Gate Research: Market in Extreme Fear, Stablecoin Real Payment Share Below 0.02%

Crypto Market Overview

• BTC (-1.69% | Price: 87,655.4 USDT): After weakening at high levels, BTC saw an accelerated pullback on the 26th, hitting a low of around $86,100. It then staged an oversold rebound, but the recovery was limited, with the price still trading below mid-term moving averages such as the MA30, maintaining a bearish structure overall. There is currently no single major bearish factor on the macro or fundamental side, and the ETF and long-term supply-demand logic remain intact. In the short term, BTC may fluctuate between $86,000–$88,500 to absorb selling pressure. In the mid-term, attention should be paid to the risk of further pullbacks if rebounds stall. Over a longer horizon, as long as the macro environment remains stable, BTC is more likely to consolidate in a wide range at high levels rather than trend downward in a straight line, setting the stage for future moves.
• ETH (-2.35% | Price: 2,881.78 USDTT): After consolidating in the $2,950–$3,000 range, ETH saw weakening momentum and broke below the lower boundary on the 26th amid cooling risk appetite, briefly falling below $2,800. It then rebounded, driven by short-term covering and an oversold bounce. Compared to BTC, ETH’s pullback was steeper and more volatile. In the short term, ETH may fluctuate within the $2,780–$2,900 range to absorb selling pressure. If it fails to reclaim levels above $2,950, the risk of repeated pullbacks remains.
• Altcoins: The Fear & Greed Index has dropped to 20, remaining in the Extreme Fear zone, indicating a sharp contraction in market sentiment. In the short term, volatility may continue to increase, with prices likely to retest lows repeatedly.
• Macro: On January 23, the S&P 500 Index rose by 0.033% to 6,915.61 points; the Dow Jones Index fell by 0.58% to 49,098.71 points; and the Nasdaq Index rose by 0.28% to 23,501.24 points. As of 11:00 AM (UTC+8) on January 26, the spot price of gold is $5,082.37 per ounce, up 1.92% in the past 24 hours.

Trending Tokens

TAIKO TAIKO (+51.16%, market cap: $50.51 million)

According to Gate market data, the current price of the TAIKO token is $0.2649, up over 50% in the past 24 hours. Taiko (TAIKO) is an Ethereum-based Layer 2 scaling solution built on a Type-1 zkEVM, using a zkRollup architecture fully equivalent to Ethereum, aiming to achieve “Ethereum-native” equivalence while maintaining a high degree of decentralization.

The current surge in TAIKO may be driven by strong buying from the Korean market, along with momentum from recent technical upgrades. Taiko recently announced the Shasta protocol upgrade, which reduced block proposal costs by about 22 times and proof generation costs by about 8 times, significantly enhancing Taiko’s economic competitiveness as a ZK L2. At the same time, sentiment in the Korean crypto market is relatively strong, and such rallies often occur during short-term rotations among altcoins.

AUCTION BounceAuction (+32.19%, market cap: $47.2 million)

According to Gate market data, the current price of the AUCTION token is $6.72, up over 30% in the past 24 hours. BounceAuction (AUCTION) is a decentralized auction platform that supports various auction formats, allowing users to create and participate in auctions of tokens, NFTs, or other digital assets on the blockchain.

There is no specific explosive news behind this AUCTION surge; the price increase is likely driven by a sharp spike in trading volume and a technical breakout, triggering a short-term FOMO effect. Trading volume has significantly increased compared to the previous day, with large buy orders or algorithmic trading on major exchanges pushing the price sharply higher. Additionally, after a prolonged period at low levels, AUCTION broke through a key resistance level, forming a strong rebound pattern.

BOB BOB (+17.65%, market cap: $23.26 million)

According to Gate market data, the current price of the BOB token is $0.01044, up over 15% in the past 24 hours. Build on Bitcoin (BOB) aims to serve as the entry point for Bitcoin DeFi, combining Bitcoin’s security with Ethereum’s flexibility to become the preferred platform for Bitcoin liquidity, applications, and institutional capital.

The recent price increase in BOB is likely driven by staking-induced supply constraints and a technical relief rebound, generating short-term upward momentum. A rise in staking activity has tightened circulating supply, laying the groundwork for a rebound after a prolonged low-price period. This supply pressure helped ease the technical exhaustion following previous sharp declines, attracting some investors back into the market.

Alpha Insights

SocialFi bubble bursts, social tokens drop over 90%

At the beginning of 2026, the SocialFi sector faced a brutal purge: the vast majority of platforms were either completely abandoned, quietly acquired, or reduced to meaningless shells. Representative social tokens such as FRIEND, DEGEN, CYBER, RLY, and DESO generally plunged by 90%–99%, collapsing the boom that was once propped up by massive VC funding, airdrop incentives, and speculative narratives. The acquisition of Farcaster by Neynar is a typical case. Once a decentralized social protocol valued at nearly $200 million, Farcaster saw its founding team voluntarily exit, and its company, Merkle Manufactory, fully refunded $180 million to investors. Infrastructure player Neynar took over the protocol to maintain its operation, but the original ambition of becoming a large-scale social platform was abandoned in favor of focusing on developer tools.

This textbook example of an orderly exit highlights SocialFi’s core weakness: user growth was highly dependent on subsidies and bot farming. Once incentives dried up, real communities evaporated quickly, leaving only speculative capital and short-term flippers. The entire event essentially marks the end of the crypto social narrative bubble. Over the past few years, countless projects touted visions of a “decentralized Twitter” and “user data ownership,” but they never managed to overcome the network effects and user habits of centralized platforms. Truly sticky social behaviors struggle to emerge in environments plagued by high gas fees, wallet friction, and fragmented user experiences.

Bitcoin payments become normalized offline in Las Vegas, reshaping payment costs

As cryptocurrencies move further into the mainstream, more and more brick-and-mortar merchants in the Las Vegas area are starting to accept BTC payments. This includes chain brands like Steak ’n Shake, as well as small to medium-sized businesses such as juice bars and medical clinics. For merchants, the appeal of BTC goes beyond being a “new tech label”—it actually brings in new customer segments, particularly crypto-friendly younger users and frequent tourists, making “accepting BTC” a marketing and differentiation strategy.

More importantly, it changes the cost structure. Reports say that payment company Square enabled a feature in November last year allowing around 4 million U.S. merchants to accept BTC payments with zero fees through 2026—bypassing the traditional 2.5%–3.5% credit card fees. For offline merchants with already thin profit margins, this represents a practical upgrade in payment tools. As crypto payments continue to improve in compliance and user experience, they are transitioning from niche experiments to scalable, mainstream payment options.

Stablecoins settle massive volumes but real-world payments remain minimal, with true usage under 0.02%

According to a joint study by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics, stablecoins reached a staggering $35 trillion in on-chain settlement volume last year, but only about 1% of that was tied to real-world payments. The report estimates that actual payment-related stablecoin transactions totaled around $380 billion, mainly concentrated in B2B settlements ($226 billion), cross-border payroll and remittances ($90 billion), and capital market settlements ($8 billion). This shows that stablecoins have found clear utility in enterprise, cross-border, and settlement-specific scenarios, but remain far from widespread adoption in everyday consumer payments.

Additionally, most current stablecoin transactions still stem from crypto exchange matching, internal transfers, or protocol-level operations—not real purchases of goods and services. In the context of a global payments market exceeding $20 trillion, stablecoins’ share of real payments is less than 0.02%. This suggests that the core value of stablecoins at this stage is not in replacing cards or cash, but in serving as more efficient tools for clearing and cross-border value transfer. For stablecoins to truly break out into mainstream payments, the key lies not in on-chain volume, but in achieving compliance integration, merchant adoption, and seamless user experience all at once.


References

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/eth/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
• Investing, https://investing.com/indices/usa-indices
• Investing, https://investing.com/currencies/xau-usd
• CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
• CoinDesk, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/01/23/stablecoins-moved-usd35-trillion-last-year-but-only-1-of-it-was-for-real-world-payments
• FOX5, https://www.fox5vegas.com/2026/01/23/las-vegas-businesses-accept-bitcoin-payments-cryptocurrency-gains-mainstream-adoption

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Disclaimer
Investing in cryptocurrency markets involves high risk. Users are advised to conduct their own research and fully understand the nature of the assets and products before making any investment decisions. Gate is not responsible for any losses or damages arising from such decisions.