U.S. CFTC Chairman Warns of Crypto Regulatory “Gaps” and Announces He Will Step Down
According to the Financial Times, Rostin Behnam, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that regulation of digital assets, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, remains worryingly inadequate. He warned of a regulatory "gap" in the U.S. cryptocurrency market and called for tighter regulation of digital assets. He will step down on January 20, the day President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.
During his tenure as CFTC chairman, Behnam promoted the first federal carbon offset guidance and increased scrutiny of cryptocurrencies and event contracts (such as election betting). He also led the CFTC's lawsuit against Binance, which ultimately resulted in a $4.3 billion settlement. Behnam said the CFTC has the ability to become a regulator of digital commodity assets, but most areas of crypto assets in the United States are still unregulated. He emphasized the need for comprehensive and strict regulations rather than quick solutions.
Trump has yet to nominate his successor but has chosen crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
AI startup Anthropic plans to raise $2 billion at a valuation of $60 billion
According to Jiemian News, citing the Wall Street Journal, artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is in talks to raise $2 billion in funding, a deal that would bring its valuation to $60 billion, more than three times its valuation a year ago. People familiar with the matter revealed that this round of financing was led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, and the $60 billion valuation includes the funds Anthropic plans to raise in this round of financing. According to data provider CB Insights, the deal will make Anthropic the fifth most valuable U.S. startup after SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks. In a round of financing led by Menlo Ventures last year, Anthropic was valued at $18 billion.
Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley forwarded the news disclosed by insider Luis Berruga on the X platform: "It has been confirmed that major Spanish banks are actively developing a regulatory and operational framework to provide cryptocurrency ETPs. Some platforms such as MyInvestor have already started to do so. In the coming months, the pace of adoption across Europe should accelerate."
Telegram provided details of over 2,000 users to US authorities in 2024
In 2024, the instant messaging app Telegram significantly increased its responses to data requests, providing detailed information on more than 2,000 users to US authorities, Protos reported. The data comes from the platform's latest transparency report. From January to September 2023, Telegram responded to only 14 requests for IP addresses and phone numbers from the United States, involving 108 users. However, throughout 2024, the platform responded to 900 US requests, affecting 2,253 users. This surge occurred after the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August. After Durov's arrest, Telegram updated its privacy policy to make it clear that it would provide IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities in accordance with valid legal orders, while previously such information would only be provided in requests related to terrorist crimes. Telegram has long been seen as the preferred communication tool for criminal networks, especially in Southeast Asia. Criminals use the platform to launder money through cryptocurrencies, trade hacked data, and obtain fraud tools. According to a United Nations report, criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia make an estimated $27.4 billion to $36.5 billion in profits each year. In addition, unlicensed crypto exchanges also advertise money laundering services on Telegram, with one advertisement even claiming to "process 3 million USDT of stolen overseas funds every day."
Ripple CEO shares photo of himself having dinner with Trump on Monday night
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared a photo of him, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, and US President-elect Trump having dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Monday night on the X platform today, and wrote: "Strong start to 2025."
Sol Strategies receives $25 million CAD credit line to invest in Solana ecosystem
According to The Block, Canadian listed company Sol Strategies announced on Monday that it will invest 25 million Canadian dollars in the Solana ecosystem through an unsecured credit line. This is the latest move by the company to transform into one of Solana's largest pledgers and ecosystem participants. According to the announcement, the unsecured revolving credit line has an annual interest rate of 5%, calculated daily. Wald said the financing plan provides the most favorable structure for shareholders. The company has withdrawn $4 million in principal and plans to use the remaining funds for large-scale purchases of Solana tokens to support pledge operations and acquisitions. The entire credit line is available until January 6, 2027. Previously, the company was called Cypherpunk Holdings and had invested extensively in the encryption industry. Later, it hired Leah Wald as CEO in July this year and turned its focus to the Solana ecosystem. To concentrate resources, Sol Strategies sold a number of investments, including its second largest holding, Animoca Brands, and directly invested in SOL tokens and Solana verification nodes. As of December 31, 2024, Sol Strategies has staked over 1.5 million SOL tokens (valued at approximately $450 million CAD) through its validator node operations, including 140,000 SOL held by the Company.
New York judge grants Coinbase's interlocutory appeal, halts SEC lawsuit
According to The Block, Katherine Polk Failla, a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, approved Coinbase's request for an interlocutory appeal on Tuesday, temporarily suspending the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) lawsuit against the exchange. An interlocutory appeal is an appeal filed before the judge makes a final ruling, and such requests are rarely approved. The case will next be submitted to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for trial. Judge Failla pointed out in the order that this case raises a key legal issue about the scope of application of the Howey test in crypto assets, which is subject to major disagreements and its resolution will help promote the final ruling of the SEC's enforcement action. She emphasized that due to the "conflicting authoritative interpretations" of the application of the Howey test in crypto assets, further clarification from the Second Circuit is needed. Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said the decision was another blow to the SEC leadership's attempts to create continued uncertainty and confusion, and thanked Judge Failla for allowing the interlocutory appeal.
According to CoinDesk, Ethereum Layer2 network Arbitrum has awarded its largest developer grant ever to South Korea's Lotte Group. Lotte Group is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with businesses in multiple fields including shopping malls, media and entertainment. The grant is provided by the Arbitrum Foundation to support Lotte's metaverse gaming platform Caliverse and consolidate Arbitrum's position as its main blockchain infrastructure provider. Offchain Labs shared the news at the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. A representative of the company declined to disclose the specific amount of the grant "at this stage." The grant is technically awarded by the non-profit Arbitrum Foundation, which regularly issues grants in the form of ARB tokens to help promote the development of the Arbitrum ecosystem. Lotte showed interest in the metaverse as early as 2022 and reached a strategic cooperation with Arbitrum last year. Caliverse is Lotte's testing ground for exploring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and encryption technologies, where users can experience a variety of media content such as virtual shopping and concerts. Currently, Caliverse has cooperated with 7-Eleven, Tomorrowland Music Festival, and fashion brands such as Givenchy and MCM.
Usual will turn on token fees before February 1
Usual announced the launch of the "Revenue Switch" mechanism, which directly distributes protocol revenue to $USUAL stakers. The activation condition is that more than 50% of $USUAL is staked as USUALx, or it will automatically start on February 1, 2025 UTC+0. Rewards are limited to full-month holders to encourage long-term staking.
Jambo will launch J tokens on Solana this month with a total supply of 1 billion
Jambo, a provider of Web3 mobile infrastructure, announced that the Token Generation Event (TGE) will be launched in January 2025. The token code is $J, based on the Solana public chain, with a total supply of 1 billion. Jambo has built the world's largest on-chain mobile ecosystem, with more than 650,000 JamboPhones sold in 128 countries, and more than 4.5 million blockchain wallets created.
JamboPhone 2 is priced at $99 and is targeted at the mass market. Each phone is pre-installed with top partner applications, supports multi-chain wallets, has a built-in dApp store and JamboGPT. Jambo's development is inseparable from the support of institutions such as Paradigm, OKX, Coinbase, and Pantera Capital.
BlO Protocol now has 6 new IP tokens
BIO Protocol announced that six new IP tokens are now available for trading, covering areas such as Alzheimer’s disease, industrial hemp fiber, ovarian aging, and cryopreservation.
According to data from unfolded., ETFs and listed companies alone purchased 859,454 bitcoins in 2024. This is equivalent to absorbing 4.3% of the circulating supply in one year, which is roughly equivalent to the issuance of bitcoins in the next eight years.
Bitcoin ETF has a net inflow of 8,238 BTC today, and Ethereum ETF has a net inflow of 33,780 ETH
According to Lookonchain statistics, on January 7, Bitcoin ETFs had a net inflow of 8,238 BTC (about $829 million), of which Fidelity added 3,625 BTC (about $365 million), and its total holdings reached 209,135 BTC (about $21.05 billion). Ethereum ETFs had a net inflow of 33,780 ETH (about $123 million), of which iShares (BlackRock) added 33,618 ETH (about $122 million), and its total holdings reached 1,114,423 ETH (about $4.05 billion).
MicroStrategy to buy over $22 billion in Bitcoin by 2024
Michael Saylor tweeted that MicroStrategy purchased a total of 258,320 bitcoins in 2024, with a total expenditure of approximately US$22.07 billion and an average purchase price of approximately US$85,450 per bitcoin. The annual bitcoin holding yield reached 74.3%, achieving a net increase of 140,630 bitcoins (approximately 385 bitcoins per day). Based on the current price of Bitcoin of US$100,000, this has created US$14.06 billion in value for shareholders, equivalent to approximately US$38.5 million per day.
Pump.Fun deposited another 98,593 SOL to Kraken, worth $20 million
According to OnchainLens, Pump.Fun deposited another 98,593 SOL worth $20 million to Kraken. So far, they have deposited a total of 1,662,648 SOL worth $340 million to Kraken. They have earned a total of 2,127,036 SOL worth $431.51 million.
