Today's news tips:
Trump plans to make cryptocurrency a national priority
Merit Systems closes $10 million in funding to solve open source developer incentive problem
OKX Jumpstart will launch ANIME (Animecoin) staking mining on January 20
Multicoin proposes to adjust the SOL inflation mechanism to a market-driven model
Amber Group becomes SOLV market maker and received 23.2 million SOLV 3 hours ago
Bloomberg ETF Analyst: Approval of Solana or XRP ETF is just a matter of time
Regulatory/Macro
Well-known crypto trader Eugene (0xENAS) posted a post on the X platform to respond to the controversy about his identity and trading behavior, admitting that he is Darryl Wang, co-founder of Tangent Ventures, but emphasizing that the 0xENAS account is his personal project, which only records personal transactions and has nothing to do with Tangent's angel investment activities. In response to the allegations about $ENA, Eugene said that he established a liquidity position in $ENA based on public information and personal analysis in the third quarter of 2024, and clearly disclosed his position in the article. He emphasized that Tangent's $ENA angel investment has had a lock-up period for many years since 2023, and it is impossible to make a profit through trading. The relevant allegations are nonsense. In addition, he denied that he had used his influence to increase shipments or accept paid promotions, and pointed out that his trading records are completely transparent. Eugene also mentioned that anonymous accounts have recently attempted to expose his identity and threaten his family. He condemned this and said that this was his only response to the relevant allegations and that he would continue to focus on the long-term development of the crypto field in the future. According to previous news, sources said that trader Eugene is a co-founder of Tangent Ventures and a seed round investor in ENA tokens.
According to the Suqian Court's official account, the court disclosed a network pyramid scheme case in the name of investing in virtual currency financial management projects. The suspect created the "ACORNS" network platform, and issued virtual currencies such as "ACO" without any actual business projects, and advertised that the virtual currency can participate in financial management to obtain high returns as bait, requiring members to pay 100 USDT coins for financial management as a threshold to obtain static income. As of the time of the incident, the platform had more than 3,000 effective recharge members, and accumulated nearly 3.16 million USDT. After trial, the Sucheng Court sentenced the defendant in this case to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from five years and three months to three years for the crime of organizing and leading pyramid selling activities, and imposed fines ranging from 170,000 to 100,000 yuan.
Griffin McShane, a former Coinbase employee and CoinDesk author, publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on social media, saying that he was forced to cancel the wedding venue reservation because he could not access the funds in his Coinbase account. According to his description, Coinbase froze his account for two months on the grounds of "protecting users" but did not provide any support or explanation. He said that the account has always been used to receive wages and conduct cryptocurrency transactions, and there has never been a problem before. McShane called on Coinbase to update the system and improve customer support services. At present, Coinbase has not responded to this.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the gross domestic product in 2024 is 134.9084 trillion yuan (RMB), an increase of 5.0% over the previous year at constant prices. The previous value was revised from 126.0582 trillion yuan to 129.4272 trillion yuan. China's GDP in the fourth quarter was 5.4% year-on-year, expected to be 5%, and the previous value was 4.6%.
Musk tweeted: "Maybe she clicked on that scam email that said 'Give me 1 bitcoin and I'll give you 2 bitcoins'," mocking Bloomberg's report that Chinese hackers broke into the U.S. Treasury Department and accessed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's computer.
According to CoinDesk, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis put pressure on federal agencies on two cryptocurrency-related issues this week. On the eve of Trump's re-inauguration as president, she urged the U.S. Marshals Service to slow down its plans to sell bitcoins confiscated in the Silk Road case and warned the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) not to destroy evidence of its instructions to banks to cut off crypto customer relationships. Lummis opposed the current rapid liquidation of about 70,000 bitcoins (about $6.9 billion) and advocated for their inclusion in the Trump administration's proposed "National Bitcoin Reserve" plan. At the same time, she pointed out that it would be illegal for the FDIC to try to hide relevant materials for the so-called "Operation Chokepoint 2.0." Lummis will also lead the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Assets Group in the new Congress, and work with Chairman Tim Scott to develop a regulatory framework for crypto assets to promote financial innovation and inclusive development.
Trump plans to make cryptocurrency a national priority
According to Bloomberg, US President-elect Trump plans to issue an executive order to list cryptocurrency as a national priority and set up a cryptocurrency advisory committee within the government to speak for the industry's policies. Sources said the order is intended to guide government agencies to work with the crypto industry to reflect its strategic importance. In addition, Trump's team is also discussing stopping federal lawsuits against cryptocurrencies to promote the development of the industry.
Bloomberg ETF Analyst: Approval of Solana or XRP ETF is just a matter of time
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart tweeted that the Litecoin ETF applied by Canary may have a better chance of being approved by the US SEC than other crypto asset ETFs, mainly because Litecoin has not been recognized as a security by the SEC. He pointed out that the SEC has not yet accepted the recent Solana ETF application, but believes that the approval of Solana or XRP ETF is only a matter of time. Currently, Nasdaq has submitted a 19b-4 document to apply for the listing and trading of Canary's Litecoin ETF, and the market is concerned about whether the SEC will formally accept this application.
Trump's Treasury Secretary Nominee Bessant: No Reason to Support Central Bank Digital Currency
According to Jinshi, Trump's Treasury Secretary candidate Benson said that if elected, he would work with Congress to remove the debt ceiling to ensure that the United States avoids debt default, and reiterated his opposition to central bank digital currency (CBDC). He supports the restoration of 100% R&D tax credits for companies, opposes the "pillar two" global corporate minimum tax, and advocates increasing sanctions against Russia to promote talks. He warned that failure to extend tax cuts would increase the tax burden on the middle class, emphasized the importance of adjusting federal spending and tax policies for economic recovery, and believed that Trump's policies could reduce inflation to 2%. In addition, he agreed that the Federal Reserve should remain independent and supported the improvement of the overall tariff plan through carbon tariffs.
Financing
Merit Systems closes $10 million in funding to solve open source developer incentive problem
Merit Systems, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, announced the completion of a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund and Blockchain Capital. Merit is committed to solving the long-standing "attribution problem" by establishing a protocol that provides fair attribution and reward mechanisms for open source developers, allowing users to pay software creators directly. Merit was co-founded by Sam Ragsdale, Ryan Sproule and Mason Hall, and is currently valued at $55.5 million. A wider product version is expected to be launched at the end of February. The company is located in the Domino Sugar Factory office building in Brooklyn and plans to add seven employees in the coming months to create a team culture based on on-site collaboration.
AI-driven cryptocurrency analysis platform Mind AI completes $1.2 million in strategic financing
According to official news, AI-driven cryptocurrency analysis platform Mind AI announced the completion of a strategic financing of US$1.2 million, with participation from aixcb, Castrum Istanbul, Dewhales, SMO Capital, Metazero Capital, X21 Digital, Lunar Labs Capital, Zephyrus Capital, AlfaCatalyst, Decubate, Maven Capital, Unreal Capital, GAINS Associates, Coinvestor Ventures, Kef Ventures, Carbon Browser, Danxia Capital, and Unicorn Ventures. According to reports, Mind AI is a cryptocurrency analysis platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide investors with insights into the digital asset market, with the goal of converting social signals into profitable trading decisions driven by artificial intelligence.
AI code editor Cursor announced the completion of a $105 million Series B financing round, with investors including Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Benchmark. This round of funds will be used to expand the team and cutting-edge research, promote the construction of a "human-computer collaborative programming" model, and achieve a significant improvement in programming efficiency. Currently, Cursor has millions of users, edits more than 1 billion characters per day, and has a business revenue of more than $100 million, becoming one of the leading platforms in the field of code generation and editing in the world.
According to The Block, Tapestry, a social graph protocol based on Solana, has completed a $5.75 million Series A financing round, which was jointly led by Union Square Ventures and Fabric Ventures, with participation from Stellation Capital, Slow Ventures, and Foresight Ventures. This round of financing values Tapestry's equity at $35 million, the token network at $70 million, and the total financing amount has reached $12.5 million. Tapestry focuses on providing infrastructure with integrated social functions for blockchain applications, using Solana's state compression technology to reduce costs. The team plans to expand to other blockchain ecosystems, such as Aptos and Monad, and adopt a freemium model to provide services to developers, while exploring future data reading and writing protocol charging models.
Crypto wallet Phantom announced the completion of a $150 million Series C financing round, with a valuation of $3 billion. This round of financing was jointly led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm, with other investors also participating. It is reported that Phantom plans to use the new funds to accelerate the popularization of cryptocurrencies and promote its transformation into the world's largest consumer financial platform. Since its launch in 2021, Phantom has had 15 million monthly active users, supported 85 billion on-chain transactions, and managed $25 billion in self-custodial assets. In 2024, Phantom strengthened security and infrastructure construction by acquiring Bitski and Blowfish. In the future, Phantom will increase investment in social functions and peer-to-peer payments to further simplify the user experience.
Project News
OKX Jumpstart will launch ANIME (Animecoin) staking mining on January 20
The OKX Jumpstart staking mining event will start at 14:00 (Beijing time) on January 20, 2025. OKB and BTC holders can mine ANIME tokens in return by staking OKB and BTC. The event will last until 14:00 on January 23. The total OKB prize pool for this event is 53,333,334 ANIME, and the total BTC prize pool is 26,666,666 ANIME. There is no minimum limit for personal staking. The upper limit of OKB staking is 600 OKB, and the upper limit of BTC staking is 0.3 BTC. Staking and unstaking are supported at any time. ANIME tokens are expected to be listed for trading on January 23, and the specific time will be notified separately. The following countries and regions are not eligible for this event: Hong Kong, China, and South Korea. Earlier news, Azuki: ANIME tokens will be launched on Ethereum and Arbitrum in January, of which 50.5% are allocated to the community.
DWF Labs pledges over $5 million in DEXE to support DeXe Network
DWF Labs announced that it has joined DeXe Network’s DEXE staking program and staked more than $5 million in tokens with a lock-up period of 12 months.
Amber Group becomes SOLV market maker and received 23.2 million SOLV 3 hours ago
According to @ai_9684xtpa, Amber Group has become the market maker for Binance's new Megadrop token SOLV. About three hours ago, the address 0x716...dbE85 received 23.2 million SOLV (1.56% of the initial circulation) from the project's multi-signature address for market making. Currently, 12.2 million of them have been deposited to major exchanges.
According to MakersPlace official news, due to ongoing market challenges and financing difficulties, the digital art platform announced that it will cease operations after six years of operation. Effective immediately, the platform will disable minting, token import and new account creation functions, but art purchases will continue for the time being. Artists and collectors must transfer their works from the MakersPlace escrow wallet to their personal wallets by June 2025, and related tools will be launched in February. MakersPlace said it will return unused funds to investors and provide employees with fair severance pay. All Ethereum NFTs on the platform are still accessible through the secondary market. In response to the news that MakersPlace has ceased operations, digital artist Beeple expressed regret and thanked the platform for its promotion of the digital art field, which has had a huge impact on his career.
Multicoin proposes to adjust the SOL inflation mechanism to a market-driven model
According to Blockworks, Multicoin Capital proposed to adjust Solana's SOL issuance mechanism from a fixed inflation to a market-driven model to maintain a staking rate of around 50%. If the staking rate is higher than 50%, the issuance will decrease, reducing staking returns; if it is lower than 50%, the issuance will increase to encourage more staking. The current SOL inflation rate is about 4.8%, and it was originally planned to decrease to 1.5% year by year. Multicoin believes that reducing inflation can reduce network centralization, improve DeFi utility, and reduce selling pressure caused by staking rewards, but it may reduce staking returns.
Coinbase International will launch AIXBT, PNUT and VET perpetual contracts
Coinbase International Station announced on the X platform that Coinbase International Station and Coinbase Advanced will add support for AIXBT, PNUT and VET perpetual futures contracts. The AIXBT-PERP, PNUT-PERP and VET-PERP markets are expected to open on or after 17:30 on January 23, 2025, Beijing time.
Viewpoint
Opinion: Trump's embrace of Bitcoin could be the biggest "pump and dump" in history
According to Jinshi, Pomona College economics professor Gary Smith and NTT DoCoMo Mobile Science Award winner Jeffrey Funk wrote that Trump's embrace of Bitcoin may be the biggest "pump and dump" in history. The U.S. federal government may foolishly spend hundreds of billions of dollars to buy Bitcoin at higher and higher prices, but is there a bigger fool than the federal government? Who will the government sell hundreds of billions of dollars of Bitcoin to? Maybe Trump envisions a "pump and dump." In a "pump and dump" scam, a group of scammers spread false rumors about investments while trading at higher and higher prices to lure gullible people into the market. When the price is raised, the conspirators sell their holdings to those victims. The federal government should stop these pranks instead of joining the ranks of scammers to conduct their own pump and dump. A more promising (and completely legal) way to reduce debt is to cut some government spending. The real way to "make America great again" (a slogan Trump has been using during the election and in office) is to produce goods and services more efficiently, which will lead to lower prices, higher wages and greater profits.
Matrixport said that according to the Bollinger Band measurement results, the lower track of Bitcoin has gradually expanded, indicating an increased risk of decline, but it may provide a favorable risk/reward entry point for bulls after the reversal. At present, the Greed and Fear Index is close to the key 10% level, and the 30-day rolling return rate is close to -10%. These indicators usually indicate that the downward trend may slow down or reverse.
Although Bitcoin is still above its 21-week moving average and technically in a bull market, momentum has turned bearish. Stablecoin minting and trading volumes have dropped significantly, DeFi activity has decreased, Bitcoin dominance has increased, funds have flowed back from altcoins to Bitcoin, and market speculation has weakened. Historical data shows that when Bitcoin rises more than 40% in 30 days, it usually peaks or enters a consolidation phase. Currently, the trend model is still bearish, but it will turn bullish if it breaks through $103,000. As the consolidation period lengthens, the trigger point of the bullish signal decreases, increasing the possibility of a reversal. Bitcoin is currently trying to maintain the $90,000 level, mainly driven by the return of funds from altcoins rather than new capital inflows. Market trends are driven by momentum, and traders need to carefully manage risks and look for opportunities in volatility. Despite the weak overall market momentum, Bitcoin has shown some resilience due to its relative safety.
Important data
OKB breaks through $61, up 22.05% in 24 hours
According to OKX market data, OKB broke through $61, up 22.05% in 24 hours, and is now quoted at $61.1, possibly due to the impact of "OKX Jumpstart will start ANIME (Animecoin) staking mining on January 20". Earlier news said that OKX Jumpstart will start ANIME (Animecoin) staking mining on January 20.
A certain address sold AGiXT too early and missed out on more than $4.4 million in potential profits
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a trader bought 46.5 million AGiXT at $1,756, but sold it too early at $6,284, making only $4,529 in profit, missing out on potential gains worth more than $4.4 million. Currently, the value of this batch of AGiXT has exceeded $4.4 million.
Data: Ethereum spot ETF had a net inflow of $167 million yesterday
According to SoSoValue data, on January 16 (EST), the Ethereum spot ETF had a net inflow of $167 million in a single day, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 3%. BlackRock ETF ETHA had a net inflow of $111 million in a single day, with a total net inflow of $3.827 billion in history; Fidelity ETF FETH had a net inflow of $70.0444 million in a single day, with a total net inflow of $1.427 billion in history. Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF ETHE had a net outflow of $18.7284 million yesterday, with a cumulative net outflow of $3.718 billion in history, while Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF ETH had a net inflow of $4.0885 million, with a total net inflow of $566 million in history. As of now, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $12.046 billion, with a cumulative net inflow of $2.641 billion in history.
Data: Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net inflow of $626 million yesterday
According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net inflow of $626 million yesterday, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 5.78%. BlackRock's ETF IBIT had a net inflow of $528 million in a single day, with a total net inflow of $38.036 billion in history; Ark Invest and 21Shares' ETF ARKB had a net inflow of $155 million in a single day, with a total net inflow of $2.691 billion in history. In contrast, Grayscale GBTC had a net outflow of $69.9706 million yesterday, with a cumulative net outflow of $21.675 billion in history. Currently, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached $114.818 billion, with a cumulative net inflow of $37.103 billion in history.
22,000 BTC options and 182,000 ETH options expire today, the market focuses on Bitcoin rebound
Greeks.live macro researcher Adam released today's option delivery data, saying that 22,000 BTC options expired, the Put Call Ratio was 0.95, the maximum pain point was $96,000, and the notional value was $2.19 billion; 182,000 ETH options expired, the Put Call Ratio was 0.36, the maximum pain point was $3,250, and the notional value was $610 million. The price of Bitcoin once again broke through $100,000, boosting market sentiment, but most altcoins still performed weakly. The implied volatility (IV) of short-term options rose, and the market showed a bullish force on the short-term target of $105,000. In addition, Trump will officially take office next week, and whether the new government will introduce favorable policies for cryptocurrencies has attracted attention. Combined with the Federal Reserve's interest rate meeting at the end of the month, it is expected that there will be no interest rate cuts. It is recommended to pay attention to policy changes and ETF fund inflows, and to appropriately arrange short-term options for short-term operations.
GMGN market data shows that the market value of AI agent automation platform token AGiXT exceeded US$80 million within 3 hours of its launch, and is now trading at US$81.3 million. It is reported that AGiXT is an open source platform that focuses on AI agent automation management and supports users to make API calls through natural language requests. Its code has been made public on GitHub.
World Liberty deposited another 1,038 ETH to Coinbase about 3 hours ago
According to Spot On Chain, Trump-related fund World Liberty deposited 1,038 ETH (about $3.44 million) into Coinbase about 3 hours ago. In the past two days, the fund has deposited a total of 14,611 ETH (about $47.34 million) into Coinbase, with an average price of $3,240. The fund currently still holds 5,111 ETH (about $17.12 million).
