Scheduled for release from a halfway house on Wednesday, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison will have served 440 days in federal custody.

Bitcoin joined stocks in a relief bounce as US President Donald Trump hinted at new legislation "very soon" and a doubling of the Dow Jones.

The integration of tokenized stocks on Solana could revolutionize blockchain finance, enhancing accessibility and liquidity for global investors.

The post Ondo Finance launches tokenized US stocks and ETFs on Solana appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The integration of banks into the crypto sector could reshape financial landscapes, fostering a unified digital asset industry.

The post Trump’s crypto czar David Sacks says banks will fully embrace crypto once market structure bill passes appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Crypto is no longer just something traders hold and hope will appreciate, it is becoming working capital that can be deployed wherever opportunity appears.

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PrimeXBT is a global multi-asset broker and crypto asset service provider trusted by traders in more than 150 countries. The platform bridges traditional and digital markets within one integrated environment, redefining versatility and innovation in online trading. Clients can access Forex, CFDs on indices, commodities, shares, crypto, and Crypto Futures, as well as buy, store and exchange cryptocurrencies directly. This unified experience extends across both the native PXTrader platform and MetaTrader 5, supported by advanced risk-management tools and a wide range of funding options in crypto, fiat and local payment methods. Since 2018, PrimeXBT has focused on empowering traders through broad multi-asset access, fair and transparent conditions, professional-grade technology and dedicated human support. By combining expertise, trust and a client-first approach, PrimeXBT sets a benchmark of excellence in the financial industry and provides traders with the tools they need to trade, grow and succeed with confidence.

Disclaimer: The content provided here is for informational purposes only and is not intended as personal investment advice and does not constitute a solicitation or invitation to engage in any financial transactions, investments, or related activities. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The financial products offered by the Company are complex and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. These products may not be suitable for all investors. Before engaging, you should consider whether you understand how these leveraged products work and whether you can afford the high risk of losing your money. The Company does not accept clients from the Restricted Jurisdictions as indicated on its website / T&Cs. Some products and services, including MT5, may not be available in your jurisdiction. The applicable legal entity and its respective products and services depend on the client’s country of residence and the entity with which the client has established a contractual relationship during registration.

XRP has once again traded directly into a price zone that a few traders have come to recognize as a liquidity pocket. This area has acted as a magnet for price since December 2024, causing repeated tests and reactions that stand out clearly on the price chart. In a recent technical breakdown shared on X, crypto analyst ChartNerd highlighted how XRP has repeatedly made contact with this liquidity pocket over the past year and the cryptocurrency might be approaching a relief bounce.

Liquidity Pocket: Support Or Springboard?

Technical analysis of XRP’s price action shows that the cryptocurrency is now trading within a liquidity zone that has acted as a support range since December 2024. This liquidity zone, which spans the range from $1.90 to $1.75, has acted as a price magnet for many months. Even after reaching its all-time high of $3.65 in July 2025, XRP entered into a multi-month correction that eventually found support at this liquidity zone.

According to the analysis, nearly every prior visit to this zone was followed by some form of relief, especially when momentum indicators aligned. The last time XRP returned to this level, it slowed down its decline and eventually bounced back above $2.4 in early January.

However, the most recent push downwards played out as a 20% decline after a rejection at the $2.40 zone in early January, which has essentially pushed the XRP price action back to trading within this liquidity range and has started to show tentative stabilization. 

To bring further confirmation to the setup, the analyst included the daily Stochastic RSI below the price chart. This momentum indicator, which measures relative strength and conditions of overbought or oversold pressure, is currently sitting in deeply oversold territory according to the chart. These oversold conditions in the Stoch RSI aligned with rebounds off this same liquidity pocket.

XRP Price Chart. Source: @ChartNerdTA On X

What Happens Next?

If history repeats itself, the repeated tests of this liquidity pocket and accompanying oversold signals might be clearing the road for a bounce. If XRP was underneath this pocket and rejecting at this level, that would be bearish. Holding it as support for a long duration points to a strong support strength in this area.

That said, there is another possibility that the reverse could happen. Should XRP break decisively below this zone with strong selling pressure, the technical setup would shift from supportive to bearish and leave the price action trending downwards.

Trading activity hints that recent buyers may be in a tough spot, because the mix of holders now resembles the early 2022 structure when price pressure was high. That means many participants may be below their breakeven cost basis, and this can build selling pressure over time if prices fail to move higher.

Ethereum is currently reporting the highest daily network growth in its history, a statistical surge that ostensibly signals a massive return of user activity.

Over the past week, the Ethereum mainnet processed 2.9 million transactions, a new all-time high according to Token Terminal data.

This activity was accompanied by a sharp jump in daily active addresses, which rose to approximately 1.3 million from roughly 0.6 million in late December.

Critically, this explosion in throughput has occurred while transaction costs have remained negligible. Average transaction fees have stayed in the “pennies” range of $0.10 to $0.20 despite the record demand.

For a network that historically saw fees spike between $50 and $200 during the 2021-2022 NFT boom, this represented a fundamental shift in economic accessibility.

However, forensic analysis suggests this growth is not entirely organic. While surface metrics indicate a bull-market revival, security researchers warn that a significant portion of this traffic is driven by malicious actors.

These attackers are exploiting the network's newly lowered fees to launch industrial-scale “address poisoning” campaigns, targeting users with automated scams disguised as legitimate activity.

The scaling context

To understand the sudden spike in volume, one must look at the recent structural changes to the Ethereum protocol. For years, the network was powerful but economically unusable for most people.

Leon Waidmann, head of research at the Onchain Foundation, pointed out that since he entered crypto, Ethereum mainnet fees were simply too high for the average user.

He noted the network was too expensive for retail, too expensive for frequent usage, and too expensive to build consumer-scale apps.

However, that changed about one year ago when Ethereum developers methodically scaled the network while attempting to protect decentralization and security.

This led to three major protocol upgrades that advanced the roadmap.

The first was the May 2025 “Pectra” upgrade, which increased blob capacity by raising the target blobs per block from 3 to 6 and the max from 6 to 9. This effectively doubled expected blob throughput.

Then, the network's “Fusaka” upgrade followed in December 2025, shipping Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS). This allowed validators to verify blob availability via sampling rather than downloading the entire dataset, enabling higher throughput while keeping node requirements reasonable.

Most recently, the Blob Parameter-Only (BPO) fork in January 2026 raised the blob target from 10 to 14 and the max to 21. These pragmatic updates were designed to unlock significant capacity for the blockchain network.

The economic effects of these upgrades became apparent quickly as the network's mainnet fees dropped sharply, and simple transactions became cheap again.

Waidmann pointed out that building directly on Layer 1 became viable at scale, prompting prediction markets, real-world assets, and payments to move back to the mainnet.

At the same time, stablecoin transfers on the network reached approximately $8 trillion in the fourth quarter.

Ethereum's record activity is not adding value

While the record activity shows signs of a blockchain in the ascendancy, on-chain data suggest that these activities have not added real value to the network.

Data from Alhpractal shows that the Metcalfe Ratio, which compares market capitalization to the square of the number of active users, is declining. This indicates that valuation is not keeping pace with real network adoption.

Additionally, Ethereum's Adoption Score is currently at level 1, the lowest tier in its historical range. This reflects a cold market, with valuation relative to on-chain activity low.

Considering this, Matthias Seidl, the co-founder of GrowThePie, suggested that the network's activity increase might not be organic.

He cited the example of a single address receiving 190,000 native ETH transfers from 190,000 unique wallets in a single day.

Seidl noted the number of wallets receiving native transfers is relatively stable, but the number of wallets sending native transfers increased a lot (2x). He highlighted that many native transfers (sending vanilla ETH) use only 21,000 gas, the cheapest form of EVM transaction.

These are currently accounting for almost 50% of all transactions. In comparison, sending an ERC20 token costs roughly 65,000 gas, and one stablecoin transfer needs as much gas as three native ETH transfers.

Address poisoning?

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s latest burst of on-chain activity is being traced to an old scam, repackaged for a cheaper-fee era.

Security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov noted that a wave of address-poisoning campaigns has been exploiting low gas costs since December, inflating network metrics while seeding transaction histories with lookalike addresses designed to trick users into sending real funds to attackers.

The mechanics of these attacks are simple: scammers generate “poisoning” addresses that resemble a target’s legitimate wallet address by matching the first and last characters. After a victim completes a normal transfer, the attacker sends a small “dust” transaction to the victim so the spoofed address appears in their recent history.

The bet is that, at some later point, the user will copy the familiar-looking address from their activity feed without verifying the full string.

Considering this, Sergeenkov ties the surge in new Ethereum addresses to that playbook. He estimates new address creation ran about 2.7 times the 2025 average, with the week of Jan. 12 peaking at roughly 2.7 million new addresses.

When he decomposed the flows behind the growth, he concluded that roughly 80% was driven by stablecoin activity rather than organic user demand.

To test whether this looked like poisoning, Sergeenkov looked for a telltale signature: addresses that received a sub-$1 stablecoin transfer as their first interaction.

By his count, 67% of the new addresses fit that pattern. In absolute terms, he found 3.86 million out of 5.78 million addresses received “dust” as their first stablecoin transaction.

He then narrowed the search to the senders: accounts moving less than $1 of USDT and USDC between Dec. 15, 2025, and Jan. 18, 2026.

Sergeenkov counted unique recipients for each sender and filtered for those distributing to at least 10,000 addresses. What surfaced, he says, were smart contracts designed to industrialize the campaign. These are codes that can bankroll and coordinate hundreds of poisoning addresses in a single transaction.

One contract he reviewed included a function labeled `fundPoisoners`, which, in his description, disperses stablecoin dust and a small amount of ETH for gas to a large batch of poisoning addresses at once.

Those addresses then fan out, sending dust to millions of potential targets to manufacture misleading entries in wallet transaction histories.

The model relies on scale as most recipients will never fall for it, but the economics work if a tiny fraction do.

Sergeenkov pegs the effective conversion rate at around 0.01%, implying the business is built to tolerate extreme failure rates. In the dataset he analyzed, 116 victims collectively lost about $740,000, with one loss accounting for $509,000 of that total.

The gating factor has historically been cost. Address poisoning demands millions of on-chain transactions that do not directly generate revenue unless a victim mis-sends funds.

Sergeenkov argues that, until late 2025, Ethereum network fees made the mass-send strategy harder to justify. However, with transaction costs roughly six-fold lower, the risk-reward calculus shifted sharply in favor of the attacker.

Considering this, Sergeenkov argued that scaling Ethereum throughput without hardening its user-facing safety has created an environment where “record” activity can be indistinguishable from automated abuse.

In his view, the industry’s obsession with headline network metrics risks masking a darker reality in which cheaper blockspace can easily subsidize mass-targeted scams as legitimate adoption, leaving retail users to bear the loss.

The post How an industrial-scale scam is driving Ethereum transactions to record highs because of cheap gas fees appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin price surrendered the psychological $90,000 stronghold during early Asian trading hours on Jan. 21, marking a decisive breakdown that has effectively erased the asset's gains for the start of 2026.

According to CryptoSlate's data, the world’s largest digital asset plummeted to a session low of $87,282 over the last 24 hours.

This downturn was not an isolated event but part of a broader, market-wide sell-off that inflicted heavy damage across the digital asset ecosystem. Major alternative cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, XRP, Cardano, and Solana, all posted significant losses, mirroring the leader's descent.

Meanwhile, the sharp reversal marks the culmination of a brutal two-day slide that has pushed the emerging industry back toward price levels last observed in late 2025 and shattered the bullish momentum that had characterized the opening weeks of the new year.

Leverage flushes and aggressive selling

While price corrections are standard in crypto markets, the velocity of this decline points to a toxic combination of derivatives liquidations and genuine supply shocks.

The speed of the move was most evident in the futures markets, where “liquidation cascades” (a scenario in which falling prices trigger forced sell orders, which in turn drive prices lower) accelerated the drop.

Data from CoinGlass reveals the extent of the damage. Traders holding long positions (betting on price increases) suffered more than $1.5 billion in losses over the last 48 hours.

This figure represents the capitulation of bulls who had positioned themselves for a breakout above $100,000 only to be caught offside as Bitcoin failed to sustain support near the upper $90,000s.

However, this price decline was not purely a flush of over-leveraged speculation. Unlike “scam wicks” that are quickly bought up, this move was supported by aggressive selling in the spot market, the actual exchange of assets.

CryptoQuant’s “Net Taker Volume,” a critical metric that gauges market aggression by tracking whether traders are buying or selling, printed a negative reading of -$319 million on Jan. 20.

This deeply negative figure indicated that motivated sellers were aggressively bidding to exit their positions, overwhelming the available liquidity.

Notably, this marks the second time the indicator has plunged below minus $300 million in recent days. The prior occurrence was on Jan. 16, when Bitcoin was still trading above $95,000.

Further compounding the bearish outlook is the behavior of “whale” investors.

CryptoQuant’s Whale Screener, which tracks deposits from over 100 active high-net-worth wallets, detected a surge in supply moving onto exchanges.

Whales deposited more than $400 million worth of Bitcoin into spot exchanges on Jan. 20, following a similar $500 million spike on Jan. 15.

Historically, large deposits into spot exchanges have reliably preceded selling pressure, or at least create a wall of ask liquidity that dampens any potential price recovery.

Moreover, the negative market sentiment was confirmed by the performance of spot Bitcoin ETFs over the last two days.

According to SoSo Value data, the 12 funds have seen outflows of nearly $900 million over the last two trading sessions, further exacerbating the current market downtrend.

The macro headwind and “Japanic” phenomenon

Beyond the internal mechanics of the crypto market, a complex and increasingly hostile macroeconomic backdrop is exerting severe downward pressure.

Market headlines have been dominated by a phenomenon analysts are dubbing “Japanic,” a contagion effect originating from the Japanese bond market that is destabilizing global risk assets.

Presto Research argued that the true epicenter of current market stress is Tokyo, not the United States.

According to the firm, a chaotic selloff in Japanese government bonds (JGBs) has spilled over into broader international markets, triggering a “Sell America” trade. In this environment, correlations have converged, leading equities, US Treasuries, the dollar, and Bitcoin to fall in tandem as liquidity is withdrawn from the system.

The catalyst for this volatility was a surprisingly weak auction for 20-year Japanese government bonds. The bid-to-cover ratio (a primary measure of demand) fell to 3.19 at Tuesday's auction, down significantly from 4.1 previously.

This signals softening demand for Japanese debt at a time when the market is already jittery about Japan's fiscal health.

The Kobeissi Letter provided further context on this capital flight, noting that Japanese insurers sold $5.2 billion of bonds with maturities of 10 years or more in December.

This marked the largest monthly sale since data collection began in 2004 and the fifth consecutive month of net sales.

As Japanese institutions (historically among the largest foreign holders of global debt) retreat to domestic safety, global liquidity tightens, leaving risk assets like Bitcoin vulnerable.

Analysts at Bitunix highlighted the duality of this moment for digital assets in a statement shared with CryptoSlate.

According to the firm, the sharp dislocation in sovereign bond markets once again highlights the fragility of traditional safe-haven assets. They noted that in the short term, simultaneous pressure on bonds and risk assets may dampen risk appetite in crypto markets.

However, Bitunix analysts also pointed toward a potential long-term pivot inherent in this chaos. Over the medium term, if the politicization of bond markets and monetary intervention become persistent features, this dynamic could reinforce the allocation case for Bitcoin as a non-sovereign asset.

They concluded that over the longer horizon, sustained erosion in global interest rate and currency stability may ultimately lead to a repricing of crypto assets’ strategic weight within portfolio allocation.

This instability has fueled intense speculation regarding the Bank of Japan's next move ahead of the Feb. 8 snap election.

Presto Research outlines two binary outcomes: a “Liz Truss” moment, referencing the 2022 UK bond market revolt triggered by fiscal mismanagement, or a return to “fiscal dominance,” in which the central bank is forced to print money aggressively to cap yields.

Simultaneously, trade policy friction is adding another layer of uncertainty.

Matrixport notes that Bitcoin’s options market has seen a decisive shift in sentiment, with demand for “puts” (downside protection) outpacing “calls.”

The firm attributes this defensive positioning to President Donald Trump’s renewed threat of tariffs of 10% to 25% on European goods, which has prompted institutional investors to hedge against near-term macro volatility.

What's next for Bitcoin

Despite the pervasive gloom, not all indicators point to a prolonged bear market.

Glassnode’s weekly analysis characterizes the current setup as a “momentum slip,” a cooling of an overheated market that remains statistically “above neutral.”

However, the technical reality on the charts remains precarious.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. has identified the $89,800-$90,000 range as the critical line of defense for bulls.

This price range is significant because it represents the “cost basis” (the average purchase price) for the freshest buyers in the market, specifically the Short-Term Holder cohorts who entered within the last day to the last month.

Adler warns that a sustained breakdown below this band pushes these cohorts underwater simultaneously. When short-term speculators hold unrealized losses, they become highly sensitive to price drops, raising the risk of panic selling that could accelerate the downtrend.

Meanwhile, the path upward is littered with resistance, even if Bitcoin manages to bounce. The 1-month to 3-month holder cohort has a cost basis of roughly $92,500.

Since these traders are currently nursing losses, they are likely to sell into any relief rallies to break even, creating natural sell pressure.

Furthermore, the aggregated realized price for all short-term holders stands at $99,300, essentially forming a formidable ceiling that must be breached to reignite bullish conviction.

For now, Bitcoin remains in a state of delicate balance. It is caught between aggressive liquidation flushes and a hostile macro environment, with the $90,000 level serving as the dividing line between consolidation and a deeper correction.

The post Bitcoin just erased all 2026 gains as a $1.5 billion liquidation trap catches every trader off guard appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Monero’s price has faced a sharp pullback, triggering concern across the market. XMR dropped nearly 20% in a single day, briefly slipping below the $500 level. 

The sudden move sparked panic among short-term traders. However, current data suggests the decline may represent a corrective reset rather than a trend reversal.

Monero Appears Safe From Further Selling

Despite the aggressive sell-off, XMR holders haven’t rushed for the exits. On-chain signals show selling pressure remains relatively muted. The Money Flow Index has pulled back, reflecting cooling buy-side momentum, but it’s still holding above the neutral 50 level — a key tell that bears haven’t seized control.

Because the MFI blends price and volume, staying in positive territory implies demand still outweighs distribution. For XMR, this points to post-rally exhaustion rather than structural weakness. Holder behavior remains disciplined, helping prevent a cascade lower.

Derivatives data adds context. Open Interest dropped 20.8% over the past 48 hours, sliding from $624 million to $494 million. On the surface, that looks bearish. In reality, it more likely reflects a leverage flush as overextended longs got shaken out.

More importantly, XMR’s funding rates stayed positive throughout the drop. That means longs are still dominant, and traders are paying to stay positioned for upside. This bias suggests the market is leaning toward stabilization and recovery rather than continuation lower.

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

XMR Macro Outlook Looks Bullish

Analyst Matthew Hyland pointed to XMR’s decade-long ascending triangle. Price has consistently respected a rising diagonal support dating back to the 2016–2017 cycle, printing higher lows and maintaining a long-term bullish structure.

A major horizontal zone sits in the $400–$500 range, where price has historically stalled. Current price action shows XMR rotating back into this area, increasing pressure on sellers and setting the stage for a potential higher-timeframe move.

“IMO $10k–$125k over the next 5–20 years,” Matthew said, outlining his long-term outlook for XMR.

If XMR price can hold and bounce within this region, it would reinforce bullish continuation. A clean loss of this zone, however, could mean prolonged consolidation or a deeper retrace toward the rising trendline in the $200–$300 area before the next major impulse.

XMR Price Recovery Is The Likely Next Step

At the time of writing, Monero trades around $499 after shedding roughly 20% in the last 24 hours. The sell-off pushed the price below the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement, often viewed as a bear-market floor. Losing it warrants caution, but context matters.

A quick reclaim and hold above $500 would neutralize much of the downside risk. With no signs of aggressive distribution and longs still in control, a rebound remains likely. If buyers step back in, XMR could grind higher toward $560, with $600 back on the radar if momentum builds.

The bullish setup breaks if sentiment flips. An increase in profit-taking could pressure the XMR price lower. In that case, $450 becomes the next key support. Losing it would invalidate the recovery thesis and expose XMR to a deeper move toward $417, signaling a broader corrective phase.

The post Monero (XMR) Price Drops 20% Below $500: Warning Sign or Strategic Pullback? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Quantum computing’s threat to Bitcoin is often dismissed as distant, but look closely, and you may realize the impact may already be starting to show.

Recent research and institutional moves suggest the clock may be ticking faster than expected.

Quantum Computing Is Already Hitting Bitcoin—But Not How You Expect

Bitcoin’s recent underperformance against gold is drawing renewed scrutiny from institutional investors. However, it is not due to traditional market forces, but rather to quantum computing (QC) risks that could one day compromise its cryptography.

Strategists are now treating these threats as more than theoretical, reshaping portfolio allocations and igniting debate over Bitcoin’s long-term security.

BeInCrypto reported Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood removed a 10% Bitcoin position from his flagship “Greed & Fear” model portfolio, reallocating to physical gold and mining equities.

Wood cited concerns that quantum computing could break Bitcoin’s Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) keys, undermining its store-of-value thesis.

“Financial advisors read this kind of research and keep client allocations low or zero because quantum computing is an existential threat. It’s going to be a yoke around BTC’s neck until this gets fixed,” wrote batsoupyum, a popular user on X.

Research supports this caution, with a 2025 Chaincode Labs study estimating that 20–50% of circulating Bitcoin addresses are vulnerable to future quantum attacks due to reused public keys. Roughly 6.26 million BTC, valued between $650 billion and $750 billion, could be exposed.

Meanwhile, the Projection Calculator chart reflects this looming risk, showing exponential growth in quantum hardware capability over time.

As the qubit count of quantum machines accelerates, particularly following Google’s 2025 milestones, the potential for cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) becomes more plausible.

Bitcoin’s decentralized structure amplifies the challenge. Unlike traditional banks, which can mandate quantum-safe upgrades through centralized authority, Bitcoin must coordinate changes across a distributed network.

There is no risk committee, no mandate, and no single entity capable of enforcing immediate action.

“I used to wave away quantum computing (QC) risks to Bitcoin as far-fetched. I don’t anymore. The usual pushback goes like this: QC hasn’t been a threat for years, and if it is, then the whole financial system is in trouble anyway… [Bitcoin] can technically upgrade. But doing so requires slow, messy coordination across a decentralized network. No one can say, ‘we’re switching now,’” Jamie Coutts noted.

Quantum Computing Risk Casts a Growing Shadow Over Bitcoin’s Institutional Appeal

The market has begun reflecting these concerns. Bitcoin’s YTD underperformance against gold is down 6.5% in 2026, while gold surged 55%. The BTC/gold ratio at 19.26 in January 2026 aligns with advisors’ caution.

Institutions are diverging in their responses. While Wood trimmed exposure, Harvard reportedly increased its Bitcoin allocation by almost 240%.

Similarly, Morgan Stanley started advising its wealth management clients to allocate up to 4% of their portfolios to digital assets. In the same way, Bank of America allows allocations of between 1% and 4%.

This demonstrates that support is not disappearing but is becoming more dispersed based on differing risk assessments.

Still, some say quantum risk is low-probability but high-impact. David Duong of Coinbase points to two major threats: quantum computers breaking ECDSA keys and targeting SHA-256, which underpins Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system.

Vulnerable addresses include legacy Pay-to-Public-Key scripts, certain multisignature wallets, and exposed Taproot setups.

Address hygiene, avoiding reused addresses, and moving coins to quantum-resistant addresses, is considered a key mitigation strategy.

Post-quantum cryptography standards finalized by NIST in 2024 provide a roadmap for future protection. However, adoption of Bitcoin remains complex.

Charles Hoskinson of Cardano warns that premature adoption could severely reduce efficiency. Meanwhile, DARPA’s Quantum Blockchain Initiative suggests meaningful threats may emerge in the 2030s.

Yet, the rapid advancement illustrated in the projection chart suggests that the timeline could accelerate, particularly if AI integration compresses quantum development.

The quantum computing question has moved from theory to tangible portfolio impact. Bitcoin’s underperformance is not just a reflection of market cycles. Rather, it reflects the creeping weight of existential risk, shaping how institutions allocate capital and forcing the network to confront a technical challenge unlike any it has faced before.

Until Bitcoin’s decentralized system can fully coordinate a quantum-resistant upgrade, the “yoke” around BTC’s neck remains real.

The post Quantum Computing Is Already Hitting Bitcoin—Here’s How appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Dogecoin price has returned to a level that should be watched closely for long-term price action, as multi-year chart structures begin to resemble conditions that preceded its last historic rally. 

Still spending years correcting from its 2021 peak, Dogecoin is now trading inside a well-defined accumulation zone on the higher time frame, according to a new technical analysis shared by Crypto Patel on X. The analyst noted that this phase may be setting the stage for a macro Wave 5 expansion that takes the meme coin to new price highs, provided important support levels continue to hold.

Dogecoin Sitting In High-Timeframe Accumulation Zone

Technical roadmap on the 2-week candlestick timeframe chart breaks Dogecoin’s price action after the 2021 price high into Elliott Wave phases. Wave 1 and Wave 2 are marked as complete, followed by a strong Wave 3 advance that topped around $0.48 in December 2024. Since then, DOGE has entered a Wave 4 corrective phase, forming a descending channel that has guided price lower for over a year without invalidating the broader bullish structure.

This descending channel is important to this technical analysis. Similar corrective behavior appeared just before Dogecoin’s last major expansion in 2021, where the price consolidated for an extended period before breaking upward decisively. 

Dogecoin is now trading inside a high-timeframe demand zone that acted as the base for its 2020 to 2021 parabolic rally. This area sits just above a long-term horizontal support level that has held firm for an extended period, including through the depths of the 2022 bear market. 

According to the analyst, this region between $0.115 and $0.09 is a clear zone of sustained accumulation, where buying pressure has consistently prevented deeper breakdowns.

Wave 5 Targets Multi-Year Expansion Path

If the accumulation zone continues to hold and the price breaks out of the descending channel, then the next projection is the playout of a Wave 5 impulse move. Crypto Patel’s mapped targets for this phase start around $0.28, followed by higher extensions at $1, $2, and ultimately $4. 

At the time of writing, Dogecoin is trading at $0.1247. Therefore, from current levels, that final target of $4 would represent a move of over 3,100%. However, this is small compared to the magnitude of Dogecoin’s previous macro expansion of 26,800% in the previous cycle.

On the other hand, the analysis noted that invalidation is also well defined. A weekly close below $0.06 would break the higher-timeframe structure and invalidate the Wave 5 thesis. Until then, the technical analysis suggests Dogecoin is in a compression phase where downside risk is increasingly defined, but upside expansion into new price highs is possible if Dogecoin embarks on the final impulse of the cycle.

Delphi Digital is betting that Solana’s next major upgrade cycle will reposition the network as an “exchange grade” environment capable of supporting onchain order books that can realistically contend with centralized venues on latency, liquidity depth, and market structure. In a Jan. 20 post on X titled “2026 is the Year of Solana”, the research firm argued Solana’s 2026 roadmap is its “most aggressive upgrade cycle” yet, one that “overhaul[s] everything from consensus to infrastructure to become the decentralized Nasdaq.”

Why Delphi Digital Calls 2026 “The Year Of Solana”

Delphi framed the roadmap less as a grab bag of performance enhancements and more as a capital-markets push: “Solana’s roadmap is about transforming it into an exchange grade environment where a native onchain CLOB can viably compete with CEX latency, liquidity depth, and fairness. Here are all the upgrades making this possible.” In that view, shaving milliseconds matters only insofar as it produces predictable, enforceable execution outcomes for applications like high-frequency trading and central limit order books.

The centerpiece, Delphi wrote, is Alpenglow, a consensus redesign it called “the most significant protocol level change in Solana’s history.” The firm said Alpenglow introduces a new architecture built around Votor and Rotor, with Votor changing how validators reach agreement. Rather than “chaining multiple voting rounds together,” validators would aggregate votes offchain and “commit to finality in one or two rounds,” producing “theoretical finality in the 100-150 millisecond range, down from the original 12.8 seconds.”

Delphi emphasized Votor’s parallel finalization paths as a resilience feature, not just a speed play. If a block gets “overwhelming support (80%+ stake)” it finalizes immediately; if support is between 60% and 80%, a second round triggers, and finality follows if that also clears 60%. The goal, Delphi argued, is to preserve finality even with unresponsive segments of the network.

Alpenglow also introduces what Delphi called a “20+20” resilience model: safety holds as long as no more than 20% of stake is malicious, while liveness persists even if another 20% is offline, “tolerat[ing] up to 40% of the network being either malicious or inactive while still maintaining finality.” Under this design, Proof of History is “effectively deprecated,” replaced by deterministic slot scheduling and local timers. Delphi said the upgrade is expected to roll out in early to mid 2026.

Delphi also pointed to Firedancer, Jump’s C++ validator client, as a structural upgrade aimed at reducing a long-standing operational risk. Solana has historically relied on a single client, now known as Agave, and Delphi described that “monoculture” as a central weakness because client-level faults can cascade into broader network halts.

Firedancer’s objective, Delphi said, is a deterministic, high-throughput engine that can process “millions of TPS with minimal latency variance.” Ahead of full readiness, Delphi highlighted “Frankendancer,” a transitional build that combines Firedancer’s networking and block production modules with Agave’s runtime and consensus components, as a bridge to “substantially” increased client diversity.

On infrastructure, Delphi spotlighted DoubleZero as a private fiber overlay for validators, likening its transmission profile to traditional exchange connectivity: “the same infrastructure traditional exchanges like Nasdaq and CME rely on for microsecond level transmission.” The argument is that as validator sets expand, propagation variance becomes the enemy of tight finality windows. By routing messages along “optimal paths” and supporting multicast delivery, Delphi said DoubleZero can narrow latency gaps across validators—an enabler for both Votor’s quorum formation and Rotor’s propagation design.

Delphi also framed Solana’s block-building roadmap as a market-structure project. It described Jito’s BAM (Block Assembly Marketplace) as separating ordering from execution via a marketplace and privacy layer, with transactions ingested into TEEs so “neither validators nor builders can see raw transaction content before ordering takes effect,” reducing pre-execution behavior like frontrunning.

Harmonic, meanwhile, targets builder competition by introducing an open aggregation layer so validators can accept proposals from “multiple competing builders in real time,” with Delphi summarizing: “Think of Harmonic as a meta-market and BAM as a micro-market.”

Raiku rounds out the thesis by adding deterministic latency and programmable execution guarantees adjacent to Solana’s validator set, using Ahead-of-Time (AOT) transactions for pre-committed workflows and Just-in-Time (JIT) transactions for real-time needs—without modifying L1 consensus.

Delphi ultimately tied the technical roadmap to market demand: Solana’s spot trading gravity, the consolidation of onchain perps toward a handful of venues, and the need to reach performance parity with centralized platforms. It cited expectations for “new Solana native perps like Bulk Trade coming early next year,” and pointed to products like xStocks bringing “onchain equities directly to Solana,” arguing that liquidity and attention are consolidating toward a chain with faster settlement, better UX, and denser capital.

At press time, SOL traded at $127.