Policy Heat, IPO Hopes, and Ethereum’s Year

Welcome to our Crypto news in 10, a daily podcast bringing you the latest news about crypto in under 10 minutes.

Here’s what’s shaping crypto on Tuesday, January 13, 2026... Washington is lining up a long-awaited market structure markup for digital assets. One of crypto’s biggest custodians is heading to the public markets. Bakkt is making a bold bet on programmable payments with a stablecoin infrastructure deal. A major bank says this will be Ethereum’s year. And Florida’s legislature opens with a proposal to hold bitcoin on the state’s own balance sheet.

Prices are steady to slightly firmer, with bitcoin near ninety-two thousand and ether in the low three thousands... let’s get into it.

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First up — policy momentum. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee has officially scheduled a markup on comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation for Thursday, January 15. Chair Tim Scott says the goal is clear rules that keep innovation in the U.S., protect retail investors, and strengthen national security.

This path included multiple discussion drafts last year and a request for information. Today’s draft — framed as providing market clarity — is helping lift sentiment, with bitcoin hovering around ninety-two thousand this morning.

Whether you’re a builder or an allocator, a committee markup is the first real test of where compromises land — custody, exchange registration, and who oversees spot markets. We’ll watch for amendments and any signals on stablecoin coordination with the already enacted Genius Act.

Next — BitGo is going public. Reuters reports the Palo Alto–based custodian aims to raise about two hundred and one million dollars at a valuation up to one point nine six billion, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker B T G O. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are the lead underwriters.

BitGo’s pitch is simple: safekeeping is the linchpin of institutional crypto — for exchange-traded funds, banks, and corporates — and with Basel disclosure rules now active, and U.S. market structure moving, demand for regulated custody should be durable. If this books well, it’s a barometer for primary-market risk appetite in crypto-adjacent equities early in 2026.

Third — Bakkt is going all in on programmable money. The company agreed to acquire Distributed Technologies Research — D T R — in an all-stock deal that, based on today’s share count, would issue roughly nine point one three million Class A shares — about thirty-one and a half percent of Bakkt’s share count — to D T R holders. Intercontinental Exchange, which owns about thirty-one percent of Bakkt, has agreed to vote in favor.

The strategy: bring stablecoin settlement rails in-house to speed up merchant and bank integrations, reduce third-party dependence, and lay the groundwork for neobanking partnerships. Bakkt also says it will change its corporate name to Bakkt Incorporated on January 22.

Watch this as a test case for U.S.-regulated, enterprise-grade stablecoin payments in 2026 — exactly the kind of plumbing that could translate policy clarity into real-world adoption.

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Next — a big bank just planted a flag for Ethereum. Standard Chartered’s digital assets team says 2026 will be the year of Ethereum, even as it trims some near-term price targets.

The call leans on structural advantages — Ethereum’s outsized role in stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization, and decentralized finance — plus ongoing throughput improvements and relatively more supportive flows versus bitcoin. The bank now sees ether ending 2026 around seven thousand five hundred dollars, with a longer-dated path to thirty thousand by 2029 and forty thousand by 2030. It also expects the E T H to B T C ratio to drift back toward the 2021 highs around zero point zero eight.

For allocators, the thesis is rotation. If market-structure rules unlock compliant staking, tokenized assets, and payments at scale, E T H could outperform — even in a range-bound tape.

And fifth — state-level treasury experimentation is back. Florida lawmakers filed Senate Bill 1038 to create a Florida Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve, and the state’s 2026 session opens today.

The design is notable. It walls off the crypto holdings in a standalone reserve with its own custody standards, reporting, and advisory committee — avoiding direct exposure across pensions or other funds. The purchase authority is limited to assets with a five-hundred-billion-dollar average market cap over the past twenty-four months... which, at this point, effectively means bitcoin.

Regardless of where you stand, a state-managed bitcoin reserve would mark a new phase of public-sector participation — moving from resolutions and pilots toward formal balance-sheet policy.

Quick recap... In D.C., the Senate Banking Committee’s Thursday markup could define the guardrails for exchanges, custody, and market oversight — keep an eye on amendments. BitGo is testing the I P O window with a near two-billion-dollar target. Bakkt is knitting together stablecoin payments by buying D T R and rebranding next week. Standard Chartered says 2026 belongs to Ethereum, with the fundamentals to back it up. And Florida opens its session with a proposal to put bitcoin directly on the state’s books.

We’ll be watching all of it... same time tomorrow.

Thanks for listening and see you tommorow!