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Bitcoin Slides as Hawkish Fed Signals Rattle Risk Markets
Plus: 🏛️ Senate advances crypto market structure bill, 🛡️ Ethereum plans $220 million security fund.
Juan Aranovich
January 30, 2026
Hi! In today’s edition:
📉 Bitcoin sinks as markets price in a more hawkish Fed
🔍 Why HYPE is rising while the rest of crypto sells off
🏛️ Senate committee advances landmark crypto market structure bill
🛡️ TheDAO funds to form a $220 million Ethereum security fund
🎧 Why 2025 crypto taxes could surprise investors
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Bitcoin Sinks as Markets Price In a More Hawkish Fed
President Donald Trump formally nominated Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve on Friday, saying he’ll go down as “one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.” But the market reaction had already played out.
Bitcoin sold off sharply ahead of the announcement, as traders priced in rising odds that Warsh would get the job. Late Thursday, BTC slid to nearly $81,000, its lowest level in two months, as Polymarket odds surged toward 95%.
The move triggered a broad risk-off response, with roughly $1.8 billion in leveraged positions wiped out and volatility jumping across asset classes.
The concern is not Warsh personally, but what he represents. He is widely seen as favoring monetary discipline, higher real rates, and a smaller Fed balance sheet, all of which run counter to the liquidity-heavy environment that has historically supported risk assets.
Macro trader Alex Kruger wrote that Warsh “has advocated for a structural overhaul of the Federal Reserve and a ‘new Treasury-Fed Accord.’ He contends that the Fed’s balance sheet has been used to subsidize Wall Street and should be reduced significantly.”
As those odds rose, the U.S. dollar strengthened, with the DXY pushing higher, while volatility surged, reflected in sharp moves in both equity and Treasury volatility indices. That combination tends to pressure assets like bitcoin, which remain sensitive to tighter financial conditions.
The irony is that Warsh has also argued that an AI-driven productivity boom could justify aggressive rate cuts. But markets are not trading that future. They are reacting to the near-term signal: less tolerance for easy money.
Why HYPE Is Up While Every Other Crypto, Including Bitcoin, Is Down
Hyperliquid had a very different week from the rest of crypto. While bitcoin sold off, HYPE held up and remains sharply higher on the week.
In this piece, we unpack why the market is repricing Hyperliquid, how its liquidity and revenue model actually work, and what the real risks are from here.
Read the full analysis here:
Crypto Market Structure Bill Clears Senate Committee — But the Hard Part Is Still Ahead
The U.S. Senate took its most concrete step yet toward passing a crypto market structure law, even as partisan divisions remain firmly in place.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee voted 12–11 along party lines to advance its version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. It’s the furthest any crypto legislation has ever made it in the Senate, marking a symbolic win for an industry that has spent years lobbying Washington.
But the vote also highlighted what’s still unresolved. Every Democrat on the committee opposed the bill, citing concerns over ethics, regulatory balance, and decentralized finance.
Several lawmakers argued they could not support legislation while Donald Trump and his family continue to profit from crypto ventures. Others pushed for guarantees that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would have bipartisan leadership before taking on expanded oversight.
Republicans, led by Senator John Boozman, said advancing the bill was necessary to give U.S. crypto markets clear rules and keep innovation onshore. Democrats countered that key issues were being rushed or deferred.
The bill still needs approval from the Senate Banking Committee, then must be merged with a separate version before facing a full Senate vote, a stage that will require bipartisan support.
EXCLUSIVE: TheDAO to Become New $220 Million Ethereum Security Fund
For almost a decade, over 75,000 ETH involved in TheDAO has remained unclaimed. Now, Ethereum OGs and Vitalik are using it to create an ecosystem security fund.
The 2016 DAO hack, in which a hacker obtained 4.5% of what was then all ETH in existence, was Ethereum’s defining moment. It caused an existential crisis for the fledgling network, led to a hard fork that spawned an evil twin, Ethereum Classic, and became a turning point for the community.
And now, the most infamous security failure in Ethereum history will be used to help keep the ecosystem secure.
So how exactly will funds from one of crypto’s darkest chapters be redeployed to protect Ethereum’s future?
Why 2025 Crypto Taxes Will Be Trickier Than Normal: What You Need to Know
Laura Walter of Crypto Tax Girl explains why you might “freak out” when you receive your 1099-DA and why you shouldn’t.
In this episode, Crypto Tax Girl founder Laura Walter joins to unpack new crypto tax developments such as the 1099-DA, offering strategies to navigate what she calls a tricky year for crypto taxation.
The key takeaway: “Don’t freak out.”
Whether you only use stablecoins, are a heavy DeFi user, are a miner or staker, or even just a prediction market trader, you don’t want to miss this episode!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
If you’re looking for help with crypto taxes, Crypto Tax Girl is offering $100 off for Unchained listeners and readers.
They provide personalized crypto tax reports and tax returns, and availability before April 15 is limited.
🤝 The Commodity Futures Trading Commission teamed up with the Securities and Exchange Commission on “Project Crypto,” a joint push to modernize and align U.S. crypto rules across areas like trading, custody, and clearing as Congress works toward a broader digital-asset law.
🚀 Infinex, a crypto “superapp” built to simplify onchain access across dozens of blockchains, is launching its INX token today, Jan. 30, at 19:00 UTC as part of a broader push to replace fragmented wallets and apps with a single, low-friction platform using passkeys instead of seed phrases.
🧩 MegaETH outlined a token release plan that unlocks more than half of its MEGA supply only when performance milestones are met — such as network usage, decentralization, and speed — aiming to avoid sudden dilution common in time-based token schedules.
🛡️ Binance pledged to convert its $1 billion user-protection reserve into bitcoin over the next month and rebalance it as prices move, reinforcing its long-term bet on BTC as markets slid to their lowest levels in months.
🇰🇷 Binance is aiming to fully repay users of GoFi — a failed lending product tied to South Korean exchange Gopax — within 2026, clearing the final hurdle from its 2023 rescue acquisition and setting the stage for the global exchange to compete for the top spot in Korea’s tightly regulated crypto market.
🇸🇻 El Salvador’s central bank added $50 million worth of gold to its reserves while the government continued its daily bitcoin buying strategy, pushing the country’s gold holdings above $360 million and its bitcoin stash to 7,547 BTC worth about $635 million.
📈 Robinhood invested in Talos, a New York–based provider of behind-the-scenes crypto trading infrastructure for banks and asset managers, backing a $45 million funding extension that valued the firm at $1.5 billion as demand grows for institutional-grade digital asset rails.
