The House passed a funding bill to end the longest US government shutdown in history, which had previously delayed crypto ETF approvals and key crypto bills. The longest US government shutdown on record is finally set to conclude, with the House of Representatives voting through a contested funding bill on Wednesday. The bill is now headed to US President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it Wednesday night. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers staunchly debated the bill in the House of Representatives, ahead of a final vote that ultimately ended in favor of the bill, with 222 votes in favor and 209 against. Read more
With crypto markets failing to meaningfully rally toward the end of 2025, this only sets up 2026 for more upside, according to Bitwise’s Matt Hougan. Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan is more confident that crypto markets will boom in 2026, particularly as there hasn’t been a late-2025 rally yet. Speaking to Cointelegraph at The Bridge conference in New York City on Wednesday, Hougan said a crypto market rally at the end of 2025 would have fit the four-year cycle thesis, meaning 2026 would mark the start of a bear market, similar to 2022 and 2018. When asked to revise his prediction about whether the crypto market will boom in 2026, Hougan said: “I’m actually more confident in that quote. The biggest risk was [if] we ripped into the end of 2025 and then we got a pullback.” Read more
Bitcoin’s momentum loss continues as long-term holders add to market selling pressure, and rising US dollar strength leads investors to reduce their exposure to risk. Key takeaways: Dormant Bitcoin holders moving large sums to exchanges raises concerns about long-term confidence amid growing concerns about the potential impact of quantum computing. Strong inflows into Bitcoin ETFs failed to lift sentiment, with traders instead rotating toward fast-rising privacy coins, such as ZEC and DCR. Read more
Data shows that BTC’s “average annual returns have gradually declined, with no peaks at all in the last cycle, confirming the hypothesis that Bitcoin's risk/return structure has changed.” The phenomenon of financial bubbles is hotly debated among industry operators, and there are several academic papers on the subject, starting with Professor Didier Sornette’s 2014 study of financial bubbles. In fact, the paper defines a “bubble” as a period of unsustainable growth with prices rising faster and faster, i.e., growing more than exponentially. Obviously, bubbles by definition are destined to burst and bring prices back to their starting value or worse. In the recent past, Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced periods of more than exponential growth, followed by very sharp declines, called “crypto winter,” a period when no one talked about Bitcoin and other assets anymore, meaning there was a freeze around the sector, and prices collapsed. Previous declines following the Bitcoin price bubble were -91%, -82%, -81%, and -7...