“Sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out.”

Find out our latest reports, listed below:

• Bybit x Block Scholes: “2026: It's Different This Time?”

• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: Unlocking Real-World Assets On-Chain for 24/7 Global Access

• DeepBook - “The Backbone of Sui DeFi Liquidity”

• Premia x Block Scholes: Introducing Kyan

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Daily Updates:

• Macro tensions continued to weigh on risk sentiment yesterday as BTC fell for a fifth consecutive trading session and is down 2% over the past 24 hours. It is currently settling just above the psychological $90K line. ETH has slumped close to 4% and trades just above the $3K mark, while other large-cap altcoins such as XRP and SOL are down 3-4% over the past 24 hours.
• US equity markets were closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though equity futures markets also slumped alongside BTC. Futures contracts on the S&P 500 fell 1.72%, while those on the Nasdaq-100 declined more than 2%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 had its worst day since November 2025, falling 1.23%.
• On the other hand, precious metals continued to move higher — both gold and silver reached new record highs, up 9.42% and 31%, year-to-date respectively. 

• Trade tensions between the US and Europe are currently a focal point for traders and investors, as President Trump continues his plans to take control of Greenland.
• The French government is looking to convene a meeting of Group of Seven (G7) finance chiefs as soon as Wednesday this week to discuss President Trump’s threat to hit European allies with additional tariffs if they intervene in his plans to acquire Greenland. 
• Trump also attacked French leader Emmanuel Macron after Macron rejected the President’s invitation to join his latest peace initiative, the Board of Peace. That initiative was initially created to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza.
• Talking to reporters on Monday, Trump said “Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon” regarding Macron, while adding “I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join”.
• Trump also posted a text message screenshot on Truth Social where Macron messaged the US President “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland”. 

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has attempted to calm markets however, calling for European allies to honour their trade agreements with the US and dismissing suggestions that Europe would forcefully retaliate by selling US treasuries.
• Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Bessent said “I am confident that the leaders will not escalate, and that this will work out in a manner that ends up in a very good place”. 
• He also made links between the current volatility in markets over Greenland to the “hysteria” of the April reciprocal tariffs of last year. 
• “This is the same kind of hysteria that we heard on April 2. There was a panic. And what I’m urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out.”
• When asked about reports that Europe would possibly begin to sell US treasuries, Bessent said it is a “false narrative” and “defies any logic and I could not disagree more strongly on that”. 

• The NYSE announced yesterday that it is developing a platform for trading and onchain settlement of tokenised U.S. equities and ETFs, designed to enable 24/7 trading pending regulatory approval. The proposed system would support fractional shares, dollar-denominated orders, stablecoin-based funding, and near-immediate settlement using tokenised capital, combining the NYSE’s Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade infrastructure. 

• A Hong Kong securities industry group has criticised proposed rules that would tighten licensing requirements for virtual asset management, warning they could deter traditional managers from taking even small crypto exposures.
• The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association opposed removing the current “de minimis” carve-out for Type 9 managers (which allows sub-10% crypto allocations with notification), arguing that forcing a full virtual asset management licence for minimal positions is disproportionate and cost-heavy.
• The group also pushed back on proposed custody mandates requiring exclusive use of SFC-licensed custodians, flagging practical constraints for VC and private equity funds holding early-stage tokens.

• MegaETH plans to open its mainnet on Thursday, January 22,  for a seven-day “global stress test” ahead of a public launch, targeting 11B transactions and sustained throughput of 15,000–35,000 TPS.
• The test is designed to simulate real conditions, combining user-driven activity from latency-sensitive gaming applications with backend flows such as ETH transfers and v3-style AMM swaps until the network reaches the transaction target.
• MegaETH says it will proceed to a public mainnet rollout shortly afterwards, with initial DeFi and consumer applications supported by its native stablecoin, USDm, intended to help keep sequencer costs stable and predictable.

• Pump.fun has launched Pump Fund, a new investment arm aimed at supporting startups building within its ecosystem, starting with a “Build in Public” hackathon that will allocate $3M across 12 projects.
• The programme is structured around token launches - each participating project must issue a token and retain at least 10% of supply, with Pump.fun framing market demand and user participation as the primary selection mechanism.

• PancakeSwap passed a proposal to cut CAKE’s maximum supply by 11%, lowering the cap from 450M to 400M after the proposal’s vote received 100% community support.
• This follows earlier deflationary changes in April 2025, which reduced daily emissions from ~40,000 to ~22,250 CAKE, lowering supply from ~380M at the start of 2025 to ~350M now.

This Week’s Calendar:

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Charts of the Day: