“Right now, I am more worried about inflation remaining stubbornly high”

Find out our latest reports, listed below:

• 2026 – the year of RWA perps?

• Keep Calm and Carry Yen
  
  
• Bybit x Block Scholes: “2026: It's Different This Time?”

• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: Unlocking Real-World Assets On-Chain for 24/7 Global Access

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Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Daily Updates:

• BTC lost the $70K support level yesterday, falling to an intraday low of $66,500. Total crypto market capitalisation has declined for a second day, with altcoins being dragged lower amidst the continued selloff. 
• Over the past 24 hours, ETH has dropped 3.76%, back below $2,000, XRP has fallen 4.34% while SOL is down 4.79%. 
• According to Glassnode however, the current drawdown in spot price has inspired some support from larger BTC holders. ‘Whale’ wallets have purchased 53,000 bitcoin over the past week, their largest volume of buying since November 2025. 
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs also saw their third consecutive day of inflows yesterday, purchasing $166.5M worth of bitcoin. 

• In a week filled with macro data (NFP later today and CPI on Friday), the first of the key data releases came in below expectations. Yesterday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that US retail sales unexpectedly stalled in December 2025, despite the holiday season. 
• Retail sales were flat on the month following a 0.6% increase in November, far below expectations of a 0.4% increase. On an annual basis, retail sales grew 2.4%, nearly a full percentage point below the 3.3% pace in November. 
• Meanwhile, the latest macro figures were published.
• The US economy added 130K payrolls in January 2026, sharply above a downwardly revised 48K increase in December and well ahead of forecasts of 70K - the highest figure since December 2024. 
• The unemployment rate decreased to 4.3% from 4.4%, slightly below expectations of 4.4%. The number of unemployed fell by 141K to 7.36M, while total employment rose by 528K to 164.52M.
• Traders pushed yields lower following the release with the ten-year US treasury yield falling more than five bps and currently trades at its lowest since mid-January earlier this year. 
• Despite the slightly higher expectations for rate cuts on the back of the weak spending report, the S&P 500 was unable to close the day higher, driven by weakness in large tech companies. The index fell 0.33%, breaking a two-day win streak.

• Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said yesterday that the Fed could be on an extended pause period as it continues to evaluate incoming data and wait for clear evidence that inflation is falling. 
• In a speech yesterday she said, “Rather than trying to fine tune the funds rate, I’d prefer to err on the side of patience as we assess the impact of recent rate reductions and monitor how the economy performs. Based on my forecast, we could be on hold for quite some time.” 
• Hammack said she holds a “cautiously optimistic” view on the year ahead — “Growth this year should get a boost from easier financial conditions, recent interest rate reductions, and fiscal support, among other factors.”

• Her Dallas counterpart, Lorie Logan, echoed similarly hawkish views. Speaking yesterday she said, “Right now, I am more worried about inflation remaining stubbornly high” and that she is “not yet fully confident inflation is heading all the way back to 2 percent.”
• However, according to Logan, even a cooling in inflation would not be enough to support further rate cuts unless it occurred alongside a marked weakening in the labour market — “If instead we see inflation coming down but with further material cooling in the labor market, cutting rates again could become appropriate.”

• Yesterday, U.S. crypto and banking executives held a closed-door White House meeting on stablecoin yield, but left without a clear breakthrough.
• By multiple accounts, banks held a hard line, pushing for broad “prohibition principles” that would effectively ban any benefit tied to holding, owning or using payment stablecoins - coupled with the enforcement and anti-evasion provisions and tight limits on marketing that could make yields appear deposit-like.
• Crypto participants pushed back strongly, framing the banking stance as overly restrictive and inconsistent with the legislative text under discussion.
• The immediate takeaway is that negotiations are likely to shift back to industry trade groups and, ultimately, the Senate Banking Committee, even as some attendees publicly expressed an optimistic tone about forward progress on crypto market structure legislation.

• Bank Negara Malaysia plans to launch three initiatives in 2026 involving Malaysia’s currency-backed stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits.
• The projects will run through the central bank’s Digital Asset Innovation Hub, its regulatory test environment for digital-asset use cases.
• One initiative focuses on B2B stablecoin settlement in Malaysian currency, involving participants such as Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Capital A.
• Two further initiatives will test tokenised deposits for payments, led by Maybank and CIMB.
• Bank Negara said the trials will help it assess potential implications for monetary and financial stability and inform future policy, with clearer guidance targeted by end-2026.

• Franklin Templeton and Binance have launched a programme that lets institutions post tokenised money market fund shares as trading collateral on Binance without moving the underlying assets onto the exchange.
• Eligible clients hold tokenised shares of Franklin Templeton’s money market funds - via its Benji platform - with a regulated custodian.
• Those shares are then pledged as collateral, and Binance reflects the collateral value inside its trading system so the client can trade while the assets remain off-exchange.
• Custody and settlement are handled by Ceffu, Binance’s institutional custody partner.

• Robinhood has launched a public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 built using Arbitrum Orbit, positioning it as purpose-built infrastructure for RWAs such as stocks and ETFs.
• The testnet gives developers an EVM environment with test assets and tooling to prototype regulated, onchain trading and DeFi integrations, while Robinhood frames the chain as a bridge between traditional market access and Ethereum liquidity.
• If the mainnet arrives in 2026 as planned, Robinhood could migrate existing tokenised equity products, currently issued on Arbitrum One for EU users, onto its own chain.

• Stripe has introduced a preview of machine payments, integrating the x402 protocol to let developers charge autonomous agents directly in USDC on Base.
• Jeff Weinstein, Stripe’s product lead, said on X on Tuesday that the rollout is expected to expand over time to additional protocols, currencies and blockchains.
• The system is built on Stripe’s PaymentIntents API, enabling businesses to programmatically charge AI agents for API usage, Model Context Protocol calls and HTTP requests.
• In parallel, CoinGecko activated x402 for parts of its API on Tuesday, allowing agents to pay $0.01 in USDC per request for data across multiple networks, turning market data access into a simple pay-per-use utility.
• Separately, Bloomberg reported Stripe is arranging a tender offer that would value the company at $140B, up from $107B last year.

• BlackRock will make its Treasury-backed tokenised fund BUIDL available for on-chain trading via UniswapX, in partnership with Securitize through UniswapX.
• Access at launch will be limited to whitelisted institutional participants, with Securitize managing eligibility and onboarding market makers to support liquidity. 

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