This month’s digest explores whether Bitcoin has maintained its status as a safe-haven asset, analyzes asset movements in January, and compiles the most interesting long positions of the month.

Theme of the Month

No Longer a Safe Haven?

Events at the start of 2026 have shown that investors still view cryptocurrencies as safe-haven assets amidst various external factors. However, it has become clear that this narrative is no longer as robust and straightforward as it once was.

One of the key sources of uncertainty in January was the global political agenda: U.S. President Donald Trump escalated tensions surrounding Venezuela by kidnapping the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, threatened Iran, and openly pressured Greenland. Market dynamics indicated that investors interpreted this as a reason to seek safer assets.

On January 5, Maduro appeared in a New York court regarding illegal drug shipments to the U.S. and was remanded in custody until at least March. On the same day, the spot price of gold rose above $4460 per ounce, while silver increased to $78.8. Investors’ desire to hedge against political risks pushed Bitcoin above $93,000, while Ethereum tested the $3200 mark.

Positive sentiment was also observed in stock markets. By noon on January 5, the South Korean Kospi index and Japan's Nikkei had risen by more than 2.8%, with European benchmarks also in the green.

On January 11, the crypto market, including the anonymous coins segment, gained momentum following comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell regarding threats of criminal prosecution from the U.S. Department of Justice. This marked another episode in the conflict between the regulator's chair and Trump, amplifying market signals of tension within the U.S. financial-political system.

Against this backdrop, Bitcoin began to rise moderately, while the movement of privacy-focused coins was more pronounced: the price of Monero surged by 15.3%, reaching a historic high around $596; Zcash gained 9.4%.

At that time, gold had risen to $4578 per ounce. Overall, this trend seemed expected: investors sought to diversify risks due to doubts about the stability of the traditional dollar-based financial system.

However, the rally in cryptocurrencies turned out to be short-lived. A correction in stock markets and mixed macroeconomic signals from Asia led to a decrease in risk appetite. In this context, Bitcoin fell below $80,000, dragging altcoins down with it. Under these conditions, it became evident that the dynamics of digital assets were increasingly following general market sentiments, gradually losing their characteristics as a standalone safe-haven asset.

This behavioral shift is confirmed by data on the correlation between Bitcoin and gold, which was previously viewed by part of the community as a sign of coordinated movement among safe-haven assets. In January, for the first time since mid-2022, the 52-week correlation between them dropped to zero.

The first month of the year demonstrated that cryptocurrencies remain sensitive to financial and political events; however, their role as a protective tool is increasingly fragmented, and their behavior is more closely integrated into the logic of traditional financial markets.

Key Highlights: Numbers, Charts, News

Dynamics of Major Assets

ForkLog examined the dynamics of major assets, the DeFi sector, and ETFs. From January 1 to 29, the cryptocurrency market capitalization changed slightly—from $3.05 trillion to $3.1 trillion, according to CoinGecko.

Last month, the price of the first cryptocurrency on Binance briefly surpassed $97,900. As of January 29, digital gold is trading above $88,270.

Daily chart of BTC/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.

In mid-January, Ethereum managed to briefly exceed $3400. At the time of writing, the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency is approximately $2960.

Daily chart of ETH/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.

By the end of the month, Bitcoin's market share was 57.3%, while Ethereum's was 11.6%. The cryptocurrency fear and greed index indicates investor pessimism.

Data: ForkLog, Alternative.

DeFi

The total value locked in DeFi protocols increased from $117.4 billion to $121.3 billion. In the Ethereum ecosystem, the figure also rose from $67.98 billion to $70.03 billion.

Data: DefiLlama. 

In the protocol rankings, Aave leads with $34.25 billion. In second place is Lido ($20.05 billion), followed by EigenCloud ($13.39 billion).

Data: ForkLog, DefiLlama.

The trading volume on decentralized exchanges over the past 30 days amounted to $391.9 billion. As of January 29, the share of PancakeSwap is estimated at 60.1%, while Uniswap holds 23.9%. In the Solana ecosystem, PumpSwap dominated with 58.5%.

ETF

In January, the net outflow from Bitcoin ETFs amounted to $278.29 million. Cumulative inflows since approval of the products reached $56.33 billion. The total net asset value under management is $115.35 billion.

IBIT from BlackRock accounts for $69.41 billion, followed by FBTC from Fidelity ($17.32 billion) and GBTC from Grayscale ($14.33 billion).

Data: ForkLog, SoSoValue.

Inflow for the month into Ethereum ETFs was $55.28 million. Since launch, these instruments have accumulated $12.38 billion. The total net asset value is $18.22 billion.

Leaders in attracted funds are ETHA from BlackRock ($10.29 billion) and ETHE from Grayscale ($2.64 billion).

Data: ForkLog, SoSoValue.

Mining

Bitcoin's hashrate in January accelerated its decline within a downward trend that began after reaching a historic high of 1.15 ZH/s (7 DMA) in October. At the start of the year, the parameter remained above 1 ZH/s.

The collapse of the network's computational power was triggered by the winter storm "Fern," which hit the U.S. starting January 23. It affected major regions hosting cryptocurrency mining centers, including Texas, Georgia, and New York. The hashrate of the largest mining pool, Foundry USA, dropped by more than 60%.

The organization representing most American miners lost over 200 EH/s, with its share decreasing to 22%. Some Bitcoin farms were left without power due to the natural disaster, while others voluntarily shut down equipment to balance consumption under contracts with energy operators.

Source: Glassnode.

By January 29, Foundry USA had mostly recovered, regaining 28% of its market share. However, Bitcoin's global hashrate decreased to 871 EH/s by the end of the month.

The network difficulty, correlated with the hashrate, decreased by 1.2% following a recalculation on January 8. Two weeks later, the value dropped another 3.28%, with the current forecast for the next adjustment indicating a nearly 7% decrease.

The decline in difficulty and the recovery of digital gold prices in mid-month led to an increase in the hashrate price above $42 per PH/s per day.

Source: Hashrate Index.

Amid the cryptocurrency price drop, the mining profitability metric returned to levels below $40. This threshold is defined by industry experts as the breakeven point for most miners.

Major News

The main topic of January 2026 was predictably the price of Bitcoin—both current and future. While some analysts assessed the impact of the U.S.-Venezuela conflict on the leading cryptocurrency, others searched for a "death cross" on the chart and predicted a swift reversal for the asset.

Some experts, as they did last year, spoke of the onset of a bear phase, although there were also contrary assessments suggesting that the fourth quarter of 2025 could mark its end.

January showed that nothing has changed in this regard: analysts continue to try to guess Bitcoin's direction and offer yet another clickbait forecast. Other market participants, however, focused on more grounded matters—new products, developments, their own resilience, and challenges.

Other notable events in January included:

  • Bragging on Telegram helped uncover a $40 million theft from the U.S. government.
  • Downloads of the BitChat messenger surged by 400,000 amid protests in Iran.
  • Buterin announced a return to Ethereum values, earned $70,000 on Polymarket, and decided to return to decentralized social networks.
  • Developers of Zcash collectively left the ECC due to a conflict, while Monero regained its status as the leading anonymous coin.

Longs of the Month

Even the most experienced investors and traders occasionally make mistakes and lose funds while trying to predict long-term price changes. Various delta-neutral strategies aim to protect finances from such errors. Read more about what they entail and the tools that enable their use in Alex Kondratiuk's extensive article.

In November 2024, Russian Ilya Lichtenstein was sentenced by a U.S. court to five years in prison for hacking the Bitfinex exchange and stealing a record 119,754 BTC. However, during the Christmas holidays, he quietly regained his freedom thanks to a pardon from President Donald Trump. Lena Jess recalls the personal and criminal history of the hacker and his accomplice Heather Morgan.

ForkLog news editor Vladimir Sliper's column addresses pressing issues: the lack of real innovations, the "Trumpization" of the crypto industry, and the disinterest of not only mass users but also developers in promising projects. Nevertheless, there is hope.

Also:

  • Quiet Evolution: Why Whales Are Accumulating Ethereum in Anticipation of Glamsterdam and Hegota
  • You Can't Block Everyone: How Dictatorships Counter the Bitchat Messenger 
  • The Hanoi Convention on Cybercrime—Friend or Foe?
  • Sometimes a Scam Is Just a Scam: Why Crypto Enthusiasts Believe in Conspiracies (and Are Sometimes Right)

Artificial Intelligence

In January, the most notable event in the AI sector was yet another scandal surrounding Grok. The chatbot allowed the generation of pornographic deepfakes and similar content involving minors on X, prompting a wave of criticism from authorities in several countries.

Subsequently, the startup xAI disabled the function for creating explicit images of real people in the social network.

Despite the scandal, the Pentagon integrated Grok into the operations of the Department of Defense and provided "all necessary data" from military IT systems, including information from the intelligence department.

Other significant events in January included:

  • China nearly caught up with the U.S. and the West in AI and emerged as a leader in the "robot race".
  • Elon Musk demanded $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft.
  • Sam Altman's company confirmed plans to release an AI device and implemented age filtering in ChatGPT.
  • Noted investor George Noble predicted the collapse of OpenAI.