This article was compiled and organized by BlockWeeks
The crypto industry has decisively stepped into the core of Davos global economic and financial policy discussions.
Crypto at Davos: No Longer a Supporting Player
The World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting was held this week, with crypto industry executives such as Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and Circle's Jeremy Allaire appearing on the same stage as traditional finance giants like BlackRock's Larry Fink. Although crypto figures have also spoken out at Davos in past years, this year's discussion topics and overall tone reflect a clear evolution in how institutions and regulators understand blockchain technology. Looking back at recent years, the changes are obvious at a glance.
2024: That year, the most viral moment was JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's comment that was turned into a meme—he mocked Bitcoin's limited total supply and also joked about its pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto. In an interview, Dimon called Bitcoin a "pet rock" and said: "I'm very skeptical... when we mine 20 million Bitcoin, Satoshi will pop up and have a good laugh, and then go silent, and all Bitcoin will be wiped out. How do you know it will definitely stop at 21 million?"
2025: Last year's Davos coincided with the period around President Trump's inauguration. At that time, optimism around crypto and blockchain was high, but progress on implementation among the crypto industry, traditional finance, and U.S. lawmakers was limited. The industry was still in an "exploratory stage," and the focus of discussion was the need for "clear rules" and thoughtful assessment by regulators.
2026: This year's Davos has a completely different tone and agenda. Over the past year, the GENIUS Act was passed, regulators began to be willing to provide exemptive relief around crypto, and a market structure bill has also been advancing in the hands of members of Congress. Notably, Larry Fink appeared on the same stage as Citadel's Ken Griffin and laid out the BlackRock CEO's vision—that all assets will be tokenized and run on "one universal blockchain." Brian Armstrong also discussed prediction markets and Decision Markets, two increasingly heated crypto-native topics, in an interview.
The shift in crypto sentiment came extremely quickly. From Dimon mocking Satoshi Nakamoto to the BlackRock CEO declaring that we need to tokenize everything on a single, unified ledger, only 730 days passed.
One change at this year's Davos is that crypto is no longer a footnote to other topics, but part of the discussion. The official agenda arranged special sessions such as "Is Tokenization the Future?" and "Where Are We on Stablecoins?", explicitly focusing on how digital assets can be embedded into existing financial infrastructure, rather than merely discussing whether they should be allowed to exist.
Multiple panel discussions described tokenization as gaining real operational traction, including reducing costs and settlement friction, while stablecoins emerged as a use case that has already reached scale, and the conversation is shifting to how blockchain can be integrated into payment and settlement systems. These discussions are consistent with the World Economic Forum's overall narrative: driven by clearer regulatory frameworks and an increasing number of institutional pilots, blockchain and digital assets are "moving from experimentation to enterprise-level deployment."
The industry can be said to have squeezed into institutional circles—on these occasions, related topics are now regarded as foundational components of internet finance, rather than merely niche curiosities and debates as in the past.—Zack Pokorny
Senate Agriculture Committee Releases Market Structure Discussion Draft
Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee released draft text of the Digital Commodities Intermediaries Act (DCIA), which will ultimately be merged with the product completed by the Senate Banking Committee to form a complete "crypto market structure bill."
Because the Senate Agriculture Committee oversees the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), this draft focuses on digital commodity markets, especially granting the CFTC exclusive regulatory and oversight jurisdiction over spot crypto markets (i.e., crypto exchanges, dealers, and brokers).
The committee plans to hold a markup hearing on Tuesday, January 27, when members of both parties will likely propose amendments. Although the "commodity" side of the market structure debate—including CFTC oversight of spot markets—is generally considered less controversial than the "securities" side, this discussion draft still carries a partisan flavor. It has not been endorsed by the Democrats' chief negotiator, even though it incorporates many provisions previously negotiated with Democrats.
Solana Phone's Own Token Experiment
The Solana phone (Seeker) is about to have its own token. The device has its own unique primitives such as biometric signing, device verification, and native payments, capabilities that are difficult to replicate on desktop and may give rise to application scenarios that do not currently exist.
The challenge remains how to get the phone into the hands of new users. Since the launch of Saga, sales of 150,000 units are indeed decent adoption growth, but it is unclear how many of those are net-new crypto users, and it is only a small fraction of Solana's active wallets. Part of Solana's bet is that if it offers an affordable but usable phone, even non-crypto-native users will become interested, and airdrops will only make the deal more attractive.
Solana Mobile's ambition is not limited to Solana-branded hardware. If this model proves viable, the platform's design allows it to expand to other devices and manufacturers. Seeker is best seen as a testing ground—testing whether crypto-native user experience, incentives, and governance can support a sustainable mobile ecosystem.
The risks are obvious: hardware is a ruthless business, incentives may attract short-term behavior, and revenue is deferred by design. But such trade-offs are intentional—Solana prioritizes distribution and participation over near-term monetization. Even if only a small portion of on-chain activity begins to flow through mobile interfaces, it could become a much-needed new user entry point.
Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko was deeply involved in mobile before founding the network, and his definition of success is similar: the goal is not to directly replace Apple or Google; the real victory is forcing these giants to lower fees, relax restrictions, or improve support for crypto-native experiences. If building a credible alternative can leverage changes in platform behavior, that in itself benefits the entire ecosystem.—Lucas Tcheyan
Ethereum Daily Transaction Volume Hits Record High
On January 16, Ethereum's daily transaction volume on the network hit a record high of about 2.8 million. This milestone had been foreshadowed earlier—the number of new daily addresses once surged and peaked on January 11.
