Today's top news highlights:

Regulatory news

The President of Belarus signed a decree allowing the establishment of cryptocurrency banks.

On January 16, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19, "On Several Issues Concerning the Regulation of Cryptocurrency Banks and Digital Tokens." This decree aims to solidify the country's image as a leader in financial information technology and to create conditions for the operation of "cryptocurrency banks" within the country.

According to the law, a "crypto bank" is defined as a joint-stock company authorized to conduct business using digital tokens, while simultaneously engaging in banking, payments, and other related financial operations. To enter the market, a crypto bank must be a resident enterprise of a high-tech industrial park and be listed on the National Bank's crypto bank registration list. In conducting business, it must comply with the regulatory requirements applicable to non-bank credit financial institutions and implement the resolutions of the high-tech industrial park's supervisory board.

The Ministry of Public Security urged fugitive suspects from Chen Zhi's criminal gang to surrender themselves to the authorities.

Recently, Chen Zhi, the head of a major cross-border gambling and fraud crime syndicate, was extradited from Cambodia back to China. Chen Zhi's criminal syndicate is suspected of multiple crimes, including fraud, operating casinos, illegal business operations, and concealing criminal proceeds. The case is currently under investigation. In order to implement the principle of combining leniency with severity in criminal policy, punish gambling and fraud crimes according to law, and at the same time give fugitive suspects an opportunity to reform and seek lenient treatment, the following notice is hereby issued in accordance with relevant laws: From the date of this notice until February 15, 2026, suspects who voluntarily surrender to the public security organs and truthfully confess their crimes may be given a lighter or reduced punishment according to law. Those who threaten, retaliate against, or obstruct suspects intending to surrender will be held criminally liable according to law. The public security organs urge relevant suspects to recognize the situation, cherish the opportunity, and surrender themselves to the public security organs in their place of residence as soon as possible to seek lenient treatment. Those who refuse to surrender will be publicly wanted by the public security organs, and will be apprehended with all efforts and punished according to law.

Project Updates

Google will remove unregistered overseas cryptocurrency exchange apps from its South Korean app store starting January 28.

Google announced that it will take strict measures in South Korea starting January 28th to remove overseas cryptocurrency exchange apps that are not registered with local financial regulators. According to Google's updated "Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Software Wallets Policy," developers targeting the South Korean market must submit proof of their registration as a virtual asset service provider with a financial intelligence agency. This is a mandatory removal standard; apps that do not meet the requirements will be unavailable for search or download on the South Korean Google Play Store. This move is expected to directly impact overseas exchanges widely used by South Korean investors, such as KuCoin and MEXC, which are not officially registered.

KBC, Belgium's second-largest bank, has become the country's first to offer cryptocurrency trading services to retail investors.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, KBC Group, Belgium's second-largest bank, announced that it will offer Bitcoin and Ethereum trading services to retail clients through its online investment platform Bolero, becoming the first bank in the country to offer such services. The service is scheduled to launch the week of February 16th and will operate within the regulatory framework of the EU's Crypto Asset Markets Regulation (MiCA).

KBC stated that it has submitted a full notification to regulators regarding its role as a crypto asset service provider. The service will operate on an "execution-only" model, requiring customers to make their own decisions and complete a risk knowledge and experience test before trading. To mitigate fraud and money laundering risks, the platform employs a "closed-loop" model, allowing customers to buy and sell only within the Bolero platform and preventing asset transfers to external wallets or exchanges. Custody services are provided by a bank.

Major lender Newrez plans to recognize crypto assets for mortgage lending in the United States starting in February.

According to Cointelegraph, Newrez, a major U.S. lending institution, announced plans to recognize crypto assets for mortgage lending in the U.S. starting in February, without requiring them to be converted into cash.

Kaito founder: The timeline proves that they did not have prior knowledge of X's exact policy; the previous announcement was made pending the outcome of communication.

Kaito AI founder Yu Hu provided supplementary information regarding the announcement of "taking Yaps and the incentive leaderboard offline." Regarding the timeline: his team first received an email from the X platform account manager on January 13th about a possible reassessment, and issued a legal response the same day after receiving formal legal notification; on January 15th, the team and the public simultaneously saw the public statement from Nikita Bier, the X product manager.

Regarding the reason for not issuing any prior announcement, Yu Hu explained that this was not the first time they had received legal notices from the X platform. The previous issue was resolved amicably through a new corporate agreement. Therefore, the team chose to wait for further clarification and communication rather than hastily issuing an announcement. Yu Hu also stated that the new Kaito Studio platform had been in preparation for several months and was originally planned as a supplement to the Yaps model. With the closure of Yaps, Kaito Studio will become the core of the cross-platform business in 2026, while other businesses will remain unaffected.

Previously, X announced the cancellation of post rewards and banned "InfoFi" type apps from attracting users by rewarding posting behavior ; subsequently, Kaito announced that it would gradually shut down Yaps and the incentivized leaderboard and launch Kaito Studio .

Binance Alpha will launch a token rollout today at 6 PM, with a minimum investment of 242 points.

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will list RollX (ROLL), and Alpha trading will begin on January 16, 2026 at 18:00 (UTC+8). Users holding at least 242 Binance Alpha Points can claim an airdrop of 355 ROLL tokens on a first-come, first-served basis. If the reward pool is not fully allocated, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every 5 minutes. Please note that claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Binance Alpha Points. Users must confirm their claim on the Alpha event page within 24 hours; otherwise, they will be considered to have forfeited their airdrop claim.

An independent miner successfully mined block 932373, receiving a block reward of 3.157 BTC.

According to Mempool data, at 20:20 Beijing time on January 15, an independent Bitcoin miner successfully mined block 932373, receiving a block reward of 3.157 BTC, worth approximately $304,800.

Following the acquisition, Polygon laid off nearly 30% of its workforce to facilitate its transition to stablecoin payments.

According to BeInCrypto, sources familiar with the matter said that Polygon recently implemented a large-scale internal layoff, with approximately 30% of its employees being laid off this week. On social media, several Polygon employees and ecosystem members have posted announcements of departures or team changes. These layoffs occur after Polygon's strategic shift towards stablecoin payments and the completion of its $250 million acquisition of Coinme and Sequence. Kurt Patat, Head of Communications at Polygon Labs, confirmed that the layoffs are part of the post-acquisition team integration measures, and the company's total headcount is expected to remain stable. Related reading: Polygon invests $250 million to complete its puzzle; POL token's deflationary trend usheres in a "year of rebirth".

MetaMask has officially integrated the Tron network, supporting native TRX and USDT operations.

According to The Block, MetaMask now natively supports the Tron network in mobile and browser plugin wallets, allowing users to directly manage TRX and its DeFi applications, send USDT, stake TRX, and interact with native Tron dApps.

CME Group will launch ADA, LINK and XLM futures on February 9.

CME Group announced that it will launch Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK) and Stellar (XLM) futures contracts on February 9, covering standard and micro contracts, pending regulatory approval.

Bitmine plans to invest $200 million in MrBeast's Beast Industries.

According to PRNewswire, Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) announced a $200 million investment in Beast Industries, with the deal expected to close on January 19.

Analysis & Opinions

The ransomware DeadLock is using Polygon smart contracts to rotate proxy addresses in order to conceal its activities.

According to Cointelegraph, researchers at cybersecurity firm Group-IB have discovered that a ransomware program called "DeadLock" is using the Polygon smart contract to hide itself and rotate proxy addresses. First discovered last July, the ransomware dynamically updates the command and control infrastructure addresses used to communicate with victims by calling specific smart contracts. Once a victim is infected and their data is encrypted, DeadLock sends a ransom note threatening to sell the stolen data if its demands are not met.

Researchers point out that storing proxy addresses on-chain makes its infrastructure extremely difficult to compromise because there is no central server that can be shut down, and blockchain data is permanently stored on nodes worldwide. This method of abusing smart contracts to pass proxy addresses is highly variable. Although DeadLock currently has low visibility and a limited number of known victims, its novel attack methods still pose a potential threat to organizations that have not taken it seriously.

The Kaito team transferred 5 million KAITO tokens to Binance seven days ago, raising suspicions that they "knew in advance about negative news and sold off their holdings."

According to crypto KOL “vasucrypto”, an address starting with 0x049A, associated with the Kaito team, transferred 5 million KAITO tokens to Binance seven days ago, possibly for sale.

In response, another crypto KOL, "Crypto Fearless," commented: "The Kaito team shipped over $5 million worth of tokens seven days in advance. During their communication with Twitter to cancel the API, the team knew about the negative news and sold off their holdings ahead of time. In addition, the unlocking of Kaito staking also reached a peak in the past few days. Regarding the team's prior knowledge of the news, this was also mentioned in the announcement by Kaito founder Yu Hu, who communicated with Twitter."

Bank of America CEO warns: Interest-bearing stablecoins could draw up to $6 trillion in deposits from the US banking system.

According to Cointelegraph, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan warned in an earnings call that interest-bearing stablecoins could siphon up to $6 trillion in deposits from the U.S. banking system if issuers are allowed to pay interest.

Moynihan, citing research cited by the U.S. Treasury Department, points out that a large amount of bank deposits may be diverted to stablecoins due to such products. He states that these products will operate more like money market mutual funds, with funds held in cash, central bank reserves, or short-term Treasury bonds rather than used for lending. He believes this deposit migration will shrink the size of bank deposits, thereby weakening credit supply capacity, particularly impacting small and medium-sized enterprises that rely more on bank loans than capital markets, and potentially driving up overall borrowing costs.

Cathie Wood: Bitcoin will become an effective portfolio diversification tool in the coming years.

According to Cryptobriefing, Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, stated in her 2026 outlook that Bitcoin, due to its low correlation with major asset classes such as gold, stocks, and bonds, is expected to offer asset allocators higher returns per unit of risk, becoming an effective portfolio diversification tool for years to come. ARK's analysis of weekly returns from January 2020 to early January 2026 shows that Bitcoin's correlation coefficient with gold is only 0.14, far lower than the 0.27 correlation coefficient between the S&P 500 and bonds. Bitcoin has the lowest correlation coefficient with bonds (0.06) and the highest with the S&P 500 (0.28), but this is still far lower than the correlations between traditional asset classes.

Wood argues that Bitcoin's protocol strictly limits its supply growth, with new issuance increasing at an annual rate of approximately 0.8% over the next two years, before slowing to around 0.4% annually. This mathematically fixed supply gives it inherent scarcity. She points out that the predictable supply pattern, coupled with increasing demand, has driven Bitcoin's 360% price increase since the end of 2022.

Important data

Gemini co-founders Winklevoss brothers still hold $1.25 billion worth of Bitcoin.

According to Arkham's monitoring, Gemini co-founders Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss once held 1% of the circulating BTC. Although they currently only hold about 10% of their original holdings, they still hold Bitcoin worth $1.25 billion, and their accumulated profits have reached $2.3 billion.

DDC Enterprise, a US-listed company, increased its holdings by 200 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 1383 BTC.

On January 15, DDC Enterprise, a US-listed company, announced that it had purchased 200 BTC that day, marking its first Bitcoin purchase in 2026. Its total Bitcoin holdings have now increased to 1,383, with a Bitcoin yield of 16.9% to date.

After closing out its long ETH positions and taking profits, the whale "pension-usdt.eth" has now established a long BTC position worth $95 million.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, after closing its ETH long position and making a profit of $739,432, the whale "pension-usdt.eth" has now opened a BTC long position with 3x leverage, with a size of 1,000 BTC (worth $95 million).

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $100 million yesterday, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.

Ethereum spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $164 million yesterday, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.

Polygon founder: Polygon network stablecoin transaction volume hit a new high last week.

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