Short News

Grayscale Investments has filed for new trusts in Delaware to pave the way for BNB and HYPE exchange-traded funds, registering entities 10465871 and 10465863 with CSC Delaware Trust Company. This move follows the massive inflows seen in spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. BNB supports Binance’s ecosystem, while HYPE powers Hyperliquid’s high-speed futures trading, which captured up to 80% of on-chain activity at its peak. While no SEC filings have been submitted yet, the step highlights Grayscale’s confidence in altcoins like Solana and XRP and their long-term revenue potential.

Morgan Stanley filed an S-1 with the SEC for its Ethereum Trust, following recent Bitcoin and Solana ETF submissions. The $1.8 trillion firm will hold ETH directly, stake portions for yield through third parties, and enable in-kind redemptions to simplify client access. Building on its October 2025 crypto rollout via wealth management, this move eyes massive inflows as Ethereum’s staking and smart contracts draw institutional interest. 

Barclays, which manages $2.2 trillion in assets, has made its first move into stablecoins by backing Ubyx Inc., a U.S.-based clearing system for tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins. Announced on January 7, 2026, the investment aims to improve connectivity across tokens, blockchains, and digital wallets as adoption of digital money accelerates. Ubyx CEO Tony McLaughlin says banks will increasingly offer digital wallets alongside traditional accounts, with Barclays joining Galaxy and Coinbase Ventures in Ubyx’s $10 million seed round.

Nike has quietly sold its digital products subsidiary RTFKT, which it acquired in 2021 as part of a push into NFTs and virtual sneakers, marking the end of its Web3 services announced earlier in 2025. The buyer and terms were not disclosed, but the move comes amid broader strategic shifts at Nike. Reports of the sale triggered a 195% surge in RTFKT’s market activity. Following news of the sale, Clone X NFT floor prices jumped significantly, sparking renewed optimism among holders and traders.

Morgan Stanley filed an S-1 with the SEC on January 6, 2026, for a spot Bitcoin Trust ETF that directly tracks BTC spot prices using benchmarks from major exchanges. The filing also covers a Solana ETF offering staking rewards, expanding the firm’s digital asset lineup post-2024 BTC ETF approvals. This positions Morgan Stanley to meet surging institutional demand amid President Trump’s pro-crypto policies and Bitcoin’s rally toward $100K.

Rep. Ritchie Torres has introduced a new bill aimed at banning federal officials from trading on prediction markets using non-public information. The proposal, called the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, comes after concerns that U.S. insiders may have profited from sensitive Venezuela-related bets. Prediction markets allow users to wager on real-world outcomes like elections, conflicts, and political changes. Lawmakers fear officials with access to classified intelligence could exploit these platforms for personal gain. The bill seeks to protect public trust by closing loopholes that could enable insider trading on geopolitical events.

On January 4, 2026, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT revealed Ledger’s latest data breach via third-party payment handler Global-e, which notified customers of “unusual activity” in its cloud system. Exposed info includes names and contact details for some Ledger buyers, no wallet seeds or crypto compromised. Global-e contained the breach and hired forensic experts for a probe. This echoes Ledger’s July 2020 e-commerce hack affecting 1M+ emails and 272k full profiles used in phishing since. Users should watch for scams.

Starknet, a major Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, has been down for more than two hours as of January 5, 2026, halting transactions and dApps. The Starknet team confirmed on X that they are investigating the sequencer issues and pushing fixes to restore service quickly. This echoes past outages like the 9-hour September 2, 2025, Grinta upgrade disruption involving Ethereum RPC failures and reorgs reverting hours of blocks. Developers are working to resolve the issue and will provide updates as progress continues.

Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has declared 2026 the nation’s “digital year” and pledged strong support for integrating cryptocurrencies into the mainstream financial system. Speaking at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, she backed allowing digital assets to trade on stock exchanges and pointed to U.S. crypto ETFs as a model worth emulating. Japan is advancing plans to reclassify about 105 major cryptocurrencies as financial products under securities law and cut capital gains tax from as high as 55 % to a flat 20 %, aligning crypto more with stocks and boosting investor access and market growth.

Bank of America updated its policy in December 2025, allowing over 15,000 advisors across Merrill, Private Bank, and Merrill Edge to recommend 1% to 4% crypto allocations via spot Bitcoin ETFs like BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, Bitwise’s BITB, and Grayscale’s Mini Trust starting January 5, 2026. This proactive shift ends prior restrictions requiring client requests, following 2024 SEC ETF approvals and peers like Morgan Stanley (2% to 4%) and Vanguard. Managing $1.7 trillion in assets, the bank views crypto as high-risk innovation akin to private equity, suitable for volatility-tolerant clients.

A Polymarket trader known as “beachboy4” lost more than $2.07 million in just 35 days, even with a 51% win rate across 53 prediction trades. The losses stemmed from huge average bets of about $400,000, frequent high-priced entries, and no stop‑loss or hedging strategies, causing many losing positions to go to zero. His biggest single loss hit $1.58 million, outweighing his largest win of around $936,000. This case highlights how high risk and poor strategy can wipe out profits in prediction markets.

SlowMist’s Chief Security Officer recently flagged a new phishing scam that targets MetaMask wallet owners by copying official security alert pages to steal mnemonic seed phrases. The scam starts with a forged MetaMask alert and leads users through a fake two‑factor authentication flow that includes a countdown timer and looks urgent and legitimate. Victims are eventually asked to enter their wallet recovery phrase, which attackers then use to access and drain funds from the wallet. MetaMask never asks for seed phrases on websites, so always check the URL and avoid entering sensitive information.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has set out a fresh roadmap for 2026, putting a global all-in-one trading platform at the center of the company’s plans. This vision includes a single venue where users can trade crypto, equities, and commodities across spot, futures, and options markets. Coinbase also aims to grow stablecoin and payment usage and move more people on-chain through its developer tools, Base chain, and Base App, while boosting product quality and automation to support that growth.