Раскол в команде Zcash и захват власти в Венесуэле: Крипту настигают новые вызовы Translation: Headline: Division in the Zcash Team and Power Grab in Venezuela: New Challenges Hit Crypto

Bitcoin tried to surpass the $95,000 mark, the main developers of Zcash left the team, the Truebit token plummeted after a hack, Morgan Stanley applied to launch a crypto ETF, among other events from the past week.

The first full week of 2026 turned out to be relatively calm for the crypto market. Bitcoin began Monday with a rise above $93,000.

The increase in prices was attributed to a global «rally of all assets.» The dynamics of digital currencies synchronized with Asian stock exchanges.

Another contributing factor was the situation in Venezuela. Investors closely monitored developments in the country, especially regarding signs of a «strategic entry» of the US into the oil sector.

An additional boost came from reports of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his transportation to New York. According to Jeff Ko, chief analyst at CoinEx Research, this event triggered a chain reaction: oil prices slightly decreased while tensions in the Middle East escalated — the Israeli opposition urged Iran to learn from the Venezuelan scenario.

By Tuesday, the first cryptocurrency approached nearly $95,000, but this figure turned out to be a local peak.

From the middle of the week onward, Bitcoin entered a correction, falling back to around $90,000.

At the time of writing, digital gold is trading at $90,700, showing little change in price over the past week. Its market capitalization stands at $1.8 trillion.

Other assets in the top 10 by market capitalization followed the lead of Bitcoin, with the exceptions being BNB (+3% for the week) and DOGE (-8%).

The cryptocurrency fear and greed index emerged from the «extreme fear» zone, recovering to 29 points.

By the end of the week, the total market capitalization of the crypto market reached $3.18 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index is at 56.9%, while Ethereum’s is at 11.8%.

On January 7, it was revealed that the main developers of the anonymous coin Zcash — the Electric Coin Company (ECC) team — have completely exited the project. According to former CEO Josh Swihart, the decision was made due to internal conflicts.

He mentioned that most board members of the Bootstrap non-profit fund acted contrary to the mission of the private cryptocurrency.

«To put it simply, our employment conditions were altered in a way that made it impossible for us to perform our duties effectively and in good faith,» added Swihart.

Former ECC staff plan to establish a new entity while maintaining their original goal of creating «unstoppable private money.» The Zcash protocol itself will remain unaffected by the team’s exit and will continue to operate as usual.

Co-founder of Helius Labs, Mert Mumtaz, described these developments as a «bullish signal» for the asset and predicted an increase in ZEC to $10,000.

«The most capable people in Zcash (alongside Tachyon, of course) are now free from the shackles of ineffective corporate policy,» he added.

However, in the immediate term, the price of the private coin reacted negatively to the situation. ZEC fell from $530 to $385, losing nearly 30% over the week.

Amid the asset’s decline, Monero (XMR) seized the lead in the anonymous coin segment. The cryptocurrency’s price reached $500, gaining 15% over the past seven days.

On January 8, hackers attacked the Ethereum verification protocol Truebit and withdrew 8,535 ETH (approximately $26.4 million at the time of the incident).

The project team noted that only one smart contract was affected. The reasons for the breach and the exact amount of damage have yet to be disclosed. The company is collaborating with law enforcement.

According to independent researcher Weilin (William) Li, hackers exploited a vulnerability in a token issuance function with improperly set pricing in an outdated contract deployed nearly five years ago.

This allowed them to buy native TRU coins at artificially low rates. The expert believes that two independent groups participated in the hack: the first made profits of $26 million, while the second gained around $250,000.

The attack severely impacted the TRU token, which nearly lost all its value, plummeting by 100%. At the time of writing, the token is trading at approximately $0.000071.

On January 6, investment bank Morgan Stanley submitted applications to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch two spot ETFs.

According to the documents, one product will track the price of Bitcoin, while the other will track Solana. If approved, over 19 million clients of the company’s wealth management division will have access to these instruments.

Jeff Park, investment director at ProCap, believes that the bank will benefit from launching its own exchange-traded crypto funds, even if their returns are low. He stated that Morgan Stanley is betting on long-term branding benefits rather than just capital inflow.

Park sees the existence of a spot Bitcoin ETF as evidence of «foresight and courage» from the asset manager. This creates an image of a progressive company, which is particularly important in the competitive landscape for attracting talent.

«This is a positive external factor that will aid in recruiting top specialists amid competitors,» emphasized the investment director.

He also highlighted Morgan Stanley’s plans to monetize its brokerage division ETRADE through partnerships in tokenization and crypto trading.

Morningstar analyst Brian Armor speculated that Morgan Stanley’s «unexpected» move is aimed at transitioning existing clients into its own funds.

«The bank’s entry into the crypto ETF sector will add legitimacy to the market, and others may follow suit,» the expert added.

During the week, it was announced that the platform for launching meme tokens, Pump.fun, will revise its commission system for content creators. According to co-founder Alon Cohen, the existing model has proven insufficiently beneficial.

The Dynamic Fees V1 payment mechanism implemented last year attracted new developers and sparked a surge in on-chain activity, but «failed to significantly change the behavior of the average token user,» emphasized the project representative.

Cohen believes that «dynamic fees» encourage token creation but do not stimulate trading. He described the situation as dangerous, given that traders are a «vital element of the platform.»

The initially announced changes will allow fees to be distributed among content creators (up to 10 wallets).

This feature will enable the transfer of ownership rights for coins and revocation of permission for updates. Moreover, Community Takeover creators and administrators will be able to adjust fee sizes post-token launch.

The implementation of these changes is scheduled for 2026. Cohen did not disclose specific deadlines, promising to adhere to «market principles.»

In the wake of the announcement, the native token of the meme-token factory, PUMP, increased by nearly 7% over the week.