「Whale Loses $42.7 Million in Annual P&L Betting Long on Shitcoins, Misses Out on This Leg of the Bull Run After Massive Liquidation」

On January 6, Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani noted that following a strong 2025 showing, the crypto industry retains medium-to-long-term upside potential in 2026. He advised investors to position themselves in crypto-related stocks during 2026’s market pullbacks. In 2025, Bitcoin posted a mild 6% pullback in a soft Q4, while crypto-related stocks averaged a 59% surge. Key 2026 outlooks include: - Tokenization is set to emerge as the dominant "super cycle." - Bitcoin has bottomed, with a 2026 price target of $150,000 and a potential 2027 cycle peak of $200,000. - Stablecoin supply is projected to rise 56% to $420 billion, primarily fueled by payments and fintech use cases involving firms like Block, Revolut, and PayPal. - The Total Value Locked (TVL) for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is forecast to jump from $37 billion to $80 billion, with tokenized equity’s share rising from 2% to 16%—and banks likely to launch proprietary tokenization initiatives. - Market trad

On January 6, Coinglass data shows total net ETH outflows from centralized exchanges (CEX) reached 129,100 over the past 24 hours. The top three CEX outflows were: - Binance: 123,200 ETH - Bybit: 5,590.38 ETH - OKX: 1,954.38 ETH Additionally, Gate recorded an inflow of 5,737.51 ETH, leading the inflow rankings.

**Kontigo, a stablecoin banking startup focused on Latin America, announced on January 6 that it discovered and promptly patched a security vulnerability over the weekend. As of January 6, the company has completed full compensation for 1,005 affected users, totaling $340,900 in stablecoins.** **The incident was disclosed by Kontigo on January 5. Jesus A. Castillo, co-founder and CEO, noted his personal account was also compromised, describing the breach as a direct attack on the company’s leadership and users. In a post on X, Castillo stated the firm has identified the attackers and that those involved “will not escape consequences.”** **The security incident unfolded amid Kontigo’s rapid expansion. Just weeks prior, on December 22, the company announced it had closed a $20 million seed round led by FoundersX Ventures, with funds earmarked for product development and expansion into emerging markets.** **Founded less than a year ago and backed by Y Combinator, Kontigo reported

As per an official announcement, Binance Futures will begin transitioning the USD?-M BREV perpetual contract from pre-market trading to standard contract status on January 6, 2026, at 22:00 UTC. The transition period may last up to 3 hours, depending on market volatility and index price stability. Trading of the BREVUSDT perpetual contract and existing positions will be unaffected during this period.

Jan. 6: Federal Reserve Governor Milan said data is expected to keep supporting a rate cut, adding the Fed should slash rates by more than 100 basis points this year. Core inflation is near the Fed’s target, while its policy remains restrictive and is weighing on the economy. (FX678)

January 6 update: On-chain detective Eye revealed that “BTC OG Insider Whale” agent Garrett Jin, via his firm XHash, helped create two Ethereum staking pool contracts—Eth2Depositor (0x2F4) and EthBatchDepositor (0xE00). Data shows ~886,440 ETH (worth ~$40.7 billion) was staked into these pools over ~four months. The funds trace back to BTC sales on Hyperliquid/Hyperunit between months 8 and 9. Recently, all of this ETH has been fully unstaked. Further investigation links the operation to Hypercieve—a Singapore-registered company listed on LinkedIn, with co-founder Jack Chen (also founder of Bitcoin mining firm SpiderPool). Notably, both Chen and Jin worked in the same department at HTX: Chen served as COO (2014–2016), while Jin held the same COO role (2014–2015). Eye noted the pair have long collaborated closely, adding Chen is highly likely a key figure managing a ~$10 billion fund pool.