The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Happy Thursday! Bitcoin briefly slipped back below $90,000 this morning after nearing $95,000 in the opening days of 2026, as early ETF-driven optimism faded into overhead resistance, cautious derivatives positioning, and a market still rebuilding conviction after a weak 2025, according to analysts.
In today’s newsletter, the Zcash developer team at Electric Coin Company resigns, spot XRP ETFs slump to their first net daily outflows, Kalshi’s CEO endorses a bill banning insider trading on prediction markets, and more.
Meanwhile, Optimism Foundation proposed instituting monthly OP token buybacks.
P.S. Don’t forget to check out The Funding, a biweekly rundown of crypto VC trends. It’s a great read — and just like The Daily, it’s free to subscribe!
Zcash developers quit, form new company after board clash
The entire team at Electric Coin Company, the primary developer of the privacy-focused Zcash protocol, resigned on Jan. 7 following a dispute with its parent nonprofit board.
* CEO Josh Swihart said on X that the clash stemmed from irreconcilable differences with the Bootstrap board, which governs ECC and helps steward the Zcash ecosystem, though he stressed the protocol itself remains operational.
* “In short, the terms of our employment were changed in ways that made it impossible for us to perform our duties effectively and with integrity,” Swihart wrote.
* The departing developers said they are forming a new company and creating a new Zcash wallet to continue building what Swihart called “unstoppable private money.”
* The mass resignation follows a Dec. 1 ECC reorganization designed to streamline protocol, wallet, and marketing efforts, as well as several high-profile leadership exits across the Zcash ecosystem in recent years.
* Zcash’s ZEC plunged more than 15% to below $400 at one point on Thursday following the news, with Monero’s XMR overtaking it as the largest privacy coin by market cap, though ZEC remains up more than 700% over the past year.
Spot XRP ETFs see first net outflows since debut
U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded their first-ever net daily outflows on Wednesday, with $47.3 million in redemptions from 21Shares’ TOXR outweighing inflows into other funds, snapping a 36-day inflow streak as XRP fell 5% to around $2.13.
* BTC Markets crypto analyst Rachael Lucas said the $40.9 million in overall outflows were modest and driven by profit-taking after XRP’s recent rally from $1.80 to $2.40, rather than a breakdown in underlying demand.
* Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs also saw heavy redemptions, with Bitcoin ETFs losing $486 million as BTC slipped 2.4% to about $90,290 and Ethereum ETFs posting their first 2026 outflow day as ETH dropped 3.8% to roughly $3,125.
* Lucas said ETF outflows reflect post-rally rebalancing and weaker crypto sentiment versus equities, though price recovery remains plausible if BTC holds $90,000 and ETH stays above $3,100.
Kalshi CEO endorses bill banning insider trading on prediction markets
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour publicly backed a new bill from Rep. Ritchie Torres that would ban insider trading on prediction markets, saying the firm already enforces such rules.
* Mansour drew a sharp distinction between federally regulated U.S. platforms like Kalshi and “offshore, unregulated” prediction markets, arguing recent insider-trading concerns stem from the latter, without mentioning any names.
* The debate intensified recently after a trader on Polymarket reportedly made $400,000 betting on the ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, raising questions about the misuse of non-public information.
* The sector’s leading platforms both set monthly volume records in December, with Kalshi posting $6.3 billion versus Polymarket’s $2.3 billion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.
Trump-backed World Liberty Financial seeks US bank charter to bring USD1 stablecoin fully onshore
World Liberty Financial said its newly formed unit, WLTC Holdings, has applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to bring its USD1 stablecoin under U.S. federal supervision.
* The proposed World Liberty Trust Company would operate as a federally regulated trust bank focused on stablecoin issuance, custody, conversion, and on- and off-ramp services for institutional clients, according to a Wednesday release.
* The DeFi project’s co-founder, Zach Witkoff, said the charter would unify USD1’s issuance, custody, and conversion under a single regulated entity, as institutions already use the stablecoin for payments, settlement, and treasury operations.
* USD1, launched in March 2025 and backed by dollars and short-dated U.S. Treasurys, has grown to more than $3.3 billion in circulation within its first year, following World Liberty’s October 2024 launch backed by President Donald Trump.
Crypto crime topped $150 billion in 2025 as state-backed actors scaled onchain: Chainalysis
Chainalysis reported illicit cryptocurrency addresses received a record lower-bound estimate of $154 billion in 2025, up 162% year-over-year, driven largely by a surge in onchain activity linked to sanctioned entities.
* The blockchain intelligence firm found that stablecoins accounted for 84% of all illicit transaction volume, reflecting criminals’ growing preference for low-volatility assets.
* Chainalysis said a narrow set of state-linked actors dominated the surge, led by North Korea, Russia, Iran-aligned networks, and Chinese money-laundering groups, even as illicit crypto activity remained under 1% of total onchain volume.
In the next 24 hours
* U.S. nonfarm payrolls data are due at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday.
* U.S. FOMC members Neel Kashkari and Thomas Barkin will speak at 10 a.m. and 1:35 p.m., respectively.
* Movement and Wormhole are among the crypto projects set for token unlocks.
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