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Protocol Priorities Update for 2026

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Protocol Priorities Update for 2026

We introduced Protocol last June which organized our work around three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX. A lot has happened since then! In this post, we want to share what we accomplished last year, how our thinking has evolved, and where Protocol is headed in 2026.

TL;DR

  • Great progress with tracks last year as we scaled L1, scaled blobs for L2, and built a strong foundation for UX improvements.
  • Announcing three new tracks:
    • Scale (led by Ansgar, Marius, Raúl) focused on consensus, execution, and blob scaling.
    • Improve UX (led by Barnabé and Matt) doubling down on the work from last year.
    • Harden the L1 (led by Fredrik, Pari and Thomas) ensuring the core properties of Ethereum are preserved through it all.

A quick look back at 2025

2025 was one of Ethereum’s most productive years at the protocol level. We shipped two major network upgrades and made meaningful progress on every front we set out to tackle.

Pectra landed on mainnet in May, delivering EIP-7702 that lets EOAs temporarily execute smart contract code, unlocking transaction batching, gas sponsorship, and social recovery. Pectra also doubled blob throughput, raised the max effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH, and dramatically shortened validator onboarding times.

Fusaka followed in December, bringing PeerDAS to mainnet. Validators now sample blob data rather than downloading it in full, significantly reducing bandwidth requirements and enabling an 8x increase in theoretical blob capacity. Two BPO (Blob Parameter Only) forks shipped alongside Fusaka, beginning the ramp from 6 blobs per block toward higher targets.

Between the two upgrades, the community steadily raised the mainnet gas limit from an initial 30M to today’s 60M which is the first significant increase since 2021. History expiry removed pre-Merge data from full nodes, saving hundreds of gigabytes of disk space. And on the UX side, the Open Intents Framework reached production, the L1 fast confirmation rule implementations progressed across consensus clients, and interoperability standards such as ERC-7930 + ERC-7828: Interoperable addresses and names and ERC-7888: Crosschain Broadcaster moved forward.

It was a strong year. But as we looked at the road ahead, it became clear that our track structure needed to evolve to match the needs of the Ethereum community.

An impactful 2026

When we launched Protocol, we organized around three initiatives that mapped closely to near-term deliverables: get the gas limit up, get PeerDAS shipped, and improve UX. That framing served us well through Pectra and Fusaka. Now that those milestones are behind us, we have the opportunity to think about how we organize our work at a slightly higher level.

Starting in 2026, Protocol’s work is organized into three tracks:

Scale

Led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raúl Kripalani

The Scale track brings together what was previously split across Scale L1 and Scale Blobs into a single, unified effort. This reflects a practical reality: the work of increasing L1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput is deeply intertwined. Gas limit increases depend on execution engine performance. Blob scaling depends on networking and consensus changes that touch the same client code. Coordinating these efforts under one roof makes us faster and reduces the surface area for a more holistic view.

Concretely, this track is focused on:

  • Continuing to raise the gas limit toward and beyond 100M, supported by Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928) and ongoing client benchmarking
  • Delivering the scaling components of Glamsterdam, including ePBS (EIP-7732), repricings, and further blob parameter increases
  • Advancing the zkEVM attester client from prototype toward production readiness
  • State scaling involving repricing and history expiry in the short term, and a move to binary trees and statelessness in the long term

Improve UX

Led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett

The Improve UX track carries forward much of the initiative from last year, with a sharper focus on two areas that we believe are highest-leverage for Ethereum’s usability in 2026: native account abstraction and interoperability.

On account abstraction, EIP-7702 was an important step, but the end state is smart contract wallets as the default without bundlers, relayers, or extra gas overhead. Proposals like EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) are pushing toward embedding smart account logic directly into the protocol. This work also intersects with post-quantum readiness, since native AA provides a natural migration path away from ECDSA-based authentication. Complementary to this are a number of proposals in the works that could make it much more gas-efficient to verify quantum-resistant signatures in the EVM.

On interoperability, we’re building on the foundation laid by the Open Intents Framework. The goal remains seamless, trust-minimized cross-L2 interactions and we’re getting closer day by day. Continued progress on faster L1 confirmations and shorter L2 settlement times directly supports this.

Harden the L1

Led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery

Harden the L1 is a new track, and it reflects something we think deserves dedicated focus: making sure that as Ethereum scales and evolves, it retains the properties that make it valuable in the first place.

This covers several areas:

  • Security: Fredrik continues to lead the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative and is driving security hardening including post-quantum readiness, and execution-layer safeguards like post-execution transaction assertions and trustless RPCs.
  • Censorship resistance: Thomas leads the track’s protocol resilience research, spanning FOCIL (EIP-7805) and its extensions: censorship resistance for blobs, statelessness (VOPS), and the development of measurable censorship resistance metrics across the ecosystem.
  • Network resilience and testing: Parithosh’s work on devnets, testnets, and client interop testing has been essential to every upgrade we’ve shipped. As we move toward an accelerated fork cadence, the infrastructure for safely validating and deploying changes becomes even more critical.

Looking ahead

Glamsterdam is the next major network upgrade, targeted for the first half of 2026, with Hegotá planned to follow later in the year. The ambition is clear with parallel execution, significantly higher gas limits, enshrined PBS, continued blob scaling, and progress on censorship resistance, native account abstraction, and post-quantum security.

We’ll continue publishing track-level updates as we did last year; expect more information soon. If you want to follow along or get involved, protocol.ethereum.foundation is the best starting point.

Let’s keep shipping.

Nearly 90% of the largest U.S. healthcare systems use UKG for better staffing, smarter scheduling, and better care outcomes

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Nearly 90% of the largest U.S. healthcare systems use UKG for better staffing, smarter scheduling, and better care outcomes

Leading HCM and workforce management platform with industry-specific solutions transform healthcare operations for greater productivity, patient care

¿A trusted partner of more than 3,500 hospitals and 10,000 post acute care facilities, UKG, a leading global AI platform that unifies HR, pay, and workforce management, announced that attendees at ViVE 2026 and HIMSS 2026 can see how the UKG® Workforce Operating Platform helps healthcare organizations drive productivity, agility, flexibility, and an enhanced employee experience that results in better patient and resident care.

The UKG® Workforce Operating Platform helps healthcare organizations drive productivity, agility, flexibility, and an enhanced employee experience that results in better patient and resident care.Share

The UKG Workforce Operating Platform uses UKG’s deep experience and industry knowledge of the unique needs of the frontline, including doctors, nurses, and technicians, and breaks down data siloes to harness workforce insights, intelligence, and a people-first approach to AI. The result is a network of agentic and assistive AI applications across the platform that reshapes the relationship between people, technology, and frontline work, enabling healthcare providers to drive better patient outcomes and take care of their staff through best-in-class operations.

“UKG helps us in a lot of different ways, including data-driven reporting for our C-suite. We look at labor metrics per patient day and we’re able to right size labor very quickly using the data we get from UKG,” said Mike Easley, CIO at American Senior Communities, which uses UKG to raise employee morale and lower costs. “And for our workforce, many times we’re competing for talent with same day pay organizations, so we use earned wage access, which has really improved employees’ morale, the culture, and their overall financial well-being. We also look at turnover and culture: ‘Are we driving the right culture? Is our turnover going down or up in a high-turnover industry?’ We are below industry average in turnover, and I credit much of that success to our internal teams who are driving culture and strategically leveraging earned wage access and UKG technology to better support our people.”

Recent UKG research found that 83% of healthcare workers in acute settings and 82% of healthcare workers in non-acute settings at least “sometimes” feel burnt out at work. To help ease the burden in an industry known for fatigue and staffing shortages, UKG enhanced the UKG Pro® HCM and UKG Pro Workforce Management suites with specialized healthcare solutions that can help employees feel more empowered and in control of their schedules, including:

  • UKG Rapid Hire: An AI-guided, mobile-first solution that is specifically designed for high-volume, frontline hiring, UKG Rapid Hire automates up to 90% of repetitive hiring tasks such as sourcing, screening, scheduling, onboarding, and first-day readiness. See how NHS Management reduced its time-to-hire by 10 days, tripled apply-to-hire conversion rates, and generated $2.2 million in new annual revenue with UKG Rapid Hire;
  • UKG Advanced Scheduler: By combining forecasting tools, rule-based scheduling, and real-time shift management, UKG Advanced Scheduler enables managers to build schedules quickly for complex environments like healthcare where patient-to-nurse ratios, fatigue rules, and compliance are critically important. See how senior living provider Schlegel Villages uses UKG Advanced Scheduler to keep operations moving quickly and seamlessly;
  • UKG Clinical Scheduling Extensions: When combined with UKG Advanced Scheduler, UKG Clinical Scheduling Extensions streamline shift-based staffing by quantifying workload intensity, forecasting patient needs, and aligning staffing levels in real time;
  • UKG EZCall for Physicians: Administrators can create flexible, fair, and equitable physician work schedules that consider preferences, requests, FTE percentage, vacations, and more;
  • UKG Talk: To foster a culture of transparency and communication, UKG Talk allows organizations to engage frontline employees such as nurses and technicians, and keep employees connected to one another; and
  • UKG Wallet: An on-demand pay solution, UKG Wallet gives employees more control over their finances in between receiving paychecks, so healthcare organizations can build trust with employees while providing flexibility and freedom. See how three healthcare organizations leverage UKG Wallet for their workforces.

“Frontline employees in the healthcare industry do some of the most important work, and they need the right tools and resources that empower them to practice at their highest level,” said Jackie Blanchard, Chief Nurse Executive at UKG. “By giving healthcare workers more flexibility in their schedules, dismantling siloes that create roadblocks, and using agentic agents to handle monotonous tasks, healthcare professionals can focus on providing exceptional care — which is what UKG has been focused on in the healthcare space for decades.”

Crypto Long & Short: Crypto’s liquidity mirage

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Crypto Long & Short: Crypto’s liquidity mirage

Welcome to our institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week:

  • Leo Mindyuk on how executable liquidity at scale is more fragmented and fragile than most institutions assume
  • Top headlines institutions should pay attention to by Francisco Rodrigues
  • Helium’s deflationary flip in Chart of the Week

-Alexandra Levis

Expert Insights

Crypto’s liquidity mirage: why headline volume doesn’t equal tradable depth

– By Leo Mindyuk, co-founder and CEO, ML Tech

Crypto looks liquid, until you try to trade large volumes. Especially during periods of market stress and even more so if you want to execute on coins outside of the top 10-20.

On paper, the numbers are impressive. Billions traded in daily volume and trillions traded in monthly volume. Tight spreads on bitcoin BTC$68,168.18 and ether (ETH). Dozens of exchanges competing for flow. It resembles a mature, highly efficient market. The beginning of the year saw around $9 trillion of monthly spot and derivatives volumes, then October 2025 saw around $10 trillion in monthly volume (including a lot of activity around the October 10th market bloodbath). Then in November, derivatives trading volumes decreased 26% to $5.61 trillion, recording the lowest monthly activity since June, followed by even larger declines in December and January, according to CoinDesk Data. Those are still some very impressive numbers, but let’s zoom in further.

At first glance there are a lot of crypto exchanges competing for flow, but in reality just a small group of exchanges dominate (see the graph below). If those have liquidity thinning out or connectivity issues preventing the execution of volume, the whole crypto market is impacted.

Chart: Monthly derivatives centralized exchange volumes

It’s not just that the volumes are concentrated on a few exchanges, they are also highly concentrated in BTC, ETH and a couple of other top coins.

The liquidity seems quite solid with a number of institutional market makers active in the space. However, the visible liquidity is not the same as executable liquidity. According to Amberdata (see the graph below), markets that showed $103.64 million in visible liquidity suddenly had just $0.17 million available, a 98%+ collapse. The bid-ask imbalance flipped from +0.0566 (bid-heavy, buyers waiting) to -0.2196 (ask-heavy, sellers overwhelming the market at a 78:22 ratio).

Chart: Order book liquidity depth

For institutions deploying meaningful capital, the distinction becomes obvious very quickly. The top of the book might show tight spreads and reasonable depth. Go a few levels down, and liquidity thins out fast. Market impact doesn’t increase gradually, it accelerates. What looks like a manageable order can move price far more than expected once it interacts with real depth.

Chart: BTC Minimum depth around the October 10 market crash

The structural reason is simple. Crypto liquidity is fragmented. There is no single consolidated market. Depth is distributed across venues, each with different participants, latency profiles, API systems (that can break or have disruptions) and risk models (that can come under stress). Reported volume aggregates activity, but it does not aggregate liquidity in a way that makes it easily accessible for large execution. This is specifically apparent for smaller coins.

That fragmentation creates a false sense of comfort. In calm markets, spreads compress and books look stable. During volatility, liquidity providers reprice or pull entirely. They get unfavorable inventory and are unable to de-risk and pull out their quotes. Depth disappears faster than most models assume. The difference between quoted liquidity and durable liquidity becomes clear when conditions change.

What matters is not how the book looks at 10:00 a.m. on a quiet day. What matters is how it behaves during stress. Experienced quants know that but most of the market participants do not, as they struggle to close open positions gradually and then get liquidated during the stress events. We saw this in October, and a couple of times since.

In execution analysis, slippage does not scale linearly with order size; it compounds. Once an order crosses a certain depth threshold, impact increases disproportionately. In volatile conditions, that threshold shrinks. Suddenly, even modest trades can move prices more than historical norms would suggest.

For institutional allocators, this is not a technical nuance. It is a risk management issue. Liquidity risk is not only about entering a position, it is about exiting when liquidity is scarce and correlations rise. Want to execute a couple of millions of some smaller coins? Good luck! Want to exit losing positions in less liquid coins when the market is busy like during the October crash? It can become catastrophic!

As digital asset markets continue to mature, the conversation needs to move beyond headline volume metrics and top level liquidity snapshots during the calm markets. The real measure of market quality is resilience and how consistently liquidity holds up under pressure.

In crypto, liquidity isn’t defined by what’s visible during normal stable conditions. It’s defined by what’s left when the market gets tested. That’s when capacity assumptions break and risk management takes center stage.

Headlines of the Week

– Francisco Rodrigues

Wall Street giants have kept moving deeper into the cryptocurrency space over the past week, while new data has shed light on just how large the space is in Russia and how big it could become in Asia. Major market participants Binance and Strategy have meanwhile doubled down on their massive BTC reserves.

  • Wall Street giants enter DeFi market with token investments: BlackRock has made its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund BUIDL tradable on decentralized exchange Uniswap, as part of a deal that saw it invest an undisclosed amount in UNI. Similarly, Apollo Global Management (APO) struck a cooperation agreement with Morpho. 
  • Russia’s daily crypto turnover exceeds $650 million, the Ministry of Finance says: The country’s government and central bank are pushing for legislation to regulate cryptocurrency activities, while the Moscow Exchange is looking to deepen its presence in the market.
  • Binance converts its $1 billion safety net into 15,000 BTC: Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has finished converting the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) into bitcoin, turning about $1 billion into 15,000 BTC.
  • BlackRock exec says 1% crypto allocation in Asia could unlock $2 trillion in new flows: BlackRock’s head of APAC iShares, Nicholas Peach, has said that even a modest portfolio allocation to crypto in Asia could unlock $2 trillion in new flows.
  • Strategy says it can survive even if bitcoin drops to $8,000 and will ‘equitize’ debt: Strategy, the largest bitcoin treasury firm with 714,644 bitcoin on its balance sheet, said it can withstand a bitcoin price drop to $8,000 and still cover its roughly $6 billion in debt.

Chart of the Week

Helium’s deflationary flip

Helium HNT$1.4062 has surged 37.5% month-to-date, decoupling from the broader market as its fundamentals shift toward a deflationary model. Since the start of 2026, the protocol’s net emissions have turned negative, effectively neutralizing long-standing sell pressure. This transition is fueled by a jump in network demand, with daily Data Credit burns climbing from $30,000 to over $50,000 since the beginning of the year, signaling that utility-driven token destruction is now outpacing new issuance.

Chart: Helium Net Emissions v/s HBT Price

Listen. Read. Watch. Engage.

Looking for more? Receive the latest crypto news from coindesk.com and explore our robust Data & Indices offerings by visiting coindesk.com/institutions.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc., CoinDesk Indices or its owners and affiliates.

Hecto Finance defends tokenized private shares following OpenAI backlash

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Hecto Finance defends tokenized private shares following OpenAI backlash

Ultan Miller, CEO of Hecto Finance, laid out a bold vision during an interview with CoinDesk at Consensus Hong Kong 2026: a blockchain-native bridge to the world’s most valuable private companies, long out of reach for everyday investors.

However, his strategy and the controversy it sparks, highlight how the tokenization of private equity is evolving faster than legal frameworks and corporate consensus.

Hecto bills itself as building “the world’s first tokenized pre-IPO company index,” designed to give public investors exposure to firms that traditionally stayed behind closed doors until going public. Miller said the index is being developed on the Canton Network, an institutional blockchain designed to support privacy, compliance and programmable settlement, features he claims are essential for bringing traditional securities onto blockchain rails at scale.

Edwin Mata, CEO and co-founder of tokenization platform Brickken, offered a sharply contrasting tone at the same conference. Mata, who also participated in CoinDesk’s PitchFest competition, warned that tokenizing company shares without issuer knowledge or consent risks undermining both investor protection and market credibility.

Now that tokenization of real-world assets is forecasted to become a $30 trillion industry by 2030, Mata said, too many inexperienced players are entering the space in pursuit of quick profits.

“This is a recipe for chaos, low-quality projects, and massive losses for investors lured into ventures with no solid foundations, especially lacking real know-how in securities structuring, issuance mechanics, and corporate law,” Mata warned.

Robinhood backlash highlights the tension

Skepticism around tokenized private equity isn’t theoretical. In June 2025, Robinhood announced it would offer tokenized equities in Europe and launched a limited giveaway of equity-linked tokens tied to OpenAI and SpaceX.

OpenAI responded publicly.

“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” the company said. “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful.”

The episode brought to life the core issue confronting the sector: when third parties create blockchain-based instruments referencing private companies, what exactly are investors buying and who has authorized it?

Miller: ‘A grey area’ for now

Miller, who, prior to Hecto, founded one of the first digital asset investment banks regulated by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said he and his co-founders, including former executives from Goldman Sachs and Barclays, acknowledge the tension but maintain their structure is different. He described the space as operating in a “grey area,” and said incentives could align over time as regulation matures and market demand crystallizes.

Rather than see tokenization as a legal workaround, Miller portrayed it as part of an inevitable transition of traditional securities onto programmable rails. He argued that as companies remain private longer and valuations grow in secondary markets, demand for broader access will continue to build.

Hecto’s social channels also indicate active ecosystem growth and community engagement, positioning the product as more than a theoretical construct but a live endeavor networking with institutional custody solutions and on-chain governance mechanisms.

The pre-IPO Index: Hectocorns and institutional rails

Miller frames Hecto’s inaugural product around a collection of elite private companies or as he called them, “Hectocorns” with valuations north of $100 billion, including SpaceX, OpenAI, ByteDance, xAI, Stripe, Tether and Anthropic.

The idea is to wrap exposure to this basket into a single on-chain token, enabling investors to gain diversified access via a programmable instrument rather than individual share purchases.

The Hecto CEO explained that the token functions by having investors deposit capital into a vault, after which the protocol issues tokens representing proportional exposure to the basket’s aggregate performance.

The index is rules-based and dynamic: if a company exits via IPO or liquidity event, proceeds are directed into a liquidity pool used to buy back tokens, potentially benefiting remaining holders. Governance token holders also vote on future index composition.

Miller’s broader thesis is structural. He argues public markets no longer define an era; instead, massive private companies create value long before traditional IPOs. Tokenization, in his telling, is the missing link between private enterprise growth and broader investor access.

The regulatory and legal divide

Yet even as Miller promotes the mechanics, the legal foundations remain unsettled.

Mata emphasized that equity tokenization does not alter the legal nature of shares. It is a technological overlay on traditional shareholding, governed by corporate law and documentation, rather than something that derives legitimacy from blockchain itself.

If the issuer consents and securities regulations are followed, tokenization can modernize recordkeeping and transfer processes, he added. If not, it risks misrepresenting rights and exposing investors to governance uncertainty.

Mata also stressed that tokenization does not automatically create liquidity. Real liquidity requires compliant secondary markets, credible settlement infrastructure, investor demand, and regulatory clarity — elements that are still developing across jurisdictions.

Ambiguity around voting rights, dividend entitlements and transferability, he said, introduces both legal and reputational risk.

Market implications and investor access

If Hecto’s index gains traction, it could represent a meaningful shift in how private-market exposure is distributed by embedding high-growth private-company exposure into programmable blockchain instruments.

However, without issuer cooperation, clear securities compliance and functioning secondary markets, the promise of tokenized private equity could remain restricted by the same structural issues it seeks to transform.

At Consensus Hong Kong 2026, one thing became clear: tokenization of private equity is no longer an experiment but an emerging asset with inherent challenges.

Hyperliquid starts DeFi lobbying group in U.S. with $29 million HYPE token backing

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Hyperliquid starts DeFi lobbying group in U.S. with $29 million HYPE token backing

Hyperliquid (HYPE), a blockchain-based exchange that processed more than $250 billion in perpetual futures trading last month, has launched a U.S. lobbying and research arm aimed at shaping how lawmakers regulate decentralized finance (DeFi).

The Hyperliquid Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, will focus on regulatory frameworks for decentralized exchanges, perpetual futures and blockchain-based market infrastructure, according to a Wednesday press release.

Jake Chervinsky, a prominent crypto lawyer and former policy head at the Blockchain Association, will serve as founder and CEO.

The launch comes as Congress and federal agencies debate how to oversee crypto trading platforms and derivatives markets. Perpetual futures, which allow traders to hold leveraged positions without an expiration date, are widely used on offshore venues but remain a gray area under U.S. law.

The arrival of a new group also represents just the latest entrant into a Washington crypto-policy scene that’s jammed with similar organizations, including the DeFi Education Fund and Solana Policy Institute, in addition to the broader groups such as the Digital Chamber, Blockchain Association and Crypto Council for Innovation. And the new organization lands as negotiation is well underway on Senate legislation that may set U.S. DeFi policy.

Hyperliquid operates a decentralized exchange that lets users trade perpetual futures directly on blockchain rails without a central intermediary. Instead of routing trades through a traditional broker or clearinghouse, transactions settle onchain.

The platform has emerged as one of the fastest-growing venues in crypto derivatives. It handled more than $250 billion in perpetual trading volume and $6.6 billion spot volume over the past month, DefiLlama data shows.

“Financial markets are migrating onto public blockchains because they offer efficiency, transparency and resilience that legacy systems cannot match,” Chervinsky said in a statement.

“Now the United States must choose: We can either adopt new rules that allow this innovation to flourish here at home, or we can wait and watch as other nations seize the opportunity,” he added.

The new policy group plans to brief lawmakers, publish technical research and advocate for rules tailored to decentralized systems, the press release said.

The Hyper Foundation, which supports the Hyperliquid ecosystem, is contributing 1 million HYPE tokens, worth roughly $29 million, to fund the launch. While that’s less than was committed to the launch last year of the Ripple-backed National Cryptocurrency Association, it’s much more than the $5.6 million the Digital Chamber spent in 2024 or the $8.3 million spent by the Blockchain Association, according to public filings.

BTC will make new records as Fed responds to AI-related credit collapse

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BTC will make new records as Fed responds to AI-related credit collapse

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes says bitcoin’s BTC$67,457.69 recent 52% crash from its October all-time high is flashing a critical warning signal — but the crypto could ultimately soar to new records once the Federal Reserve responds to an AI-driven banking crisis he believes is imminent.

In his latest essay, “This Is Fine,” Hayes argued that bitcoin’s divergence from traditional tech stocks reveals its role as the “global fiat liquidity fire alarm.” While the Nasdaq has remained relatively flat, bitcoin has plunged from $126,000 to its current $67,000, pricing in what Hayes describes as a massive credit destruction event that equity markets have yet to acknowledge.

“Bitcoin is the most responsive freely traded asset to the fiat credit supply,” Hayes wrote. “The divergence recently between bitcoin and the Nasdaq sounds the alarm that a massive credit destruction event is nigh.”

Hayes models a scenario where artificial intelligence displaces just 20% of America’s 72.1 million knowledge workers, triggering approximately $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage defaults — about half the severity of the 2008 financial crisis. This AI-driven shock would devastate regional banks and force the Federal Reserve into “the biggest money printing in history,” he predicts.

“Deflation is bad, but ultimately good for fiat credit-sensitive assets like Bitcoin,” said Hayes. “First, the market prices the impact … Then … the monetary mandarins panic and press that Brrrr button harder than I shred pow the morning after a one-meter dump.”

Hayes noted gold’s recent gains, particularly against bitcoin, as another red flag, stating that “a surging gold versus a slumping Bitcoin clearly tells us that a deflationary risk-off credit event within Pax Americana is brewing.”

Hayes said that once the Fed intervenes with emergency liquidity measures — similar to the March 2023 response to regional bank failures — bitcoin will “pump decisively off its lows” and the expectation of sustained money printing will drive it to new all-time highs.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be more pain ahead for the foreseeable future, said Hayes. He warned bitcoin could fall further before the Fed acts, potentially breaking below $60,000 as political dysfunction delays the central bank’s response. Crypto investors, he advised, should stay liquid, avoid leverage, and “wait for the all-clear from the Fed that it’s time to dump filthy fiat and ape into risky assets with wanton abandon.”

Faster Mortgage Decisions and Smarter Voice Support

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Faster Mortgage Decisions and Smarter Voice Support

Marco Li Mandri from ING argues the smartest place to start with AI isn’t flashy “new bank” business models, it’s improving what already exists. There’s a lot of value in augmenting core processes first, so teams can move faster, reduce friction, and make customers’ lives easier without rebuilding everything from scratch.

Li Mandri points to mortgages as a strong example as these journeys often slow down because of manual checks, document chasing, and handoffs between systems and suggests that agentic AI  could significantly shorten the “time to yes”. In practical terms, this could mean delivering an approval within a day, which is a meaningful win for customers making time-sensitive, high-stakes decisions.

ING also highlights voice as another high-impact area and the value isn’t voice on its own, but what it enables in service: customers explaining an issue naturally and getting it resolved quickly, without menus, delays, or switching channels. When voice is connected to systems that can actually complete tasks (not just record them), it becomes a genuinely new kind of service experience.

A key theme in Li Mandri’s view is sequencing as before moving into new business models, banks should extract value from foundational improvements and “crack” everyday problems like speed, accuracy, and customer effort. That’s especially relevant in a regulated environment where trust, controls, and consistency matter as much as innovation.

Once those early use cases are proven, ING says the same approach can scale into more domains, including anti-money laundering (AML) and internal customer service. The message is pragmatic: start with real pain points and measurable outcomes, then expand, so transformation becomes a confident rollout, not a risky leap.

Bitcoin ETFs Post $105M Outflows As Hong Kong Buyer Emerges

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Bitcoin ETFs Post $105M Outflows As Hong Kong Buyer Emerges

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted $104.9 million in net outflows on Tuesday in the first trading session this week.

Total trading volume in spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs fell to just over $3 billion, down nearly 80% from a record $14.7 billion on Feb. 5, reflecting a continued slowdown in trading activity, according to SoSoValue data.

Daily flows in US spot Bitcoin ETFs since Feb. 9, 2026. Source: SoSoValue

The outflows came as another round of institutions reported their Bitcoin ETF holdings for the fourth quarter of 2025, with Jane Street ranking as the second-largest buyer of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) in Q4, buying $276 million.

Q4 also saw a new IBIT entrant, a little-known Hong Kong-based company called Laurore, which acquired $436.2 million of the ETF in a single purchase reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

A potential sign of Chinese institutions moving into Bitcoin?

According to Bitwise Investments adviser Jeff Park, Laurore’s newly disclosed position in IBIT could be an early indication of institutional Chinese capital entering Bitcoin.

Park said Laurore has no public footprint — no website or press — and the only available information is that the filer’s name is Zhang Hui, the Chinese equivalent of “John Smith.”

Source: Jeff Park

While Park speculated that the investment may be linked to capital flight, some commentators questioned why the company would choose to buy Bitcoin through an ETF rather than directly.

Brevan Howard slashes IBIT holdings by 85%

Beyond Laurore and Jane Street, several institutions made significant moves with IBIT in Q4 2025. Weiss Asset Management reportedly added about 2.8 million shares ($107.5 million), while 59 North Capital increased its position by 2.6 million shares ($99.8 million).

Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm Mubadala Investment also boosted its IBIT holdings by 45%, rising from 8.7 million shares in Q3 to 12.7 million in Q4, valued at $630.7 million.

Source: Zerohedge

In contrast, some companies cut their Bitcoin ETF exposure in Q4 2025. Brevan Howard reduced its IBIT holdings, dropping about 85% from 37 million shares ($2.4 billion) in Q3 2025 to about 5.5 million shares ($273.5 million) in Q4.

Goldman Sachs also trimmed its IBIT holdings by about 40%, leaving around $1 billion in assets.

Magazine: Is China hoarding gold so yuan becomes global reserve instead of USD?