Finance

In January 2026, the public chain landscape showed structural reallocation rather than an overall cooldown, with on-chain activity concentrating in high-frequency and high-efficiency networks. Solana maintained strong activity levels, Ethereum reinforced its role as a settlement layer, and Base expanded on the back of narrative-driven momentum, while some traditional L2s and sidechains weakened. Market capital allocation logic is increasingly shifting toward real usage efficiency. On Bitcoin, price action continues to oscillate around the short-term holder cost basis, with profit-taking cooling and selling pressure easing. Stress remains concentrated among short-term holders, while long-term holder structure stays intact, suggesting a mid-cycle consolidation rather than a trend reversal. At the project level, the rebound in Solana meme activity has reignited launchpad ecosystems. Pump.fun remains dominant, while Bags App has scaled rapidly through its novel “donation-driven” mechanism,

The crypto market saw a broad sell-off, with BTC and ETH down 10% and 18% in January, respectively. Within Gate Private Wealth’s quantitative funds, the USDT strategy delivered a 6.7% return over the past year. The Interstellar Hedge (USDT) strategy stood out with a 5.0% monthly annualized return, while Quantum Leap (USDT) and Interstellar Hedge (USDT) have maintained a 100% monthly win rate since inception. The Top 30% portfolio achieved a 4.5% annualized return in January, significantly outperforming Bitcoin and U.S. Treasury yields. Overall, Walsh’s appointment does not imply a full shift toward monetary tightening, and the market consensus still points to two rate cuts this year.

Gate Research: Between 2025 and 2026, PayFi is evolving from a crypto payment tool into a next-generation payment and financial engine, with stablecoins achieving scale in high-frequency and cross-border payments and demonstrating clear efficiency and cost advantages over traditional systems. As Web2 and Web3 continue to converge, institutions such as Visa, PayPal, and emerging neobanks are becoming key gateways to mainstream adoption, while the combination of stablecoins, real-world assets (RWA), and AI is shaping PayFi’s foundational architecture by enabling automated, always-on settlement, asset mobility, and risk management. Looking ahead to 2026, regulatory clarity, scalable asset tokenization, and the maturity of AI-driven financial systems will be the primary determinants of PayFi’s competitive landscape and long-term barriers.

Gate Research Weekly Report: Bitcoin has reclaimed the $96,000 level, while Ethereum has broken through the $3,300 resistance and continues to consolidate at elevated levels. The Zcash Foundation announced that the SEC has concluded its multi-year investigation without taking enforcement action; meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials collectively defended policy independence while signaling a pause in rate cuts.As both Bitcoin and Ethereum broke higher, nearly $700 million in short positions were liquidated. Vitalik Buterin highlighted structural flaws in decentralized stablecoins, while renewed attention was drawn to Zcash-related developments and potential quantum threats. Metaplanet is now just one step away from resuming equity financing to purchase Bitcoin. ONDO, TRUMP, and ZRO are set to unlock approximately $778 million, $278 million, and $42.42 million worth of tokens, respectively, over the next seven days.

The crypto market ended 2025 with negative returns, as BTC and ETH failed to hold their key year-start levels of $90,000 and $3,000, respectively. Within Gate’s private wealth quant funds, Stellar Core Smart-Invest (USDT) led with an 11.0% annualized return and a Sharpe ratio of 4.3, demonstrating strong risk-adjusted performance. Additionally, Quantum Leap (USDT), Interstellar Hedge (USDT), and Gravity Hedge (USDT) all achieved a 100% win rate for the year. The USDT strategy returned 1.6% in December and achieved a 7.5% full-year return, with overall drawdowns nearly at zero. In the short term, the probability of a Fed rate cut in January is low, and divergence over the pace of future cuts may further widen. In the medium to long term, deeper regulatory coordination and progress in crypto legislation could become a key institutional turning point for crypto assets entering the mainstream financial system.

In December 2025, on-chain activity across public blockchains slowed and structural divergence deepened. Solana and Ethereum remained at the core of the ecosystem, while internal differentiation within Layer2 networks became more pronounced, as the market shifted from narrative-driven positioning toward efficiency and real-use-case selection. For Bitcoin, an assessment of cost basis distribution, unrealized loss supply, and holder structure indicates that the market is undergoing a cyclical pullback and rebalancing phase within a broader bull trend. While short-term pressure persists, long-term holders remain largely stable; if key cost support levels hold, prices may gradually recover following a period of consolidation. At the project level, trading volume in the BSC prediction-market sector continued to expand, but liquidity remained highly concentrated in Opinion, with newer platforms still in early validation stages. At the token level, $BEAT recorded a peak gain of nearly 300% du

Gate Research: In November 2025, high-performance blockchains continued to dominate on-chain activity, with ecosystem stratification becoming increasingly evident. Solana maintained its lead in both transaction volume and active addresses through high-frequency interactions. Although Arbitrum remained in a low-activity range on the usage side, sustained net inflows driven by asset tokenization and institutional infrastructure expansion positioned it as a key focus of market capital. After breaking below short-term cost bases, BTC entered a repricing phase, with short-term turnover increasing while long-term holdings remained stable, shifting the market structure from strong-side consolidation to a pressure-driven equilibrium. The broadening BTCFi narrative also fueled a strong upswing in Starknet, drawing notable capital and user inflows. At the project level, Monad’s mainnet launch ignited the high-performance L1 narrative, rapidly expanding on-chain activity and application deploymen

This report highlights that x402 is redefining internet semantics by shifting from the traditional “Request → Response” model to a new financial primitive of “Request → On-chain Atomic Settlement → Revenue Distribution.” This transformation enables native payment settlement and automated revenue splitting, positioning x402 as the execution layer for PayFi and machine-to-machine (M2M) payments. Over the past month, x402 processed more than 47 million transactions with an average value of under one dollar, signaling rapid demand growth yet still far from penetrating high-value commercial use cases. The ecosystem shows strong early concentration: Base chain consistently captures over 60% of market share, while major players such as Coinbase, Cloudflare, and Gate are accelerating infrastructure-level adoption. Short-term value continues to be driven by leading facilitators, whereas long-term potential hinges on whether x402 can establish a cross-chain revenue settlement network capable of

In October, Bitcoin recorded its first monthly loss since 2018, with the overall cryptocurrency market significantly underperforming traditional risk assets. Despite this weakness, the top 30% of quantitative fund portfolios achieved an impressive annualized return of 35.4%, substantially outperforming Bitcoin. The Hedging Investment-USDT strategy stood out, delivering a positive 5% return even as Bitcoin declined more than 5.5% during the month. Overall drawdowns across quantitative funds remained minimal, with the USDT strategy’s maximum drawdown at just -0.01%. Looking ahead to November, macro liquidity conditions and policy expectations are expected to continue driving market direction, while the crypto market may remain in a “high-volatility, low-trend” consolidation phase.

This report summarizes the Web3 funding landscape in October 2025. In October, a total of 130 deals were completed, with $5.12 billion raised, representing a 104.8% month-over-month surge, the second-highest level in the past year. Funding was primarily driven by strategic rounds, which accounted for over 70% of the total, fueled by the explosion of the prediction market Polymarket and the accelerated integration of CeFi and TradFi. By sector, DeFi led with $2.15 billion, reflecting concentrated capital flows toward innovative financial applications. In terms of funding structure, projects in the $3M–$10M range accounted for nearly one-third of rounds, while projects under $1M represented only 5.9%, marking a recent low. The report also highlights key funded projects, including Orochi Network, KapKap, Voyage, TBook, and Lava.

In October 2025, Layer2 and high-performance blockchains saw a rebound in activity, while on-chain structures remained differentiated. Arbitrum led the trend, with transaction volume up over 34% and more than $1 billion in net inflows driven by DRIP incentives and asset tokenization, solidifying its position as the leading Layer2 network. Starknet rose on the back of the BTCFi narrative, attracting a steady return of capital and users. Bitcoin entered a technical correction after retreating from its highs, with short-term positions stabilizing and long-term holders resuming accumulation, indicating a market rebalancing phase. Polymarket gained momentum with its narrative of merging prediction markets and traditional finance, surpassing $2.7 billion in monthly trading volume, while Humanity Protocol focused on “AI + DID” and zero-knowledge identity verification, with its token $H up over 300% in the past month, becoming a leading project in the decentralized identity sector.

This article reviews the evolution of Crypto Private Wealth Management (Crypto PWM), highlighting its shift from traditional “human + bank” relationship models to an open digital ecosystem. With the growth of global high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and the maturing crypto market, Crypto PWM is entering a new stage of institutionalization and regulation.