Equities update | January 30th 2026

Week 5 was marked by heightened volatility across most asset classes, with cryptocurrencies particularly weak as macroeconomic developments favoured hard assets, pushing gold and silver to record highs. Beneath the surface, however, corporate earnings trends remained constructive, with many companies continuing to beat consensus expectations and forward guidance increasingly pointing to margin expansion, particularly from AI-driven efficiency gains. This underlying earnings resilience helped the CoinShares Global Blockchain Equity Index outperform Bitcoin over the week, despite elevated market volatility. Looking ahead, investor focus is likely to turn to further signals from Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh, particularly his views on the future path of monetary policy and the potential implications for liquidity conditions and crypto markets.

Week 5 key developments in blockchain equities:

• Index Performance: This week, the Index declined (0.77%), whilst Bitcoin fell by (7.6%). The Federal Reserve left policy rates unchanged, in line with expectations, rendering the decision largely a non-event for markets. Broader equity market volatility increased amid persistent geopolitical tensions around tariffs, corporate earnings, alongside a weaker US dollar (DXY) and rising commodity prices. Late in the week, President Trump announced Kevin Warsh as his nominee for Federal Reserve Chair, diverging from market expectations around Rick Rieder, a development markets will continue to digest in the coming sessions.

• Block Index Key Movers: 7-day top performers: Kinsus Interconnect (+16.5%), Iris Energy (+14.5%), Meta Platforms (+14.0%) 7-day worst performers: Defi Technologies (-18.9%), Bitcoin Group (-12.2%), CoinShares (-11.9%)

• North Atlantic extreme cold weather forces Bitcoin Miner’s to halt operations and curtail energy – Winter Storm Fernan's sweep across the central and eastern United States triggered one of the largest coordinated Bitcoin mining curtailments since 2021, with over 110 EH/s of computing power taken offline as miners redirected energy back to stressed power grids. Index constituents CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Iris Energy, Cipher Mining, Bitfarms, Core Scientific and Galaxy Digital who would have curtailed. With hashprice hovering near cycle lows at approximately US$35-40/PH/s/day, the economics of curtailment have become increasingly compelling: during peak grid stress, demand-response payments can deliver significant revenue’s compared to mining, transforming what appears to be operational downtime into a highly profitable arbitrage opportunity. For miners with ERCOT or TVA demand-response agreements, powering down is not merely an act of grid citizenship, it is often the economically optimal decision.

• Earnings Recap – Key Holdings:

  • Nextera Energy, Samsung Electronics, Meta Platforms, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Mastercard, Kinsus Interconnect – Positive

  • ASML - Mixed

• Other news: Index constituent Strategy Inc (MSTR US EQUITY) acquired an additional 2,934 BTC for US$264m, funded primarily through its ATM equity issuance programme. In Japan, Metaplanet (3350 JP EQUITY) announced a ¥12.24bn capital raise through the issuance of 24.5m shares at ¥499 via an overseas third-party allotment. Nvidia invested US$2bn investment in CoreWeave common equity provided strong third-party validation of CoreWeave’s AI compute platform and improved the perceived credit quality of its broader ecosystem, offering positive read-through for counterparties such as index constituents Core Scientific (CORZ US EQUITY) and Galaxy Digital (GLXY US EQUITY) with exposure through hosting or financing arrangements. Finally, reports that the US administration is considering using Robinhood (HOOD US EQUITY) as a distribution platform for “Trump Accounts” for children highlight ongoing policy interest in leveraging fintech platforms.