CRYPTO KING 298

$ETH
💰Vitalik just posted what he calls the "walkaway test" for Ethereum: if he and the entire core dev team disappeared tomorrow, would ETH keep running and improving? His answer: not yet, but getting closer. Too many critical decisions still route through him and a handful of people.

He's right to worry. $ETH is supposed to be decentralized infrastructure, but it still has founder dependency. The merge worked, but every major upgrade debate still waits for Vitalik's opinion. Good that he's saying it out loud - means they're actually working on it, not pretending the problem doesn't exist.
#StrategyBTCPurchase
#ETHETFsApproved
#ETH
$ETH

$BTC Price Predictions for 2026

↗️ BULLS:

🟢 Arthur Hayes (BitMEX/Maelstrom): $200,000 by March 2026 (revised down from earlier $500K-$1M calls)

🟢 Charles Hoskinson (Cardano): $250,000

🟢 Robert Kiyosaki: $250,000

🟢 Tom Lee (Fundstrat): New ATH by January, then $150,000-$250,000 (note: internal firm report warns of possible correction to $60K-$65K in H1 2026)

🟢 JPMorgan: $170,000 (gold-based volatility model)

🟢 Bernstein: $150,000 in 2026, peak $200,000 in 2027

🟢 Standard Chartered: $150,000 (cut in half from $300,000)

🟢 Citi Research: $143,000 base / $189,000 bull / $78,500 bear

🤯 CAUTIOUS:

🟡 Galaxy Research: $50,000 OR $250,000 — equal odds, "too chaotic to predict"

🟡 Cathie Wood (ARK Invest): $500K by 2026 is outdated (2021). Current focus: $500K-$2.4M by 2030

📉BEARS:

🔴 Jurrien Timmer (Fidelity): $65,000-$75,000 - 2026 will be a "dormant year"

🔴 Peter Brandt: $58,000-$60,000 possible in 2026, $200,000 next bull cycle (~2029)

🔴 Mike McGlone (Bloomberg): $50,000 on the way to $10,000 - extremely bearishness

$BTC
$ETH

$LIT Lighter - A New Hyperliquid Competitor?

💡Lighter, one of the fastest-growing perp DEXs, announced the launch of the LIT token and automatically distributed 25% of the Total Supply to participants of the first two points seasons. No claim needed – tokens went straight to wallets, and crypto folks are celebrating a fat airdrop.

💡 Over the past 30 days, the platform showed ~$200B in trading volume, surpassing Hyperliquid ($HYPE) and Aster ($ASTER) in this metric.

💡 The project's tokenomics split the community in half: 50% for ecosystem/community, 50% for team/investors. Insider tokens are locked for one year, followed by a planned unlock over 3 years.

💡A real battle has unfolded on Polymarket – traders have placed $71M+ on predictions for the LIT token's FDV.

💡 Opinions are divided online: some call the tokenomics clean with a community focus, while others warn about dump risks due to the high insider percentage.

💡Whales are already actively jumping into Lighter – both shorting and longing. The LIT token is currently trading at around $2.7.
$LIT

#USNonFarmPayrollReport #USJobsData

Lately there's been a lot of talk about Zcash and what's happening there. Here's the full story and everything you need to know today.
The beginning. 2013 - a group of cryptographers at Johns Hopkins University, led by Matthew Green, set out to solve Bitcoin's biggest weakness: lack of privacy. They invented zk-SNARKs, a mathematical proof that lets you verify a transaction without revealing sender, receiver, or amount. In 2016, cypherpunk Zooko Wilcox launched Zcash through Electric Coin Company. Edward Snowden and Naval Ravikant backed it. Within a year it hit $1B market cap.
How it works. Unlike Bitcoin where everything is public, Zcash has two address types: transparent (t-addresses) and shielded (z-addresses). Users choose their privacy level. The tech impressed JP Morgan enough to integrate it into their blockchain. Problem: less than 1% of transactions actually use full shielding - Chainalysis can trace over 99% of ZEC activity.
The golden years and the fall. First week after launch - ZEC traded above $5,000. Then a long decline through 2018-2023, bottoming out below $30. In late 2025 - a sudden revival: +816% for the year, price hit $744, market cap crossed $10B. Privacy coins became relevant again.
The crisis. January 7, 2026 - the entire ECC team resigned. CEO Josh Swihart called it "constructive discharge": the Bootstrap nonprofit board changed employment terms so drastically that staying meant compromising integrity. He named specific board members as having "moved into clear misalignment with Zcash's mission." The team is now forming a new company and building the "cashZ" wallet.
What now. The protocol works fine - it's open source, decentralized. But privacy coins live on active development. No team means no upgrades, no security patches. ZEC dropped 7-8% on the news, down 18% year-to-date. Founder Zooko Wilcox stayed neutral, says he trusts the board members. Two camps, unclear future. Classic crypto governance drama - but with real stakes for privacy tech.
$BTC
$ETH
#StrategyBTCPurchase #USJobsData #USJobsData #BitcoinETFMajorInflows

$BTC
SEC chair Gary Gensler just confirmed the US government seized Bitcoin from Venezuela. Not a hack, not a freeze - an actual seizure of a sovereign nation's BTC holdings.
🤨
The amount and legal mechanism weren't disclosed, but this is the first time we're hearing about direct state-level crypto confiscation by the US from another country.
🤨
This matters because it proves what skeptics always said: if they can take it from a government, the "unstoppable money" narrative has some serious asterisks. Venezuela probably had terrible OpSec, but the precedent is now public. Worth noting if you're a country considering BTC reserves.

If your country has a lot of oil and bitcoins - you are at risk😂