On Friday, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC blacklisted UK-registered exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion for facilitating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps transactions. The move also put Iranian financier Babak Morteza Zanjani back under sanctions after his 2024 death sentence commutation. Treasury said Americans are prohibited from dealing with the newly sanctioned entities.

On Friday, silver sank 26% and gold slid 9% in one of the sharpest single-day metal selloffs after weeks of speculative buying from China had driven prices to record highs. The move accelerated when reports surfaced that Donald Trump planned to nominate Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair, lifting the dollar and ending the momentum trade. Trading volumes in silver products surged, with the iShares Silver Trust alone recording more than $40 billion in turnover as options activity and algorithmic strategies amplified the reversal.

Over the past week, Bitcoin moved toward $78K while Ethereum weakened, according to AMBCrypto. Select altcoins diverged: Hyperliquid rallied from the low $20s to test $32-$34, Canton advanced about 29%, and Stable spiked to $0.026 before easing to $0.023. Meanwhile, Solana fell ~15% and WLFI dropped ~26%.

FTX plans to carry out its next creditor distribution on March 31, following an announcement by creditor representative Sunil. The round is based on $9.6 billion in reconciled claims and could add a further $2 billion to creditor recoveries if the proposal is approved. A prior distribution in September 2025 totaled $1.6 billion, shaping expectations for how remaining disputed reserves may be resolved.

Prediction markets set a new all-time high in January, reaching $12B in total volume and generating over $11 million in on-chain fees. Opinion contributed $6.14 million and Polymarket $2.62 million, while Coinbase launched a U.S. event-based trading platform in partnership with Kalshi.

As of Sunday, Truflation reported cooling price pressures, with its US CPI at 0.86% year over year and core PCE at 1.38%. Those readings contrast with government figures of 2.7% CPI in December and 2.8% core PCE in November, a backdrop that could affect expectations for Federal Reserve policy and risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.

On January 31, 2026, crypto liquidations exceeded $2.5 billion over 24 hours, placing the sell-off among the top 10 events on record. Analysts attributed the weekend drop to shallow liquidity and high leverage rather than policy moves or tensions around Iran, noting three waves that wiped about $1.3 billion within 12 hours.

According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Abu Dhabi vehicle Aryam Investment 1, backed by UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, signed a $500 million deal to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial four days before Donald Trump's January 2025 inauguration. Half the consideration was paid upfront, sending $187 million to Trump family entities and at least $31 million to entities linked to co-founder Steve Witkoff's family, while the arrangement later intersected with U.S. decisions on advanced AI chip sales to the UAE.