The debate between the Bitcoin (BTC) and Zcash (ZEC) communities intensified on Sunday as the price of Zcash recovered to over $700, after falling to a low of $598 on Saturday.
“The ‘Bitcoin only, everything else is a scam’ crowd is going to get really twisted trying to figure out what to say about Zcash,” the CEO of investment firm Bitwise, Hunter Horsley, said in an X post, which ignited a firestorm of responses.
“No, we’re pretty comfortable calling this obviously coordinated pump and dump of a VC coin a scam,” Bit Paine said in response, referencing Zcash’s 1,500% rally since October.
Zcash experienced a historic price rally that began in October. Source: TradingView
Mert Mumtaz, CEO of remote procedure call (RPC) node provider Helius and a vocal Zcash supporter, agreed with Horsely and characterized the Bitcoin community’s criticism of the privacy coin as conspiracy theories.
Zcash broke past eight-year highs in October and flipped Monero (XMR) to become the top privacy coin by market capitalization, boasting a market cap of over $11.2 billion at the time of this writing and reviving the privacy conversation in the crypto industry.
Zcash rally revives conversation around privacy, as industry executives rally around it
Zcash is ranked as the 12th largest crypto by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap, close to breaking into the top 10 by unseating the Cardano network’s native token ADA (ADA), which has a market cap of over $17 billion at the time of this writing.
In November, Arthur Hayes, founder of the BitMEX crypto exchange, said that Zcash is now the second-biggest liquid investment held by Maelstrom, his family office, with BTC being the biggest liquid asset owned by the fund.
Leap Therapeutics, a biotech company, rebranded to Cypherpunk Technologies, a Zcash treasury company, on Wednesday, with backing from the Winklevoss Twins’ Winklevoss Capital, causing its shares to spike by over 170% on the news.
The meteoric price rally also revived conversations about integrating privacy into the Bitcoin protocol through reactivating a Bitcoin opcode known as OP_CAT, which can enable privacy and other advanced features natively on the Bitcoin protocol.
Upbit operator Dunamu reported a surge in profitability for the third quarter of the year, posting 239 billion won ($165 million) in net income.
The figure marks an increase of more than 300% compared to the same period last year, which stood at $40 million, local news outlet Chosun Biz reported, citing regulatory filings with the Financial Supervisory Service.
The filing reportedly showed strong momentum across all key metrics. Consolidated revenue climbed to $266 million, up 35% from the previous quarter, while operating profit rose 54% to $162 million. Net income also jumped 145% quarter-over-quarter from $67 million.
The company attributed its improved performance to rising trading activity as global digital asset markets rebounded through 2024 and 2025.
Dunamu said investor confidence received a boost following regulatory developments in the United States, including the passage of the Genius Act, the Clarity Act and the Anti-CBDC Bill. These measures, the company said, contributed to renewed institutional participation and steadier market conditions.
Dunamu has faced heightened reporting requirements since 2022, when it was added to the list of corporations subject to external audit due to having more than 500 shareholders.
Notably, several major crypto firms experienced a revenue increase last quarter. Bitcoin mining company TeraWulf and Singapore-based cloud Bitcoin miner BitFuFu doubled their third-quarter revenue from the previous year.
As Cointelegraph reported, Naver Financial, the fintech arm of South Korea’s largest internet company, is preparing to acquire Dunamu. Naver reportedly plans to bring Dunamu in as a subsidiary through a share swap, with board approvals expected soon.
Upbit Korea is the largest crypto exchange in South Korea in terms of trading volume and customer base, according to CoinMarketCap.
Long-term investors have been selling 45,000 ETH daily, increasing sell-side pressure.
Ether’s 50-week EMA and bear flag breakdown target $2,500.
Ether’s (ETH) drop toward $3,000 on Friday was preceded by a significant amount of offloads from long-term holders, which some analysts said may lead to a deeper price correction.
Long-term holders are offloading
Ether long-term holders, entities holding ETH (ETH) for more than 155 days, have intensified their sell-side activity as the price dropped below key support levels.
Analyzing ETH spent volume by age, using a 90-day moving average, Glassnode analysts said that 45,000 ETH, worth about $140 million, is leaving three-to-10-year holder wallets daily.
“This marks the highest spending level by seasoned investors since February 2021.”
Ethereum spent volume by age. Source: Glassnode
This aligns with a surge in spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETF) outflows, which further suppresses ETH price. These investment products recorded $259 million in net outflows on Thursday, marking their worst day since Oct. 10, according to data from SoSoValue.
A cumulative net outflow of $1.42 billion from Ethereum ETFs since early November signals strong institutional selling pressure, fueling fears of a deeper correction.
Ethereum onchain data signals waning demand
Onchain activity over the last seven days paints a worrying picture. While Ethereum continues to lead its competitors, securing roughly 56% of the market’s total value locked (TVL), this metric has dropped by 21% over the last 30 days, according to DefiLlama.
Even more concerning is the decline in network fees, reflecting waning demand for blockspace, which reinforces Ether’s price weakness around $3,000.
Top blockchains ranked by 30-day fees, USD. Source: Nansen
Ethereum’s fees over the past 30 days dropped to $27.54 million on Friday, representing a 42% decrease. Solana’s fees declined just 9.8% while BNB Chain revenue dropped by 45%, reinforcing the bearishness in the market.
Many analysts warn that the current downtrend could accelerate unless a clear bullish shift occurs, possibly adding pressure on day traders and small holders.
“Ethereum loses the 50-week EMA, a key macro support,” said analyst Bitcoinsensus in a Friday X post, referring to the $3,350 level.
Past breakdowns triggered major downside moves, with the last one resulting in a 60% drop to $1,380 from $3,400 between late January and early April.
Bitcoinsensus added:
“Trend remains bearish unless price reclaims this level fast.”
Ether’s price action in the daily time frame has validated a bear flag once it broke below $3,450, coinciding with the 200-day SMA and the lower boundary of a bear flag.
The next major support sits at the $3,000 psychological level, which bulls must defend aggressively.
Losing this level would clear the way for a fresh downward leg toward the measured target of the pattern at $2,280, or a 23% drop from the current level.
As Cointelegraph reported, $3,000 remains a key support zone for the ETH/USD pair, and holding it is crucial to avoiding further losses.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Cryptocurrency markets have extended their decline despite much-awaited political developments taking place in the US.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a funding bill to end the record 43-day US government shutdown, after the bill passed through the Senate on Monday and was approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The bill provides funding to the government until Jan. 30, 2026, and gives Democrats and Republicans more time to strike a deal on broader funding plans for the year ahead.
The end of the shutdown failed to lift demand among Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) buyers. Spot BTC ETFs saw a brief resurgence on Tuesday, attracting $524 million in inflows, but outflows quickly resumed, with a whopping $866 million in daily net outflows on Thursday, according to Farside Investors.
Bitcoin fell to a six-month low of $95,900 on Friday, a level last seen in May as its biggest demand drivers continued to lack momentum.
Investments from ETFs and Michael Saylor’s Strategy were the two main vehicles driving demand for Bitcoin’s price this year, according to Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of crypto analytics platform CryptoQuant.
BTC/USD, one-year chart. Source: Cointelegraph
Bitcoin ETF demand stalls as US shutdown optimism fails to lift sentiment
The lack of demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs is raising concerns about Bitcoin’s prospects for the rest of the year.
On Monday, the US Senate approved the funding bill and brought Congress a step closer to ending the shutdown. The legislation headed for a full vote in the House of Representatives, which occurred on Wednesday.
Bitcoin ETF Flows, US dollars (in millions). Source: Farside Investors
“Despite the US shutdown seemingly ending, and the S&P and Gold bouncing hard, Bitcoin ETFs saw NO bid yesterday,” said Capriole Investments founder, Charles Edwards, adding that this is not a dynamic we want to see continue.
“Risk assets usually see a strong bid in the weeks out of the Shutdown. Still time to turn this ship around, but it needs to turn,” Edwards wrote in a Tuesday X post.
Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows were the primary driver of Bitcoin’s momentum in 2025, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, told Cointelegraph recently.
Bitwise exec says 2026 will be crypto’s real bull year; here’s why
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.
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.”
Hougan said interest in the Bitcoin debasement trade, stablecoins and tokenization would continue to accelerate, while arguing that Uniswap’s fee switch proposal introduced on Monday would reinvigorate interest in decentralized finance protocols in the coming year.
“I think the underlying fundamentals are just so sound,” Hougan said. “I think these earlier forces, institutional investment, regulatory progress, stablecoins, tokenization, I just think those are too big to keep down. So I think 2026 will be a good year.”
Matt Hougan at The Bridge conference in New York City. Source: Cointelegraph
Arthur Hayes tells Zcash holders to withdraw from CEXs and “shield” assets
The privacy coin sector returned to the spotlight after BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes urged Zcash holders to withdraw their assets from centralized exchanges (CEXs).
On Wednesday, Hayes told holders to “shield” their assets, a feature that enables private transactions within the Zcash network. “If you hold $ZEC on a CEX, withdraw it to a self-custodial wallet and shield it,” Hayes wrote on X.
The comments came as Zcash (ZEC) saw sharp price swings in the last few days. The token rallied to $723 on Saturday before dropping to $504 on Sunday. It then surged to a high of $677 on Monday, only to see another sharp decline. At the time of writing, ZEC was trading at about $450, marking a 37% decline from its Saturday high.
Analysts had warned that ZEC might undergo a sharp correction due to its relative strength index (RSI) reaching its highest reading after continuing to rally above its overbought zone.
Vitalik Buterin champions decentralization in “Trustless Manifesto”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has authored and signed the new “Trustless Manifesto,” which seeks to uphold core values of decentralization and censorship resistance and push builders to refrain from adding intermediaries and checkpoints for the sake of adoption.
The Trustless Manifesto, also authored by Ethereum Foundation researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner, said crypto platforms sacrifice trustlessness from the first moment that they integrate a hosted node or centralized relayer, explaining that while it feels harmless, it becomes a habit, and with each passing checkpoint, the protocol becomes less and less permissionless.
“Trustlessness is not a feature to add after the fact. It is the thing itself,” the Ethereum Foundation members said in the manifesto published Wednesday. “Without it, everything else — efficiency, UX, scalability — is decoration on a fragile core.”
“When complexity tempts us to centralize, we must remember: every line of convenience code can become a choke point.”
While the manifesto wasn’t aimed at any particular person or company, some Ethereum layer 2s have been criticized for sacrificing decentralization to focus on scalability to speed up adoption.
Sonic Labs pivots from speed to survival with business-first strategy
Sonic Labs, the organization behind the Sonic layer-1 blockchain, announced a major strategic shift as it pivots from emphasizing transaction speed to building long-term business value and token sustainability.
After claiming industry-leading performance last year, Sonic Labs said its next chapter will focus on upgrades that deliver measurable financial outcomes, including new Ethereum and Sonic Improvement Proposals (EIPs and SIPs), token supply reductions and revamped rewards for network participants.
“Every decision we make moving forward will be guided by the principles of building real value, with price, growth, and sustainability always in focus,” said Mitchell Demeter, the new CEO of Sonic Labs.
The focus aims to bring “measurable, lasting value” for builders, validators and tokenholders, wrote Demeter in a Tuesday X post. “Our mission at Sonic is to move beyond hype and build a sustainable business model for a layer one, that creates, captures, and returns real value to tokenholders.”
The new fee monetization upgrade will include a tiered reward system for builders and fixed rewards for validators.
Sonic Labs will also increase the rate of programmatic Sonic (S) token burns, which means permanently removing tokens from circulation to tighten the supply.
Sonic claims to be the world’s fastest Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain, with a “true” finality of 720 milliseconds (ms) — the assurance that a transaction is irreversible, which occurs after it is added to a block on the blockchain ledger.
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red.
The privacy-preserving Dash (DASH) token fell 45% to stage the biggest decline in the top 100, followed by the Internet Computer (ICP) token, down over 27% on the weekly chart.
Total value locked in DeFi. Source: DefiLlama
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
Eric Trump, a son of US President Donald Trump and co-founder of American Bitcoin, is undeterred by the recent downturn in the cryptocurrency markets, saying that volatility is the cost of achieving outsized returns.
“I think volatility is your friend,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview, as Bitcoin (BTC) briefly fell below $95,000 and stood about 25% lower than its early-October peak.
The turbulence has been worse in the altcoin segment, with major assets down from 5% to 11% — part of a weakness that began with the Oct. 10 market crash, which wiped out some $19 billion in leveraged positions.
Overall, the crypto market has shed more than $1 trillion in combined market capitalization from its peak.
Trump is at least putting his philosophy into practice. American Bitcoin, the mining company he leads, which went public earlier this year through a reverse merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, added more than 3,000 BTC in the third quarter, bringing its total holdings to over 4,000 BTC.
American Bitcoin has entered the top 25 list of publicly listed Bitcoin holders following its Q3 acquisitions. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET
Trump has repeatedly emphasized increasing the company’s Bitcoin reserves, prioritizing metrics such as its Bitcoin-per-share ratio, which he argues will ultimately strengthen shareholder value.
The moves come amid the Donald Trump administration’s push for broader crypto adoption, highlighted by the January executive order on digital assets, the creation of a federal working group on crypto markets and the passage of key stablecoin legislation. Yet, the value of Bitcoin is little changed from its Jan. 1 price.
The crypto market’s long-term fundamentals look promising, despite the shakeup in October and November that has left asset prices down and investor sentiment to crater, according to Hunter Horsley, CEO of investment firm Bitwise.
Horsley said the four-year market cycle is dead, replaced by a more mature market structure and changed dynamics due to the pro-crypto regulatory pivot in the US. He said in a Friday X post:
“Since the launch of the Bitcoin ETFs and new administration, we’ve entered a new market structure: new players, new dynamics, new reasons people buy and sell.
I think there’s a pretty good chance that we’ve been in a bear market for almost 6 months now and are almost through it. The setup for crypto right now has never been stronger,” Horsely added.
His comments offer a contrarian view to crypto investor sentiment, which dropped to its lowest level since February, as asset prices remain well below 2024 highs and fear grips the market.
Sentiment craters to “extreme fear” as analysts project where prices are headed
The “Crypto Fear and Greed Index,” a metric that gauges investor sentiment, is at 16 at the time of this writing, signaling “extreme fear,” according to CoinMarketCap.
Market analyst and CoinBureau founder Nuc Puckrin said that despite the 25% dip being the lowest correction-level drop during this cycle, compared to previous dips over 30%, investor sentiment has still cratered.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index drops to 16, signaling “extreme fear” among crypto investors. Source: CoinMarketCap
Investor and financial educator Robert Kiyosaki blamed the crypto market downturn on low liquidity levels and said that crypto and precious metal prices will rise once the government resorts to printing more money to finance budget deficits.
Liquidity tends to drive asset prices; high liquidity from low interest rates and the expansion of the money supply drives prices up, and lower liquidity and constrained credit tend to lower asset prices or cause markets to stagnate.
Although the United States Federal Reserve has started slashing interest rates, only about 44% of traders forecast a rate cut in December, according to data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
Biomedical and scientific companies are turning to blockchain technology and crypto treasury strategies to fund research, overhauling traditional capital formation and research funding structures that can delay life-saving cures by decades.
Portage Biotech, a biomedical technology company, pivoted to become a Toncoin (TON) treasury company in September, earning operating revenues from staking to secure the network and investing in Telegram ecosystem projects, including games and mini-apps.
The company will funnel some of the revenue generated from the operating business and the capital appreciation of TON to fund cancer research, AlphaTON CEO Brittany Kaiser told Cointelegraph.
Differences between traditional scientific research funding models and decentralized science structures. Source: Cointelegraph
“We’re doing research into the best case studies and what has worked and what hasn’t, from tokenization of the intellectual property, to tokenization of equity of the company that owns the research, to tokenizing future profits of the research.”
Kaiser and Anthony Scaramucci, strategic advisor to AlphaTON, said that biomedical research as an operating vertical sets the company apart from other digital asset treasuries, which often lack operating businesses.
“Most cryptocurrency treasury companies take over the shell and eliminate the primary aspects of the original business, but this is a new case because there are very valuable assets in the shell,” Scaramucci told Cointelegraph.
A mock-up example of what the Ideosphere prediction market would look like. Source: Ideosphere/Cointelegraph
“If you can create prediction markets around early stage research, you can make those markets a marketplace of ideas that will actually bring the money in,” Ideospehre co-founder and head of technology Rei Jarram told Cointelegraph.
“Researchers can put forward hypotheses that they are working on, and traders can speculate on it, and the spread goes to the researcher,” she added.
Bio Protocol secures funding from Animoca Brands
In September, Bio Protocol, a decentralized science platform combining artificial intelligence, blockchain, and community participation to research drug discovery, secured $6.9 million in funding from Web3 company Animoca Brands and the Maelstrom fund.
Maelstrom founder Arthur Hayes said the platform has the potential to become a full-fledged “AI-native research market” that can change the way scientific research is conducted.
Decentralized exchange Aster has said that its tokenomics remain unchanged after a CoinMarketCap (CMC) update triggered speculation across its community about changes to the project’s unlock schedule.
The confusion began when users noticed that token unlock dates shown on Binance and CMC, previously set for 2025, had been pushed to mid-2026 and, in some cases, 2035.
However, the team clarified that the data reflected on CMC was the result of a miscommunication rather than a change in policy. According to Aster, the project’s original tokenomics included monthly ecosystem unlocks, but because the team has not yet had a usage plan for these tokens, none of the scheduled unlocks were executed.
Since the token generation event, the tokens allocated for these unlocks have remained unused and stored in a locked address, meaning they have never contributed to ASTER’s circulating supply.
To prevent further confusion, Aster said it will transfer those unused unlocked tokens to a dedicated public address where movements can be independently tracked.
“We currently do not have a need or plans to spend from this address. We will maintain transparency with the community regarding the usage of these funds in the future,” Aster said.
Aster (ASTER) is trading at $1.12, up by around 10% over the past day, according to data from CoinMarketCap. However, the token is still down by more than 50% compared to its all-time high of $2.42 registered back in September.
Earlier this month, Aster surged more than 30% after Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao disclosed he holds over $2.5 million worth of the token. CZ posted his wallet on X, noting he had bought some Aster using personal funds and stressing that he is a long-term holder, not a trader.
Influential traders also publicly followed CZ’s move. One trader, “Gold,” said they opened a position in Aster immediately, calling it the first time CZ had ever announced buying a token other than BNB.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, has told his 2.8 million followers on X that he is not selling his Bitcoin or gold despite the sharp decline.
“The everything bubbles are bursting,” he said in a Saturday post, adding that the real reason markets are falling is a global cash shortage. “The cause of all markets crashing is the world is in need of cash,” he added.
Kiyosaki said he expects what he calls “The Big Print,” citing Lawrence Lepard’s thesis that governments will resort to massive money creation to cover mounting debt loads.
“The Bug Print is about to begin… which will make gold, silver, Bitcoin, and Ethereum more valuable… as fake money crashes,” he said. He advised those who do need cash to consider selling some assets, claiming most panic stems from liquidity needs rather than conviction.
In a follow-up post, Kiyosaki doubled down on his long-term stance. “I will buy more Bitcoin when crash is over,” he said, reminding followers of Bitcoin (BTC)’s 21 million supply cap.
He also encouraged users to form “Cashflow Clubs” built around his board game, saying that learning together helps people avoid mistakes.
Meanwhile, crypto influencer Mister Crypto noted that the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index has plummeted to 16, entering “Extreme Fear” territory, which is historically seen as a potential buying zone.
Mister Crypto noting that Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index has dropped to 16. Source: Mister Crypto
As Cointelegraph reported, Santiment is urging traders to be cautious as social media fills with claims that Bitcoin has already bottomed. The analytics firm said widespread confidence in a market floor often precedes further declines, noting that Bitcoin briefly dipping below $95,000 on Friday sparked a wave of posts suggesting the worst is over.
Historically, Santiment said, bottoms tend to form when most traders expect prices to fall even lower, not when they are calling for a rebound.
ARK Invest has ramped up its exposure to crypto-linked equities, scooping up more BitMine Immersion Technologies and Bullish shares across several of its exchange-traded funds as markets continued to slide.
According to ARK’s daily trade disclosures from Friday, the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) added 18,089 shares of BitMine, the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) purchased 34,637 BitMine shares, while the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) added 116,681 — bringing the total purchases for the day to 169,407 shares, worth roughly $5.83 million.
Separately, ARKF bought 8,063 Bullish shares, ARKW added 15,441 shares and ARKK acquired 52,011 shares. This brings ARK’s total Bullish purchases for the day to 75,515 shares, valued at approximately $2.91 million.
The renewed accumulation came on a day when both stocks faced heavy selling. Bullish closed down 6.19% at $38.48, while BitMine fell nearly 6% to $34.40. Both saw slight recoveries in after-hours trading.
BitMine shares fell nearly 6% on Friday. Source: Google Finance
ARK’s latest acquisitions come as the company has been on a crypto buying spree. The firm accumulated 542,269 Circle (CRCL) shares over a two-day period last week, spending roughly $46 million.
The purchases, $30.4 million on Wednesday and $15.5 million on Thursday, came as CRCL continued its decline, closing at $86 and then $82.30. These are ARK’s first Circle buys since June, when the firm sold around 1.7 million shares at an average of $200, booking $352 million.
Alongside Circle, ARK has also been adding to its position in BitMine. On Thursday, ARK acquired 242,347 BitMine shares for about $8.9 million as the stock dipped below $37.
BitMine shakes up leadership as its Ether treasury tops $11B
As Cointelegraph reported, BitMine has replaced its chief executive as the company cements its position as the largest Ether-holding public firm. The firm announced that Chi Tsang will take over from Jonathan Bates. The company also named three new independent board members.
The move comes as more than 3.5 million Ether (ETH), valued at over $11 billion, now sit in BitMine’s treasury. Originally a crypto-mining business, BitMine has shifted into a major institutional holder of Ethereum, drawing comparisons to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-focused strategy.
