Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Trend Research has lifted its Ether holdings above 601,000 ETH using borrowed stablecoins.
• The firm is now the third largest corporate Ether holder despite being unlisted.
• Fundstrat expects Ether to fall toward $1,800 in the first quarter of 2026.

As 2026 approaches, Ether is becoming a clear dividing line for large crypto focused firms.

Some companies are increasing exposure aggressively, while others are preparing for a potential downturn in the months ahead.

Recent on chain data and market positioning show that corporate strategies around Ether are no longer aligned, reflecting different expectations around price behaviour, liquidity conditions, and the pace of crypto adoption within the financial system.

Trend Research pushes ahead

Hong Kong based investment firm Trend Research has continued to accumulate Ether despite growing discussion of downside risks in early 2026.

Blockchain data shared by Lookonchain shows the firm recently acquired about $35 million worth of ETH, lifting its total holdings above 601,000 ETH.

At current prices, the position is valued at roughly $1.83 billion.

The same data indicates that Trend Research has borrowed around $958 million in stablecoins from the decentralised lending protocol Aave.

Its average purchase price stands near $3,265 per ETH. Lookonchain published these details in a Monday post on X.

According to a post by founder Jack Yi, Trend Research plans to keep buying Ether regardless of short term price moves of a few hundred dollars.

Alongside ETH, the firm also maintains a heavy position in the Trump family linked World Liberty Financial token, underlining a broader high conviction crypto stance going into next year.

Corporate holder rankings shift

With more than 601,000 ETH, Trend Research now ranks as the third largest corporate Ether holder.

It sits behind BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink Gaming.

However, because Trend Research is not publicly listed, it does not appear on several widely followed tracking platforms, including the StrategicEthReserve.

BitMine, the largest corporate Ether holder, has historically relied on a dollar cost averaging strategy rather than large single phase accumulation.

The contrast highlights how firms with significant balance sheets are adopting different approaches as uncertainty builds around the next market cycle.

Fundstrat flags downside risk

While some firms continue to accumulate, others are bracing for a possible drawdown.

Fundstrat Global Advisors recently circulated an internal research note projecting that Ether could fall to a local bottom around $1,800 in the first quarter of 2026.

Screenshots of the note emerged on Dec. 21 and were attributed to Fundstrat co-founder and managing partner Tom Lee.

The analysis pointed to a meaningful pullback across major crypto assets in the first half of 2026, followed by the formation of a durable low either in the first or third quarter before a recovery into year-end.

The forecast drew attention because Lee is also chairman of BitMine, which holds roughly $12.3 billion worth of Ether, making it the largest known corporate ETH holder.

Smart money stays cautious

Positioning data suggests that professional traders are also leaning defensive.

According to blockchain intelligence platform Nansen, traders labelled as smart money remain net short on Ether by about $117 million.

At the same time, Nansen data shows these traders added around $15 million in long positions over the past 24 hours.

The move points to a modest pickup in risk appetite, even as overall positioning continues to reflect caution around near term price direction.

The post Why major crypto firms are diverging on Ether ahead of 2026 appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Alt5 Sigma faces scrutiny after missing filings and hiring an auditor whose licence expired earlier this year.
• Trump-linked crypto deal draws attention as governance gaps and auditor penalties raise oversight concerns.
• Board exits, audit delays, and legal disclosures put Alt5 Sigma at risk of Nasdaq delisting.

Alt5 Sigma, a US-listed crypto firm that struck a high-profile deal with a Trump-backed digital asset venture, is facing growing regulatory and governance scrutiny after a series of audit, filing, and board-level disruptions, Financial Times reported.

The company is yet to publish overdue financial results and is now working with an audit firm whose licence to practise lapsed earlier this year.

The developments have raised fresh questions about oversight at the company just months after it committed to holding large volumes of a politically connected crypto token.

Alt5 Sigma drew attention in August when it agreed to buy and hold tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by the Trump family.

The deal also saw Eric Trump join Alt5 Sigma as a board observer, while World Liberty Financial became an investor in the company.

Since then, Alt5 Sigma has struggled to meet its regulatory obligations, triggering concerns among investors and regulators.

Auditor under review

In December, Alt5 Sigma appointed Victor Mokuolu CPA PLLC as its new auditor.

However, filings in Texas show that the firm’s licence to practise expired in August and had not been renewed as of December 26.

Under state rules, the firm is barred from carrying out audit work until the licence is reactivated.

Alt5 Sigma told Financial Times, its auditor is undergoing a mandatory peer review under Texas State Board of Accountancy regulations, with the process expected to conclude by the end of January 2026.

The company said no audit or review of its financial statements will be issued until the firm’s licence becomes active.

While Victor Mokuolu renewed his personal certified public accountant licence on August 31, his firm’s licence remained inactive at year-end.

Past regulatory penalties

The audit firm has previously faced enforcement action.

In 2023, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board fined Victor Mokuolu CPA PLLC $30,000 for failing to notify the regulator about audits of six public companies it conducted in 2022.

The Texas board imposed an additional $15,000 penalty last year for the same violations.

The firm has also been working for more than two years to address deficiencies that resulted in a failing grade under the profession’s peer review process in 2023.

Despite this, it disclosed 30 small-cap audit clients in a recent regulatory filing.

Mokuolu founded the firm in 2020 after working in the oil and gas industry.

Filing delays and board gaps

Alt5 Sigma has not filed its quarterly results for the period ending in late September, placing it at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq.

The company attributed the delay partly to the timeliness and responsiveness of its previous auditor, which formally resigned in November.

Governance issues have compounded the pressure.

Chief financial officer Jonathan Hugh, hired around the time of the Trump-linked deal, left after three months.

Chief executive Peter Tassiopoulos exited in October.

Board member David Danziger resigned last month, leaving Alt5 Sigma in violation of requirements to maintain an audit committee of a certain size with accounting expertise.

Corporate shifts and disclosures

Alt5 Sigma was incorporated in July 2024 by biotech firm JanOne Inc., which merged with Alt5 Sigma and adopted its name in the same month.

JanOne had previously rebranded in 2019, having earlier operated as Appliance Recycling Centers of America.

The company says it provides infrastructure that allows financial institutions to integrate with digital assets.

As of December 8, it held about 7.3 billion $WLFI tokens valued at roughly $1.1 billion.

Since August, its chair has been Zack Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial and son of Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for peace negotiations.

Alt5 Sigma has also disclosed that its Canadian subsidiary and former principal were found criminally liable by a Rwandan court in May for offences including illicit enrichment and money laundering.

That ruling is under appeal, with both parties denying wrongdoing.

The post Trump-linked crypto firm faces auditor scrutiny as financial turmoil deepens appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The Fermi hard fork will cut block times to 250ms, enabling faster DeFi and real-time apps.
• It will also introduce extended voting and partial indexing, leading to stability and lighter nodes.
• The experimental BAL showed ~18.6% execution gains in local tests.

BNB Smart Chain is preparing for a major protocol upgrade early next year.

The network’s upcoming Fermi hard fork, scheduled for mainnet activation in January 2026, signals a renewed push toward faster block times, higher throughput, and infrastructure designed for time-sensitive applications.

Notably, the upgrade follows months of testing and reflects broader efforts across the blockchain sector to close the performance gap with traditional financial systems.

BNB Smart Chain block times set for a major cut

According to a press release on GitHub, the Fermi hard fork is set to activate on the BNB Smart Chain mainnet on Jan. 14, after roughly two months of live testing on the Fermi testnet.

At the core of the upgrade is a sharp reduction in block times, which will fall to 250 milliseconds from the current 750 milliseconds.

This change places BNB Smart Chain firmly in the sub-second block time category.

It is designed to support applications that depend on rapid confirmation, including high-frequency trading tools, real-time gaming, and advanced decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols.

Shorter block intervals often come with trade-offs, especially around network communication and validator coordination.

To address this, the Fermi upgrade introduces extended voting parameters that help compensate for message propagation delays between nodes.

These adjustments aim to preserve consensus stability even as blocks are produced three times faster than before.

The result is a network that can process transactions more quickly without sacrificing correctness or security, a balance that has proven difficult for many layer-1 blockchains.

Currently, BNB Smart Chain ranks among the most actively used layer-1 networks, processing around 165 transactions per second, according to Chainspect.

This places behind L1 networks like Solana, which currently process up to 799 transactions per second.

With the Fermi hard fork, BNB Smart Chain aims for faster block production and reduced confirmation delays, especially during peak sessions, which would be important for DeFi applications.

The upgrade also introduces a new partial-ledger indexing mechanism. Instead of forcing users and node operators to download the full historical ledger, the new system allows participants to sync only the data they need.

This will significantly reduce storage and computing requirements, making it easier to run nodes and interact with the network.

Experimental gains point to future potential

Notably, the Fermi hard fork builds on recent experimental work aimed at improving execution performance, with one notable effort being the v1.6.4-feature-BAL7928 client release introduced late last year.

That experimental release implements a non-consensus Block-Access-List, or BAL, based on EIP-7928 and similar in design to BEP-592.

Rather than altering consensus rules, BAL data is shared through peer-to-peer block propagation messages, allowing for more efficient transaction execution when the data is available.

In local testing environments, the BAL implementation delivered an average performance improvement of roughly 18.6% in million gas per second.

Developers note, however, that real-world benefits depend on broad network adoption, as nodes only gain performance improvements when peers also support the feature.

As competition intensifies among layer-1 blockchains, these upgrades position the BNB Smart Chain network to better serve high-demand applications and growing user activity.

This will possibly support renewed interest in Binance Coin (BNB), thus spurring a price rebound from the three-month decline, where it has dropped to around $833.48 from its October 2025 peak of $1,369.99.

The post BNB Smart Chain’s Fermi hard fork scheduled to launch in January 2026 appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Uniswap’s token UNI traded at $5.90 on December 26, 2025.
• Bulls are eyeing momentum as a key proposal passes
• A 100 million UNI token burn might buoy prices

The Uniswap community has approved a groundbreaking governance proposal known as “UNIfication,” marking a pivotal shift for the leading decentralized exchange (DEX).

This decision activates protocol fees and initiates a massive token burn.

Uniswap wants to potentially transform UNI from a simple governance tool into an asset that captures real economic value from the platform’s activity.

With trading volumes consistently high, this move could spark renewed interest and upward pressure on the token’s price.

Uniswap passes “UNIfication” proposal

The UNIfication proposal, put forward jointly by Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation, sailed through governance voting with near-unanimous backing.

Over 125 million UNI votes were cast in favor during the multi-day process, dwarfing the mere hundreds in opposition and easily surpassing the required quorum.

At its heart, the proposal flips on the long-dormant protocol fee switch. Uniswap, the top DEX in cryptocurrency, handles roughly $2 billion in daily trading volume, producing hundreds of millions in annualized fees based on data from platforms like DeFiLlama.

Previously, these fees went entirely to liquidity providers, leaving UNI holders with only governance rights and no direct tie to the exchange’s performance.

Now, a portion of fees will flow to an on-chain system specifically built to reduce token supply through burns. This creates a direct connection: higher platform usage leads to more tokens removed from circulation, which could support price appreciation over time.

In addition, the approval triggers a one-time retroactive burn of 100 million UNI tokens from the treasury.

Valued at approximately $590 million based on recent market prices, this action compensates for potential fees that might have accumulated since Uniswap’s launch in 2018 if the switch had been enabled earlier.

The changes will take effect following a short governance timelock period, solidifying Uniswap’s evolution toward greater sustainability and alignment between protocol growth and token holders.

UNI price signals reversal around $5.90

Following the proposal’s passage, UNI has shown signs of building momentum, trading around the $5.90 level as markets digest the deflationary implications.

Technical indicators point to a potential bullish reversal after a period of consolidation.

As the chart below shows, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) currently hovers above the neutral territory near 53. It’s upsloping and indicating neither overbought nor oversold conditions. This positioning leaves ample room for upward movement without immediate risk of exhaustion. It suggests buyers could step in aggressively on positive developments.

More encouraging is the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), where the histogram has turned positive in recent readings. This reflects growing bullish momentum, and a classic setup for trend reversals.

Analysts note that sustained momentum here could propel UNI toward short-term targets. In this context, the $6.50-$6.60 range could prove crucial for bulls if volume increases.

The combination of these indicators, alongside the fundamental catalyst from the fee activation and supply reduction, supports an optimistic price outlook. As protocol activity ties directly to token burns, UNI appears poised for renewed strength in the coming months.

The post Uniswap price gains as 100M UNI burn proposal passes appeared first on CoinJournal.

• XRP price dropped below $2.00 this week.
• Bulls are holding firm near $1.85 amid 30% volume spike.
• Ripple has extended its funds inflows,

XRP price is showing bullish resilience as it holds above $1.85 amid a significant volume increase.

As broader digital asset markets navigate post-Christmas sessions, the Ripple-associated token demonstrates underlying strength, supported by institutional interest and improving market dynamics.

Ripple sees market action as XRP holds $1.85

Over the Christmas period, XRP exhibited relatively subdued price movement, consolidating around the $1.85 level.

Bulls successfully defended key support below $1.90, preventing deeper corrections despite reduced participation typical of holiday trading.

This steadfast defence has positioned the asset for a potential rebound, particularly if momentum builds in the upcoming post-holiday sessions.

Despite the muted price movement, spot trading volume registered a notable 30% increase in the past 24 hours.

Per CoinMarketCap, Ripple’s cryptocurrency attracted over $2 billion in daily volume on Friday, the metric up 30% within the 25 hours.

This signals renewed interest from market participants, even as the dip below $2.00 looks to offer a buy opportunity

This uptick in activity coincides with positive developments in the wider cryptocurrency space.

While XRP has shown modest gains as bulls eye $2.00, Bitcoin reclaimed the $88,000 threshold. The flagship cryptocurrency’s recovery above this level has provided a supportive backdrop, lifting sentiment across altcoins, including XRP.

Analysts note that the holiday lull often results in compressed volatility. However, the latest volume spike suggests accumulating buying pressure.

Should trading liquidity return robustly in the new year, technical indicators point to an upside breakout.  The $1.90 area serves as the immediate hurdle.

XRP ETFs hit $1.25 billion net assets milestone

Institutional adoption of XRP continues to accelerate, as spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) dedicated to the token have surpassed a significant benchmark. Total net assets under management across these products have now exceeded $1.25 billion, marking a rapid accumulation phase since their launch.

Consistent inflows have driven this growth, with recent sessions adding over $11 million in fresh capital. This milestone underscores strong demand from professional investors seeking regulated exposure to XRP, even as spot prices remain range-bound.

The steady inflow pattern contrasts with occasional outflows seen in more established Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, highlighting XRP’s appeal in diversified crypto portfolios.

Market observers attribute the robust ETF performance to growing confidence in Ripple’s ecosystem, including advancements in cross-border payments and regulatory clarity.

As these funds continue to attract capital, they provide a stabilising force for XRP’s price, potentially setting the stage for broader appreciation in 2026.

Overall, XRP’s current firmness amid heightened volume reflects a maturing asset class resilient to seasonal slowdowns.

With institutional inflows reaching new highs and technical setups favouring bulls, the token appears well-positioned for potential gains as market activity normalises.

The post XRP price holds firm amid 30% volume spike appeared first on CoinJournal.