Ethereum Gas Fee Continues to Drop, Now at 0.352 Gwei

Pre-market on January 7, Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock STRC topped $100 for the first time since early November 25. With STRC back to its $100 par value, Strategy can now access an At-The-Market (ATM) offering tied to the stock’s market price or raise additional capital to expand its Bitcoin holdings. Positioned as a short-term high-yield credit product, STRC currently delivers an 11% annual dividend yield—paid monthly in cash. The yield is adjusted monthly to incentivize trading around the $100 par value and mitigate price volatility.

**Whale Movement Update (Jan 7) – HyperInsight Monitoring** Between 10:00 AM and 8:00 PM ET today, key on-chain/futures activity tracked by HyperInsight (Telegram: @HyperInsight) includes: ### Bullish Activity - The "Die-hard Bull" whale closed two long positions at a loss: - BTC long: $1.69M loss - SOL long: $163K loss - A whale known for "Profiting $96.67M via ETH price swings" shifted to futures, opening a **20x leveraged long position on 980 BTC** (valued at ~$90.9M). - A whale liquidated a 53-day-old BTC long (loss of $588K), then opened a **3x leveraged short position on 139.62 BTC** (valued at ~$12.9M). ### Bearish Activity - A whale took $41.3M in profits from a BTC short position (gaining $128K) and now holds a wait-and-see short position. - The "Shiba Inu Air Force Head" whale significantly increased its BTC short exposure: futures short positions account for 90% of its portfolio, with total account value ~$28M.

On January 7, mining firm Riot Platforms released an operational update noting it mined 460 bitcoins in December 2025, sold 1,818 bitcoins for a total of $161.6 million, and reduced its bitcoin holdings to 18,005—down from 19,368 as of November.

Per Globenewswire, Rumble and Tether announced the January 7 launch of their non-custodial crypto wallet, Rumble Wallet— which integrates seamlessly with the Rumble platform. The wallet supports USDT, gold token XAUt, and Bitcoin, enabling users to tip creators directly in crypto.

Jan. 7 — Chen Zhi, founder and chairman of Prince Group, was arrested in Cambodia and deported to China for investigation by Chinese authorities, Beijing Daily reported.

**Crypto Needs Three Hurdles Cleared for 2026 Rally Sustainability, Bitwise CIO Says** Jan. 7 – Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, noted cryptocurrency must clear three key hurdles to sustain its rally in 2026. The first and most urgent obstacle has already been overcome: avoiding another large-scale liquidation event like the 2022 FTX crash. With recent market stability and no major liquidations expected through the end of 2025, those concerns have faded. The second hurdle lies in U.S. legislation—specifically, whether the *Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act* will pass. The bill is advancing in Congress, with the Senate set to debate it on Jan. 15. Disagreements remain, however, over issues including decentralized finance (DeFi) regulation, stablecoin incentives, and political conflicts of interest. Passage would lock in regulatory principles for crypto in U.S. law, reducing vulnerability to future political shifts and laying a "solid foundation" for future gr