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In brief Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie introduced the CRYPTO Act on Thursday to criminalize unlicensed virtual currency operations. The bill creates graduated penalties from Class A misdemeanor to Class C felony, with maximum sentences of 5 to 15 years in state prison. New York currently imposes only civil penalties on unlicensed operators, unlike federal law and 18 other states that already criminalize such activity. New York prosecutors are pressing lawmakers to turn unlicensed crypto operations into a jailable offense, noting that civil fines alone have failed to deter a growing underground economy fueled…

Belarus has introduced a legal framework for so-called “cryptobanks,” formally integrating digital asset activity into the country’s regulated banking system under direct state oversight.On Friday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19, defining how crypto banks may operate and what conditions they must meet to enter the market. The decree positions cryptobanks as joint-stock companies authorized to combine token-based operations with traditional banking, payments and related financial services. Rather than creating a parallel sector for crypto, the framework ties digital asset activity to existing financial oversight mechanisms and infrastructure. Under the rules, cryptobanks must obtain resident status in the country’s Hi-Tech…

In brief Political and fiscal actions are exerting greater influence on crypto prices than traditional cycle-based or on-chain indicators. Expansionary spending, subdued real yields, and blurred monetary boundaries are reinforcing Bitcoin’s sensitivity to liquidity conditions. Regulatory progress in Washington is emerging as a key variable shaping investor positioning and institutional appetite. A new regime in which political announcements move markets more than internal metrics has begun to undermine the relevance of Bitcoin’s four-year cycle. While equities rallied in 2025, Bitcoin lagged, pointing to a market increasingly driven by liquidity expectations and policy timing rather than broad risk appetite.Under the traditional four-year…

In brief Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group asked a California federal court on Thursday to intervene in a class action accusing Google of copyright infringement in AI training. The publishers allege Google downloaded their books from pirate sites, including Z-Library and OceanofPDF, then repeatedly copied them while training its models. Google’s C4 training dataset allegedly pulls from at least 28 piracy-linked websites, with the copyright symbol appearing more than 200 million times. Major book publishers Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group filed a motion Thursday to intervene in an existing class action lawsuit filed last year against Google, accusing…

Your day-ahead look for Jan. 13, 2026

Fidelity Labs managing partner Parth Gargava says bitcoin may be transitioning away from its familiar, halving-linked four-year rhythm and into something closer to a “supercycle”, a regime that could keep prices elevated for longer and make drawdowns less severe, if structural demand continues to build. Speaking in Fidelity’s Jan. 9 crypto outlook for 2026 video, Gargava anchored the discussion in the cycle framework many market participants have used for years: peaks arriving roughly a year and a half after each halving. “Traditionally, what we have seen is Bitcoin has had this four-year cycle,” he said, adding that the pattern has…

XRP is trading at around $2.06 on January 13, 2026, leaving its price action a full step below the zone that capped its last rally that ended with a high of $3.65 in July 2025.  However, predictions that point to XRP reclaiming that peak and then pushing into new highs above $3.8, have been on the front page of bank research notes and trader-led chart projections. Notably, various technical analyses have suggested that XRP is programmed to return back into the upper-$3s and into new price territories this year. Standard Chartered’s XRP Target Clears $3.8 XRP’s all-time high price now…

The scale of crypto-related theft reached unprecedented levels in 2025, with losses exceeding $4.04 billion, according to PeckShield’s annual security report.This escalation underlines the growing sophistication of attacks and the increasing security challenges facing the cryptocurrency industry.Sponsored Sponsored2025 Crypto Security Report Reveals Rising Losses and Declining Asset Recovery2025’s figure marks a 34.2% increase compared to the $3.01 billion stolen in 2024 and a rise of approximately 55% from 2023’s $2.61 billion. Despite a decrease in the total number of crypto-related security incidents in 2025, the overall value of stolen assets increased sharply. This indicates a shift toward fewer but higher-impact…

A wave of large XRP purchases has been recorded on-chain, with long-term holders adding 720 million tokens over three days. The shift follows a period of steady selling and comes as the asset trades in a narrow range near key support levels. Long-Term Buyers Return After Extended Selling From January 9 to January 11, 2026, XRP wallets linked to long-term holders added 720 million tokens. On January 11 alone, accumulation reached 242.7 million coins. This follows a three-month stretch of consistent outflows from the same group. During the recent buying activity, XRP’s price has stayed steady. It traded between $2.03…

Iran’s national currency, the rial, has completely collapsed against the U.S. dollar as the country’s economic crisis worsens. The value of one rial is now worth $0.00 right now. On the open market, one U.S. dollar now trades for roughly 1.4 million rials, a collapse that has erased decades of purchasing power and fueled widespread unrest. The currency’s plunge isn’t new, but the pace of decline in 2025 and early 2026 has been dramatic. Sanctions remain severe, oil revenues have shrunk, and political instability has driven investors and ordinary Iranians to seek alternatives to the rial and even to the…