Anti-crypto Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Michael Barr Resigns
According to Beincrypto, Michael Barr, Vice Chairman of Supervision of the Federal Reserve, announced today that he will resign from the position. Barr will no longer serve as the third-in-command of the Federal Reserve Board, but he intends to remain at the Federal Reserve until further notice. It is generally believed in the industry that Barr is one of the key factors in the failure of American banks to get involved in cryptocurrencies and related services. According to a recent press release, his resignation will take effect on February 28 or after his successor is confirmed. However, even if a new vice chairman of supervision is found soon, Barr will continue to remain on the Federal Reserve Board. His term was supposed to end naturally in 2032. However, this may be an important opportunity for cryptocurrency regulation. He claimed: "It is an honor to serve as the vice chairman of supervision of the Federal Reserve Board. Controversy over this position may distract us from our mission. In the current environment, I think it will be more effective to serve the American people from the position of director." In 2023, Barr led the crackdown on stablecoins and expressed his desire to "keep cryptocurrencies out of the banking industry."
MicroStrategy spent about $101 million to increase its holdings by another 1,070 bitcoins
According to MicroStrategy's announcement, the company purchased 1,070 bitcoins at a total cost of approximately $101 million, with an average purchase price of $94,004 per bitcoin. As of January 5, 2025, the company's total bitcoin holdings reached 447,470, with a total purchase cost of approximately $27.97 billion and an average purchase price of $62,503 per bitcoin. In the fourth quarter of 2024, the company's bitcoin yield (BTC Yield) reached 48%, and the annual yield was 74.3%.
Gemini agrees to pay $5 million to settle CFTC lawsuit
Gemini Trust Co., the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, has agreed to pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit claimed that Gemini misled the derivatives regulator when it tried to launch the first U.S.-regulated bitcoin futures contract. The settlement was disclosed in documents signed by both parties on Monday, avoiding a trial that was originally scheduled to begin on January 21, the day after Trump was inaugurated for the second time as U.S. President. Gemini neither admitted nor denied liability in the case.
In 2022, the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Gemini in Manhattan federal court, alleging that the exchange "made false and misleading statements about how to prevent Bitcoin price manipulation." On Monday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein approved the settlement. Last November, Judge Hellerstein rejected Gemini's request, ruling that a jury must determine whether 32 statements made by Gemini executives to regulators were misleading.
Gemini still faces a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that alleges the exchange and crypto lending firm Genesis Global Capital illegally raised billions of dollars in crypto assets from investors through the so-called Gemini Earn program. In February, Gemini agreed to return at least $1.1 billion to customers as part of another settlement with New York regulators.
Dutch regulator issues EU MiCA crypto asset licenses to four firms
According to CoinDesk, MoonPay, BitStaete, FinTech ZBD and Hidden Road have obtained the "Crypto Asset Service Provider License" (CASP) issued by the Netherlands Financial Market Authority (AFM), allowing them to operate in the 27 member states of the European Union. MiCA requires companies to obtain a CASP license from any member state to operate throughout the European Union. In addition, Socios.com also announced that it has obtained a Category 3 Virtual Financial Assets Act (VFAA) license issued by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). At the same time, the UK will also add GSR Markets to its crypto registration list by the end of 2024.
Guangzhou releases digital RMB action plan, striving to lead the country
The Office of the Financial Committee of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee issued the "Action Plan for Further Promoting the Digital RMB Work in Guangzhou", proposing to deepen the results of the digital RMB pilot, comprehensively expand the application field, optimize the payment ecological environment, and help Guangzhou's high-quality economic development. The plan clearly states that by June 2025, the application of digital RMB in the fields of people's livelihood, sports, consumption, etc. will be expanded; by the end of 2025, key innovation scenarios such as cross-border payment and port and shipping trade will be broken through; by the end of 2026, full coverage of specific areas will be basically achieved, and a complete digital RMB ecosystem will be formed. The action plan includes: 1. Promotion in the field of people's livelihood: Optimize the convenience of application in scenarios such as public transportation, medical care, and cultural tourism. 2. Cross-border payment innovation: Promote the digital RMB settlement of cross-border trade in Nansha, and participate in the pilot test of the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge. 3. Demonstration zone construction: Create a model for the application of digital RMB business districts and industrial parks. 4. Technical research and development support: Promote the pilot of digital RMB related technologies and talent training. Guangzhou will coordinate and coordinate through the leading group, improve emergency measures, strengthen publicity and guidance, steadily advance the digital RMB pilot work, and provide a demonstration for the development of digital finance across the country.
US court documents show Do Kwon's victims could number more than a million
According to Cointelegraph, the U.S. government prosecutor overseeing the criminal case of Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon estimates that Do Kwon may have caused more than one million victims worldwide after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. On January 6, Daniel Gitner, the acting U.S. attorney for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, notified Kwon's victims of the procedure for informing them of their rights in criminal cases in a document filed with the court. According to U.S. prosecutors, the government will establish a website for public procedures on Kwon's case because other methods of providing rights protection for victims are "impractical." Gitner said: "Given the huge number of Terraform cryptocurrency transactions and the way these transactions are conducted (many of which are conducted on foreign exchanges through digital asset wallets or cryptocurrency trading accounts without personal identification information), although it is difficult to accurately quantify the number of Kwon's victims, the government estimates that the number of victims in this case exceeds hundreds of thousands of individuals and entities, and may total more than one million." Earlier news, Kwon is expected to appear in court again on January 8 to respond to the lawsuit.
Arthur Hayes: Crypto market may peak in mid-March, then see severe correction
In his latest blog post, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, explained why he believes the crypto market will peak in mid-March and then experience a severe correction. The article stated that Bitcoin bottomed out in the third quarter of 2022 when the Fed's reverse repurchase tool peaked; Yellen adjusted the bond strategy and withdrew more than $2 trillion from RRP, injecting liquidity into the market and driving cryptocurrencies and stocks up. In the first quarter of 2025, the market is concerned about whether the liquidity of the US dollar can offset the slow implementation of Trump's policies. If liquidity is sufficient, increasing risk exposure will be a safe choice.
First, the article discusses the Federal Reserve, which is a secondary consideration in this analysis. Then, the article discusses how the U.S. Treasury will deal with the debt ceiling. The focus is on how the Treasury will deal with the debt ceiling. If politicians hesitate, the Treasury may inject liquidity from the general account (TGA) to create a positive atmosphere for cryptocurrencies. The Fed's quantitative tightening policy continues, but the RRP scale is almost zero, and the RRP interest rate is lowered to reduce attractiveness. This move is intended to boost demand for US bonds and pave the way for policies such as stopping QT. Yellen revealed that the Treasury expects to take "extraordinary measures" to raise funds in mid-January. When politicians agree to raise the debt ceiling, it will test Trump's support. It is expected that the balance of the Treasury's general account (TGA) will be exhausted in May-June, and the market may react in advance. As of the end of the first quarter, the total dollar liquidity of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury is expected to be $612 billion. When the default and shutdown crisis approaches, an agreement will be reached to raise the debt ceiling, and the Treasury will resume borrowing and replenish TGA, resulting in a decrease in liquidity. After the tax payment deadline on April 15, the government's financial situation will improve and liquidity will also decrease. If TGA balances dominate cryptocurrency prices, the market may reach a high at the end of the first quarter and then fall back.
Yellen lowered the rate to issue short-term Treasury bills, causing Powell's strategy of tightening financial conditions to fight inflation to fail. Although the Trump team may perform poorly on cryptocurrencies and corporate legislation, the positive dollar liquidity environment may offset this impact. Hayes said: "Investors are advised to sell in the late first quarter and wait for liquidity conditions to improve in the third quarter. As the chief investment officer of Maelstrom, it is recommended that risk takers switch to aggressive mode and get involved in the decentralized science (DeSci) altcoin field. Maelstrom has purchased BIO, VITA, ATH, GROW, PSY, CRYO, and NEURON. If things go well, I will reduce my baseline position in March."
Calamos to Launch Bitcoin ETF with Downside Protection on January 22
According to Crypto.news, Calamos Investments is launching a Bitcoin ETF with 100% downside protection. According to information released by the company, this ETF, called CBOJ, will debut on the Chicago Board Options Exchange on January 22, aiming to address Bitcoin's volatility while providing growth potential. It is reported that U.S. Treasuries are combined with options linked to the CBOE Bitcoin US ETF Index to achieve this protection. This structure provides a regulated and transparent way to gain exposure to Bitcoin while minimizing risk.
Solana Foundation proposes adding a new hash type to improve account state efficiency and security
The Solana Foundation initiated the SIMD-0215 proposal, which aims to expand Solana's infrastructure to billions of user accounts. This proposal adds a new hash, the "Accounts Lattice Hash". According to reports, the "Accounts Lattice Hash" uses homomorphic hashing to maintain the hash of the entire account state, which is both fast and secure, enabling each block to contain the hash of all accounts, not just the accounts changed in the block, and delete the Epoch Accounts Hash.
Babylon will launch the second phase of the test network on January 8
According to official news, Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon announced that it will launch the second phase of the testnet on January 8. The second phase of block production will start at 9 am UTC (17:00 Beijing time on January 8), and the equity staking network application will be launched at 10 am UTC (18:00 Beijing time on January 8). This phase will focus on testing the migration registration of the first phase of Signet Bitcoin staking, as well as the interaction with various protocol participants, including Bitcoin pledgers, final confirmation providers, validators, Liquid staking protocols, etc. The testnet supports permissionless smart contract deployment, with a single pledge limit of 0.0005-350 Signet BTC and an unbinding period of about 16-17 hours (100 Bitcoin blocks). The project is open for testing worldwide, but users in the United States, Canada, Australia and mainland China are restricted from participating.
Dolomite to launch DOLO tokens on Berachain, 20% of total supply airdropped to community members
Lending protocol Dolomite announced that the generation event of its native token DOLO will be held shortly after the launch of the Berachain mainnet. Dolomite plans to distribute 20% of DOLO tokens to the community through airdrops to encourage user participation and promote the development of the protocol. The specific distribution is as follows: 1. Platform users (9%): reward users who use Dolomite for lending for a long time, and allocate 50% DOLO and 50% veDOLO locked for two years. 2. Community contributors (1%): allocated to contributors such as security researchers, integration developers, and dashboard creators. 3. Minerals holders (10%): provide DOLO option airdrops, and holders can purchase DOLO at a price of $0.045 for the initial liquidity construction of the protocol. DOLO tokens will form a complementary mechanism with veDOLO and oDOLO, support protocol governance, liquidity incentives and revenue distribution, and further promote Dolomite's innovation and ecological development in the DeFi field.
Seraph officially announced that the token $SERAPH has been officially launched, marking an important development stage for its gaming ecosystem. The Seraph Foundation regards $SERAPH as the key to the integration of blockchain, AI and games, and is committed to creating an innovative Web3 gaming experience. At the same time, the Seraph game client is now available for download, and players can participate in the Genesis Season (Season 1) to start their gold-making journey. In addition, $SERAPH trading pairs have been launched on the following centralized exchanges: Bybit, KuCoin, HashKey, MEXC and LBank. The official recommendation is to use the Bybit exchange to participate in the exclusive Launchpool mining event. Users can stake $SERAPH, $MNT and $USDT to earn more $SERAPH rewards.
Michael Saylor says he would be happy to serve as a crypto advisor to the Trump administration
According to Bitcoin.com, MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said he is willing to serve as a cryptocurrency advisor in the upcoming Trump administration. In an interview with Bloomberg, Saylor revealed that he has been in contact with several members of the new government, but has not confirmed whether he will meet with Trump. Saylor said that if he is invited to join the Digital Asset Advisory Committee, he will be happy to provide advice and promote constructive digital asset policies. He recently met with Eric Trump at Mar-A-Lago and mentioned on social media that Bitcoin was a key topic of the talks.
Market maker GSR receives UK FCA regulatory approval to expand crypto trading and liquidity services
According to The Block, crypto trading and liquidity services company GSR has been approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and its subsidiary GSR Markets UK Limited can now operate as a registered crypto asset business and provide crypto asset trading and other services to UK customers. Previously, in April 2024, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) also granted GSR's entity in Singapore the qualification of "Major Payment Institution", allowing it to provide over-the-counter trading and market-making services. In addition, in mid-2024, GSR experienced a reorganization of its executive team, including the departure of several executives including co-founder and co-CEO Rich Rosenblum and chief technology officer John MacDonald.
Riot released its production and operation data for December: a total of 516 bitcoins were mined
According to Riot Platforms, the company mined 516 bitcoins in December 2024, a 4% increase from the previous month. Riot CEO Jason Les said that the first 400MW development phase of the Corsicana facility has now completed the installation of all systems and the deployment of mining machines. Although the system has been installed, the company is taking a step-by-step debugging approach to ensure the quality of power supply to the grid.
CoinShares: Global digital asset investment products will have a net inflow of $44.2 billion in 2024
According to the latest report from CoinShares, global digital asset investment product inflows hit a record high of $44.2 billion in 2024, nearly four times the record in 2021. Among them, Bitcoin attracted $38 billion in inflows, accounting for 29% of total assets under management (AuM); Ethereum inflows were $4.8 billion throughout the year, accounting for 26% of AuM. Other altcoins (excluding Ethereum) had inflows of $813 million, accounting for 18% of AuM. 2025 started strongly, with inflows of $585 million in the first three days. However, the first week, including the last two trading days of 2024, had a net outflow of $75 million. US products dominated, with spot ETFs attracting 100% of inflows throughout the year, reaching $44.4 billion. The Swiss market had inflows of $630 million, while Canada and Sweden had outflows of $707 million and $682 million, respectively.
Solana’s 24-hour DEX transaction volume exceeds the combined total of Ethereum and Base
DefiLlama data shows that the 24-hour DEX transaction volume on the Solana chain has exceeded the sum of Ethereum and Base. In the past 24 hours, the daily transaction volume of DEX based on Solana reached 3.982 billion US dollars, while the daily transaction volume of DEX based on Ethereum was 1.706 billion US dollars, and the daily transaction volume of DEX on Ethereum Layer2 network Base was 1.207 billion US dollars.
Nvidia's stock price rose by more than 5%, and its market value surpassed Apple to rank first
U.S. stock market trends show that Nvidia's stock rose by more than 5%, and its market value surpassed Apple, ranking first.
Sui TVL exceeds US$2 billion, setting a new record
Sui, a public chain, said on the X platform that its total locked value (TVL) has exceeded $2 billion, a record high, just three months after it first reached the $1 billion mark. Sui said that the recent announcement and launch of stablecoins, wallets and lending protocols triggered Sui's growth. Industry giants such as Grayscale, VanEck and Franklin Templeton also brought impetus to Sui.
According to Decrypt, the Meme coin issuance platform Pump.fun has accounted for more than 70% of the Solana network's token issuance in the past two days and contributed more than 56% of decentralized exchange trading activities. In the past 24 hours alone, Pump.fun has issued more than 45,000 tokens, and its cumulative issuance for the whole year has exceeded 5.5 million. Although only 0.0085% of its issued tokens have a market value of more than $1 million, the platform still stands out with its significant revenue performance, with revenue of $79.94 million in December, exceeding main networks such as Tron and Bitcoin.
According to the "2024 DePIN Status" report jointly released by Messari DePIN research analyst Dylan Bane and Escape Velocity Ventures co-founder Salvador Gala, the distributed physical infrastructure network (DePIN) field has achieved significant growth in 2024: 1. Market performance: The total market value of the DePIN market has reached US$50 billion, covering 350 tokens, with an annual revenue price-to-earnings ratio of approximately 100 times. 2. Device contribution: More than 13 million devices participate in DePIN operations every day around the world. 3. Network competition: Solana leads in the infrastructure field, while Base has an advantage in the consumer and market fields. 4. Capital inflow: In 2024, the DePIN project raised more than US$350 million in seed and early financing. 5. Application expansion: Local governments have begun to use DePIN to solve infrastructure problems, such as cross-border payments and logistics network optimization. Looking ahead to 2025, the DePIN field is expected to achieve 100-1000 times growth in emerging markets and break through in a wider range of application scenarios.
