Stay ahead with the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis
Blockchain
Blockchain
Bitcoin
Analysis
Analysis
Analysis
While the Cardano blockchain network celebrates significant advancements in its governance framework, its native cryptocurrency ADA continues to struggle in the market. The digital asset has faced consistent selling pressure since the start of January, with its price hovering near $0.34. This disappointing price action stands in stark contrast to the community’s recent achievements.
ADA’s weakness reflects a challenging environment across the cryptocurrency sector. Bitcoin currently trades approximately 30% below its all-time high recorded in October 2025, creating substantial headwinds for alternative coins like Cardano. On a year-over-year basis, ADA has shed about 64% of its value, a steeper decline than that experienced by other leading digital currencies.
The technical picture for ADA remains bearish. After being rejected at the 50-day moving average near $0.39 in mid-January, the token has declined roughly 18%. The loss of a key support level at $0.38 signaled that sellers maintain control. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) reading of 39 suggests further downward momentum could be ahead.
Market data reveals a notable drop in speculative interest. Open Interest for ADA futures on the Binance exchange has fallen to $108.55 million, its lowest level since Christmas. The next critical support level to watch is the December low of $0.32. A breach of this level would bring the October low of $0.27 into focus.
Despite the lackluster market performance, Cardano’s on-chain governance has reached several important milestones:
Ratification of Updated Constitution: The revised blockchain constitution, version 2.4, officially took effect on January 24. It received nearly 80% support from Delegated Representatives (DReps). This update imposes stricter requirements for Treasury withdrawals and provides more precise documentation of governance processes.
Adoption of Vision 2030: The strategic framework outlining Cardano’s direction for the coming years was approved with 67.80% of the vote, representing a voting power of 3.77 billion ADA. More than 700 community members contributed to developing this roadmap.
Expanded DRep Delegation: The Cardano Foundation has allocated an additional 220 million ADA to eleven community DReps. These delegates, which include projects like Liqwid Finance and NMKR, are focused on driving adoption and infrastructure development.
Several governance proposals are currently under consideration by the community:
The coming weeks will be critical for ADA’s price trajectory. A successful defense of the $0.32 support zone could allow for stabilization. However, a reclaim of the $0.38 level is necessary to signal a break in the prevailing technical weakness. While governance developments demonstrate clear strategic progress, they have yet to translate into positive price momentum for the token.
Investors in Solana are navigating a volatile start to the week, with the digital asset caught between macroeconomic headwinds and internal technical pressures. As broader markets react to the looming threat of a U.S. government shutdown, the Solana network itself is grappling with the slow rollout of a crucial security patch.
Even before the latest price decline, on-chain metrics provided warning signals. A significant surge in transaction fees on January 24 pointed to potential network congestion and overheating—a pattern reminiscent of October 2025 that has historically preceded market corrections. Market analysts are now closely monitoring the $117 support level. A decisive break below this threshold could trigger a test of the psychologically significant $100 mark.
Compounding the price pressure is a delayed technical upgrade. Developers released the critical Patch v3.0.14 to address security vulnerabilities that could theoretically destabilize the network. However, validator adoption has been sluggish. Initial data indicated only a small fraction of the network upgraded promptly. To bolster network stability, increased pressure is being applied through new staking delegation rules to encourage faster implementation.
The primary catalyst for the current weakness stems from the financial markets’ growing anxiety over a potential U.S. government shutdown. Prediction markets now assign an approximately 80% probability to this event. This uncertainty has severely dampened investor sentiment, reflected in the “Crypto Fear & Greed Index” plunging to a reading of 20, indicating “Extreme Fear.”
This environment has prompted a broad shift away from riskier assets. While gold has stabilized as a traditional safe haven, volatile cryptocurrencies like Solana have borne the brunt of the selling. This triggered a liquidity squeeze, resulting in the forced liquidation of long positions worth over $60 million in just the past 24 hours.
Despite the bearish technical picture, fundamental developments within the Solana ecosystem continue. Interest from institutional investors via exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has cooled in the short term, with inflows plummeting to under $10 million. Nonetheless, underlying blockchain activity remains robust.
A positive development comes from Ondo Finance, which announced plans to bring more than 200 tokenized U.S. equities and ETFs directly onto the Solana blockchain. This move will enable round-the-clock trading of traditional assets on-chain and underscores the network’s long-term utility, even amidst short-term price pain.
The immediate trajectory hinges on two key factors: the U.S. budgetary negotiations and the $117 support level. Failure to reach a political agreement by January 30, coupled with a breakdown of that technical support, could sustain selling pressure. A sustained recovery likely requires a dual resolution: a calming of macroeconomic tensions and the full, successful deployment of the critical network patch.
As the new trading week begins, Bitcoin’s price action stands in stark contrast to traditional safe havens. While gold surges past the $5,000 per ounce milestone, the leading cryptocurrency remains range-bound. This divergence highlights a market currently driven more by its own internal supply and on-chain mechanics than by classic macroeconomic factors like interest rates or geopolitics. The central question for investors is the potential duration of this consolidation.
Currently trading near $87,553, Bitcoin shows minimal daily loss but finds itself approximately 30% below its late-2025 all-time high of around $125,000. The weekly chart reflects a 6.6% decline, with a year-to-date drop of 1.32%. The overarching trend since October remains downward, though prices have stabilized just above the 52-week low of $84,683.
Analysts characterize the environment as a “low-conviction market,” marked by thin interest, low participation, and restrained leverage in futures trading. Price movements occur in relatively low liquidity, making any counter-trend rallies vulnerable to renewed selling pressure. Technically, a significant supply overhang acts as a brake. Glassnode on-chain data identifies strong resistance near $98,000, where the cost basis of many short-term holders clusters. Furthermore, a dense concentration of sell orders sits above $100,000, sufficient to cap any substantial rally attempts for now.
Key network indicators support the narrative of a market in a transitional phase. VanEck’s Mid-January 2026 “Bitcoin ChainCheck” report details several shifts:
Collectively, this points to decreasing network activity alongside increased movement of existing coins—a sign of consolidation rather than expansion.
Adding to this, CryptoQuant reports that investors are selling at a loss more frequently, a trend not seen since October 2023. The pattern shows longer-term holders exiting while newer participants enter, which typically aligns with consolidation phases rather than signaling an immediate transition into a new bullish wave.
A closer look at blockchain flows reveals a mixed landscape. The total transfer volume across the network has decreased by 11%, and the amount of Bitcoin sent from miners to exchanges is down 6%. This lower transaction “throughput” suggests reduced active trading.
Simultaneously, long-term investors continue to move older holdings to exchanges. NYDIG describes this as a “seller overhang,” where veteran holders are using price levels in the mid-$80,000 to high-$80,000 range to distribute portions of their portfolios. This persistent supply makes it difficult for a stable new price floor to form below the previous record highs.
On the mining front, key metrics show a pullback. The network’s hash rate has experienced its longest sustained weakness since early 2024, falling roughly 15% from an October 2025 peak of 1.1 zettahashes per second to the current level of about 977 exahashes per second.
Related mining indicators follow suit:
* The 30-day average mining difficulty has decreased by 2%, from 646 to 635.
* The estimated global power consumption of miners has dipped 2%, from 206 TWh to 203 TWh.
* The hash rate has declined 6% since mid-November 2025.
A further 4% drop in mining difficulty is projected for January 22, which would mark the seventh negative adjustment in the last eight periods. Glassnode’s Hash Ribbon indicator, which signals periods of miner capitulation, already turned on November 29, 2025, shortly after Bitcoin marked an interim low near $80,000.
The combination of falling difficulty, power use, and hash rate suggests miners are powering down equipment. VanEck attributes this partly to seasonal winter effects but also to a structural shift toward reallocating data center capacity for AI processing. Riot Platforms serves as an example: the company earned $6.2 million in power credits in December, a 171% increase from $2.3 million in November. Revenue specifically from power curtailment surged from $1.0 million to $4.9 million.
Amid the market calm, U.S. regulatory efforts are advancing. Senate banking and agriculture committees are drafting comprehensive legislation for digital asset market structure. Proposals include:
* Clear definitions for when tokens qualify as securities, commodities, or other assets.
* Expanded authority for the CFTC over the spot cryptocurrency market.
* More precise regulatory frameworks for stablecoins.
The GENIUS Act, passed in July, established the legal foundation for stablecoins, though the U.S. Treasury’s specific implementation rules are pending. In parallel, World Liberty Financial, a DeFi protocol endorsed by former President Trump, has applied to the OCC for a national trust bank charter to conduct stablecoin business.
Institutional signals are mixed. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are seeing significant inflows again, hinting at renewed accumulation by professional investors. Over 2,000 U.S. wealth managers now invest in crypto ETPs. Conversely, so-called Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATs) are trading at discounts to their net asset value (mNAV), increasing pressure for mergers and acquisitions.
The recent performance gap is telling. Since January 18, when new tariff threats emerged alongside discussions of a potential Greenland deal, Bitcoin has lost approximately 6.6%. In the same period, gold has gained 8.6%, breaking above $5,000.
This divergent reaction underscores current roles: Bitcoin, with its 24/7 trading, high liquidity, and fast settlement, acts as a relatively easy-to-liquidate asset when investors need short-term cash. Gold, in contrast, continues to be accumulated by central banks in record volumes and benefits from its traditional status as a reserve and safety asset during uncertainty. For Bitcoin, ongoing sales by long-term holders counterbalance fresh demand.
The data coalesces into a clear narrative: Bitcoin is entrenched in a consolidation phase where internal supply and holder dynamics outweigh external catalysts. Prediction markets like Polymarket currently assign higher odds to gold maintaining levels above $5,500 by mid-year, while Bitcoin is seen as more likely to experience additional months of sideways trading before a sustainable attempt at previous highs seems realistic.
Long-term optimistic views persist. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has suggested Bitcoin could decouple from its historical four-year cycle in 2026 and enter a “supercycle.” However, in the near term, the combination of seller overhang, subdued on-chain activity, and a contracting mining sector suggests the market must first absorb existing supply. This is compounded by the upcoming first U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate decision of the year and the unresolved budget situation with its persistent shutdown risk—factors that may keep the environment for risky assets like cryptocurrencies volatile and directionless for the time being.
Silver has decisively broken through a major psychological barrier, cementing its status as a standalone asset with fundamental strength. A long-theorized shift is now materializing, as the white metal undergoes a significant revaluation. This move is fueled by a powerful convergence of relentless industrial demand and macroeconomic uncertainty.
The traditional perception of silver is fundamentally changing. It is no longer viewed merely as a cheaper alternative to gold but is increasingly recognized as an indispensable raw material for pivotal modern technologies. Its unique physical properties, most notably its exceptional electrical conductivity, render it irreplaceable in three key growth sectors:
This robust industrial foundation provides a durable demand floor, independent of short-term speculative flows.
Concurrently, investors are rediscovering silver’s traditional role as a portfolio hedge. Elevated government debt levels, geopolitical friction, and persistent uncertainty regarding future monetary policy are channeling capital into tangible assets. The silver market’s smaller size and lower liquidity compared to gold mean that investment inflows can trigger disproportionately large price movements. The current dynamic reflects this heightened attention meeting strong underlying fundamentals.
The recent breakthrough past a key resistance level is underpinned by a compelling market setup. A structural supply deficit is colliding with rising demand from both industrial consumers and financial investors. This confluence of industrial and monetary factors creates a powerful tailwind, making the metal’s sustained move beyond a critical psychological price point a logical development. Market participants are positioning for an environment where these dual drivers reinforce each other, supporting silver’s emerging identity as a distinct asset class with its own compelling investment thesis.
Solana’s token is experiencing significant selling pressure, bringing it dangerously close to a critical technical threshold. Despite a weekly decline of approximately 10%, the underlying fundamentals of the network are telling a markedly different story. This growing disconnect between a falling price and rising on-chain engagement presents a conundrum for investors: is the sell-off an overreaction, or the start of a more profound correction?
Contrary to the price action, Solana’s on-chain metrics reveal notable strength. The number of active addresses on the network recently surged by over 50%, reaching 27.1 million. This fundamental vigor, however, is being overshadowed by external pressures. A class-action lawsuit targeting the platform Pump.fun, with reports suggesting the Solana Foundation is also named, has injected considerable uncertainty into the market. Broader macroeconomic concerns and geopolitical tensions are further weighing on risk assets across the board.
This backdrop makes the continued institutional adoption of the blockchain all the more significant, highlighting its long-term potential:
Currently trading around $128, SOL has shed nearly 10% of its value in the past week alone. Market observers are now closely watching the $119 level, which crypto market expert Ali Martinez identifies as a crucial support zone.
A failure to hold this area could trigger further declines, potentially revisiting last year’s lows. The token’s price is already trading below its 50-day moving average, indicating weakened short-term momentum. High volatility, measured at almost 40%, underscores the prevailing market nervousness.
While legal overhangs are impacting short-term price performance, key technological developments are on the horizon. The network is preparing for its “Alpenglow” upgrade, which promises to drastically improve transaction speeds. Transaction finality could drop from nearly 13 seconds to between 100 and 150 milliseconds—a critical enhancement for financial applications. The immediate direction will likely be dictated by whether the $119 support holds, before the upcoming conference in Hong Kong in February may provide fresh momentum.