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The Fed’s $8.3 billionTreasury bill purchase adds short-term liquidity, but Bitcoin remains volatile as geopolitical and tariff concerns keep risk appetite weak.
Tether’s large USDT freeze underscores regulatory scrutiny, while Cardone Capital’s BTC buys show continued institutional confidence.
Memecoin crashes and DeFi exploits contrast with record Ethereum activity that may be driven more by spam than organic demand.
The cryptocurrency market is navigating through a mix of macro liquidity signals, regulatory enforcement, institutional adoption, and protocol-level risks. From the US Federal Reserve’s latest Treasury bill purchase to renewed scrutiny on stablecoins, alongside sharp memecoin volatility and a major DeFi exploit.
The Federal Reserve has scheduled a purchase of $8.3 billion Treasury bills on January 20, 2026, which is a part of the larger $55 billion liquidity injection into the financial markets, reported by NS3.AI.
The action does not suggest a formal policy shift but adds short-term liquidity at a sensitive time when the market is volatile amid political issues and trade uncertainties.
Bitcoin remained volatile in the past few sessions as risk appetite weakened globally. The increase in concerns regarding tariffs and the macroeconomic instability caused crypto and other risk assets to be under pressure.
In the past, liquidity injections have propped up speculative assets in the medium term but now analysts are warning that the sentiment is weak in the short term as investors are leaning towards traditional safe haven assets like gold and silver.
Stablecoin issuer Tether froze over $182 million in USDT across five Tron-based wallets on January 11, following formal requests from law enforcement agencies.
The action ranks among the largest single-day freezes on the Tron network in recent months, with individual wallets holding between $12 million and $50 million.
Since formalizing a voluntary wallet-freezing policy in late 2023 to align with OFAC sanctions requirements, the company has blocked over $3 billion in USDT across more than 310 agencies in 62 jurisdictions.
As of mid-2025, US authorities alone had requested freezes totaling approximately $1.14 billion across 2,380 wallets.
Cardone Capital disclosed a new $10 million Bitcoin purchase, lifting its total holdings to around 1,000 BTC.
Unlike short-term treasury trades, the firm’s strategy converts steady real estate rental income into recurring Bitcoin accumulation through a structured dollar-cost-averaging model.
According to CEO Grant Cardone, the firm aims to scale its Bitcoin treasury to 3,000 BTC by the end of 2026, with a longer-term target of 10,000 BTC across multiple investment vehicles.
Managing over $5 billion in assets, Cardone Capital positions Bitcoin as a reserve asset paired with cash-flow-generating real estate.
Also Read: $1 Million Bitcoin? Cathie Wood’s Data-Driven Case for a Transformative 2026
The Solana-based meme token WhiteWhale faced a decline of around 60% in just five minutes when a major holder sold off around $1.3 million worth of tokens, leading to rug-pull allegations.
The market capitalization of the token shrank from about $200 million to $20 million in minutes.
According to on-chain data, one of the early investors managed to increase a small investment up to a seven-figure amount before selling part of the holdings, which caused the price collapse.
Although the token experienced a slight recovery to $33.8 million market cap, it still reinforces the wider trend reflected in CoinGecko's data, which reveals that more than half of all cryptocurrencies have turned out to be failures, 2025 alone accounts for 11.6 million failed tokens.
DeFi security concerns resurfaced after Makina Finance suffered an exploit that drained nearly 1,299 ETH, worth about $4.2 million, from its DUSD/USDC CurveStable pool.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that the attacker routed funds through an MEV builder to obscure transaction trails.
The ETH that was stolen is divided into two wallets, one of which contains about $3.3 million and the other around $880,000.
There has been no detailed public response from Makina Finance yet, so users are still in doubt regarding the recovery chances.
Ethereum has reached a remarkable milestone with its on-chain activity, processing around 2.9 million transactions in a single day.
However, researchers caution that much of this surge may be driven by address poisoning scams, where attackers flood wallets with tiny stablecoin transfers to insert lookalike addresses into transaction histories.
On-chain analysis suggests roughly 80% of unusual new address growth is linked to sub-$1 stablecoin transfers, enabled by sharply lower fees following recent network upgrades.
While Ethereum’s throughput and low fees demonstrate technical resilience, the market remains unconvinced that record activity reflects genuine demand.
Also Read: Ethereum Sees Record User Growth as Activity Retention Nearly Doubles
1. Why did the Federal Reserve’s liquidity move matter for crypto?
The Fed’s Treasury bill purchase injects short-term liquidity into markets, which historically supports risk assets, but near-term crypto sentiment remains cautious due to geopolitical uncertainty.
2. What does Tether’s $182M USDT freeze signal?
It reflects tighter compliance and coordination with global law enforcement, reinforcing USDT’s dominance while highlighting centralized oversight in stablecoins.
3. Why is Cardone Capital buying more Bitcoin?
The firm is converting steady real estate rental income into Bitcoin via dollar-cost averaging, treating BTC as a long-term reserve asset rather than a short-term trade.
4. What caused the WhiteWhale memecoin crash?
A major holder sold $1.3 million worth of tokens, triggering a rapid 60% collapse and renewed rug-pull accusations, a recurring risk in speculative memecoins.
5. Why are Ethereum’s record transactions being questioned?
Much of the surge appears tied to address poisoning scams using tiny stablecoin transfers, meaning higher transaction counts may not reflect genuine user demand.
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