Weekly: Iran buys 500M USDT, $1.4B for the Trumps, and problems with the crypto law in the US

The week was tense: the market is back in risk-avoidance mode, the U.S. is stalling on crypto rules, banks are putting pressure on stablecoins, and politics and AI are throwing up topics that directly affect investor sentiment.

Bitcoin: dipped, chopped around and didn’t calm down 

BTC dipped: on January 19 from ~$94 000 to ~$92 000, on January 21 almost to ~$87 000, then held in the $88 000–$91 000 range. At the time of preparing the digest – about $87 924.

QCP Capital explain the drop by the risk-off regime due to escalating geopolitics: bitcoin reacts like a risk asset and is sensitive to news and rates. Additional pressure came from macro factors: tensions around Japan’s 10-year bonds and new U.S. tariffs on goods from eight European countries.

BTC forecasts: from harsh to super optimistic

The range here is максимальний:

• Mike McGlone of Bloomberg Intelligence allows for a scenario of bitcoin returning to $10 000 in 2026 and calls it a stress test for the market.
• Options traders, according to the article’s estimate, are pricing in BTC falling below $80 000 by mid-2026.
• Justin Bons of Cyber Capital talks about a long-term risk to bitcoin’s security over a 7–11 year horizon due to the gradual reduction of the security budget after halvings and the risks of 51% attacks, censorship, and double spending.
• ARK Invest in Big Ideas 2026, on the contrary, draws a big scenario: the crypto market cap up to $28 trillion by 2030, with bitcoin potentially taking more than half of that amount.

Whales: accumulating, but nervous

CryptoQuant writes that U.S. wallets that do not belong to exchanges or miners and hold 100–1000 BTC added more than 577 000 BTC over the year. This is estimated at about $53 billion, with a note that part may include ETF assets.

They also noted that so-called new whales control most of the Realized Cap. These are addresses with over 1000 BTC that bought coins less than 155 days ago. And an important nuance: during the latest declines, whales were the ones realizing the largest losses, selling into drops and exiting on short bounces. This looks like a lack of long-term confidence.

Strange story of the week: on Paradex the BTC price dropped to zero

On January 19, 2026, on the decentralized exchange Paradex in the Starknet ecosystem, the price of bitcoin briefly dropped to zero, after which a wave of liquidations followed. The volume of losses and the number of affected users are still unknown.

Ethereum: also declined, but the network is posting records

ETH moved down this week along with BTC: on January 19 the price reached $3150, and on January 21 it fell below $2900. At the time of preparing the digest, ETH was about $2 898,73.

On-chain there was a record: the 7-day average of transactions was 2.43 million, and gas was very low (down to ~$0,15), with activity growth stretching from mid-December after Fusaka. Citi warns that part of the figures may be inflated by fraudulent address poisoning campaigns. The Ethereum team separately emphasizes the acceleration of institutional use of the network for banks, tokenization, and AI.

U.S. and regulation: CLARITY is stuck, and banks enter the stablecoin game

According to journalist Eleanor Terrett, the White House may fully withdraw support for the CLARITY bill after Coinbase publicly criticized the document and left negotiations. Brian Armstrong said the company cannot support the version from the Senate Banking Committee due to restrictions for the industry. As a result, the bill’s consideration was postponed.

Terrett also writes that Coinbase’s criticism caused outrage in the White House: if the exchange does not return to negotiations and does not compromise on stablecoins, the bill could be delayed for a long time. Later, Armstrong said he was in Davos and plans to meet with executives of major U.S. banks to discuss CLARITY.

U.S. bitcoin reserve: the course was confirmed

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the Trump administration’s course toward favorable regulation of digital assets and the creation of a state bitcoin reserve. At the Davos forum, he said the government will stop selling confiscated bitcoins and will add them to the reserve of digital assets.

Politics and money: $1.4B for the Trump family and a lawsuit against JPMorgan

Bloomberg writes that the Trump family earned about $1.4 billion from crypto over the past year, and total wealth was estimated at $6.8 billion. Crypto projects there are already presented as one of the key business directions. Among the income sources they name World Liberty Financial (token sales and deals), a stake in the OFFICIAL TRUMP memecoin, and a stake in the American Bitcoin mining business created together with Hut 8.

A separate story of the week: Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon, accusing the bank of intentional debanking. He is seeking $5 billion in compensation and claims that in February 2021 the accounts were closed without explanation.

U.S. banks want to remove stablecoin yield

The American Bankers Association named curbing profitable stablecoins as one of the priorities for 2026. Their position is: do not allow payment stablecoins to become a functional analogue of deposits. That is why they insist on banning interest, yield, or any rewards to holders of such assets.

Iran and stablecoins: over 500M USDT and a trail to a local exchange

Elliptic discovered a network of wallets likely linked to the Central Bank of Iran, which held about 507 million USDT. According to experts, this could have been used to support the Iranian rial exchange rate under international sanctions.

The study is based on two known tranches of USDT purchases for dirhams in April and May 2025. This helped find a broader cluster of related wallets. The report notes that by June 2025 these funds were transferred to the local exchange Nobitex.

AI: OpenAI determines age, Anthropic sounds the alarm, and Grok trades stocks

OpenAI added age prediction to ChatGPT based on behavioral signals to automatically detect minors and enable stricter restrictions. If the system makes a mistake, age can be confirmed through verification.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in Davos criticized the export policy on AI chips and said that supplying powerful processors to China could have serious consequences for national security.

At the same time, Grok 4 from xAI leads in a real trading experiment: 8 models have been trading on the stock market since November 2025, with a $100 000 старт for each. As of January 21, 2026, Grok 4 was at about +7% or +$6979.

Memecoins: pump.fun launches an investment arm and a $3M hackathon

pump.fun announced the launch of its investment arm Pump Fund and the Build in Public hackathon with a $3 million prize pool. 12 projects can receive $250 000 each at a $10 million valuation plus mentoring support. Selection will follow a simple principle: winners are those who can attract the most community attention.

Opinion Kursoff

The week showed one thing well: crypto sentiment now breaks easily on geopolitics and regulation. So if you’re in the market, keep your focus on risk management, don’t get carried away by extreme forecasts, and watch what banks and regulators do with stablecoins. That’s where the biggest levers of influence on the entire market are right now.