Huobi HTX has launched AERGO perpetual contracts and kicked off a contract trading party.

On January 2, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong outlined the company’s 2026 priorities, which center on expanding its global financial ecosystem: - Building a full-category trading platform worldwide covering cryptocurrencies, stocks, prediction markets, and commodities, with support for spot, futures, and options trading; - Scaling its stablecoin and payment businesses; - Enabling global users to go on-chain via the Coinbase Developer Platform, Base Chain, and Base App. To advance these goals, Coinbase is significantly ramping up investment in product quality and underlying automation. Its aim is to position Coinbase as the world’s leading financial application.

January 2nd – Per Coinglass data, Coinbase’s Bitcoin Premium Index has remained in negative territory for 19 straight days, currently at -0.1092%. **BlockBeats Note**: The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index tracks the gap between Bitcoin’s price on Coinbase (a leading U.S. exchange) and the global market average. It’s a key metric for monitoring U.S. capital inflows, institutional investment enthusiasm, and shifts in market sentiment. - A positive premium (Coinbase price > global average) typically signals: strong U.S. market buying pressure, active inflows of institutional or compliant funds, ample USD liquidity, and broadly optimistic investor sentiment. - A negative premium (Coinbase price < global average) generally reflects: notable U.S. market selling pressure, reduced investor risk appetite, rising market risk aversion, or capital outflows.

Jan. 2 (Coindesk) — U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs posted their worst-ever outflow stretch in Nov.-Dec. 2025, with total net outflows hitting $4.57 billion. November alone saw $3.48 billion in outflows, followed by $1.09 billion in December. The outflows signal a sharp drop in institutional Bitcoin interest, coming as the crypto fell 20% over the same period. Ethereum ETFs also notched outflows topping $2 billion across the two months.

January 2: Barclays keeps its forecast for Fed rate cuts in 2026 unchanged. The bank’s U.S. economists said in a report the Fed is expected to deliver two 25-basis-point rate cuts in 2026—one in March and one in June. They noted the risk of delaying rate cuts outweighs that of the baseline scenario. Minutes from the Fed’s December policy meeting align with Barclays’ view: the central bank is likely to hold rates steady at its January gathering. Per the economists, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) needs time to assess the impact of recent rate cuts. (Source: FX678)

Binance announced per official statements that effective 8:00 PM UTC+8 on January 2, 2026, if the funding rate of its hourly-settled U-index perpetual contract stays at or below an absolute value of 0.025% for 16 straight periods, Binance Futures will shift the funding rate settlement frequency from hourly to every four hours starting with the 17th period.

On January 2nd, Danske Bank FX and Rates Strategist Jens Naervig Pedersen said in a report that global market liquidity is expected to stay thin this week but could rebound next week. “As more economic data hits the wire, market liquidity should improve next week,” the strategist noted. Key releases next week include critical U.S. labor market data—headlined by the December Non-Farm Payrolls report due January 9th—and ISM surveys. During the year-end period, many market participants have been on holiday or closing out positions, resulting in generally lower liquidity.