Bitcoin Holds $90K Despite Rising Geopolitical Tensions, Morgan Stanley Enters Crypto ETF Race: Weekly Recap

The first full week of 2026 has been very interesting, but BTC and crypto have remained largely unscathed.

It was just a week ago when the overall outlook in the cryptocurrency market seemed dull due to the holiday season. However, that all began to change on Saturday morning when the US launched a successful attack on Venezuela and took the president and his wife to New York to face local justice.

BTC recovered the $90,000 level at the time, but uncertainty about the attacks pushed it south to $89,300. Once the US confirmed the attack and Trump made some controversial comments about the future of Venezuela, Bitcoin once again rose to $90,000.

The gains continued in the first two days of the trading week. In fact, it reached just under $95,000 on Tuesday morning, the highest price tag in two months. However, the Bears intercepted the motion and did not allow another run.

Just the opposite; BTC began to lose value in the following days. It dipped below $89,500 yesterday, but recovered almost immediately by two grand. The business is now trading just above $90,000, but more volatility is expected today as the US Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on Trump's tariffs.

For now, Bitcoin is trading at a modest weekly gain of 1.2%, but its dominance over alts has fallen below 57% as many have outperformed in the same time frame. Ripple's XRP is one of them, showing an 11% increase despite stopping at $2.40 earlier this week. Other popular gainers include SOL, ADA, XMR, XLM, DOGE and BCH from the large caps.

Market data

Market value: $3.180T | 24H Volume: $108B | BTC dominance: 56.8%

BTC: $90,400 (+1.2%) | ETH: $3,090 (+1.4%) | XRP: $2.10 (+10.8%)

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This week's Crypto headlines you can't miss

In the year In 2026, Truebit lost $26.5M in the first Major Defy Hack. Hackers are back quickly after the holiday season, and Trubit Protocol is the first major victim of the new year. Recent reports indicate that more than $26 million in ETH has been poured into the platform.

Spot XRP ETFs record green streak as Ripple price drops 13% in days After nearly two months of green-only days, the five spot XRP ETFs saw their streak end, leaving more than $40 million in cash on Wednesday. However, it returned to the green on Thursday, albeit by a modest $8 million.

Why Bitcoin's Recent Recovery Is Called ‘Structurally Sound' Despite the recent loss of large price returns, BTC is still trading above $90,000 despite the general global tension. Thus, the recovery above $90,000 is “structurally sound,” analysts said.

Arthur Hayes: Low Oil Prices Could Spark a Bitcoin Bull Run Commodity prices are expected to fall sharply in the coming months after Trump promised to put Venezuela's vast oil reserves up for international sale. Arthur Hayes noted that this could be very beneficial for BTC.

Institutional Adoption: Morgan Stanley files SEC filings for BTC and SOL funds. Perhaps the most notable news this week in terms of global institutional adoption came from multi-trillion dollar US bank Morgan Stanley, which filed SEC filings to launch BTC and SOL ETFs. A day later, apply for ETH ETFs as well.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining is not the climate watcher many think: ESG expert says. Critics of Bitcoin have long said that the mining process harms the planet. However, an ESG expert stated that this may not be the case and that BTC mining is much cleaner than people believe.

Charts

This week we have chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin and Hyperliquid – click here for full price analysis.