Whale transfers of BTC to Binance decelerated in January 2026 after heavier December activity, according to Binance data. Year to date, about 15,800 BTC moved to the exchange, 42.5% slower than December's 37,133 BTC, while BTC briefly topped $97,500 before pulling back to $95,449.56. Mean deposits stayed above 20 BTC, and whales accounted for 20.85% of inflows.

On January 14, 2026, Ethereum staking surpassed 30% of the total supply, with approximately 36 million ETH locked. The validator entry queue reached its highest level since 2023, with more than 2.34 million ETH awaiting activation and waits reported up to 48 days. Bitmine added 186,650 ETH in the past day and anticipates up to $500 million in annualized rewards.

On January 14 2026, Vitalik Buterin argued that Ethereum has now realized the Web3 architecture first outlined in 2014, combining its proof-of-stake L1 with scaling and storage side projects. He highlighted L2 networks, ZK-EVMs, Waku and IPFS as key pieces of the stack, while Ethereum continues to anchor DeFi with deep liquidity and hundreds of thousands of active wallets as ETH trades above $3,328.08.

An early Ethereum whale completed the distribution of more than 154,000 ETH, moving the final 26,000 coins to Bitstamp. The holder bought at a $517 average and could realize about $274M in net gains, while ETH held above $3,100 and daily volumes approached $20B.

On January 12, 2026, Tether froze $182M in USDT held across five TRON wallets, after tracing activity allegedly tied to known scams. Between 2023 and 2025, the issuer has blocked a cumulative $3.3B in stablecoins and blacklisted 7,268 addresses across Ethereum and TRON. TRON-based USDT supply has grown to over 82B tokens, remaining a key rail for P2P payments despite ongoing scrutiny over illicit use.

On January 8, 2026, the ETH Coinbase premium retreated to levels last seen in February 2025, and ETH traded around $3,110.57. Weaker U.S. spot demand and cautious derivatives activity left price capped below $3,300, with open interest at $17.78B and the fear-and-greed index at 49. A stronger bid may be needed for a breakout.

BNB Smart Chain is scheduled to implement the Fermi hard fork on January 14, 2026, targeting shorter block times and higher throughput. The upgrade follows the Fourier hard fork on Op BNB Chain on January 7, which reduced its block interval from 500 to 250 milliseconds. Despite these network improvements, BNB has dropped below $900 amid a broader market decline, with price volatility driven by long liquidations.

On January 7, 2026, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission opened trading for the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) on Solana through Kraken Pro. FRNT is a state-launched, USD-backed stablecoin whose reserve interest supports Wyoming’s school program, and the token can also be accessed via other platforms and bridged to multiple chains.

On January 6, 2026, on-chain researchers observed multiple 100 ETH withdrawals from Tornado Cash consolidating to one wallet, followed by 128,808 ETH reaching a ProveX-linked address. Analysts also tied these flows to 112,987 ETH sent by Richard Heart in November 2025. ProveX's sacrifice phase is nearing its end, with a 6.25% rate increase from January 8.