Invest ideasNews
28 Jan 2026, 14:29
Split 200 USDT | Share Your Insights on Top Crypto Trends in 2026
As 2026 begins, the crypto market is entering a new phase of structural transformation. Rather than balking at short-term price volatility, it may be more valuable to focus on the long-term trends most likely to define the next growth cycle . HTX Square is launching a new community discussion, inviting you to choose the crypto trends you believe have the strongest long-term certainty, and share why you believe in them. Join now for a chance to split a 200 USDT prize pool. How to Participate: Leave a comment under the HTX Community topic post (👈click to participate) and take the following two steps to be eligible for the prize pool: Step 1: Choose 1-2 trends you are most optimistic about (multiple selections allowed) ● Bitcoin/major crypto assets as long-term portfolio allocations ● Continued inflows from institutional capital and crypto ETFs ● RWA ● Expansion of stablecoin and payment use cases ● Maturation of Layer 2 and modular blockchains ● AI + Crypto ● Growth as regulatory compliance becomes clearer Step 2: Share your insights to support the choice (at least one sentence) You may base your view on: ● Macro or regulatory developments ● Capital flows or market behavior ● Technology maturity and real-world adoption ● Your own investment or market observations Reward Rules: ● Prize Pool: 200 USDT ● The HTX Square operations team will select 10 high-quality submissions with clear logic and well-supported reasoning ● 20 USDT per winner Event Period: January 28, 2026 – February 6, 2026 Looking ahead to 2026, what trends do you believe matter most? Your perspective may be exactly what others are looking for. Comment now, join the discussion, and split 200 USDT! Notes: ● Participants must complete level 3 KYC verification before the end of the event to be eligible for rewards. ● Rewards will be credited to winners’ HTX accounts after the event ends. ● HTX Square reserves the right for final interpretation of this event. The post Split 200 USDT | Share Your Insights on Top Crypto Trends in 2026 first appeared on HTX Square .
28 Jan 2026, 14:07
Top Bitcoin mining stocks rise amid US winter storm hashrate decline
Hashrate fell sharply as Bitcoin miners curtailed operations during extreme winter conditions in the US, boosting profitability for companies that stayed online.
28 Jan 2026, 13:10
Cipher Mining Is A Buy Due To Strong Demand
Summary Cipher Mining is rated a Buy, driven by robust AI data center demand and major hyperscaler contracts. CIFR has secured long-term deals with Google and Amazon, locking in at least $8.5B in revenue and validating its platform. Significant data center expansion, including a 1 GW site, positions CIFR to capture AI-driven growth amid fierce competition. Valuation suggests 34% upside to $25.13 per share, though rising debt and execution risks warrant close monitoring. Introduction Cipher Mining ( CIFR ) is a legacy bitcoin miner turned GPU-as-a-service provider who competes with neoclouds to provide GPU services for their clients. They own and operate data centers in the US to service AI and high-performance computing needs, and they aim to leverage renewable energies for a sustainable overall operation. We believe they are a Buy due to macro trends and their sustainable energy background. In the below section, we will cover some of their recent news and macro trends that are relevant to the firm. Recent News and Trends The Firm is Actively Growing Their Data Center Pipeline Currently, CIFR operates a number of energized sites across Texas, and there are 5 more to come in addition to the 4 that are already live. See the below map from their website . CIFR Website Their new site, in Colchis (not shown on the map), is going to be a 1-gigawatt capacity data center with a projected go-live date in 2028. With up to 620 acres at this site, CIFR remains poised to continue being a powerful player in the data center operations space. See the image from their November 2025 investor presentation for more details. CIFR November 2025 Investor Presentation They are consistently developing and expanding their portfolio, as you can see from their pipeline details page. CIFR November 2025 Investor Presentation Seeing all of this development and inking of new deals is certainly bullish as an investor. The firm is capturing share from larger players in the ever-growing data center space, and they are still able to fund some of their operations from their legacy bitcoin mining business. We view this diversified approach to growing their footprint in AI/HPC computing data centers as a solid plan that management should continue executing on - and barring any hiccups in the execution, we are bullish on this vision. Signed Deals With Hyperscalers Prove Their Business is Valuable to Established Players CIFR has signed major development deals with both Google and Amazon. In the below image, see details regarding the Google deal. CIFR November 2025 Investor Presentation A 10-year lease with Google for 300 MW upfront, with an additional 500 MW possible, is an excellent step in ensuring locked-in revenue for the firm over the next decade. Per the firm, they are slated to see $3.0B at a minimum of revenue, which at current share prices, represents nearly half of their entire market cap. With Amazon, they signed a large 15-year agreement, specifically with AWS, to support AI workloads. The total estimated contract value is $5.5B, and this partnership is slated to start in August 2026. With 300 MW of capacity provisioned, CIFR proves again that large AI companies are buyers of their platform - highly bullish news. See below for details on the Amazon deal. CIFR November 2025 Investor Presentation We believe that with these two deals, CIFR is far beyond “proof of concept” and has clearly established a lane for themselves to operate in, despite the massive amounts of competition in this area. With the ability to provide these data centers and power them with sustainable energy, CIFR is well-positioned to continue growing as long as they keep executing. Strong Macro Tailwinds Should Boost the Stock Further AI use cases are continuing to grow rapidly, and per McKinsey studies, the investment needed for data centers by 2030 will reach a whopping $6.7T worldwide to keep up with the demand for computing power - and of that, $5.2T is forecasted purely for AI demands. This staggering number means that for any firm looking to work with AI, they will need access to data centers, and this puts CIFR’s value proposition squarely in the forefront of this ever-growing pie. See the below graph. McKinsey With this exponential growth in compute required, there will be a number of winners in the data center-related industry. For CIFR, this only helps their case even further as they not only have contracted demand guaranteed already, but they have a steady pipeline of future value that can be unlocked with steady execution. CIFR remains a capable player to take share in this space. Valuation To come to an estimated valuation for CIFR, we will do a peer multiples analysis. We will use the Price/Book (P/B) ratio for this, as CIFR and its peers have very capital-intensive business models, and there is a correlation between more book value (aka more servers for mining or rent) and more revenue/earnings. For this analysis we will consider the following peers: IREN Limited ( IREN ), TeraWulf Inc. ( WULF ), Core Scientific, Inc. ( CORZ ), and Hut 8 Corp. ( HUT ). Let’s look at what the P/B values look like for the cohort: Company P/B CIFR 8.29 IREN 5.15 WULF 24.02 CORZ N/A HUT 4.16 CORZ has no reportable P/B since they have a negative book value. We will exclude them from any further P/B analysis. We see that CIFR is generally in the middle of the range here with a higher P/B than 2 names and a lower P/B than 1. The average P/B of all the peers (excluding CIFR) is 11.11, which is 1.34x larger than CIFR’s P/B. Applying this same multiple to their current stock price of $18.75, we arrive at a valuation of $25.13, which represents a 34% upside. Risks High and Growing Debt The company has a high debt, which is currently at $1.04 billion based on the latest report for Q3 2025. This is a significant increase from the previous quarter’s report, where the company showed $189.3 million in debt. Between those last 2 quarters alone, the Debt/Equity ratio increased from 25.28% to 133.30%. Interest expenses between these 2 quarters have not moved by much, and the increase will likely be reflected in the Q4 2025 report. We will be keeping a close eye on this value and how it may impact the company’s ability to meet its obligations while continuing to operate. Competition is Intense As discussed above, there are lots of competitors in this space, and CIFR will have to execute to win contracts and clients. However, we believe that the pie is growing and more than one key player will exist in this massive data center market. Conclusion CIFR is a strong player in the AI data center industry with contracted deals currently and more development in the pipeline. They are powering some of the world’s most influential AI companies with their data centers and are poised to continue taking share as the overall market grows in the next few years. Despite some potential risks, we see CIFR as a buy with an estimated per-share valuation of $25.13.
28 Jan 2026, 10:00
ADGM to introduce crypto mining framework in the UAE
The UAE based ADGM Registration Authority (“RA”) has published Discussion Paper No. 1 of 2026, inviting stakeholder feedback on proposed guidance for crypto mining activities conducted within or from ADGM. As per the announcement, the proposal aims to provide clarity on regulations alongside responsible innovation and governance standards for crypto mining. In the discussion paper , ADGM defines crypto mining as the verification of transactions on a decentralized ledger or infrastructure network, in return for rewards in the form of digital assets generated by a consensus mechanism. The financial freezone has take a technology neutral approach to the framework, and accept all kinds of blockchains including proof of work, proof of stake and others. License for crypto mining entities will be offered under a commercial one by the registration authority, as a financial service and not under the FSRA regulatory authority. However all crypto entities will also have to adhere to the UAE Federal laws already in place. The framework will also include clear governance expectations, with beneficial ownership disclosure, operational integrity, as well as risk based supervision with oversight calibrated on the scale and complexity of the mining operations. A new concept introduce by ADGM will be global oversight, where crypto mining entities registered in ADGM can also oversee and manage overseas crypto mining operations. ADGM is looking for responses from entities engaged in crypto mining activities, or planning to, as well as technology vendors, auditors, and other relevant industry stakeholders. Feedback is needed by March 20th, 2026. ADGM wants to set a framework for crypto mining because it can pose risks in areas such as operational resilience, cybersecurity, transparency of ownership and control, health and safety at facilities, and cross border oversight. Dmitry Fedotov, Head of Emerging Technology at ADGM, on LinkedIn, wrote, “This is an important step towards regulatory certainty for entities engaged in crypto mining, whether operating locally, establishing regional headquarters, or managing global mining portfolios from ADGM.” He added that the areas where feedback is specifically sought are in the clarity of licensing requirements, assessment, proportionality of proposed license conditions, appropriateness of onchain address disclosure expectations, adequacy of supervisory tools, including potential SupTech integrations, and expectations for ADGM headquartered entities overseeing global mining operations. The last one addresses a genuine gap, says Fedetov, as mining operations increasingly span multiple jurisdictions. He explains, “There’s value in establishing clear expectations for how headquarters entities should exercise oversight, conduct due diligence on host jurisdictions, and apply consistent governance standards across their global footprint.” The UAE has a handful of operating crypto mining firms Already, the UAE has a handful of crypto mining entities operating out of the country. The major two well known are Phoenix, the first crypto mining entity in UAE to have an IPO and list on Abu Dhabi Exchange, and Marathon Digital which in 2023 entered into a shareholder’s agreement with FSI (FS Innovation), the BTC mining subsidiary of UAE ADQ a sovereign fund, to form an Abu Dhabi. Additionally, in 2024, Hut 8 an energy infrastructure platform integrating power, digital infrastructure, and compute at scale to fuel next generation, energy intensive use cases such as Bitcoin mining and high performance computing, registered to open an office in Dubai, UAE. Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.
28 Jan 2026, 10:00
Bitcoin Whales Flip From Distribution To Early Re-Accumulation – Details
Bitcoin remains under pressure, struggling to reclaim the $88,000 level as uncertainty and persistent selling continue to dominate market sentiment. Price action reflects hesitation rather than panic, but the inability to attract sustained demand highlights a fragile short-term structure. According to a recent CryptoQuant analysis, on-chain data tracking large holders offers critical context for this weakness. Data focusing on wallets holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC, excluding exchanges and mining pools, points to a clear behavioral shift among whales after an extended distribution phase in late 2025. Following a local peak around mid-2025, aggregate whale balances declined steadily while Bitcoin traded at elevated levels. This pattern is consistent with distribution into strength, not forced liquidation, suggesting that large holders were reducing exposure opportunistically as price momentum matured. The 30-day balance change metric reinforces this view. Throughout the third quarter and into early Q4, whale balances repeatedly printed negative monthly changes, even as prices attempted to push higher. This divergence coincided with rising volatility and fading upside momentum, signaling that rallies were increasingly sustained by marginal buyers rather than committed institutional-scale accumulation. Whale Behavior Signals Early Stabilization After Prolonged Distribution However, the same report highlights an important shift beneath the surface. Recent on-chain data shows a clear inflection in whale behavior, with both short-term (7-day) and medium-term (30-day) balance changes turning positive. After months of persistent outflows, total whale holdings are no longer declining and have begun to stabilize, gradually recovering from their local lows. This change suggests that large holders are no longer actively distributing into rallies. Historically, transitions from net distribution to early accumulation tend to emerge during periods of price compression or after corrective phases, rather than near market peaks. The current environment fits that pattern. Bitcoin is trading in a tight range after a sharp drawdown, and volatility has compressed, creating conditions where strategic repositioning becomes more attractive for larger players. From a broader macro on-chain perspective, the 1-year change in whale holdings remains relatively flat. This indicates that the market has not yet entered a full-scale accumulation regime typically associated with strong bull market expansions. Instead, the behavior observed so far is more consistent with tactical positioning and selective re-entry, rather than high-conviction, long-term buying. Importantly, whale activity is no longer adding sustained sell-side pressure to Bitcoin’s supply. While this shift does not guarantee an immediate upside breakout, it materially reduces downside risk. The market appears to be transitioning into a stabilization phase, where the next directional move will depend on whether accumulation meaningfully accelerates or fades at current levels. Bitcoin Consolidates Around Weekly Demand Level Bitcoin’s weekly chart shows price consolidating just below the $90,000 zone, highlighting a market caught between stabilization and unresolved downside risk. After the sharp correction from the $120K–$125K peak, BTC has entered a broad consolidation range, with recent candles clustering around the mid-to-high $80K area. This zone is increasingly acting as a critical demand region rather than a launchpad for immediate upside. From a trend perspective, the structure has clearly weakened. Price remains below the 50-period moving average (blue), which has rolled over and now acts as dynamic resistance near the low $90Ks. The 100-period moving average (green) continues to slope upward and currently provides medium-term support just below the current price, reinforcing the idea of compression rather than free fall. Meanwhile, the 200-period moving average (red) remains well below the price and rising steadily, confirming that the broader long-term uptrend is still intact despite the correction. Volume dynamics also support a stabilization narrative. Selling pressure has eased compared to the distribution phase seen near the highs, and recent weekly candles show reduced downside momentum. However, the lack of strong bullish follow-through suggests buyers are selective rather than aggressive. Bitcoin is transitioning into a decision zone. Holding above the 100-week moving average keeps the market in a corrective but constructive phase. Failure to do so would open the door to deeper mean reversion, while a reclaim of the 50-week average would be an early signal of trend repair. Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com
28 Jan 2026, 05:29
Senior Thai Electricity Officials Caught in Illegal Crypto Mining Scandal
Thailand’s special investigation force (DSI) has exposed four senior officials from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) for allegedly abusing their authority to operate an illegal Bitcoin mining syndicate. Thousands of illegal mining rigs were confiscated from an assistant PEA governor, with cash deposits worth 19 million baht ($612.9K). The Bangkok Post reported Tuesday that DSI raided three houses, seizing mining equipment, cash, laptops, phones and bank passbooks. “Operation Copperhead” – Wider Crackdown on Illegal Bitcoin Mining Operations The raids conducted by the DSI were a part of “operation copperhead,” launched in December 2025, said Police Maj General Rutthapon Naowarat. The operation targets criminal networks operating in Thailand, focusing on money laundering and seizing illegal assets. On January 19, the DSI officials seized 3,642 crypto mining rigs, discovering evidence linking them to financiers and state officials. The accused PEA officials include an assistant governor, a regional-level deputy manager, a technician and a service division employee who retired in 2025. Thorough searches were carried out in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Samut Sakhon provinces, the report noted. Additionally, the investigators found that the accused PEA officials used their authority to arrange warehousing, facilitating electricity supply and transformer access for the mining hub. They reportedly accepted monthly kickbacks of up to 400,000 baht. “Legal action would be taken against all offenders without exception, regardless of rank or position,” said Pol Capt Khemachart Prakaihongmanee, director of the DSI’s Technology and Cyber Crime Bureau. “The case would be expedited and forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission for further action.” Thailand Tightens Crypto Oversight, Keeps Illegal Operations at Check The nation has already been tightening oversight on digital assets , ordering a broad crackdown on ‘grey money’ – funds that move through legal-looking channels but often trace back to criminal syndicates and illicit activities. Besides, in January 2025, the PEA uncovered a Bitcoin mining farm in Chonburi for tampering with power meters to steal electricity. About 996 mining rigs were seized in the crackdown. However, the issue of illegal Bitcoin mining is not confined to Thailand. It is part of a broader global issue. For instance, Russia saw “millions of dollars per year” in electricity and lost taxes tied to crypto mining last year. As a result, the nation’s Justice Ministry proposed prison sentences up to 5 years and fines reaching 2.5 million rubles for unregistered crypto mining operations. The post Senior Thai Electricity Officials Caught in Illegal Crypto Mining Scandal appeared first on Cryptonews .
