The first U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) has fallen more than 20% from its post-launch peak, despite strong early institutional demand.
In this context, the Canary XRP ETF, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPC, closed the last session at $20.26, leaving it down about 23.9% from its launch.
Notably, the ETF rallied into the mid-$26 range shortly after launch before reversing lower. At the same time, XRPC has fallen about 8.5% in the latest session and is down more than 10% over the past five trading days.
While the ETF remains marginally positive on a one-month basis, up roughly 1.5%, the fund has recorded repeated failures to sustain rebounds. Year-to-date performance is essentially flat, masking the sharp decline from the launch high.
The weakness stands in contrast to the ETF’s strong debut. The Canary fund made history as the first U.S. spot XRP ETF, offering regulated exposure to XRP without direct token ownership, and drew heavy early trading volumes amid pent-up demand following years of regulatory uncertainty.
Institutional flows initially reinforced that optimism, with XRP spot ETFs absorbing about $483 million in December 2025 even as Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw outflows, pushing total assets to roughly $1.3 billion within weeks.
However, chart performance highlights a growing gap between inflows and price resilience.
After peaking shortly after launch, XRPC slipped into a volatile but persistent decline, suggesting ETF demand has been insufficient to offset weakness in the underlying XRP market and shifting risk appetite. Recent sessions also point to investor rebalancing after an extended period of inflows.
Indeed, the ETF’s performance comes at a time when XRP is showing weakness in line with broader cryptocurrency market sentiment, with the asset dropping below the $2 support zone.
📉 Bitcoin bounces to $89,500 as Trump strikes calmer tone in Greenland acquisition in Davos
Bitcoin BTC $89,109.82 mounted a modest bounce on Wednesday U.S. morning in the U.S. as Trump struck a more conciliatory tone on Greenland during a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos.
"I'm seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States, just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history," Trump said. "This will not be a threat to NATO."
"All I'm asking is a piece of ice," he added later during the speech, noting that he won't use force for the acquisition.
Bitcoin climbed to $89,500, up more than 1% from the session lows. Meanwhile, gold fell from its fresh record of almost $4,900, giving back some of the early gains.
Risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, saw sharp declines over the past days as investors grew increasingly concerned about rising tensions between U.S. and Europe over Greenland. Trump threatened to impose tariffs against several European countries.
🔴 Justin Sun Predicts a Better Year for Tron After an Impressive 2025
Justin Sun, founder of Tron (TRX), has predicted a better performance for the network in 2026. Sun believes the Tron network will outperform its 2025 performance in 2026, catalyzed by the mainstream adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and Web3 protocols.
🔸 Sun Applauds Tron Network For its 2025 Performance
According to Sun, 2026 will be a better year for the Tron network due to its cumulative strong fundamentals. Sun reposted a Messari report on X that showed palpable growth of the Tron network in 2025.
According to the report, the Tron network broke the $1 billion revenue mark in a single quarter for the first time since its inception and is up by 22.7% year over year (YoY).
The Tron network closed 2025 with a total stablecoin supply of $81.8 billion, of which nearly $81 billion was Tether’s USDT. Furthermore, the average daily USDT transfer volume surged by 4.9% quarter over quarter to $23.8 billion.
The report noted that the Tron ecosystem recorded impressive growth in 2025, catalyzed by its adoption by major institutional and cross-chain integrations. For instance, Ledger Live introduced TRX staking, and the coin was also launched on the Base chain. Additionally, USDT on Tron was cleared by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) for mainstream use.
Meanwhile, SunPerp achieved more than $25 billion in total trading volume, which also contributed to the chain’s revenue. However, the report noted that Tron’s DeFi total value locked decreased QoQ to close the year around $4.4 billion.
🔸 What’s Next?
The Tron network is well-positioned to grow in 2026, catalyzed by rising institutional investor demand and global regulatory clarity. The ongoing implementation of the GENIUS Act amid the potential passage of the CLARITY Act is a major trigger for Tron’s growth in 2026.
22.7With the expected capital rotation from the precious metal industry to the crypto market, TRX and the wider Tron ecosystem will significantly benefit.
🟠 Bitcoin plunges below $90,000 amid global risk asset selloff
Bitcoin BTC $90,533.33 dropped 3% to below $90,000 during U.S. morning trading on Tuesday after a meltdown in Japan’s government bond market combined with U.S. President Trump’s ongoing tariff threats against Europe to push risk assets sharply lower.
Ether ETH$3,027.68 fell more than 7% over the past 24 hours, sending the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network back below a crucial $3,000 mark for the first time since January 2.
Highlighting altcoin weakness, bitcoin's grip over the crypto market has been steadily climbing. The bitcoin dominance metric, which shows the largest crypto's market share of the overall digital asset market capitalization, rose to 59.8% on Tuesday, according to TradingView data.
"Volatility is back and so in keeping with risk assets, I expect bitcoin to trade lower in response and altcoins would likely be most impacted short-term here," Paul Howard at trading firm Wincent said in a note.
The Nasdaq is lower by nearly 2% on Tuesday. The Nikkei fell 2.5% overnight, while Germany's DAX declined 1%. Precious metals, though, continue to be the preferred safe haven, with gold soaring 3% and silver 7%, both hitting new record highs.
With today’s decline, bitcoin has given up much of its 2026 gains, now trading just 3% above its level at the start of the year.
📊 Cardano Needs This Level to Confirm End of Consolidation in Valid 1-2 Wave Pattern
The recent price development for Cardano (ADA) mirrors a 1-2 wave in a broader Elliot Wave Theory structure. However, Cardano needs to reach an identified price level to confirm the structure and the end of the wave 2 correctional push.
🔸 Cardano in a Valid 1-2 Wave Pattern?
Research firm More Crypto Online identified in its recent X post that Cardano is in a valid 1-2 wave pattern. An accompanying chart provides further context, showing whats appears to be an Elliott Wave pattern on the 30-minute timeframe.
The chart labelled the January 6 peak price of $0.43 as the end of the first wave of the structure. For context, this first wave began at the $0.32 lows on December 31, 2025, spurring a 34% surge to the early January high.
Notably, the chart suggested that wave 2—typically corrective—started after the end of the bullish session. This has led Cardano to drop to its January 19 low of $0.34 before rebounding to its current market standing.
🔸 Confirmation and Invalidation Points
Furthermore, the validity of this formation remains in contention, and More Crypto Online has shared points to confirm whether it is actually an Elliott Wave structure in the works. The platform highlighted that Cardano would confirm this pattern when it breaks above $0.404.
Reaching this price level, which aligns with the lower high formation on January 17, would also confirm that ADA has formed the low for the wave 2 corrective phase. Nonetheless, the analyst also identified the potential for further correction to retest the $0.34 low, which aligns with the 78.60% Fibonacci retracement level.
Meanwhile, Cardano can also invalidate this Elliot Wave structure formation if it drops to $0.328. This would imply a decline below recent lows, a move that would further add pressure on ADA’s price.
If wave 2 forms completely, the next is a bullish wave 3 phase, which typically is the largest uptrend in the Elliott Wave Theory.
Optimism’s OP token changed hands around $0.30 on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, slightly up in the past 24 hours as the community edges towards a key governance vote.
But having traded to intraday highs of $0.37 last week, the token’s dip to current levels risks allowing for a pullback to all-time lows of $0.25 reached in December.
Can Optimism Foundation’s plans for a buyback program that commits Superchain revenue to monthly OP purchases bolster bulls?
🔸 Optimism buyback details and implications
Optimism is set for a governance vote on January 22, 2026, following a proposal floated earlier this month.
The Optimism Foundation wants community approval to allocate half of the sequencer fees for open-market buybacks of OP.
💬 A proposal for the next chapter of Optimism The Optimism Foundation is putting forward a proposal to align the OP token with growing Superchain demand by directing 50% of incoming Superchain revenue to regular OP buybacks — Optimism (@Optimism) January 8, 2026
If the vote passes, the program will start in February, with 50% of Superchain revenue flowing to Optimism. Repurchases are set to occur over the next year.
The remaining 50% funds will be allocated to ecosystem grants, maintaining flexibility.
As with other models, such as dYdX’s 75% fee buybacks, Optimism aims to buy from the market. However, the tokens go back to the OP treasury rather than direct burns.
If the latter happens, supply reduction will signal confidence in OP and Superchain’s dominance.
“With this buyback mechanism, OP transitions from a pure governance token to a token that is tightly aligned with the growth of the Superchain,” Optimism wrote at the time.
The mechanism targets every enterprise that creates a new chain on the Superchain, with these expected to add to the underlying demand for OP.
🫨 50-Year Analyst Peter Brandt Warns of a Major Bitcoin (BTC) Drop! “You Don’t Need to Do This!”
Bitcoin continues to face difficulties due to the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, which have been in effect since the beginning of 2025.
Finally, with US President Donald Trump’s desire to gain control of Greenland and the renewed US-EU trade war, the market is experiencing volatility, and bearish predictions are emerging for Bitcoin.
At this point, Keith Alan, co-founder of the crypto market data platform Material Indicators, noted that a death cross has occurred in Bitcoin between the 21-week and 50-week moving averages.
Alan stated that this pattern historically precedes the formation of long-term market bottoms, suggesting a recovery near the 100-week moving average, around $86,000. Accordingly, Alan indicated that further declines in Bitcoin are possible, but he expects a rebound from $86,000.
Outside of this area, veteran investor Peter Brandt, known for correctly predicting the 2018 crash, also predicted a decline.
Peter Brandt, with 50 years of experience, predicted that the price of Bitcoin could fall even further.
Brandt’s analysis focuses on a chart pattern that has formed over the past two months and is called a rising wedge.
Accordingly, the analyst predicts that Bitcoin could fall significantly from its current price, potentially dropping to between $58,000 and $62,000.
This means BTC would experience a drop of more than 30% from its current level.
Brandt stated that Bitcoin is currently stuck in a downward trend channel and that further declines are highly likely unless strong buying pressure emerges.
“I think Bitcoin will fall to between $58,000 and $62,000.”But even if my prediction turns out to be wrong, I won’t be ashamed. So trolls don’t need to take a screenshot of this tweet.“I’m wrong about 50% of my predictions anyway. Being wrong doesn’t bother me.”
💵 2 millionaire-maker cryptocurrencies to buy in 2026
As the cryptocurrency market moves deeper into 2026, volatility has increased across digital assets. This environment has brought renewed focus to tokens that offer the potential for significant long-term returns.
🔸 Solana ($SOL )
Solana (#SOL ) has become one of the most active blockchain ecosystems, with network usage surging and transaction volumes hitting multimonth highs, signaling rising demand from both users and developers.
This momentum is reinforced by the rapid growth of real-world asset tokenization on the network, with tokenized assets surpassing $1 billion in value, bringing traditional finance use cases onchain and grounding activity in real economic demand.
Institutional involvement is further strengthening Solana’s outlook, as major asset managers and crypto firms roll out Solanalinked funds, lifting assets tied to the network beyond $1 billion.
Alongside improving infrastructure and expanding cross-chain interoperability, these trends are positioning Solana as an emerging core settlement layer rather than a high-beta altcoin, with substantial upside potential still ahead.
🔸 Chainlink ($LINK )
Chainlink (#LINK ) is increasingly viewed as a long-term growth asset due to its critical role in the blockchain ecosystem. In price terms, LINK was down more than 7% over the past 24 hours, trading at $12 as of press time.
As the leading decentralized oracle network, Chainlink supplies secure realworld data to smart contracts, underpinning much of decentralized finance and becoming essential for real-world asset tokenization.
With more institutions exploring blockchain-based financial products, demand for reliable and tamper-resistant data feeds continues to rise, reinforcing Chainlink’s core relevance.
Onchain trends suggest this growing importance is translating into market positioning. Activity among large holders has increased, a pattern that has historically preceded stronger price performance, while tightening supply dynamics could amplify future moves if demand accelerates.
🤔 Michael Saylor doesn’t believe $BTC is digital money
He’s said it on stage, in podcasts, on X, and repeated it for months. Strategy (formerly MicroStratgy) founder Michael Saylor doesn’t believe bitcoin (BTC) is digital money.
Digital money, a new phrase that joins his dozens of other invented terms, doesn’t seem to exist yet to any meaningful degree, in Saylor’s opinion.
Despite millennia of gold money, centuries of paper money, decades of fiat money, and years of digital fiat money — not to mention BTC’s 17 year history– humanity is still waiting for digital money.
BTC isn’t digital money but merely “the basis of digital money,” Saylor explained recently.
Unlike BTC, which Saylor defines as digital capital, digital money will apparently derive from BTC-collateralized digital credit.
Digital credit, in turn, is apparently Strategy’s Stretch (STRC) and similar products.
Strategy tries to keep STRC trading at a $100 price peg while paying a generous dividend of double or triple the average money market rate. He wants investment banks to buy a lot of it.
According to Saylor, BTC is capital, not money. BTC capitalizes Strategy’s credit creation which can then mix with fiat and other bank reserves to collateralize digital money.
Saylor has repeatedly cited this idea as not his own, but rather coming from the early Bitcoin community. Namely, that reference is almost certainly Hal Finney.
🔸 Saylor hearkens back to Hal Finney’s BTC banks
Indeed, Finney believed as early as 2009, “I see BTC as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions.”
Saylor agrees. “Strategy transforms digital capital (BTC) into digital credit,” Saylor emblazoned on a slide at his latest conference speech in Abu Dhabi.
🔵 Ethereum Exit Queue Clears as Weekly Chart Signals Shift
Ethereum’s validator exit queue dropped to zero, wiping out the wait to leave staking while the entry line still stretches past 45 days. At the same time, a widely shared weekly chart flagged an inverse head and shoulders setup as ETH trades near a major volume shelf.
🔸 Ethereum validator exit queue drops to zero as withdrawals clear
Ethereum’s validator exit queue fell to zero, signaling that no validators were waiting to leave the network at the time of the latest update. Data shown on the Ethereum Validator Queue dashboard, provided by Beaconcha.in, listed exit queue ETH at 0 and the wait time at 0 minutes, reflecting a fully cleared line for exits.
Meanwhile, the dashboard showed the network still facing heavy demand on the way in. The validator entry queue stood at about 2,597,854 ETH, with an estimated wait of 45 days and 2 hours, based on a churn setting of 256 per epoch. That gap between a cleared exit queue and a long entry queue pointed to net inflows into staking, since validators continued to line up to join while departures stayed absent.
The same dashboard also reported an 8.5 day “sweep delay,” which tracks the time it takes for balances to be processed and swept through the system. Even with the exit queue cleared, that delay can still affect when funds move through withdrawal mechanics, depending on validator status and scheduling.
Network totals stayed elevated in the snapshot. The dashboard listed about 977,886 active validators and roughly 36.0 million ETH staked, equal to 29.65% of supply, while the displayed annual percentage rate sat near 2.81%. The page showed the figures were last updated about 125 minutes before the capture.
💥 Hedera Powers Next-Generation Sports Ticketing Across 54 African Nations
MINGO has launched MINGO Tickets, a digital ticketing platform built on the Hedera network, alongside an expansion covering 54 countries across Africa. The company said the rollout will improve how fans access live events while giving organizers stronger tools to manage entry and reduce ticket-related challenges.
Live event ticketing remains vulnerable to fraud in many regions. Organizers often face duplicated tickets, repeated entry attempts, and high service costs. As more fans attend boxing and combat sports events across Africa, promoters have been searching for systems that can verify access reliably across different devices and network conditions.
💬 MINGO has secured an exclusive ticketing deal across 54 African countries.Through our partnership with African Boxing, MINGO Tickets will roll out at continental scale to address fraud and scalping while improving access for fans and organisers.Real-world adoption on @Hedera — MINGO (@mingoapps) January 16, 2026
MINGO Tickets is delivered as a progressive web app (PWA), which allows fans to access tickets through a mobile browser without downloading a separate application. The platform is designed to function across a wide range of smartphones, which is a key requirement in mobile-first markets.
MINGO said the platform supports high-volume attendance through fast processing and predictable costs, with ticket validation designed to prevent multiple uses of the same pass. The company is rolling out the platform through a partnership with African Boxing and the Yucateco Boxing League, targeting sports events across the continent.
🔵 Crypto Users’ Reignite Interest in $TRX Following an Impressive Rally
TRON blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, TRX, is attracting significant interest among crypto community members after displaying a consistent rally for the past month. The digital token has joined the top trends on CoinMarketCap after a steady rally that has resulted in a 15% price increase since the middle of December 2025.
💬 Nice to see TRX Trending again on @CoinMarketCap — H.E. Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) January 17, 2026
🔸 TRX Surged Against the Odds
It is worth noting that TRX’s growing popularity does not only stem from the cryptocurrency’s impressive rally. The move is unique, considering the overall nature of the crypto market, with the majority of tokens experiencing significant bearish pressure. Most digital assets that surged early this year did not sustain the bullish momentum, except TRX and a few others.
According to a crypto analyst on X, TRX’s latest display is typical of a cryptocurrency that is setting up for a strong bullish continuation. In his latest post, the analyst highlighted the technical implications of the cryptocurrency’s behavior, using historical data to analyze the TRX’s situation and the potential consequences for its price.
🔸 History Favors TRX’s Current Behavior
It is worth noting that TRX broke above a crucial trendline after spending months in consolidation under a descending resistance. Typically, such moves signify renewed vigor in the strength of cryptocurrency trends. According to historical data, TRX rallied significantly the last time it broke out of a similar resistance.
Using a screenshot of TRX’s historical behavior, the analyst highlighted similarities between the cryptocurrency’s latest move and its trend in Q2 2025. TRX broke above a descending trendline during the cited period and surged over 75% in a classic bull run.
At the moment, inflation in the US is 1.55%, which is the lowest level since May 2025 🗓
However, the Federal Reserve and Jerome Powell insist that the effect of tariffs has not yet fully manifested, and it's important to monitor the data at the beginning of 2026.
If inflation does not increase in the coming months, this will be a reason for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, which will have a positive impact on the crypto market beef cattle 🐂