This Week In Crypto – DAC8, Ripple, Solana, Ethereum, and Vibe Coding

Gm, frens, you’re just in time for our second crypto news roundup of the year!

The EU has introduced a new crypto tax law, Ripple has made strides in the UK and Solana is evolving. Europe has large and wealthy adopters, an Ethereum whale profits massively, and Vibe Coding is transforming Web3. Finally, Zypto App supports over one million cross-chain swap routes, all in-app.

Let’s dive in.

EU’s DAC8 is crypto’s new tax law

The European Union’s newest tax transparency law for digital assets has taken effect since January 1, marking a shift in how crypto activity faces scrutiny across the bloc.

Known as DAC8 (or the Directive on Administrative Cooperation), the directive extends the EU’s long-running framework for administrative cooperation on taxation to crypto assets and related service providers.

The rules require crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), including exchanges and brokers, to collect and report detailed information on users and transactions to national tax authorities. Those authorities then share the data across EU member states.

Under DAC8, authorities gain a clearer view of crypto holdings, trades, and transfers that mirror the visibility already applied to bank accounts and securities.

DAC8 imposes a range of compliance requirements that CASPs must adhere to, including: 

• Data collection: Firms are required to gather extensive information about their users, covering transaction data as well as customer identities.
• Reporting obligations: CASPs must report this gathered information to national tax authorities, who will subsequently disseminate it to other EU member states.
• Implementation timeline: The regulations are set to be implemented on January 1, 2026, with the first reports due by September 30, 2027, capturing data from the 2026 fiscal year.

DAC8 operates alongside, but separately from, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. MiCA, passed in April 2023, governs how crypto firms obtain licenses, protect customers, and operate across the single market. On the other hand, DAC8 targets tax compliance, giving authorities the data needed to assess and enforce tax obligations.

The directive applies from January 1, but crypto firms have a transition period. Providers have until July 1 to bring reporting systems, customer due diligence processes, and internal controls into full compliance.

After that deadline, failures to report can trigger penalties under national law.

Ripple scores UK regulatory approval via local subsidiary

Cryptocurrency company Ripple is expanding its regulatory footprint after securing authorization from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The FCA granted Ripple’s UK subsidiary, Ripple Markets UK, an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) registration and registered it under the UK’s Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs), according to official records. 

The EMI license allows companies to provide payment services and issue electronic money, a move that could potentially impact Ripple as it issues its stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLSUD).

The approval came as the FCA set a timeline for its new crypto licensing regime, requiring MLR-registered firms to apply for full authorization under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) by October 2027.

Ripple president Monica Long emphasized that extending Ripple’s licensing portfolio and payments solution is about “more than just efficiency.” Yet, Ripple remains subject to restrictions pending further FCA approval.

Additionally, the company is barred from issuing electronic money or providing payment services to a “consumer, micro-enterprise or charity,” the records said. The news came shortly after Ripple president Long reiterated that the company will not pursue an initial public offering (IPO) in the near future.

Solana Mobile to launch SKR token for Seeker phone 

Solana Mobile said its highly anticipated SKR token will launch on January 21, with Solana Seeker smartphone users in the running to claim up to 20% of the token via airdrop.

Solana said on Wednesday that the SKR token will launch on January 21 at 2 am UTC, letting users delegate their tokens to “Guardians” who will secure the Solana network while verifying devices and curating the decentralized app store.

Users will earn rewards in exchange for delegating the tokens and will also be able to access various exclusive in-app features.

The Seeker is Solana Mobile’s second blockchain-powered phone that aims to bring decentralized apps, payments, and token ownership directly to users. Solana Mobile ended software and security support for its first phone, the Saga, in October, after launching the Seeker in August.

Solana Seeker appears to have seen greater success, processing 9 million transactions and generating $2.6 billion in trading volume across 265 decentralized applications from more than 100,000 users.

Solana Mobile is looking to transform the mobile app duopoly dominated by Apple and Google, two platforms that have allegedly severely constrained user choice and developer freedom.

According to Solana Mobile’s website, 30% of airdrops will be unlocked at launch, with two-thirds of that allocated to Solana Seeker users and developers. On top of that, 2.7 billion SKR, or 27%, of the 10 billion total supply, will be unlocked during the token generation event.

Of that amount, 1 billion tokens are allocated to the community treasury, another 1 billion to liquidity, and 700 million to growth and partnerships. The Solana Mobile team and Solana Labs have been allocated 15% and 10% of SKR tokens, respectively.

Guardians will be introduced at the SKR token launch, with Solana infrastructure platforms Anza, DoubleZero, Helius, and Jito among the Guardians that will help guide the growth of Solana Seeker.

Hundreds of wealthy investors are using crypto to buy real estate in Europe

About a year ago, Nikolay Denisenko, a former lead backend engineer at European fintech firm Revolut, began to formalize a process whereby “special customers” of his new crypto payments app, Brighty, could use their digital assets to buy real estate.

Since then, demand has exploded.

Brighty has brokered over 100 deals so far for wealthy customers of the Lithuania-licensed platform, enabling them to buy apartments with crypto, with many more in the pipeline.

Residential real estate purchases are mostly made in destinations such as the UK, France, Malta, Cyprus, and Andorra. The average spend for these customers is about $50,000 per month, while the upper bound varies between $500,000 to $2.5 million.

It is no surprise that there’s a demand to cater to wealthy crypto holders looking to make large-scale purchases, given that banks shy away from such transactions. In 2025, the number of global crypto millionaires surged by a remarkable 40% in 12 months to 241,700, according to the Crypto Wealth Report 2025.

Yet, a longstanding concern about crypto has been the idea that digital assets could easily be used to launder the proceeds of crime. However, Denisenko asserted that sophisticated blockchain analytics tools can be used to perform sufficient due diligence on customer funds.

The Brighty team has also observed an interesting shift in the choice of stablecoin used for large transfers, which had typically been Circle’s USDC. Now, the preference among wealthy customers is for a euro-pegged stablecoin instead to avoid conversion costs.

• The crypto broker saw a surge in average euro-backed transaction sizes, up from €15,785 ($18,385) in Q3 to €59,894 ($69,762) in Q4, as high-net-worth individuals chose to execute large deals in Circle’s EURC rather than USDC.

Looking ahead into the new year, Denisenko said his firm is now involved in numerous conversations with estate agencies, getting them on board with the concept of buying apartments with transparent and legitimately gained crypto holdings.

Ethereum whale nets $274 million profit in strategic exit

An early Ethereum investor has likely completed a full exit from their ETH position after on-chain data showed the transfer of holdings to a centralized exchange. The sell-off is estimated to have generated around $274 million in profit.

On January 10, Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported that the investor accumulated 154,076 ETH at an average price of $517. Then, he deposited another 40,251 ETH ($124 million) over the next two days to Bitstamp, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange.

Several hours ago, the investor moved the final 26,000 ETH ($80.15 million) to the exchange. According to Lookonchain, the investor has made an estimated total profit of around $274 million, representing a gain of approximately 344%.

These latest transfers follow a pattern of gradual deposits that began much earlier. Arkham data indicates that the investor initially sent a total of 137 ETH to Bitstamp approximately eight months ago.

This was followed by a transfer of 17,000 ETH three months ago and another 18,000 ETH roughly one month ago, suggesting a long-term, staged exit strategy rather than a single sell-off.

The timing of the whale’s exit also aligns with broader signs of institutional caution. Despite the ongoing selling pressure, some analysts maintain a positive outlook on ETH, choosing to look beyond short-term volatility.

Quinten François has suggested that Ethereum appears “massively undervalued” when comparing its economic activity with its price. Similarly, Milk Road added that the clear mismatch becomes evident when examining the data.

According to the latter, the volume of economic activity set on Ethereum has continued to grow, even during periods when ETH’s price has lagged behind that expansion. The analysis noted that large investors continue to prioritize Ethereum for its uptime, liquidity, settlement reliability, and regulatory clarity.

How Vibe Coding is transforming Web3

After gaining traction across big tech, “Vibe Coding” is quickly spilling into crypto, and it could fundamentally alter how Web3 projects are built, funded, and scaled.

Coined by former OpenAI co-founder and ex-Tesla AI lead Andrej Karpathy in early 2025, Vibe Coding describes building software by “feel.” It utilizes natural language or voice prompts with AI systems, while barely requiring the use of the keyboard. At its core, Vibe Coding collapses the distance between idea and execution.

With tools like Cursor and Claude, founders can describe what they want in plain English and receive production-ready code in real time. Beyond speeding up development, it redefines who can build software in the first place.

This pattern is already visible at scale. 

Lovable, a natural-language app builder launched in 2024, reportedly hit $100 million in ARR within eight months and raised $330 million in later 2025 at a $6.6 billion valuation. At Y Combinator, 25% of Winter 2025 startups reportedly had codebases that were more than 95% AI-generated.

The implications may be sharper for Web3. Blockchain infrastructure already allows small teams to operate at a global scale.

Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange with an 11-person core team, processed roughly $3 trillion in trading volume in 2025 and generated an estimated $844 million in revenue.

By replacing TradFi infrastructure with smart contracts and on-chain logic, it demonstrates how minimal teams plus automation can rival or outperform legacy giants. As execution becomes commoditized, however, defensibility shifts elsewhere.

Code is increasingly easy to replicate, features are cloned within weeks, and AI erodes local advantages like language and geography. What remains hard to copy are communities, brands, trust, and global networks.

This logic is already native to crypto. Web3 winners rarely dominate solely because of superior code. They win on culture, memes, and engaged communities. Venture capital is feeling the pressure, too. So, if solo founders can build and validate products independently, capital is no longer the primary constraint.

Cross-chain swaps inside Zypto App 

Cross-chain swaps are no longer a niche DeFi feature. They form a core requirement for anyone using crypto across multiple ecosystems. 

So, Zypto App brings cross-chain swaps directly into a single self-custodial environment, giving users the ability to move between assets, networks, and ecosystems without bridges, browser extensions, or centralized exchanges. 

Zypto App now supports over 20 blockchains, more than 24,000 coins and tokens, and over 1 million cross-chain routes. Everything happens inside one cross-chain wallet, with users staying in control of their keys at every step.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

The DAC8 law matters because it closes a gap that left parts of the crypto economy outside standard tax reporting. The regulatory approval of Ripple’s UK subsidiary as a payment service provider is set to improve the company’s user adoption in Europe.

The real estate trend is a telling signal of crypto emulating traditional finance, where wealthy investors often like to de-risk their portfolios by investing some of their liquid assets in the haven of hard assets.

The Ethereum whale’s strategic exit comes as ETH continues to face selling pressure from US institutional investors. Still, some market analysts remain optimistic about the prospects of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Engineering depth, once the most critical bottleneck, is increasingly handled by AI. Human founders now compete on breadth: business judgment, user intuition, product taste, and narrative clarity. Vibe Coding helps with that.

What’s your favorite story this week? Tell us in the comments section.