Crypto

$88K on edge as Senate reforms and GameStop moves collide — Bitcoin price prediction flags a critical make-or-break zone. The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC at $88K as BIP-110 Adoption and GameStop Fuel a Make-or-Break Zone appeared first on Cryptonews.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded their weakest performance in nearly a year, shedding $1.33 billion in net outflows. The post US Spot Bitcoin ETFs See Worst Week in One Year After $1.33B Outflows appeared first on Cryptonews.

Here's what ChatGPT thinks about XRP's potential in the following week.

The Gemini-owned NFT platform will close on Feb. 23, 2026, entering withdrawal-only mode as another major casualty of the sector’s prolonged downturn. Nifty Gateway, one of the earliest and most recognizable NFT marketplaces, is set to shut down operations next month, marking another high-profile exit amid the sector’s prolonged downturn. “Today, we are announcing that the Nifty Gateway platform will be closing on February 23, 2026,” the Gemini-owned platform wrote in a Saturday post on X, adding that it has already entered withdrawal-only mode, giving users roughly one month to move any remaining NFTs or funds off the site. A shutdown notice is now displayed on Nifty Gateway’s homepage, and users can withdraw assets either through a linked Gemini Exchange account or directly to their bank via Stripe. Read more

The spike in Polymarket odds comes just days after United States President Donald Trump said “we’re probably going to end up in another Democrat shutdown.” Polymarket betters are pricing in a 77% chance that the US government will shut down again before the end of January, marking a 67% increase over the past 24 hours. It comes as the CLARITY Act, a significant crypto bill aimed at providing more clarity around regulations, is still making its way through Congress, with previous delays largely blamed on the record 43-day US government shutdown in October and November. Political commentator Collin Rugg highlighted the surging Polymarket odds in an X post on Saturday, noting that it came shortly after US Senator Chuck Schumer announced that Senate Democrats would not “provide the votes to proceed” to the appropriations bill if funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is included. Read more

Authorities have not confirmed the exact amount missing, but a local report put the loss at $47.7 million, possibly stolen after an agency worker clicked a phishing link.

The extended outflow streak comes as a widely used crypto sentiment indicator has stayed within the “Extreme Fear” range since Wednesday. US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have extended their outflow streak to five days as crypto market sentiment continues to wane. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs posted $103.5 million in net outflows on Friday, continuing an outflow streak that began the previous Friday. Over the five days, including the four-day trading week in the US shortened by Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, total outflows reached approximately $1.72 billion, according to Farside data. Read more

Most respondents emphasized that merchants lack the infrastructure to support crypto payments for everyday transactions.

Crypto sales are taxable under current United States policy, but lawmakers have proposed tax exemptions for small transactions. The biggest obstacle to Bitcoin (BTC) being used as a payment method is tax policy, not scaling technology that reduces settlement times and transaction costs, according to Pierre Rochard, a board member for Bitcoin treasury company Strive.  “Here’s a metaphor: the best athlete can win against the worst athlete 100% of the time, if the best athlete plays. It drops to 0% if he doesn’t play and lets the weak athlete win,” Rochard said about BTC’s current lack of use as a method of payment. In December 2025, the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a non-profit policy advocacy organization, sounded the alarm on the lack of a de minimis tax exemption for small Bitcoin transactions. Read more

It’s about deposits and who gets paid on them, argues Le.

Bitcoin behaves more like an "ATM" during uncertain times, with investors quickly selling it to raise cash.

The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) memecoin had a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the US White House published its post. The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) token, a memecoin launched on the Solana layer-1 blockchain network, surged by about 564% following a social media post from the United States White House. On Friday, the White House published a social media post on X of US President Donald Trump and a penguin holding hands and walking through the snow, which went viral. PENGUIN traded at a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the post and recorded $244 million in trading volume in the 24 hours after the post, according to SolanaFloor. Read more

Ethereum researcher Justin Drake said the ecosystem is moving from research to execution as the threat from quantum computing draws closer.

The firm argued crypto can counter AI centralization by giving users control over identity, data ownership, and payments.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman on Jan. 21 released updated text for a crypto market structure bill and set a committee markup for Jan. 27. The draft bill, titled the “Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act,” would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a defined framework to supervise parts of the spot crypto market when […] The post CFTC’s $150 million war chest to stop failing crypto exchanges delaying withdrawals and weaponize complaints appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Brian Armstrong returns from World Economic Forum with message: traditional finance is taking crypto seriously

The Bitcoin proposal caps arbitrary data in an attempt to combat spam from non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network. The number of Bitcoin (BTC) nodes signaling support for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110), a temporary soft fork limiting the amount of data included in each transaction at the consensus level, rose to 2.38%.  583 out of 24,481 nodes are running BIP-110, and the primary node software implementation for running the soft fork proposal is Bitcoin Knots, according to The Bitcoin Portal. BIP-110 limits the size of transaction outputs to 34 bytes and caps the OP_RETURN data limit to 83 bytes. The temporary soft fork will be deployed for 1 year, with possible extension or alteration after the 1-year term, according to the proposal’s GitHub page. Read more

Agora CEO Nick van Eck sees stablecoin adoption shifting to real-world business for cross-border payments.

ETHZilla is betting on bringing real-world assets on blockchain rails after it sold at least $114.5 million of its ETH stash over the past months.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its delayed Personal Income and Outlays report on Jan. 22, publishing October and November PCE inflation together. The print put headline PCE at 0.2% month over month in both months, with headline PCE at 2.7% year over year in October and 2.8% in November. Core PCE was also […] The post Hidden inflation risks are lurking in “patched” data, leaving Bitcoin stuck in a high-stakes waiting game appeared first on CryptoSlate.