Today's news tips:

Regulatory/Macro

Former Thai Prime Minister Proposes Developing Phuket into a Bitcoin Sandbox Zone

According to Bitcoin News, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra proposed developing Phuket into a Bitcoin sandbox zone, allowing foreign tourists to use Bitcoin to pay for real estate and tourism-related expenses without being restricted by cash.

Four.Meme suffered a malicious attack and has urgently suspended DEX transactions

According to the official announcement of Four.Meme, the project is currently experiencing a malicious attack, and the team has quickly intervened to deal with it. To ensure safety, the token trading of the decentralized exchange (DEX) has been temporarily suspended and will be reopened after the repair is completed.

Japanese gaming company Gumi announces purchase of $6.6 million in Bitcoin and plans to participate in BTC staking

According to The Block, Tokyo-listed mobile game company Gumi Inc. announced plans to purchase 1 billion yen (about 6.6 million U.S. dollars) worth of Bitcoin between February and May to strengthen its Web3 business and node operations. Gumi said that the company will use excess Bitcoin funds to participate in the Babylon Bitcoin staking agreement, and expects to obtain additional income through BTC price increases, staking income and validator rewards. Gumi became the first listed company in Japan to participate in the Babylon agreement and will conduct a fair value assessment of cryptocurrency holdings every quarter. In addition, Japanese investment advisory company Metaplanet Inc. previously announced the establishment of a Bitcoin reserve, currently holding 1,762 BTC, and plans to expand to 10,000 BTC by the end of the year.

SEC and Binance jointly apply for a 60-day suspension of litigation, possibly affected by the new crypto regulatory task force

According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Binance have jointly filed a motion with the court to suspend the SEC's lawsuit against Binance for 60 days. This is the first request for a stay of cryptocurrency litigation since Mark Uyeda took over as acting chairman of the SEC. The documents show that the new crypto regulatory task force established by the SEC may affect the potential resolution of the case, so the SEC proposed a brief suspension of the lawsuit. Binance agreed to this decision and believed that it was in line with the principle of judicial economy. If the court approves, the case will be re-evaluated after 60 days. The market expects that other crypto companies that have legal disputes with the SEC, such as Ripple, Coinbase, and Kraken, may also seek similar applications for suspension of litigation.

NYSE Arca files for Cardano ETF for Grayscale

According to The Block, NYSE Arca, a subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange, has submitted a 19b-4 document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), applying on behalf of Grayscale to launch a Cardano (ADA) spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). The ETF will be custodianed by Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC and managed by BNY Mellon Asset Servicing. This is the first ADA-based ETF on the market. The application is the second step in submitting a spot crypto ETF to the SEC. Once accepted by the SEC and published in the Federal Register, the approval process will officially start. Recently, the market has submitted a variety of crypto ETF proposals, including products based on Dogecoin, XRP, Litecoin and Solana.

Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein re-arrested for hiding crypto assets, involved in $8 million in fund transfers

According to CNBC, U.S. federal prosecutors accused well-known Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein of hiding two cryptocurrency wallets that received more than $8 million in funds and transferred $6 million in the past week, violating court orders, and was therefore re-arrested. Goldstein was previously indicted in January for tax evasion, accusing him of failing to report millions of dollars in poker gambling income and using law firm funds to repay gambling debts. He is accused of owing more than $5.3 million in taxes. Prosecutors said he had provided benefits such as cryptocurrency to a key witness, suspected of trying to interfere with witness testimony. Court documents show that since November 2022, wallets controlled by Goldstein have received a total of $75.6 million and sent $73.6 million. Although the wallet funds were zero when he was indicted in January, on February 4, his wallet first received $10 in Tether (USDT), and an hour later received $8 million in USDT, and then quickly transferred $6 million. Prosecutors believe that Goldstein is a serious risk of absconding, violated bail conditions, and deceived the court and pre-trial services, and requested that his bail be revoked. Goldstein appeared in federal court in Maryland on Monday for a bail hearing. The case is still under further review.

The United States announced a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imported into the United States

According to the Xinwen Lianbo report, US President Trump signed an executive order announcing a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imported into the United States. Trump said on the same day that there would be "no exceptions and exemptions" to the relevant requirements. During his first term, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel entering the United States and a 10% tariff on aluminum entering the United States, and later granted duty-free quotas to trading partners such as Canada, Mexico, the European Union and the United Kingdom.

SEC Accepts Physical Redemption Application for 21Shares Bitcoin and Ethereum Spot ETFs

According to Solid Intel, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accepted an application to allow 21Shares Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs to conduct physical redemptions.

North Carolina proposes to invest in Bitcoin ETF, which may involve more than $10 billion in public funds

According to Decrypt, North Carolina lawmakers have proposed investing up to 10% of the state's public funds and retirement system funds in Bitcoin ETFs. The proposal was submitted by Representative Deborah Ross (D-NC) on Monday. If approved, the state government may invest more than $10 billion in Bitcoin-related funds. The bill does not directly mention Bitcoin, but requires investment in ETFs that track digital assets with a market value of at least $750 billion. Currently, the only crypto asset that meets this standard is Bitcoin. North Carolina has actively promoted crypto-friendly legislation in recent years, and has previously passed a bill prohibiting the state government from accepting central bank digital currencies (CBDC) payments. However, some legislators in the state are still cautious about the crypto industry and have proposed banning or strictly regulating crypto mining in Henderson, Polk, Rutherford and other counties. The bill allows the state finance department to invest directly in Bitcoin ETFs or manage them through third-party institutions, but third-party institutions are required to provide annual audited financial reports unless the finance department exempts this requirement based on cost-benefit analysis.

AI

Musk leads $97.4 billion acquisition of OpenAI proposal, but Altman rejects it

According to the Wall Street Journal, a group of investors led by Elon Musk proposed to acquire the non-profit organization that controls OpenAI for $97.4 billion, hoping to restore it to a "public welfare organization with open source and security as its core." In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on the X platform: "No, thank you, but if you want, we can acquire Twitter for $9.74 billion." The acquisition proposal was led by Musk's AI company xAI, and investors included Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, 8VC and Ari Emanuel's investment fund. OpenAI did not respond.

Project News

Treasure Chain will launch AI agent startup platform Mage in the coming weeks, with MAGIC as the core token

Web3 gaming ecosystem Treasure DAO announced the upcoming launch of the Mage platform, a launch platform and ecosystem focused on AI agents, which aims to bring a new experience to games and entertainment through multi-agent collaboration. Mage is built on the @elizaOS framework and is deeply integrated with Treasure's gaming infrastructure. It supports all major game engines and can generate and manage single or group AI agents. The core of the Mage platform is the $MAGIC token, which will serve as the "magic" fuel to summon and maintain the operation of AI agents. In the future, Mage will not only support the gaming field, but will also expand to a wider range of application scenarios to achieve interaction, collaboration and creation between people and AI agents. Mage's first application scenario is Smolworld. The platform is expected to be launched on the Treasure chain in the next few weeks. The first batch of features include the agent launch platform and the initial version of the agent coordination engine. Earlier news, Web3 gaming ecosystem Treasure officially launched the mainnet after migrating to ZKsync.

DIN launches airdrop query page and announces token economics

According to official news, the first AI Agent blockchain DIN has launched the $DIN token airdrop query page. This airdrop is mainly for active contributors to the DIN ecosystem and will be carried out in two phases: Phase 1: Open to xDIN holders and Chipper node holders, users can query the airdrop share from February 11 and start claiming from February 14; Phase 2: Open to participants of Binance wallet airdrop activities and participants of DIN testnet activities, inquiries and claims will be carried out simultaneously within 7 days after TGE. In addition, the DIN team also announced the $DIN token economics: the community and ecosystem can allocate 61.5% of DIN tokens, the team and consultants account for 17.5%, investors account for 16%, and marketing and liquidity account for 5%.

Binance Alpha Lists Autonolas (OLAS)

Binance Alpha platform now lists Autonolas (OLAS). It should be noted that this does not mean that the project will be officially listed on the Binance exchange.

Bithumb will support Solayer (LAYER) Korean Won transactions

Bithumb announced that it will soon launch the Korean Won trading market of Solayer (LAYER). LAYER will support the Solana network, and deposits from other networks will not be supported. Deposit and withdrawal services are expected to be opened at 21:00 on February 11, 2025, but the trading opening time will be notified separately after sufficient liquidity.

Upbit to launch Solayer (LAYER) trading in Korean Won, BTC and USDT

Upbit announced that it will add support for trading of Solana network's digital asset Solayer (LAYER). LAYER will support KRW, BTC and USDT market transactions. Currently, LAYER's deposit service is expected to be opened at 21:00 on February 11, but the trading support time will be notified separately after sufficient liquidity on the platform.

Binance HODLer Airdrop Launches Solayer (LAYER)

According to the Binance announcement, the HODLer airdrop has been launched on the eighth project Solayer (LAYER), and users can apply for the coin-earning product through BNB to obtain the LAYER airdrop. The event time is from 08:00 on February 1 to 07:59 on February 6 (Eastern Time Zone 8), and the airdrop tokens will be distributed to the user's spot wallet 1 hour before the transaction is opened. Binance will list LAYER at 22:00 on February 11 (Eastern Time Zone 8), and open BTC, USDT, USDC, BNB, FDUSD, TRY trading pairs, and seed label trading rules will apply. LAYER airdrop and token details: • Total supply: 1 billion pieces • Total HODLer airdrop: 30 million pieces, accounting for 3% of the maximum supply • Additional marketing allocation: 20 million pieces, which will be distributed 3 months after listing • Circulating supply before listing: 210 million pieces, accounting for 21% of the maximum supply • BNB holding hard cap: single user holding ratio ≤4%

Bithumb will list Story (IP) Korean Won trading pair, trading will be open on February 13

According to the Bithumb announcement, Story (IP) will be launched on the Korean Won (KRW) market soon. The specific arrangements are as follows: • Supported markets: Korean Won (KRW) trading pairs • Supported networks: Story (does not support deposits on other networks) • Deposit/withdrawal opening time: Expected February 13 (time to be determined) • Trading opening time: Expected February 13 (time to be determined)

OKX will launch IP spot trading on February 13

According to the OKX announcement, IP (Story Protocol) will be officially launched for spot trading on February 13th. The specific arrangements are as follows: • Deposits open: 9:30 am on February 11th (UTC+8) • Call auction: 4:00 to 5:00 pm on February 13th (UTC+8) • IP/USDT spot trading opens: 5:00 pm on February 13th (UTC+8) • Withdrawals open: 5:00 pm on February 14th (UTC+8)

Story mainnet will be launched on February 13, $IP claiming and query will be open simultaneously

According to Story's official announcement, its public mainnet will be officially launched on February 13. At the same time, the $IP token claim and query function will also be opened on the same day, and users can check and claim the corresponding allocation.

Berachain opens RFB and social airdrops, which will not affect the circulation of BERA

According to the Berachain Foundation announcement, RFB and Social airdrops are now available, and users can go to airdrop.berachain.com to apply. RFB is distributed to applications and communities that have been building the Berachain ecosystem for a long time, and recipients must follow the official guidelines. In addition, Berachain emphasized that RFB and social distributions are included in the initial circulation supply of tokens and will not affect the current circulation of BERA.

Coinbase now has B3 on the Base network

According to the Coinbase Assets announcement, Coinbase will support B3 (Base) tokens, limited to the Base network. B3's transfer function is now open on Coinbase and Coinbase Exchange. B3 (Base) (B3) is now available on the Coinbase official website and iOS and Android applications, and is marked as an "experimental" asset. Coinbase users can log in to the platform to buy, sell, convert, send, receive and store B3.

Viewpoint

FTX creditors: If SBF had not filed for bankruptcy, its asset valuation would have exceeded $65 billion

According to Sunil, a representative of FTX creditors, if SBF had not filed for bankruptcy, the valuation of its assets might exceed $65 billion, including: 55 million Solana (about $11 billion), Anthropic ($4.2 billion), 890 million Sui tokens and equity ($3.2 billion), GDA investment (more than $1.2 billion), K5 investment (US$700 million, including $190 million from SpaceX), FTX business valuation (US$40 million net income corresponding to a valuation of $40 billion), and 280 million FTT tokens (about $5 billion). According to previous news, the total net assets of the world's top 500 richest people will exceed the $10 trillion mark in 2024, and CZ's wealth will rise 60% to $55 billion.

Matrixport: Ethereum may rebound due to low RSI and upgrade plan

Matrixport reported today that Ethereum's relative strength index (RSI) has fallen to a historical low, close to the extreme oversold range, which may provide conditions for ETH prices to rebound. In addition, Ethereum's highly anticipated Pectra upgrade is scheduled to be launched in March 2025. This upgrade integrates the original Prague and Electra versions and is expected to significantly improve the network's scalability, efficiency and user experience. The report also mentioned that before the upgrade is officially launched in March, the market may issue multiple test network announcements, which may further boost market sentiment. Although upgrade events in Ethereum's history are often accompanied by "sell news" market conditions, the current oversold market background may create opportunities for ETH prices to rebound.

Analysts predict the probability of approval of LTC, DOGE, SOL, and XRP spot ETFs, with LTC being as high as 90%

According to statistics from analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas, the current market has a relatively high probability of approval for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), and XRP spot ETFs. Among them: • Litecoin (LTC): 90%, because it is considered a high-probability commodity by the SEC • Dogecoin (DOGE): 75%, also considered a commodity by the SEC with a high probability • Solana (SOL): 70%, but the SEC still regards it as a security • XRP: 65%, mainly affected by the SEC lawsuit and the need to resolve regulatory disputes Seyffart said that the ETF applications for XRP and DOGE are expected to be accepted by the SEC this week, and the SEC and Commissioner Hester Peirce's crypto working group are expected to resolve some of the "securities vs. commodities" regulatory disputes by the end of 2025. He pointed out that if the Democratic Party still dominates the SEC, the probability of approval of these ETFs will be "very low." In addition, Seyffart emphasized that the biggest obstacle to the approval of the XRP ETF is still the lawsuit with the SEC. The SEC needs to sort out the Ripple case first before the ETF has a higher probability of passing.

Important data

Binance is suspected of significantly reducing its BTC and ETH holdings last month, turning to USDC, and the proportion of BNB reduction is relatively low

According to crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong, Binance significantly reduced its own BTC and ETH holdings in January and converted most of its assets into stablecoin USDC. Among them, BTC holdings fell from 46,896 to 2,747 (a decrease of 94.1%), ETH holdings fell from 216,313 to 175 (a decrease of 99.9%), SOL holdings fell by 99%, and USDT holdings were almost zero (a decrease of 99.9%). In contrast, BNB's reduction ratio was lower, only 16.6%, from 5.839 million to 4.869 million, with a change value of approximately US$615 million. At the same time, Binance's USDC holdings increased by 57.5%, from 805 million to 1.268 billion, with an increase of US$463 million. The data comes from Binance's reserve certificate, which mainly involves the platform's own funds, not user deposits. Analysts believe that this move may be to accrue profits, adjust asset structure, enhance liquidity, or prepare for future regulation and market fluctuations. Some users also said that the reduction in holdings was most likely to pay fines to US regulators.

Bitcoin spot ETF had a net outflow of US$186 million yesterday, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 5.93%

According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (February 10, Eastern Time), the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $186 million. Among them, Grayscale ETF GBTC had a net outflow of $46.2605 million in a single day, and the historical net outflow of GBTC has reached $21.952 billion, while Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF BTC had no capital flow yesterday, with a total historical net inflow of $1.237 billion. BlackRock ETF IBIT had a net inflow of $55.3647 million yesterday, making it the Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest inflow on that day. Currently, the total historical net inflow of IBIT has reached $40.85 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $114.437 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (market value to total Bitcoin market value) is 5.93%, with a historical cumulative net inflow of $40.514 billion.

2 Whale addresses withdrew more than 120,000 ETH from exchanges in the past 48 hours, with a total value of more than 320 million US dollars

According to Lookonchain monitoring, whale addresses are massively increasing their holdings of ETH. Among them, address 0xb99a…BcF5 withdrew 56,909 ETH (about $151.6 million) from Binance 4 hours ago, and address 0xEd0C…4312 withdrew 64,603 ETH (about $171.8 million) from Binance and Bitfinex in the past 48 hours.

Ambraxas Capital withdraws 24,000 ETH from Binance, about $64 million

According to The Data Nerd, 6 hours ago, Ambraxas Capital’s related wallets withdrew 24,000 ETH (about 64.04 million USD) from Binance. Currently, the total value of the institution’s investment portfolio has exceeded 500 million USD, of which about 50% is held in ETH.

Babylon will extend the airdrop registration deadline to March 19

Popular Articles