Bitcoin
Bernstein: Bitcoin Could Reach $150,000 in 2026, Recommends Buying Crypto Company Stocks on Dips
Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani expressed optimism about the cryptocurrency market outlook for 2026 and recommended buying cryptocurrency company stocks on dips. His analysis points out:
1. 2026 Outlook: The tokenization supercycle will dominate. Bitcoin will bottom out and rebound, with a target price of $150,000 (2026) and a peak of $200,000 (2027).
2. Stablecoins: Supply will increase by 56% to $420 billion, with payment and fintech companies such as Block, Revolut, and PayPal strongly supporting stablecoins.
3. RWA Tokenization: TVL will increase from $37 billion to $80 billion, with banks participating in this area.
4. Market Prediction: Trading volume to grow by 100% to $70 billion (revenue up to $1.4 billion); platforms like Kalshi, Robinhood, and Coinbase to receive regulatory support. Cathie Wood: US Government May "Start Buying" Bitcoin to Expand National Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood stated that the US government may begin directly purchasing Bitcoin to replenish the national Bitcoin strategic reserve, rather than relying solely on assets seized by law enforcement.
In a recent episode of the "Bitcoin Brainstorm" podcast, Wood pointed out that although the Trump administration established a national Bitcoin reserve through executive order, the reserve's source has so far been limited to confiscated BTC, with no market purchases yet. "The initial goal was to hold 1 million Bitcoins, so I think they will eventually start buying," Wood said.
She believes that Trump will continue to prioritize cryptocurrency issues under pressure from the midterm elections, which is beneficial for the Bitcoin strategic reserve. On the one hand, Trump and his family's interests in the crypto industry are deepening; on the other hand, the crypto community played a significant role in his presidential victory.
"He doesn't want to be a 'lame duck president,' he wants one or two more productive years in office, and he sees crypto as a path to the future," Wood said. The report states that the Trump administration has signed several executive orders to establish a Bitcoin reserve and a crypto asset inventory, and formed a crypto and AI working group led by David Sacks to push for industry legislation, including the GENIUS Act (stablecoin legislation). VanEck predicts that Bitcoin will reach $2.9 million by 2050. According to market news, Spanish listed company Vanadi Coffee has increased its holdings of Bitcoin by 10, bringing its total holdings to 183. Analysis: January May Mark a New Turning Point in Bitcoin's Four-Year Cycle; Structural Divergence Emerges Regarding Historical Patterns. The validity of Bitcoin's four-year cycle has once again become a major topic within the ecosystem. Some argue that the four-year cycle should not continue into 2026 because ETFs have absorbed $57 billion in inflows. However, opposing views argue that the four-year cycle remains intact to date, and there are coincidences in the timing based on historical patterns. For example, the most recent local bottom for Bitcoin occurred on November 21, 2025, at a price of $80,524, while the low of the previous cycle was $15,460 on November 21, 2022—the two dates are identical. Currently, market attention has shifted to January 2026, as a hearing on a US crypto market structure bill is scheduled for January 15th. This event is seen as potentially marking another significant turning point in the current Bitcoin cycle. Ethereum Completes Final Step in Fusaka Upgrade, Officially Launches Final BPO Fork On Wednesday, Ethereum completed its second and final "Blob-only" fork in this upgrade cycle. This fork not only improved data availability but also demonstrated how the network can roll out smaller updates in stages.
The official Ethereum X account wrote: "Instead of waiting for a major annual upgrade to adjust network capacity, the BPO fork allows Ethereum to independently and efficiently fine-tune specific parameters (such as blob target values). This gradual scaling approach allows the network to safely test higher loads step by step." A blob is a temporary large data block introduced in Ethereum's 2024 Dencun upgrade, primarily used in Layer 2 Rollups to record batches of transactions to the mainnet at low cost. These data storages (full name Binary Large Objects) are retained for 18 days and then permanently deleted.
Of the 13 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) included in Fusaka, a significant portion focuses on enhancing Ethereum's data availability layer. The most important of these is the upgrade to PeerDAS, which allows nodes to validate blob data by verifying smaller data samples. Additionally, a Block Proposal (BPO) mechanism was introduced to gradually increase the maximum number of blobs.
The first BPO fork was launched on December 9th (approximately one week after Fusaka's launch), increasing the target number of blobs per block from 6 to 10, and the maximum limit from 9 to 15. Wednesday's upgrade further increases the target value to 14 and the maximum limit to 21. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated in an article on the X platform that "Increasing Ethereum's bandwidth is safer than reducing latency. With the support of PeerDAS and ZKP, we know how to scale, and theoretically, we can achieve thousands of times the scaling potential compared to the current state. The relevant parameters will become more favorable before and after scaling. There are no physical laws preventing the coexistence of 'extreme scalability + decentralization'."
Reducing latency is entirely different. We are fundamentally limited by the speed of light, and are also constrained by the following realities:
1. The need to support nodes (especially validators) operating in rural areas, homes, or businesses globally, not just data centers.
2. The need to provide censorship resistance and anonymity for nodes (especially proposers and validators).
3. Running nodes in non-highly concentrated geographical locations must not only be "feasible" but also economically sustainable. Staking outside of New York would lead to lower yields. In the long run, 10% of people will choose to stake only in New York. Ethereum itself must pass the "walkaway test," so we cannot build a blockchain that relies on continuous social coordination to maintain decentralization. Economic incentives cannot bear all the responsibility, but must bear the majority.
Of course, without making trade-offs, we can still significantly reduce latency on the existing basis, specifically including:
1. Improvements to P2P networks (especially erasure coding) can reduce message propagation time without requiring individual nodes to increase bandwidth.
2. An availability chain with fewer nodes in each time slot (e.g., 512 nodes instead of 30,000) can eliminate aggregation steps, allowing the entire critical path to be completed within a subnet.
These improvements are expected to deliver a 3–6x improvement. Therefore, I believe that moderately reducing latency to the 2–4 second level is entirely realistically possible. But Ethereum isn't a global video game server; it's a global heartbeat. If you need to build applications faster than a "heartbeat," they must include off-chain components. This is one of the key reasons why L2 will persist for a long time even after Ethereum achieves massive scaling. Vitalik Buterin, in an article on the X platform, stated that Ethereum can be compared to BitTorrent or Linux: the former represents decentralization and scalability, while the latter is a model of open source, credibility, and widespread application. He emphasized that Ethereum L1 should become the foundation for finance, identity, and governance for individuals and organizations seeking autonomy, unleashing the network's full potential without intermediaries, and pointed out that enterprises' need for open, censorship-resistant systems is highly consistent with "trust minimization." Bitmine's Ethereum staking surpasses 1 million ETH, totaling 1.032 million ETH, valued at $3.215 billion. This represents a quarter of its total ETH holdings (4.143 million ETH). Due to their staking, the queue for staking has accumulated to 1.778 million ETH, while the exit queue has been cleared. 21Shares distributed Ethereum staking rewards to TETH holders on January 9th at a rate of $0.010378 per TETH. According to Cointelegraph, 21Shares distributed Ethereum staking rewards to TETH holders on January 9th at a rate of $0.010378 per share. Other Projects Ethereum On-Chain Application TVL Surpasses $300 Billion Leon Waidmann stated in an article on the X platform that the total value locked (TVL) of Ethereum on-chain applications has surpassed $300 billion. These funds are active in on-chain applications such as DeFi, stablecoins, RWA, and staking, representing real economic activity. Leon Waidmann pointed out that Ethereum leads other networks in liquidity depth, composability of the developer ecosystem, long-term track record of institutional predictions, and user and capital reserves, and the network effect is becoming apparent. Stablecoin company Rain raises $250 million at a $1.95 billion valuation, led by ICONIQ. Participants include Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer, Lightspeed, and Galaxy Ventures. This brings the company's total funding to over $338 million. Rain helps customers launch stablecoin cards on the Visa network. The company plans to use the capital to expand its presence in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and to help adapt to the rapidly changing global regulatory environment. Babylon announces $15 million funding round, with a16z Crypto participating. Crypto has invested in Babylon, but specific valuation figures have not yet been disclosed. Babylon's competitors are reportedly centralized service providers such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Tether. It is expected to integrate its technology with the lending protocol Aave in the second quarter of this year. The company currently has over 40 employees. Morgan Stanley plans to launch a digital wallet this year. According to market news, Morgan Stanley plans to launch a digital wallet later this year to support tokenized assets. Tether and Rumble announce joint launch of non-custodial crypto wallet Rumble Wallet. Nasdaq-listed Rumble and stablecoin market giant Tether announced the joint launch of the non-custodial crypto wallet Rumble Wallet, which can be directly integrated into the Rumble platform. The wallet will support Tether (USDT), Tether... The wallet accepts Gold (XAUt) and Bitcoin (BTC), allowing users to tip creators directly in cryptocurrency. It also reportedly supports embedding cryptocurrency payments into video sharing platforms, eliminating the need for intermediaries such as ad networks, banks, or payment processors, allowing creators to receive payments directly from viewers.
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