Bitcoin falls to 6-month low as ETF demand collapses: Finance Redefined

1 hour ago

Cryptocurrency markets person extended their diminution contempt much-awaited governmental developments taking spot successful the US.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a backing measure to extremity the grounds 43-day US authorities shutdown, aft the measure passed done the Senate connected Monday and was approved by the House of Representatives connected Wednesday.

The measure provides backing to the authorities until Jan. 30, 2026, and gives Democrats and Republicans much clip to onslaught a woody connected broader backing plans for the twelvemonth ahead.  

The extremity of the shutdown failed to assistance request among Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded money (ETF) buyers. Spot BTC ETFs saw a little resurgence connected Tuesday, attracting $524 cardinal successful inflows, but outflows rapidly resumed, with a whopping $866 cardinal successful regular nett outflows connected Thursday, according to Farside Investors.

Bitcoin fell to a six-month debased of $95,900 connected Friday, a level past seen successful May arsenic its biggest request drivers continued to deficiency momentum.

Investments from ETFs and Michael Saylor’s Strategy were the 2 main vehicles driving request for Bitcoin’s terms this year, according to Ki Young Ju, laminitis and CEO of crypto analytics level CryptoQuant.

BTC/USD, one-year chart. Source: Cointelegraph

Bitcoin ETF request stalls arsenic US shutdown optimism fails to assistance sentiment

The deficiency of request for spot Bitcoin ETFs is raising concerns astir Bitcoin’s prospects for the remainder of the year.

On Monday, the US Senate approved the backing measure and brought Congress a measurement person to ending the shutdown. The authorities headed for a afloat ballot successful the House of Representatives, which occurred connected Wednesday.

Despite optimistic quality from the US, spot Bitcoin ETF investments remained level connected Monday, with conscionable $1.2 cardinal of inflows, according to information from Farside Investors.

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 privation to spot continue.

“Risk assets usually spot a beardown bid successful the weeks retired of the Shutdown. Still clip to crook this vessel around, but it needs to turn,” Edwards wrote successful a Tuesday X post.

Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows were the superior operator of Bitcoin’s momentum successful 2025, Standard Chartered’s planetary caput of integer assets research, Geoff Kendrick, told Cointelegraph recently.

Continue reading

Bitwise exec says 2026 volition beryllium crypto’s existent bull year; here’s why

Bitwise main concern serviceman Matt Hougan is much assured that crypto markets volition roar successful 2026, peculiarly arsenic determination hasn’t been a precocious 2025 rally.

Speaking to Cointelegraph astatine The Bridge league successful New York City connected Wednesday, Hougan said a crypto marketplace rally astatine the extremity of 2025 would person acceptable the four-year rhythm thesis, meaning 2026 would people the commencement of a carnivore market, akin to 2022 and 2018.

When asked to revise his prediction astir whether the crypto marketplace volition roar successful 2026, Hougan said: “I’m really much assured successful that quote. The biggest hazard was [if] we ripped into the extremity of 2025 and past we got a pullback.”

Hougan said involvement successful the Bitcoin debasement trade, stablecoins and tokenization would proceed to accelerate, portion arguing that Uniswap’s interest power proposal introduced connected Monday would reinvigorate involvement successful decentralized concern protocols successful the coming year.

“I deliberation the underlying fundamentals are conscionable truthful sound,” Hougan said. “I deliberation these earlier forces, organization investment, regulatory progress, stablecoins, tokenization, I conscionable deliberation those are excessively large to support down. So I deliberation 2026 volition beryllium a bully year.”

Matt Hougan astatine The Bridge league successful New York City. Source: Cointelegraph

Continue reading

Arthur Hayes tells Zcash holders to retreat from CEXs and “shield” assets

The privateness coin assemblage returned to the spotlight aft BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes urged Zcash holders to retreat their assets from centralized exchanges (CEXs). 

On Wednesday, Hayes told holders to “shield” their assets, a diagnostic that enables backstage transactions wrong the Zcash network. “If you clasp $ZEC connected a CEX, retreat it to a self-custodial wallet and shield it,” Hayes wrote connected X.

The comments came arsenic Zcash (ZEC) saw crisp terms swings successful the past fewer days. The token rallied to $723 connected Saturday earlier dropping to $504 connected Sunday. It past surged to a precocious of $677 connected Monday, lone to spot different crisp decline. At the clip of writing, ZEC was trading astatine astir $450, marking a 37% diminution from its Saturday high. 

Analysts had warned that ZEC might acquisition a crisp correction owed to its comparative spot scale (RSI) reaching its highest speechmaking aft continuing to rally supra its overbought zone. 

Zcash's seven-day terms chart. Source: CoinGecko

Continue reading

Vitalik Buterin champions decentralization successful “Trustless Manifesto”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has authored and signed the caller “Trustless Manifesto,” which seeks to uphold halfway values of decentralization and censorship absorption and propulsion builders to refrain from adding intermediaries and checkpoints for the involvement of adoption.

The Trustless Manifesto, besides authored by Ethereum Foundation researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner, said crypto platforms sacrifice trustlessness from the archetypal infinitesimal that they integrate a hosted node oregon centralized relayer, explaining that portion it feels harmless, it becomes a habit, and with each passing checkpoint, the protocol becomes little and little permissionless.

“Trustlessness is not a diagnostic to adhd aft the fact. It is the happening itself,” the Ethereum Foundation members said successful the manifesto published Wednesday. “Without it, everything other — efficiency, UX, scalability — is decoration connected a fragile core.”

“When complexity tempts america to centralize, we indispensable remember: each enactment of convenience codification tin go a choke point.”

Extract from The Trustless Manifesto. Source: Trustlessness.eth

While the manifesto wasn’t aimed astatine immoderate peculiar idiosyncratic oregon company, immoderate Ethereum furniture 2s person been criticized for sacrificing decentralization to absorption connected scalability to velocity up adoption.

Continue reading

Sonic Labs pivots from velocity to endurance with business-first strategy

Sonic Labs, the enactment down the Sonic layer-1 blockchain, announced a large strategical displacement arsenic it pivots from emphasizing transaction velocity to gathering semipermanent concern worth and token sustainability.

After claiming industry-leading show past year, Sonic Labs said its adjacent section volition absorption connected upgrades that present measurable fiscal outcomes, including caller Ethereum and Sonic Improvement Proposals (EIPs and SIPs), token proviso reductions and revamped rewards for web participants.

“Every determination we marque moving guardant volition beryllium guided by the principles of gathering existent value, with price, growth, and sustainability ever successful focus,” said Mitchell Demeter, the caller CEO of Sonic Labs. 

The absorption aims to bring “measurable, lasting value” for builders, validators and tokenholders, wrote Demeter successful a Tuesday X post. “Our ngo astatine Sonic is to determination beyond hype and physique a sustainable concern exemplary for a furniture one, that creates, captures, and returns existent worth to tokenholders.”

The caller interest monetization upgrade volition see a tiered reward strategy for builders and fixed rewards for validators.

Sonic Labs volition besides summation the complaint of programmatic Sonic (S) token burns, which means permanently removing tokens from circulation to tighten the supply.

Source: Mitchell Demeter

Sonic claims to beryllium 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 aft it is added to a artifact connected the blockchain ledger.

Continue reading

DeFi marketplace overview

According to information from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, astir of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by marketplace capitalization ended the week successful the red.

The privacy-preserving Dash (DASH) token fell 45% to signifier the biggest diminution successful the apical 100, followed by the Internet Computer (ICP) token, down implicit 27% connected the play chart.

Total worth locked successful DeFi. Source: DefiLlama

Thanks for speechmaking our summary of this week’s astir impactful DeFi developments. Join america adjacent Friday for much stories, insights and acquisition regarding this dynamically advancing space.

View source