Crypto markets ended 2025 with a paradox: prices declined while usage metrics surged to all-time highs.

Bitwise’s latest research data show ETH dropped 29% in Q4 2025, even as Ethereum transactions reached new peaks. The asset manager’s CIO, Matt Hougan, noted that this disconnect has appeared before at major inflection points. Markets often bottom when participants lose interest just as adoption quietly improves.

The divergence is striking. Crypto equities fell 20% in 2025 while industry revenues grew at triple the rate of any other sector. Bitwise’s Q1 2025 review documented Ethereum’s 45% price decline alongside a 30.14% surge in transaction volume and tokenized real-world assets hitting all-time highs.

Stablecoin Flows Tell a Different Story

The stablecoin market crossed $300 billion in October 2025. Daily average transaction volume reached $3.1 trillion, according to an October 2025 Arkham Research report.

TRON exemplifies the usage-price disconnect. The network ended 2025 with over $81 billion in stablecoin supply, with USDT accounting for 99% of that figure. Messari data show average daily USDT transfer volume hit $23.8 billion by Q4. TRON processed approximately $6-7 trillion in stablecoin transactions annually, commanding 65% of global retail USDT transfers under $1,000.

Network revenue tells the same story. TRON achieved $1.2 billion in Q3 2025 revenue, an all-time high. Yet TRX spent much of 2025 consolidating around $0.28.

DeFi Outpacing Centralized Venues

Decentralized exchange volume has structurally outpaced centralized competitors. CoinDesk data from August 2025 showed daily DEX volume at $12.8 billion versus Coinbase’s $3.5 billion. Uniswap alone processes between $1-2 billion daily across supported chains, commanding a 55% DEX market share.

Uniswap v4 achieved $1 billion TVL within 177 days of launch. The protocol generated over $985 million in fees year-to-date through October 2025. Coinbase responded by integrating DEX trading directly into its app, routing orders through aggregators like 0x and 1inch to access Uniswap liquidity.

The Q1 2023 Parallel

Bitwise’s analysis draws a direct comparison to Q1 2023, when similar conditions preceded a two-year bull run. That quarter saw blockchain revenues climb 139% quarter-over-quarter while Ethereum transactions hit all-time highs.

The current setup mirrors that period: falling prices, improving fundamentals, and capital quietly accumulating through stablecoin rails.

Current Market Snapshot

ETH is currently trading at $2,954.29, consolidating near its 200-day EMA around $3,200-$3,300. The asset sits 39% below its all-time high of $4,946.

Hougan’s thesis hinges on three checkpoints for a rally in 2026, with one already achieved. The structural case rests on staking locking roughly 30% of the ETH supply, fee burns reducing issuance, and Layer 2 expansion sustaining network activity.

For traders weighing the data against the price action, the question is timing. Fundamental strength without price follow-through can persist for quarters. But when adoption curves accelerate while valuations compress, the gap eventually closes. The direction of that convergence is what 2026 will determine.

The post Crypto Fundamentals Hit Records in Q4 2025 as Prices Lagged appeared first on Cryptonews.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated 3,221 ZEC (approximately $1.2 million) to Shielded Labs on Tuesday, the Swiss-based nonprofit confirmed, marking their second contribution to the independent Zcash development organization.

Zcash (ZEC) is currently trading around $368.85 and is up about 3.01% over the past 24 hours.

The funds will support three protocol-level initiatives: the Network Sustainability Mechanism (economic health upgrades), Crosslink (a hybrid PoW/PoS layer), and Dynamic Fees. Shielded Labs operates entirely outside Zcash’s Dev Fund structure, relying solely on donations from ZEC holders.

“A healthy Zcash ecosystem depends on multiple independent organisations contributing at the protocol level. Shielded Labs plays an important role in that effort, and we’re glad to support their work,” Cameron Winklevoss said.

Cameron Winklevoss also added that the twins have backed Zcash for years, calling privacy “the point at which government and corporate overreach end and your freedom and self-sovereignty begin.”

Timing and Context

The donation lands two weeks after the entire Electric Coin Company development team (roughly 25 members, including CEO Josh Swihart and Chief Scientist Chelsea Komlo) resigned on January 7, citing what Swihart described as “constructive discharge” following a governance dispute with Bootstrap, ECC’s nonprofit overseer.

The departing developers immediately formed a new startup, cashZ, and announced plans for a wallet built on the existing Zashi codebase. ZEC dropped 20% following the announcement, briefly touching $385.

Shielded Labs, led by Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox as Head of Product, now represents a parallel development path. The organization received its first Winklevoss donation in 2023 to seed the Crosslink team.

Winklevoss-Backed Accumulation

The brothers’ support extends beyond donations. Winklevoss Capital led a $58.88 million private placement in October 2025 for Cypherpunk Technologies (NASDAQ: CYPH), a company that shifted to a Zcash treasury strategy.

Cypherpunk purchased 56,418 ZEC last month and now holds nearly 2% of the circulating supply. Zooko Wilcox joined Cypherpunk as Strategic Advisor in December 2025.

Regulatory Tailwind

The SEC closed its two-year investigation into the Zcash Foundation on January 14, 2026, without enforcement action. The probe, initiated via subpoena in August 2023, examined whether ZEC constituted a securities offering. The closure aligns with broader SEC pullback on crypto enforcement under Chair Paul Atkins.

ZEC surged 14% on the SEC news but has since retraced as governance uncertainty persists.

What This Means for Desks

The Winklevoss donation shows institutional confidence in Shielded Labs as the de facto development anchor for Zcash. With ECC’s team now operating independently under cashZ and regulatory clarity secured, ZEC’s path forward hinges on execution of the Crosslink hybrid PoS upgrade.

Liquidity providers watching the privacy coin sector should note the twins’ coordinated accumulation via Cypherpunk and direct protocol funding. The governance fracture introduces development risk, but also decentralizes the previously ECC-centric structure.

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Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode warned on Monday that XRP’s on-chain market structure mirrors the exact cost-basis configuration observed before a 60% price collapse in 2022.

XRP is trading at $1.91, down 4.74% in the past 24 hours.

The signal centers on the holder’s cost basis. Wallets active in the 1-week to 1-month window are now accumulating below the realized price of the 6-month to 12-month cohort. Newer buyers hold at cheaper entry points while mid-term holders sit underwater or near breakeven.

This relationship creates overhead supply. When spot approaches the mid-term cohort’s cost basis, that group becomes eager to de-risk into any rally. February 2022 showed the result: XRP ran from $0.60 to $0.88 in the first week, then collapsed 60% to $0.30 by mid-year following the Terra implosion and broader macro deterioration.

The $2 Behavioral Threshold

Glassnode identified $2.00 as a level above the technical level. According to the firm’s November 2025 analysis, each retest of $2 since early 2025 triggered $500 million to $1.2 billion in weekly realized losses. Holders consistently capitulated into strength at this zone.

XRP breached $2.40 in early January, up 25% in a week. It has since retreated below $2.00. The pattern is familiar. The token is now trading below its 20-, 50-, 100-, and 200-day moving averages.

The Counter-Data

Positive signs exist. XRP ETFs have absorbed $1.37 billion in cumulative inflows since their November 2025 launch, with 35 consecutive trading days without a single outflow, followed by a modest $40.8 million redemption on January 7. Total AUM sits near $2 billion with over 788 million XRP locked in custody.

Exchange reserves dropped from 3.76 billion XRP in early October 2025 to roughly 1.6 billion by late December, the lowest since 2018. ETF creations require spot purchases, which remove tokens from the available float.

Yet, inflows have not prevented drawdowns. XRP fell 15% in December despite record institutional buying. Exchange balance data shows 206 million XRP (roughly $430 million) moved onto platforms since January began, indicating distribution.

What Desks Are Watching

The February 2022 analog raises a specific question: can ETF-driven supply absorption offset the capitulation mechanics that Glassnode describes? Back then, no spot ETF product existed. Retail holders folded under macro pressure with no institutional bid to absorb supply.

This cycle is structurally different. Five major issuers (Canary Capital, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, 21Shares) serve pension funds and endowments. Their consistent accumulation has tightened circulating float, and each $1 billion in inflows locks roughly 500 million XRP. But the gap between mid-term and short-term cost bases remains.

If $2.00 fails to hold, the 6-12 month cohort enters deeper loss territory. The $1.80 support level becomes the next line of support. Failure there opens downside toward $1.25, the deeper support zone identified by analysts. A sustained break above $2.40 would invalidate the bearish setup and shift focus toward $3.00 resistance.

The post Glassnode Flags XRP Structure Matching Feb 2022 Pre-Crash Setup appeared first on Cryptonews.

The Trump family added about $1.4 billion in crypto-linked wealth since Jan. 20, 2025, while Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) is trading at $14.67 (+2.81%), after a multi-month slide that Bloomberg flagged as the main drag on the family’s balance sheet.

The WLFI Economic Engine

Bloomberg’s Tuesday tally hinges on World Liberty Financial (WLFI) economics that route cash flows to a Trump-affiliated vehicle. World Liberty’s own terms state that DT Marks DeFi, LLC and affiliates, including Donald J. Trump, received 22,500,000,000 WLFI tokens and collect 75% of net protocol revenues (and separately 75% of WLFI token sale proceeds after deductions under a service agreement).

The mark-to-market swing sits in the locked paper. The report cited by The Block says the family still holds founder tokens worth roughly $3.8 billion that Bloomberg excluded from net-worth math because the tokens remain locked.

A second pillar now links Trump-branded real estate to token rails. The Trump Organization and Dar Global announced on Nov. 17, 2025, that the Trump International Hotel Maldives will tokenize the development phase, with Eric Trump calling it a “new benchmark” for tokenized real estate investment and Dar Global CEO Ziad El Chaar calling it a “global first.” The announcement targeted an end-of-2028 opening and cited ~80 villas in the initial plan.

On the equity leg, Trump Media’s latest filed quarterly disclosure showed revenue sensitivity and rising costs tied to its streaming buildout. In its Form 10-Q filed Nov. 7, 2025, DJT reported $972,900 revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025, and cited higher content license and data center lease costs tied to Truth+.

What Traders Are Watching

For institutional trading desks, the current market environment represents a complex arbitrage between WLFI’s liquidity profile and broader policy-driven headline risk. The trade has evolved into a “political-beta” complex where the value of the 22.5 billion token grant and the 75% revenue-sharing agreement are inextricably linked to the administration’s regulatory posture.

Analysts are particularly focused on the March 2026 unlock schedule, viewing it as a potential liquidity cliff that could re-price the entire ecosystem. Because the protocol’s governance is highly concentrated—with a small number of affiliated wallets controlling the majority of the supply—institutions treat WLFI less as a decentralized utility and more as a centralized proxy for the family’s digital brand.

Consequently, DJT equity often acts as the listed vehicle for this sentiment, frequently “gapping” on news of token distributions, regulatory filings, or shifts in the protocol’s USD1 stablecoin supply. Any change in the enforcement environment or the transferability of these locked assets creates a dual-impact risk, affecting both the token float and the listed equity in a single correlated move.

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Gold (XAU/USD) printed $4,689.39/oz and silver (XAG/USD) tagged $94.08/oz today, after President Donald Trump tied a new tariff schedule to a Greenland standoff in a Truth Social post on Saturday that set explicit start dates and step-ups.

Trump Sets Feb. 1 Tariff Start Date in Greenland Dispute

Trump wrote that the U.S. will impose a 10% tariff from Feb. 1, 2026, on “any and all goods” from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Finland, then lift the rate to 25% from June 1, 2026, until “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” occurs.

“This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” Trump stated in the post.

Price action favored the higher-beta metal: spot silver rose about 4.4% intraday to $93.85/oz after the $94.08/oz print, while spot gold rose about 1.6% to $4,670.01/oz after the $4,689.39/oz high.

Cross-asset tape confirmed “risk-off” positioning: European equities traded lower on Jan. 19, 2026, as the tariff timeline hit, with Germany’s DAX falling 1.1% and the CAC 40 in Paris falling 1.3% in early moves cited by AP News.

The next macro catalyst sits on the rates channel: the Bank of Japan has scheduled its Monetary Policy Meeting for Jan. 22-23, 2026, with the Statement on Monetary Policy slated for Jan. 23 and the Summary of Opinions due Feb. 2.

Liquidity note for desks running metal exposure: U.S. markets are closed on Jan. 19, 2026, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which historically concentrates price discovery into futures/FX venues and can widen intraday slippage on leveraged metal products.

What Markets Are Pricing In

Gold’s record print at $4,689/oz matters less than the tariff calendar at Feb. 1 and June 1 because systematic macro books map those dates into USD rate volatility and cross-asset correlation spikes.

If the BoJ on Jan. 23 indicates tighter policy while Washington simultaneously escalates trade restrictions, desks should expect convex moves in JPY crosses and mechanically higher demand for collateral-friendly havens, with silver’s $94/oz spike acting as a tell for funds that express the same hedge through higher beta and industrial tightness rather than pure store-of-value exposure.

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