After briefly climbing back above $90,000 following the Christmas weekend, Bitcoin has fallen below $87,000 as extreme negative sentiment eased into neutrality. Ethereum followed a similar pattern, with both assets consolidating in tightening ranges instead of extending their late-December rebound. Price action and positioning now suggest compression and uncertainty rather than a confirmed recovery trend.

Ethereum’s total value locked remains elevated despite the latest market pullback, with onchain capital consolidating around core protocols. TVL on Ethereum is about $68.6 billion, while aggregate DeFi TVL stands near $182 billion. A 2026 outlook from Joseph Chalom foresees a potential 10x increase driven by stablecoins and tokenized RWAs.

BNB Chain developers plan to activate the Fermi hard fork on the mainnet on 14 January 2026 at 02:30 UTC, introducing shorter block intervals and execution upgrades. The network change is designed to improve block times, throughput, and validator coordination, while validators and node operators must update their clients before the fork to stay aligned with the chain.

Crypto exploit losses tied to TVL in 2025 have exceeded $2.53 billion, with social engineering responsible for 55.3% ($1.39 billion), according to Sentora. Chainalysis estimates $2.7–$3.4 billion was stolen across all theft categories this year, including $2.02 billion linked to DPRK-affiliated groups and an estimated $1.4 billion taken from Bybit.

In 2025, Solana and Hyperliquid rank as the highest-earning blockchain networks, with Solana at $1.3 billion and Hyperliquid at $816 million. Ethereum trails at roughly $524 million. The results highlight a shift toward execution-driven activity converting usage into fees, rather than relying on passive liquidity or sentiment swings.

On December 26, Trust Wallet reported that about $7 million was affected by a security incident tied specifically to its browser extension version 2.68 and pledged to fully reimburse impacted users. The company urged those using the vulnerable Chrome extension release to disable it and upgrade to version 2.69, while stressing that mobile users and other extension versions were not impacted.

On 25 December, blockchain investigator ZachXBT and other researchers raised security concerns about a recent Trust Wallet browser extension update. They allege that new code added on 24 December may exfiltrate seed phrases and wallet data to a spoofed domain, with users reporting rapid fund drains exceeding $2 million. The reports suggest a potential supply-chain compromise limited to the browser extension, while Trust Wallet has not yet issued any public response.

Uniswap governance passed the UNIfication proposal on 25 December, with 125,342,017 UNI votes in favor and 742 against, exceeding the 40 million UNI quorum. The plan includes a one-time burn of 100 million UNI from treasury and, after a two-day timelock, activation of protocol fee switches and the removal of frontend fees.

Bitcoin's price is now more heavily influenced by derivatives markets than by spot trading, according to CoinGlass. The report notes that futures, perpetual swaps, and options account for most trading activity, with derivatives volumes consistently exceeding spot across rallies and corrections. As a result, short-term price direction is increasingly driven by leverage, positioning, and hedging behavior rather than direct spot buying or selling.