Gold demand reached a record $555 billion in 2025, driven by an 84% surge in investment flows and $89 billion in inflows into physically backed ETFs. The World Gold Council reports ETF holdings climbed 801 tons to an all-time high of 4,025 tons, with assets under management doubling to $559 billion. US gold ETFs alone

Ripple has enabled staking for Ethereum and Solana within its institutional custody business, expanding beyond safekeeping to include asset servicing features that large investors increasingly consider standard. The new capability, delivered through a partnership with staking infrastructure provider Figment, enables Ripple Custody clients to offer staking on major proof-of-stake networks without setting up validator infrastructure.

Bitcoin’s sharp selloff last week appears to have triggered one of the largest buy-the-dip episodes of this market cycle. Data tracking accumulator addresses showed a record surge of coins moving into wallets associated with long-term holding behavior, even as flows through exchange-traded fund (ETF) products stayed net negative. The timing mattered. The inflow landed right

Ethereum researcher ladislaus.eth published a walkthrough last week explaining how Ethereum plans to move from re-executing every transaction to verifying zero-knowledge proofs. The post frames it as a “quiet but fundamental transformation,” and the framing is accurate. Not because the work is secret, but because its implications ripple across Ethereum's entire architecture in ways that