7th January 2026 > > A Ledger scam, Bank of America, & CLARITY.

tl;dr

A serious scam warning for Ledger users. Bank of America’s wealth division takes a very pro-BTC stance. The CLARITY Act is heading for a vote.

Market Wrap

The inflows to spot BTC ETFs came to a screeching halt yesterday, with $240mm of outflows, accompanied by a sudden reversal in the 2026 rally.

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – Serious scam alert

I got this email today:

The first thing to notice is that unusually for scam emails, there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Sometimes those errors are accidental, but usually they are deliberate, for they help to whittle down the potential pool of victims to ones who do not pay attention to detail and are therefore more likely to fall for a scam.

The email also reassuringly confirms that “… we will never ask for your recovery phrase. Not by email, not by support chat, not ever” which is certainly something that a legitimate email from Ledger would include in the text.

The giveaway of course is the fake claim that “Ledger now includes quantum-resistant cryptography to protect your assets against future quantum computing threats”. It is true that there is a threat from quantum computers to all aspects of our daily lives, and it is true that there is quantum-resistant cryptography which has been implemented across some blockchains, the largest being Algorand and Iota. Much progress has been made for Ethereum, less so for Bitcoin.

But the key point is that quantum-resistant cryptography must be part of the blockchain specific code – it cannot be layered on top simply by your wallet software.

I am very confident that anyone who installs “Firmware Update 2.7.1” will find their wallets are quickly drained. Unfortunately, this is a well-constructed scam, so it seems likely that genocidal Putin, mass-murderer Xi, and the portly megalomaniac Jong-Un will soon find their illegally gained crypto stashes boosted by this fraud.

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – Bank of America

Bank of America has previously limited access to spot BTC ETFs only to a small subset of its wealth clients, and only on request.

Yesterday, BofA’s 15,000 wealth advisors were given permission to actively promote four specific spot BTC ETFs to individual retail clients, with a recommended allocation of 1% to 4% of their portfolio, matching closely with my long-held target of 3% to 5% on average across all investment pools.

BofA does not disclose its number of clients, but total AUM is of the order of $7 TRILLION. If 3% of that flows into spot BTC ETFs, that is 210bn of new inflows.

The benefits to early adoption become ever clearer.

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – The CLARITY Act

 A key requirement for a good 2026 crypto-wise is the passing into law of The CLARITY Act.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott said this yesterday:

“I think it’s important for us to get on the record and vote. So, next Thursday, we’ll have a vote on market structure. We have worked tirelessly for the last six plus months making sure that we had multiple drafts available to every member of the committee.” 

So, that’s the second piece of news today that is supportive of spot BTC ETF inflows.