On January 16 and January 18, 2026, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rejected suggestions that the White House had pulled its support for the CLARITY Act and stressed that talks on the crypto market structure bill are continuing. Coinbase has paused backing for the legislation over its potential impact on DeFi, tokenized stocks, and stablecoin yields, while the Senate Banking Committee has postponed a planned markup to allow more time for negotiations.

Axie Infinity’s AXS token climbed 39% in the last 24 hours and over 50% in the past week, while trading volume surged to $326 million. The price is now testing the upper boundary of a long-running descending channel near $1.50, a level that could open the door to further upside or trigger a pullback if bears step in.

Market analyst Paul Bennett reports XRP-linked futures open interest has reached $4.03 billion, signaling widespread leverage on venues including Binance and CME. CoinGecko data shows XRP is up 10.2% over the past month and trading near $2.17, while a $30 million long and shrinking spot volumes point to a fragile, derivatives-driven setup.

BMNR is pursuing a 5% share of Ethereum’s supply and says it manages large ETH holdings with staking income, alongside a $200 million investment in Beast Industries. Analysts highlight recent multi‑million ETH buys and structural demand from Digital Asset Treasuries as they discuss a potential path toward a $12,000 year‑end price versus a $3,500 high.

Crypto analytics data indicate that XRP whales accumulated more than 50 million XRP worth about $103 million over the last week while the price trades slightly above $2.05. At the same time, XRP balances on Binance have fallen from over 3 billion tokens before the October 10 crash to around 2.6 billion, the lowest level in roughly two years. This combination of large-scale accumulation and shrinking exchange reserves could set the stage for a potential supply-driven price move if current trends persist.

Analyst Tyrex warns that Bitcoin's structure resembles April 2022 and, if the uptrend fails, projects an 11.04% slide toward $86,000–$84,000 while price hovers near $95,000. Separately, CryptoXLarge maps January–May 2026: quiet accumulation, a February surge, a March ATH around $240,000, an April bull trap, and a May flash crash.

On January 18, 2026, Donald Trump denied ever offering the Federal Reserve chair role to Jamie Dimon and said Dimon is unfit for the job. He also said he will sue JPMorgan within two weeks over alleged political debanking after January 6, as bank shares slid, with JPMorgan down around 5% over the last week.

On Saturday, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said on X that Solana must keep iterating and even envisaged network fees funding AI-assisted code updates. His comments contrasted with Vitalik Buterin's "walkaway test" vision for Ethereum, which emphasizes long-term self-sustainability without ongoing developer guidance.