactions from automatic to permissioned in practice.

The Senate Agriculture crypto bill is attempting two builds at once: a CFTC-centered regime for spot activity routed through intermediaries, and an internal structure meant to keep retail failures on the agenda through mandated reporting and rule review.

Whether it becomes more than a paper framework will turn on capacity and political alignment as the committee heads into the Jan. 27 markup and the parallel Senate Banking track continues to drift into late February or March.

The post New $150 million CFTC war chest to end withdrawal delays and weaponize complaints against failing crypto exchanges appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its delayed Personal Income and Outlays report on Jan. 22, publishing October and November PCE inflation together.

The print put headline PCE at 0.2% month over month in both months, with headline PCE at 2.7% year over year in October and 2.8% in November. Core PCE was also 0.2% month over month in both months, with core PCE at 2.7% year over year in October and 2.8% in November.

Bitcoin’s reaction to the news was surprisingly restrained. BTC traded between about $88,454 and $90,283 on Jan. 22 and closed near $89,507, up about 0.16%.

That lack of trading activity is the main clue to what mattered most about this release, because this story definitely wasn't a dramatic inflation surprise.

The main story here is data quality, because the BEA had to publish PCE with patched inputs after the shutdown disrupted parts of the pipeline that normally feed into its calculation.

In that setting, it's useful to break the macro read into three pieces that tend to matter for BTC: the underlying core inflation pace, the policy path that markets price from it, and the real yield move that often carries the actual force into risk assets.

PCE traded as an uncertainty event, not a pure inflation event

PCE is a constructed index, built from multiple sources, with CPI serving as an important input for categories that depend on detailed price changes. When part of that input stream is missing, the inflation print becomes more dependent on estimation choices.

This time, the BEA filled gaps by using CPI information from the months before and after and seasonal adjustments to stand in for the missing pieces, which can smooth away month-specific bumps.

That's more important than it sounds, because a 0.2% monthly core reading can mean two different things. In a clean month, it's a straightforward measure of the month’s inflation pace. In a patched month, it can be a blend of true price behavior and statistical interpolation. The number still has information, but it carries less certainty about what changed inside that month.

A simple way to interpret the Jan. 22 core print is to focus on the level and the persistence. Core PCE near 2.8% year over year keeps inflation above the 2% target, and a 0.2% monthly pace, if repeated, tends to keep the year-over-year rate sticky. That's enough to keep rate-cut expectations constrained even without scary upside surprises.

The next step is to see how markets convert that inflation baseline into a policy path.

The Fed does't react to one report in isolation, but markets do update probabilities. With the Jan. 22 release, the more important question was whether traders would treat the data as strong enough to delay easing, or uncertain enough to wait for a cleaner read before taking big policy bets. A patched release often pushes traders toward the second behavior, because conviction is harder to justify.

Bitcoin usually reacts less to the inflation figure itself than to what happens in rates markets around it.

Real yields are a clean shorthand for the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset, and they also map to liquidity conditions in a way that matters for the entire risk complex. When real yields push higher, the hurdle rate for BTC rises, and financial conditions tend to tighten. When real yields drift lower, the hurdle rate falls, and conditions ease.

That is why the best way to treat a messy PCE release is to use it as a context setter, then follow the rate market’s verdict.

A steady 0.2% monthly path with a core rate near 2.8% isn't a green light for rapid easing, but it also doesn't force an immediate repricing if traders don't trust the precision of the print. In that world, BTC often settles into trading the rate market’s follow-through rather than the headline number.

The final piece of the PCE framework is what happens next. When a report is patched, the next clean release tends to carry extra weight because it can validate or contradict the smoothed path. If the next clean month comes in hotter, the earlier calm may look like an artifact of the estimation method.

If the next clean month comes in similarly, the patched month becomes easier to accept as a reasonable stand-in.

Bitcoin's lack of reaction this week fits that setup. BTC had no clean shock to digest, it saw an update that mattered, but came with enough caveats to limit one-day conviction.

GDP was background noise unless it fed into yields

The same day delivered an updated estimate for Q3 2025 GDP, revised slightly higher to 4.4% annualized from 4.3%. That growth print is usually secondary for Bitcoin unless it moves the bond market.

The reason for that is simple. GDP can matter through two channels that often conflict. Stronger growth can keep the Fed cautious and keep real yields elevated, which is usually a headwind for BTC at the margin. Stronger growth can also support risk appetite and earnings expectations across markets, which can help speculative assets. Which force dominates depends on what happens to yields, not on the GDP headline itself.

In this case, the revision was small, and the number was backward-looking. That makes it a poor standalone input for BTC. The most usable takeaway we can make from this is that a solid growth backdrop gives the Fed room to be patient if inflation doesn't fall convincingly toward target. A patched PCE print near 2.8% core year over year, paired with strong past growth, supports a baseline of patience rather than urgency.

That baseline matters because it helps explain why BTC can trade flat even when inflation data looks benign at first glance. If the macro mix is strong growth plus sticky core inflation, rate cuts become harder to price aggressively. That tends to keep real yields from falling quickly, and that is often the lever that matters more for BTC than the growth print itself.

The practical macro read for this week is therefore compact. GDP adds some context, but it's not the driver. The driver is how the inflation story flows into yields. If yields drift up because growth optimism lifts term premium or because inflation uncertainty keeps policy expectations firm, BTC can feel heavy even without a scary headline.

If yields drift down because markets gain confidence that inflation is cooling, BTC can hold up and build a bid even when the inflation conversation stays messy.

This week's PCE print offered a useful reminder about how Bitcoin trades macro. The most important part of it wasn'tt the exact tenth of a percentage point in the PCE table, but the reliability of the data behind it and the rate-market reaction that followed.

The BEA published two months of PCE at once and did so with patched inputs, which reduces confidence in month-specific precision even if the overall direction still carries information. Bitcoin reflected that uncertainty with a tight trading range and a small day-over-day gain.

The next clean inflation release will matter more than usual because it can confirm whether the patched months gave an accurate read of the underlying pace. Until then, the most concrete macro signal for BTC sits in the rate market rather than in any single line of the Jan. 22 data dump.

The post Hidden inflation risks are lurking in “patched” data, leaving Bitcoin stuck in a high-stakes waiting game appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Zcash price has done something important after weeks of weakness. Since January 19, the ZEC price has rebounded nearly 15%, lifting from the breakdown low near $336 to around $362. That move came just days after a confirmed bearish pattern break, exactly the kind of setup that often traps aggressive sellers.

The structure still looks dicey on the surface. But under it, accumulation has quietly picked up. Now the focus shifts to one level. Zcash sits roughly 9% below a key Fib level, which also puts a key EMA line in focus. Whether price can reclaim that level may decide if this rebound stays a bounce or turns into something larger, a rally maybe.

Rebound Puts the 100-Day EMA Back in Focus

The rebound did not come out of nowhere.

After the head-and-shoulders breakdown was activated, the Zcash price briefly dipped toward $336 before buyers stepped in to possibly activate the trap.

Since then, the price has climbed about 15%, stalling just below the 100-day EMA (exponential moving average). An EMA is a trend indicator that gives more weight to recent prices.

The last time Zcash reclaimed its 100-day EMA, on December 3, the price went on to rally more than 70% in the weeks that followed. That history does not guarantee a repeat, but it explains why this level matters so much now.

Want more token insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Crypto Newsletter here.

At the same time, sellers are still active near resistance. ZEC has struggled to push through $386, where this bounce stalled, showing that supply has not disappeared. This keeps the bearish structure technically alive. The question is whether the buying underneath is strong enough to force a reclaim anyway.

That answer starts with who has been buying since January 19.

Whales Accumulate as Dip Buying Strength Builds

On-chain data shows accumulation where it usually matters most.

Over the past seven days, mega whales (top 100 addresses) have increased their ZEC holdings by roughly 9%, lifting balances to about 42,623 ZEC. That implies a net accumulation of close to 3,500 ZEC during the rebound phase.

Standard whale wallets have followed. Holdings in this cohort rose by about 5%, taking balances to roughly 10,182 ZEC. That equals an additional 480 ZEC accumulated over the same period.

Combined, whales have added around 4,000 ZEC since January 19. This is not buying at highs. It is an accumulation after a confirmed breakdown, expecting price strength. Smart money, however, has left completely, hinting at minimal bounce expectations in the near term.

Momentum indicators support that view. Between January 14 and January 24, ZEC’s price trended lower, but the Money Flow Index moved higher, creating a bullish divergence.

MFI measures buying and selling pressure using both price and volume, a potential dip buying indicator. When price falls while MFI rises, it signals dip buying beneath the surface. That pattern often protects potential downsides.

Derivatives positioning adds another layer. After the recent move, leverage has reset, turning mostly balanced. Over the next 30 days on Binance ZEC perpetuals, short liquidations still slightly outweigh longs at $26.37 million vs. $22 million in longs.

That imbalance means price does not need a full trend reversal to move higher. Even a moderate push can begin forcing short covering.

All of these points point to the same thing. Accumulation is present.

Zcash Price Levels That Confirm or Kill the Bear Trap

The structure is now simple.

On the downside, the trap fails if ZEC loses $335-$336 on a daily close. A move back below that level keeps the bearish pattern active and reopens the path toward deeper downside.

On the upside, the key test sits near $386-$395 (the 0.236 Fib level), roughly a 9% move from current levels. That zone lines up with the 100-day EMA. A daily close above it would mirror the December reclaim and materially weaken the bearish structure.

If that reclaim happens, the next upside zone comes in near $463, where prior supply and liquidation clusters sit. A push beyond that would invalidate the right shoulder of the head-and-shoulders pattern entirely. Above $557, the broader bearish thesis breaks down.

Until one of those levels gives way, the Zcash price remains in a narrow decision zone.

The takeaway is straightforward. ZEC has already rebounded 15%, whales are accumulating into weakness, and dip buying pressure is visible. Price now sits just 9% from the level that historically unlocked much larger moves.

The post Zcash Bear Trap Active After 15% Rebound: What’s Next for ZEC Price? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Major crypto exchanges Binance and OKX are reportedly exploring the reintroduction of tokenized US stocks.

The move marks a strategic pivot to capture traditional finance (TradFi) yields amid stagnant crypto trading volumes, pushing platforms toward diversification into real-world assets (RWAs).

A Return to Tokenized Stocks?

This move revives a product Binance tested and abandoned in 2021 due to regulatory hurdles. Nevertheless, it would position the exchanges to compete in a fast-growing but still nascent tokenized equities market.

In April 2021, Binance launched stock tokens for major names like Tesla, Microsoft, and Apple, issued by German broker CM-Equity AG with Binance handling trading.

The service was discontinued in July 2021 under pressure from regulators, including Germany’s BaFin and the UK’s FCA. Regulators viewed the products as unlicensed securities offerings lacking proper prospectuses.

Binance cited a shift in commercial focus at the time. However, recent reports from The Information indicate Binance is now considering a relaunch for non-US users to sidestep SEC oversight, creating a parallel 24/7 market.

Reportedly, OKX is also weighing similar offerings as part of the exchange’s RWA expansion. No official confirmations have emerged from either exchange, and details on issuers, exact listings, or timelines remain limited.

Citing a Binance spokesperson, the report described exploring tokenized equities as a “natural next step” in bridging TradFi and crypto.

Why Crypto Exchanges Want US Equities Now

Crypto markets have experienced persistent stagnation in trading volume in 2026, prompting exchanges to seek new revenue streams.

“BTC spot trading activity remains constrained so far in 2026: Average daily spot volumes for January tracking 2% below December and 37% below November levels,” wrote researcher David Lawant in a recent post.

Analysts also note that Crypto markets remain largely dormant in January, with volatility and trading volume pinned near December’s graveyard lows.

This is not calm consolidation but a liquidity trap, where thin order books amplify risk and a single poor execution can cascade into outsized losses for overexposed traders.

Meanwhile, US tech stocks (Nvidia, Apple, Tesla) have sustained strong rallies, driving demand among crypto holders, particularly those with stablecoin balances, for equity exposure without exiting the ecosystem.

Tokenized stocks allow 24/7 trading of synthetic assets that mirror underlying share prices, often backed by offshore custodians or derivatives rather than direct ownership.

The market, while small, is accelerating. Total tokenized stock value stands at approximately $912 million, with data on RWA.xyz showing it is up 19% month-on-month. Meanwhile, monthly transfer volumes exceed $2 billion, and active addresses are surging.

“I’ve bought NVIDIA on Binance Wallet before. Actually, right now, the top priority for both companies should be how to launch a precious metals market. Especially silver—apart from gold, which is suitable for physical storage, the others don’t have much storage value. I’m in China, and even paper silver is hard to buy; I can only buy ETFs,” one user stated.

Analyst AB Kuai Dong noted that official spot markets remain limited to futures or third-party tokens like PAXG for gold.

Intensifying Competition in Tokenized Assets

This push comes amid a broader race in tokenized real-world assets. Traditional players like NYSE and Nasdaq are seeking approvals for regulated on-chain stock platforms, potentially clashing with offshore crypto-led models in the future.

Robinhood has already captured a significant share in the EU (and EEA), launching tokenized US stocks and ETFs in mid-2025. Crucial metrics from Robinhood’s offerings include:

• Expanded to nearly 2,000 assets with zero commissions,
• 24/5 trading (migrating toward full 24/7 on its planned Layer 2 “Robinhood Chain” built on Arbitrum), and
• Integration into a retail-friendly app.

This targets younger, crypto-savvy users seeking seamless cross-asset access. Binance and OKX’s global scale, massive user bases, and always-on crypto infrastructure position them to challenge Robinhood’s EU dominance and expand into underserved regions (Asia, Latin America).

Their crypto-native audience is primed for tokenized equities as a natural extension, potentially accelerating adoption if launched.

The playing field also features a parallel turf war between Robinhood and Coinbase, both of which are building “everything exchanges” that blend stocks, crypto, prediction markets, and more.

Coinbase’s recent additions (commission-free stocks, prediction markets via Kalshi, derivatives via Deribit acquisition) directly target Robinhood’s retail strengths, while Robinhood counters with deeper crypto features and tokenized assets abroad.

If Binance and OKX proceed, tokenized stocks could serve as a liquidity lifeline, attracting capital back into crypto platforms and bridging TradFi yields.

Success, however, hinges on global regulations, ensuring liquidity and tracking accuracy, and building trust amid past shutdowns.

The post Binance and OKX To Enter TradFi With Tokenized Stocks appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Chainlink remains on standby as daily candles continue to show indecision, keeping traders on edge. The next significant move for LINK largely depends on Bitcoin’s momentum, with bulls and bears waiting for a clear signal before committing. Until then, the market is in a holding pattern, building tension for the breakout or breakdown.

Traders Await Clear Direction For Chainlink

According to an update from CryptoWzrd, the daily candles for both Chainlink and LINKBTC continue to print indecisive price action, reflecting a lack of strong conviction from either side of the market. Despite recent movements, neither buyers nor sellers have been able to establish a clear directional edge, keeping the broader outlook neutral for now.

To gain a reliable directional bias and unlock higher-probability trade opportunities, healthier and more decisive daily candles are required, as price could continue to chop within its current range. Bitcoin is expected to remain the primary driver of the next significant move. In particular, LINKBTC needs to print another bullish daily candle in the coming week to maintain any constructive momentum. 

Failure to do so could shift the balance back in favor of the bears and increase downside pressure. A continuation of weakness would likely result in a break of the daily lower-high trendline, followed by a loss of the critical $12 support level. 

On the bullish side, if Bitcoin provides the necessary support, LINK could attempt a recovery rally toward the $16 resistance zone. Until a clearer higher-timeframe structure emerges, the trading focus remains tactical. Attention will be placed on the lower-timeframe charts, particularly over the weekend, to capitalize on quick, short-term opportunities while avoiding unnecessary exposure to indecisive daily conditions.

Intraday Chart Shows Tight Range, Market Lacks Clear Direction

The analyst concluded that the intraday chart remains choppy, with price action tightly compressed within a narrow range. Such conditions point to persistent market indecision, in which neither bulls nor bears have shown sufficient conviction to drive a sustained move in either direction. As a result, trade setups lack clarity and carry elevated risk.

From a tactical perspective, a retest of the $13 resistance level, followed by clear signs of rejection or fading momentum, could open the door to a short opportunity. However, if price holds above $13 with strong acceptance, that would place the market in more constructive territory and tilt the bias back in favor of the bulls.

Until one of these scenarios plays out decisively, the analyst emphasized the importance of waiting. A more mature and well-defined chart structure is needed before engaging in the next trade, ensuring better confirmation, cleaner entries, and improved risk-to-reward conditions.

Crypto analyst CryptoBull has highlighted targets that XRP could reach as it eyes double digits. The analyst is confident the altcoin could reach these targets, noting that current price action is mirroring the previous bull run. 

XRP Eyes Rally To $11 And Then $70

In an X post, Crypto Bull stated that the next impulse will take XRP to $11 and that the last wave will take the altcoin to $70. This came as he noted that the price pattern is mirroring the previous bull run, with the only difference being time, which he claimed makes sense, as the altcoin needs longer accumulation to reach higher prices. 

The analyst also indicated that it could take a year of accumulation for XRP to reach the $11 price target, meaning the last wave to $70 could take much longer. This prediction comes despite the current decline in the crypto market, with XRP trading below the psychological $2 price level.  

Despite the current bearish sentiment, crypto analyst CW has also declared that the XRP rally is about to begin and that the road to $21.5 is just the beginning. He noted that this is the Phase 4 peak while the first goal is for the altcoin to break its current all-time high (ATH). 

His accompanying chart showed that XRP could reach this $21 target by year-end. Meanwhile, there is the possibility of the altcoin rallying above $100 in the next Phase 1, which could happen next year. Crypto Pundit X Finance Bull recently highlighted the CLARITY Act and Trump’s tariffs as factors that could boost XRP’s demand and lead to higher prices for the altcoin. 

He expects the CLARITY Act to boost XRP’s demand, especially with Trump’s Crypto Czar predicting that more banks will enter into crypto once the bill passes. X Finance Bull predicts that XRP will be the token of choice for these banks based on his belief that Ripple will provide the rails to onboard them. 

XRP Breaking Out Of Multi-Year Triangle

Crypto analyst XForce revealed in an X post that XRP is breaking out of the largest 6+ year triangle in history, yet people are calling it a fakeout. He added that he is not a permabull or permanbear on the altcoin but that he follows trends and plays macro breakout patterns. His accompanying chart indicated that XRP was on the verge of a move to the upside, with a potential rally above $11.50. 

On the lower timeframe, crypto analyst Chart Nerd stated that XRP is currently breaking out of a two-week falling wedge structure. He noted that this is a bullish reversal pattern that could send the altcoin back to $2.40 in the short term, as this is where the wedge formed. He highlighted a key resistance between $2.13 and $2.20, which the altcoin will need to break above to confirm a reversal. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $1.92, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.