Fed Governor Bowman: Supports December rate cut as the "final step" of policy readjustment
According to Jinshi, Federal Reserve Governor Bowman said on Thursday that she supported last month's interest rate cut, believing that it was the "final step" in the Fed's monetary policy adjustment, and that caution must be exercised in the future due to rising inflation risks. "We should also avoid prejudging the future policies of the new administration," Bowman said in a speech prepared for delivery to the California Bankers Association. "Instead, we should wait for clearer news and then seek to understand the impact on economic activity, the labor market and inflation." This is the first time Bowman has made such remarks since she became a popular candidate for the next top bank regulator at the Federal Reserve. Barr announced this week that he will resign as the Fed's vice chairman for supervision by the end of next month. "This year will see a change in leadership at banking institutions, and I expect this will translate into a shift in priorities and approaches," Bowman said. She reiterated her consistent call for more targeted regulatory regulations and a more "pragmatic" approach to policy making.
Cynthia Lummis poised to lead new U.S. Senate digital assets subcommittee
According to The Block, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee plans to appoint cryptocurrency-friendly Senator Cynthia Lummis to lead the newly formed Digital Assets Subcommittee to fulfill the new chairman's promise. Some Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee have preliminarily selected the leaders and members of the subcommittee, but the committee still needs to vote to confirm. Senate aides revealed that Lummis will lead a digital assets subcommittee whose members include crypto-friendly Senator Bill Hagerty and newly elected Senator Bernie Moreno. Incoming committee chairman Tim Scott said earlier that if elected, he would set up a subcommittee focused on digital assets. The current chairman, Sherrod Brown, is critical of the cryptocurrency industry and calls for a crackdown on related illegal activities. The leadership of the Senate Banking Committee is also crucial because the chairman holds the financial power of legislation, including crypto bills.
Earlier yesterday, it was reported that the U.S. House Financial Services Committee appointed Bryan Steil as chairman of the Digital Assets Subcommittee.
According to Bloomberg, with less than two weeks to go before Trump's inauguration, crypto industry executives are vying for access to Trump himself and seats on the planned cryptocurrency advisory committee, which is expected to be established shortly after Trump takes office. According to people familiar with the matter, industry insiders intend to use this committee, which may be composed of about two dozen CEOs and founders, to influence the new government's digital asset policy. People familiar with the matter said that most of the possible appointees have established relationships with Trump and have visited him in recent months. Trump and his inner circle, including the incoming White House artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency expert David Sacks, are still weighing potential appointees. Since Trump's re-election in November, Mar-a-Lago has hosted a large number of crypto industry figures, including Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, etc. In addition, companies such as Circle, Coinbase, Kraken, Ondo, etc. have pledged to donate to Trump's inauguration.
Google donates $1 million to Trump inaugural fund
Google has donated $1 million to President-elect Trump's 2025 inauguration fund, becoming the latest tech company to try to build good relations with the new administration, according to CNBC. Karan Bhatia, Google's head of global government affairs and public policy, said the company will also provide a live broadcast of the inauguration on YouTube and provide a direct link on its homepage. In addition, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta, Amazon and Apple CEO Tim Cook have also announced or reportedly donated $1 million to the fund. These donations show that major technology companies are seeking to maintain and improve their relations with the new administration before it takes office.
Circle Donates $1 Million USDC to Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee
According to a tweet from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Circle has donated $1 million in USDC to President Trump’s inaugural committee.
At the "Boao Forum for Asia New Year Outlook 2025" event, Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People's Bank of China, said that the world will face profound changes and challenges in 2025: the international environment will continue to be full of uncertainty, competition among major powers will intensify, and economic globalization will be frustrated; the recovery of the world economy is unpredictable, and the industrial chain will be forced to reshape due to the "decoupling and disconnection" of trade and technology; the rapid development of general artificial intelligence brings opportunities and risks; the climate change crisis intensifies, and sustainable development faces a huge test. At the same time, he emphasized that there are several major changes in 2025: the trend of accelerated growth of the global South countries will not change, the direction of Asian countries to promote inclusive economic globalization will not change, and China's determination to reform and open up will not change. In his speech, Zhou Xiaochuan pointed out that the global public debt is about to exceed 100 trillion US dollars, which will increase the external financing costs and exchange rate depreciation pressure of emerging markets and developing countries, and the debt will bring challenges to the fiscal sustainability of developed countries. The impact of digital crypto assets on global financial stability and financial security needs to be vigilant. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) wrote in its "Fiscal Monitor Report" in October 2024 that global public debt is already at a very high level (the scale of US debt has exceeded 36 trillion US dollars). By the end of this year (2024), global public debt is expected to exceed $100 trillion (93% of global GDP); by 2030, it will be close to 100% of GDP. This is 10 percentage points higher than the ratio in 2019 (i.e. before the COVID-19 pandemic).
Grok iOS version is now available on the App Store
The official app of Grok, an artificial intelligence model developed by Musk's xAI company, has been launched on the iOS platform and is currently available for download in the Apple App Store in at least the United States and the Philippines. You can download it through the link or search for X.AI, but the official announcement of the launch has not yet been released.
According to Cryptoslate, team members from Coinbase, Google, ai16z and other major players have teamed up to launch Aiccelerate, a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) designed to accelerate the integration of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI). The announcement on January 9 showed that the DAO will focus on promoting decentralized, open-source AI development and supporting high-potential projects in different ecosystems. In addition, Aiccelerate positions itself as a DAO that focuses on both investment and development. Its main mission is to promote innovation in the field of what it calls "agent AI." The DAO aims to build a collaborative community of top developers in multiple frameworks. These experts will contribute to a range of agents and tools designed to advance the organization's goals. In addition, Aiccelerate will unify its initiatives through a token called AICC. DAO will use part of its profits to repurchase its native tokens. The list of development advisors includes ai16z founder Shaw, Virtuals Protocol core contributor EtherMage, EigenLayer developer relations director Nader Dabit, and Story Protocol co-founder Jason Zhao. On the investment side, Aiccelerate’s advisors include Andrew Kang and Marc Weinstein of Mechanism Capital, Justin Lee of Coinbase Ventures, and Anil Lulla of Delphi Digital.
Standard Chartered Bank obtains Luxembourg license to provide digital asset custody services
Standard Chartered Bank announced that its newly established Luxembourg entity will serve as a regulatory entry point into the EU market, providing cryptocurrency and digital asset custody services to EU clients. Luxembourg can meet the growing needs of the EU market due to its balanced regulatory and financial environment. Previously, Standard Chartered has launched digital asset custody services in the UAE. Laurent Marochini was appointed CEO of the Luxembourg entity. He previously served as head of innovation at Societe Generale. Standard Chartered said the move will help its institutional clients enter the digital asset ecosystem and provide strong support for the transformation of traditional finance.
InfiniGods plans to launch its native token GOD, 17% of which will be allocated to its NFT holders
According to The Defiant, the crypto game InfiniGods is currently preparing to launch its native token GOD. GOD tokens will be distributed among NFT holders in the ecosystem, with 4.25% allocated to InfiniPass holders, 3.25% to Elder Gods NFTs, and 9.5% to God Vault NFT holders. TGE has not yet set a date, but InfiniGods Chief Marketing Officer Bry DiSanto hinted that the airdrop is coming, posting on X that "January, time is coming soon." InfiniGods is a mobile game studio that was founded in 2022 after the company completed a $9 million seed round led by Pantera Capital, with Framework Ventures and Animoca Brands also participating. The company raised another $8 million in April 2024 and completed a $1.3 million strategic round of financing led by Arete Capital in December.
VanEck executive: Block is expected to become the first company in the S&P 500 to hold Bitcoin
Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, wrote on the X platform that fintech company Block is expected to become the first company in the S&P 500 to hold Bitcoin. For a stock to be included in the index, it must meet six major criteria, including: 1) a market value of more than $18 billion; 2) more than 10% of public shares; 3) earnings in the most recent quarter should be positive, and the sum of GAAP earnings in the previous four quarters should also be positive; 4) high liquidity; 5) listed for 12 months; 6) the company is headquartered in the United States. Block met the last criterion (earnings) after the release of the first quarter of 2024 financial report. However, inclusion in the S&P 500 index does not strictly follow a formula, but is determined at the discretion of the index committee. Historically, companies that meet all requirements have been included within 3 to 21 months (LULU is a special case, which took 65 months). Industry diversification is one of the factors considered by the index committee, and they aim to maintain an industry composition that is roughly consistent with industry economics. The phrase "in line with sector economics" is not clearly defined, so the S&P Total Market Index can be used as a reference: Financials currently account for 13.9% of the S&P 500 and 14.6% of the broader index, suggesting that there is still room for financials to increase.
Coinbase International will launch AERO, BEAM and DRIFT perpetual contracts
Coinbase International Station announced on the X platform that Coinbase International Station and Coinbase Advanced will add support for Aerodrome Finance, Beam and Drift perpetual futures contracts. The AERO-PERP, BEAM-PERP and DRIFT-PERP markets are expected to be opened on or after 17:30 on January 16, 2025, Beijing time.
Binance will launch spot trading pairs such as PHA/USDC and PLN/USDC
Binance will launch PHA/USDC, PLN/USDC, STEEM/USDC and USUAL/USDC spot trading pairs at 16:00 (ET) on January 10, 2025. The trading robot service will also be launched at the same time.
According to official news from Metis, in the past few hours, the Metis network has experienced intermittent downtime due to a surge in mainnet transaction volume, which has caused L1DTL (Layer 1 Data Transaction Layer) to freeze. Currently, the team is upgrading the L1DTL memory to solve the problem and is working on recovery.
MANTRA Blockchain to Tokenize at Least $1 Billion in Assets in Partnership with DAMAC Group
According to CoinDesk, MANTRA Blockchain has reached an agreement with the UAE-based real estate giant DAMAC Group to tokenize at least $1 billion in assets in early 2025. DAMAC's asset portfolio covers real estate development, hotel management and data centers. Through tokenization, DAMAC aims to simplify the traditional investment process and increase accessibility for retail and institutional investors. Details of specific tokenized assets and products will be announced in the coming weeks. The MANTRA mainnet will be launched in October 2024, dedicated to introducing traditional financial assets to the blockchain, and has reached an agreement with other Dubai developer MAG Group to tokenize $500 million in assets. DAMAC began accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum payments as early as 2022.
BIO Protocol expands to Solana chain, with Wormhole providing bridge services
According to the official announcement of BIO Protocol, its DeSci (decentralized science) project is now online on the Solana mainnet and supports cross-chain functions through the Wormhole protocol. Users can transfer BIO tokens between the Ethereum mainnet and Solana through the official bridge service (bridge.bio.xyz) (contract address: bioJ9JTqW62MLz7UKHU69gtKhPpGi1BQhccj2kmSvUJ). The official said that this move lays the foundation for BIO Protocol to move towards a multi-chain ecosystem, and revealed that more plans will be launched in January and February.
CleanSpark Bitcoin Inventory Exceeds 10,000 Coins
CleanSpark Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK), a mining company, announced that it has mined 10,097 bitcoins in its domestic mining operations in the United States, and its inventory has exceeded the 10,000 mark for the first time. CEO Zach Bradford said that every bitcoin is supported by American energy and generated in the United States, reflecting the company's commitment to sustainable growth and innovation in the global Bitcoin ecosystem.
Bitcoin ETF has a net outflow of 4,964 BTC today, and Ethereum ETF has a net outflow of 4,701 ETH
According to Lookonchain monitoring data, 10 Bitcoin ETFs had a net outflow of 4,964 BTC (about $458.3 million) in the past day. Among them, iShares (Blackrock) ETF had a net outflow of 1,319 BTC (about $121.8 million), and currently holds 557,882 BTC (about $51.51 billion). In addition, 9 Ethereum ETFs recorded a net outflow of 4,701 ETH (about $15.21 million). Among them, Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust had a net outflow of 3,298 ETH (about $10.67 million) and currently holds 471,912 ETH (about $1.53 billion).
Jump Trading transferred more than $20 million in stablecoins to CEX in the past hour
On-chain data shows that in the past hour, Jump Trading transferred more than $20 million in stablecoin transactions, including USDT and USDC, to multiple centralized exchanges (CEX). The details are as follows: • 2.107 million USDT was transferred to Binance, worth approximately $2.11 million; • A total of $18 million in USDC was transferred to Coinbase, including a transfer of $10 million and another transfer of $8.913 million.
