Wall Street doubles down on crypto
There’s never a dull moment onchain. Here’s what you need to know this week:
Crypto prices ticked upward. Also, the first Avalanche ETF launched in the U.S.
Wall Street is doubling down on crypto. From tokenization to trading, why major firms keep adding new crypto products.
The stablecoin market cap just hit a new all-time high. And more key stats from around the cryptoverse.
MARKET BYTES
Crypto prices ticked upward, but lagged record-breaking markets for stocks and precious metals
Over the course of this week, crypto prices have ticked slowly upwards, with BTC climbing from around $86,500 on Sunday to as high as $92,000 on Wednesday and ETH rising from around $2,800 to $3,000. A variety of altcoins also saw gains in the same period.
What’s been driving the gains? “A weaker U.S. dollar and record-setting global equity markets, led by technology shares and AI optimism, have supported risk assets but crypto has lagged metals like gold and silver,” reports CoinDesk.
In other macro news, the Federal Reserve — citing “solid” economic growth, a job market showing “signs of stabilization,” and “somewhat elevated inflation” — held interest rates steady this week after cutting rates three times at recent meetings.
Markets, which had anticipated the move, remained fairly steady following the announcement. Goldman Sachs analysts are predicting the central bank will likely cut rates two more times in 2026.
Here’s more news you need to know…
Prediction markets surge as major crypto use-case
Crypto prices might be down from last year’s all-time highs, but crypto-powered prediction markets like Polymarket have grown into a major use-case for blockchain-based technology.
Apps like Polymarket and Kalshi allow users to trade on a vast range of outcomes. Current trending predictions on Kalshi include potential Oscar winners, BTC’s price at the end of January, and who will become the NFL’s MVP. (Polymarket returned to the U.S. for the first time in nearly three years in early January.)
The rise of prediction markets has been dizzying: Weekly notional volume across Polymarket, Kalshi, and other platforms surged from $500 million in June to nearly $6 billion this month, according to Bloomberg.
Major crypto firms, including Coinbase, have begun incorporating prediction trading into their core user experiences. As Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s head of consumer and business products, told Bloomberg, the firm has “seen tons of excitement” from users who want a single venue to trade “everything.”
Kick it... On Tuesday, Major League Soccer announced a years-long partnership with Polymarket. According to ESPN, the deal will allow viewers access to “real-time market activity to trade on the expected winner or which team might emerge as MLS champion.”
First Avalanche ETF launched in the U.S.
On Monday, fund manager VanEck launched a new spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) for the smart-contract compatible cryptocurrency Avalanche (AVAX).
The fund, which trades under the ticker symbol VAVX, was up almost 4% as of Tuesday’s close. The fund also offers staking reward yield to holders.
“We see Avalanche as one of only a handful of smart contract platforms, alongside Ethereum and Solana, equipped to offer the network throughput (and in Avalanche’s case, customization) that institutions will demand as tokenization accelerates,” VanEck Director of Digital Assets Product Kyle DaCruz told Decrypt.
Meanwhile in Asia… Japan is planning to begin approving crypto ETFs in 2028, according to a new report. And according to The Block, South Korea is “working to establish a framework for such ETFs as early as this quarter.”
How an Afghan stablecoin platform is transforming humanitarian aid
In war-torn and poverty-stricken regions of the world, crypto has emerged as a vital lifeline for humanitarian aid. An Afghanistan-based platform called HesabPay — which partners with organizations including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Mercy Corps — provides stablecoin-based payments networks to support tens of thousands of families in Afghanistan and Syria.
In Afghanistan, HesabPay has more than 650,000 wallets and moves around $60 million in stablecoins a month. In addition to Syria, the platform is working to launch in Haiti and Sudan.
“In Syria, getting money from abroad can be complicated,” the New York Times reports. “Cash is scarce, international banks steer clear of the country and remittance firms like Western Union can charge as much as 10 percent in transfer fees. HesabPay allows organizations like Mercy Corps to sidestep those roadblocks.”
HesabPay was created by an Afghan-American entrepreneur named Sanzar Kakar, who ran Afghanistan’s main payroll processor until years of conflict and international sanctions caused the country’s central bank to collapse. “He built HesabPay, named after the local word for ‘account,’ as a phone-based app that enabled instant transfers from one digital wallet to another, bypassing banks and the Taliban government,” the Times reports.
Fraud prevention… Blockchain-based payments are highly transparent, with the virtual ledger revealing exactly how much was sent, who received the payment, and where it was spent. “It’s almost all upsides, compared to the way aid has traditionally been delivered,” said Ric Shreves, the president of the Decentralized Cooperation Foundation.
WHALE STREET
Even though prices are down, the biggest financial institutions remain all-in on crypto
While crypto markets might still be in recovery mode, the current down market shows no signs of scaring away institutions like banks, hedge funds, and investment firms.
According to a new report from accounting firm PwC, institutional adoption of crypto has “crossed the point of reversibility,” with major firms from Wall Street and beyond investing heavily in onchain settlement, stablecoins, and compliance infrastructure.
After years of pilots and experiments, the report says, these firms are doubling down with multi-year projects targeting core business processes.
Meanwhile, according to a new survey from Coinbase, more than 70% of institutional investors said that bitcoin is currently “undervalued,” and 80% said they would maintain or increase their crypto holdings if markets were to fall 10%.
What’s the latest on institutional adoption? Here’s what you need to know.
UBS Group to offer crypto trading to wealthy clients
UBS Group, which has more than $4.7 trillion in assets under management, is reportedly planning to offer access to BTC and ETH trading to some private banking clients, according to Bloomberg.
UBS has experimented with tokenized products and payments, but a foray into trading would mark a major shift for the bank, which has long been cautious around cryptocurrency trading. While the plan hasn’t been solidified, reports say clients in Switzerland will likely get first access, before the product rolls out across Asia.
Once launched, UBS would join some of the world’s largest financial institutions in offering crypto-trading products to its clients. BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF, called IBIT, launched in 2024, and has since become one of its most profitable products overall. Standard Chartered began offering BTC and ETH trading to institutional clients in the UK last summer. And JPMorgan is also reportedly planning to offer crypto trading to its institutional clients.
As for UBS, the planned new offering comes amid growing demand from its wealthiest clients. “As part of UBS’s digital asset strategy, we actively monitor developments and explore initiatives that reflect client needs, regulatory developments, market trends and robust risk controls,” a UBS spokesperson said.
USDC issuer Circle says it’s been in talks with "virtually every major bank in the world"
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said that global financial institutions are looking to utilize stablecoins across payments, capital markets, and tokenized assets. And as stablecoin adoption continues across the financial system, and banks move from experimentation and into full-on adoption, Allaire said that 40% annual growth could be a “reasonable baseline.”
Stablecoin adoption accelerated in 2025, in part due to regulatory clarity provided by the GENIUS Act. The sector’s market cap set a new all-time high of around $314 billion as corporations and financial institutions increasingly made stablecoins — with their instantaneous settlement times and low transaction costs — a key element of the global financial system.
A consortium including Bank of America and Deutsche Bank is reportedly exploring the launch of a joint stablecoin. Stripe, which processed more than $1.4 trillion in transaction volume in 2024, launched its own stablecoin-focused blockchain with trial partners including OpenAI, Kalshi, and UBS. And Visa announced in December that it would be launching a service to allow corporations to settle USDC transactions over Solana.
Allaire noted that such developments are likely to continue as stablecoin utility keeps expanding. "In the short, medium, and long term, everybody has to participate in the technology," Allaire said.
State Street is launching a platform for tokenized assets
The Boston-based financial services firm, which boasts more than $4.7 trillion in assets under management, announced this month that it would be launching an infrastructure platform for tokenized assets.
The platform, which is aimed at institutional clients that utilize tokenized products on public and private blockchains, will serve as a “seamless interface between digital and traditional services.”
The platform marks a major step toward “moving beyond experimentation and into practical, scalable solutions that meet the highest standards of security and compliance,” says Joerg Ambrosius, the firm’s president of Investment Services.
State Street isn’t the only major institution delving into tokenization, which could grow into a more than $11 trillion market by 2030.
BlackRock launched a tokenized money market fund on Ethereum that has surpassed $2.5 billion in assets under management. BNY Mellon just launched a tokenized deposit service that allows institutions to transfer funds using blockchain rails for collateral and margin transactions. And JPMorgan has launched Kinexys, a platform that’s testing using a dollar-denominated deposit token built on blockchain rails and that's backed by the bank’s balance sheet.
“We're at the beginning of the tokenization of all assets,” as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink put it. “From real estate to equities, to bonds, across the board.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
$311 billion
New record-high market cap for stablecoins, as of last week, according to data from DeFiLlama. As onchain investors seek refuge from broader crypto volatility, USDC currently stands near $75 billion in circulation.The majority of the stablecoin sector is currently tokenized on the Ethereum network.
$4.2 billion
The all-time-high valuation of tokenized gold as of Tuesday Jan. 27, according to data from rwa.xyz. With gold trading above $5,000 per ounce for the first time this week, the tokenized gold market (including PAX Gold) has now risen to new highs, as investors seek safe havens amid geopolitical volatility.
$1 million
The prize bounty that the Ethereum Foundation is offering to developers who can help strengthen the network’s encryption against potential risks posed by quantum computing. The foundation recently formed a “Post-Quantum” developer team as quantum resistance has become a “top strategic priority.”
50%
The share of survey respondents with more than $500 million in revenue who say they’re accepting crypto payments, according to PayPal. The survey of more than 600 companies found that, overall, 4 in 10 respondents were accepting crypto payments, and of those who did, crypto transactions made up more than 25% of their payments.
TOKEN TRIVIA
How often is Bitcoin’s blockchain updated with new transactions?
A
Every 10 minutes
B
Once per hour
C
Once per day
D
Twice per day
Find the answer below.
Trivia Answer
A
Every 10 minutes
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