News & Research

Short positions hold a slight majority in BTC perpetual futures across the top three exchanges by open interest over the last 24 hours. The aggregate ratio is 49.63% long to 50.37% short. Individual exchange ratios are as follows: Binance (49.53% long / 50.47% short), OKX (49.42% long / 50.58% short), and Bybit (49.34% long / 50.66% short).

Forced liquidations in the cryptocurrency perpetual futures market over the last 24 hours were led by Bitcoin (BTC) with $59.47 million, 59.85% of which were long positions. Ethereum (ETH) saw $41.46 million in liquidations, with longs accounting for 63.45%. Zcash (ZEC) recorded $11.11 million in liquidations, with long positions making up 81.39% of the total.

Approximately 1.759 million ETH, valued at around $5.5 billion, is currently in the queue to be staked on the Ethereum Beacon Chain, according to data from the analysis site ValidatorQueue. This marks the largest backlog since late August 2023. New stakers face a wait of roughly 30 days and 14 hours for their validators to become active, while the unstaking queue is currently empty.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs saw a net outflow of $94.73 million on Jan. 9, marking the third consecutive day of withdrawals, according to TraderT. BlackRock's ETHA led the outflows with $84.69 million, while Grayscale's ETHE recorded an outflow of $10.04 million.

Haseeb, a managing partner at Dragonfly, has predicted that the adoption of stablecoin cards will become a key theme in the cryptocurrency space in 2026, according to Cointelegraph. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he noted that these cards are experiencing explosive growth globally. Haseeb explained that this trend will allow users to pay for goods in dollars anytime and anywhere, often without realizing the transaction is based on cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has reduced its workforce due to poor performance in its institutional business division, CoinDesk reported. While the total number of layoffs was not disclosed, the report indicated that approximately one-third of the institutional sales department has been let go.

Bitcoin is trading sideways ahead of a key U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Trump administration's tariff policies, with the decision expected to dictate the cryptocurrency's next major price move, BeInCrypto reports. A ruling that deems the tariffs unconstitutional could ease corporate cost burdens, potentially reviving risk-on sentiment. Conversely, an unexpected outcome could trigger a sharp correction for BTC. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to issue its decision at 3:00 p.m. UTC on Jan. 9.

Rain, a stablecoin payment infrastructure company, has raised $250 million at a valuation of $1.95 billion, Bloomberg reported. The funding round was led by ICONIQ, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer, Lightspeed, and Galaxy Ventures. This latest investment brings Rain's total funding to $338 million.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that a planned second attack on Venezuela has been canceled. He described Venezuela's mass release of political prisoners as an important gesture toward peace, adding that the U.S. and Venezuela are currently cooperating well on modernizing the country's oil and gas infrastructure.

Evernorth, a crypto venture strategically backed by Ripple, is partnering with XRPfi infrastructure provider Doppler Finance to build a system that makes it easier for companies and institutions to utilize XRP. According to U.Today, Doppler Finance is a financial infrastructure company that uses XRP and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to help institutions generate yield. Through this collaboration, Evernorth will leverage Doppler's institutional-grade infrastructure to promote wider institutional adoption of XRP. Evernorth currently holds over $1 billion in XRP.