Important news from last night and this morning (January 19-January 20)

Sky Protocol repurchased 31.57 million SKY tokens last week, bringing its total repurchase amount to over $102 million.

According to official data released by Sky, Sky Protocol repurchased approximately 31.57 million SKY tokens last week for $1.9 million. To date, this decentralized buyback mechanism has cumulatively invested over $102 million.

MegaETH will launch its mainnet on January 22nd, with global stress testing to begin first.

According to MegaETH's official announcement, its mainnet will launch on January 22nd, initially undergoing a 7-day global stress test, aiming to process 11 billion transactions and achieve 15,000 to 35,000 TPS. During the test, multiple on-chain interactive applications will be launched to verify the system's stability under high load. The mainnet will then officially open, initially integrating USDM-powered DeFi and consumer applications.

FG Nexus sold another 2,500 ETH, still holding over 37,000 ETH.

Ethereum treasury company FG Nexus sold another 2,500 ETH today, worth approximately $8.04 million. It currently holds 37,594 ETH, worth approximately $119.7 million at current prices. Previously, the company transferred 10,975 ETH, worth approximately $33.6 million, to Galaxy Digital between November 18th and 19th, 2025.

Pump.fun established its investment arm, Pump Fund, and launched a hackathon with a prize pool of $3 million.

Pump.fun announced that its newly established investment arm, Pump Fund, will launch the "Build in Public" hackathon with a total prize pool of $3 million. The hackathon will fund 12 projects, providing $250,000 to each project, representing a valuation of $10 million. Participants must issue tokens and publicly build their projects. The event emphasizes a user-market-centric judging mechanism. Non-crypto projects are also welcome to participate. Registration closes on February 18th, and the first batch of winners will be announced within 30 days.

Both the one-year and five-year LPRs remained unchanged.

The People's Bank of China kept the one-year and five-year loan prime rates (LPR) unchanged at 3% and 3.5% respectively, marking the eighth consecutive month of no change.

Bermuda announces plans to build the world's first fully blockchain-based national economic system.

According to Circle's official website, the Bermuda government announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos that it plans to build the world's first fully on-chain national economic system with the support of Circle and Coinbase. This plan will promote digital payments, asset tokenization, and financial education through the stablecoin USDC, alleviating the problems of high local payment costs and limited infrastructure. Circle and Coinbase will provide blockchain infrastructure and tools for the government, banks, merchants, and others. This initiative is based on Bermuda's digital asset regulatory framework introduced in 2018.

Zama mainnet launches staking functionality, with 18 operational nodes participating.

Zama, the open-source cryptography company building state-of-the-art fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) solutions for blockchain, announced the launch of its $ZAMA token staking feature on its mainnet. Token holders can delegate their tokens to 18 operating nodes to earn rewards. Nodes are divided into FHE nodes and KMS nodes, handling cryptographic computation and threshold decryption respectively. Staking rewards are distributed according to node role, with FHE accounting for 40% and KMS for 60%, weighted according to the square root. Staking tokens represent a share of rewards that can be claimed at any time, with a 7-day unbinding period. The Zama staking portal is now open, and public sale participants can claim and stake tokens starting February 2nd.

Bhutan's sovereign wealth fund, Drug Holdings, used an address linked to Aave to leverage its long positions in ETH.

According to Emmett Gallic, citing Arkham data, an address linked to Bhutan's sovereign wealth fund, Drug Holdings, appears to be engaging in leveraged long positions: withdrawing 42,000 ETH and $54 million USDT from Binance, converting the USDT to ETH and depositing it into Aave, and borrowing $275 million USDT to further purchase ETH. This leveraged position currently amounts to approximately 117,000 ETH, worth about $459 million.

Bitmine added 86,848 ETH to the stake, worth approximately $279.4 million.

According to Onchain Lens, Bitmine has newly staked 86,848 ETH, worth approximately $279.4 million. To date, the entity has staked a total of 1,771,936 ETH, worth approximately $5.65 billion at current prices.

A suspected whale is selling 13,000 ETH, worth $41.75 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, a suspected whale is selling 13,000 ETH (worth $41.75 million). Galaxy Digital's OTC wallet just transferred out 13,000 ETH (worth $41.75 million), and has already deposited 6,500 of them (worth $20.89 million) into Binance, Bybit, and OKX exchanges.

Coinbase has reached an agreement to acquire prediction market company The Clearing Company.

According to its official blog, Coinbase announced an agreement to acquire The Clearing Company, a startup focused on prediction markets, to accelerate its prediction market business development as part of its vision of becoming an "all-encompassing exchange." The acquisition aims to leverage The Clearing Company team's expertise in prediction markets to expand and strengthen the scale of prediction market trading on the Coinbase platform. The company began offering prediction market trading to users last week, allowing them to trade the outcomes of real-world events within a familiar interface. Coinbase stated that this acquisition, combining professional talent with compliant market access, will lay the foundation for long-term expansion in this field.

Magic Eden: Starting February 1st, 15% of all revenue will be directly injected into the ME token ecosystem.

According to official news, Magic Eden announced that starting February 1st, the platform will directly inject 15% of all revenue into the ME token ecosystem to establish long-term value sharing between the platform and the ecosystem. This revenue will be distributed equally: 50% will be used to repurchase ME tokens on the open market, and 50% will be distributed to $ME stakers in USDC according to their staking weight. This move will replace the previous repurchase mechanism, which was limited to market revenue. USDC rewards can be claimed monthly, with the first claim opening in March. Rewards must be claimed within 90 days; otherwise, they will expire.

OpenAI plans to launch its first hardware device in the second half of 2026.

According to *Walter Bloomberg, Chris Lehane, OpenAI's head of policy, revealed that the company plans to launch its first hardware device in the second half of 2026. Since acquiring Jony Ive's AI hardware company io, CEO Sam Altman has teased a simple, screenless AI device, but specific details have remained limited. Lehane stated that OpenAI expects to release the product by the end of 2026, although a sales date has not yet been determined.

The Central Political and Legal Work Conference called for conducting forward-looking research on emerging issues such as virtual currencies and proactively proposing legislative suggestions.

According to the official WeChat account of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Central Political and Legal Work Conference was held in Beijing from January 18th to 19th. The conference studied and planned the political and legal work for 2026, emphasizing the need for forward-looking research and proactive legislative suggestions on emerging issues such as the protection of the rights and interests of new employment groups, virtual currencies, and the low-altitude economy. It also stressed the importance of strengthening research on new technologies, strictly preventing the use of blockchain and other encryption technologies to evade regulation, and legally cracking down on the use of artificial intelligence technologies to generate and disseminate false information.

Analysis: A recovery in the crypto market in 2026 requires ETF expansion, large-cap market leadership, or a return of retail investor attention.

According to Windtermute analysis, the traditional "four-year cycle" of the crypto market has become ineffective, and the market performance in 2025 signifies the industry's shift from speculation to a more mature asset class. The market in 2025 exhibited extreme concentration. Bitcoin ETFs and Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) formed a "capital siege," providing sustained demand for large-cap assets, but capital did not naturally rotate to the broader market. Over-the-counter trading data shows that the wealth transmission effect from Bitcoin to Ethereum, then to blue chips and altcoins, was significantly weakened in 2025. The average rebound cycle for altcoins shortened from 60 days in 2024 to 20 days. The report points out that for the market to break through concentration in 2026, at least one of the following three conditions needs to be met: 1. ETFs and DATs expand their investment scope: Currently, new liquidity is still confined to institutional channels, and their investable scope needs to be expanded. ETF applications for SOL and XRP have shown early signs of this. 2. Strong rise in large-cap assets: A strong rise in Bitcoin or Ethereum could generate a wealth spillover effect, driving the broader market. 3. Retail investor attention returns: Retail investor attention is shifting from currently hot stock market themes such as AI and rare earths back to the crypto sector, bringing new funds and stablecoin minting. The market trend in 2026 will depend on whether these catalysts can truly channel liquidity beyond at least a few large-cap assets.

YZi Labs announces investment in Genius, an on-chain transaction terminal.

According to its official blog, YZi Labs announced an investment in Genius, a professional on-chain trading terminal, to accelerate the development of a private, high-speed on-chain trading platform. This investment aims to support the infrastructure that can provide centralized exchange-level speed, liquidity, and privacy while maintaining complete user ownership of their assets. Genius's core strength lies in its "phantom order" type, which utilizes multi-party computation technology to generate simultaneously coordinated temporary wallet clusters. This allows large traders to execute complex strategies across hundreds of addresses, while ensuring the confidentiality of the fund flow and supporting cryptographic auditing. The system remains non-custodial. The new funding will be used to accelerate the development of its privacy protocol to support its planned public access launch by the end of 2026 and to expand liquidity on more than 10 supported chains.

PancakeSwap: The maximum supply of CAKE tokens has now been adjusted to 400 million.

PancakeSwap announced on its X platform that the proposal to reduce the maximum supply of CAKE tokens has been approved, and the maximum supply has now been adjusted to 400 million CAKE tokens.

The EU will hold an emergency summit to address Trump's "island-grabbing" tariffs.

According to Xinhua News Agency, European Commission spokesperson Olof Gir stated on the 19th that the EU will hold an emergency summit in Brussels, Belgium on the 22nd to discuss issues such as US President Trump's announcement of tariffs on European countries opposing the US acquisition of Greenland, and to assess possible EU countermeasures. Gir said that in response to Trump's tariff threats, EU-US contact and communication are continuing "at all levels." The EU is also holding intensive consultations with member states on possible countermeasures. The EU will "make every necessary effort" to protect its own interests. Gir stated that the EU's primary task is "engagement, not escalation." However, he said that if the US implements the aforementioned tariffs, "the EU has the tools at its disposal and is prepared to respond."

YZi Labs launches the third season of EASY Residency, and adjusts to a year-round rolling enrollment model.

According to an official announcement from YZi Labs, its EASY Residency program will shift from a fixed-batch admissions system to a year-round rolling admissions model for its third season, and will establish long-term startup centers in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. The program offers selected projects up to $500,000 in investment, including a $150,000 SAFE investment and an additional $350,000 on top of the unlimited SAFE program. Selected teams will receive office space, housing allowances, and resources from partners such as Amazon AWS. Three global demo days will be held throughout the year, the first of which will take place in April during the TOKEN2049 conference in Dubai. The third season focuses on Web3, AI, and biotechnology, seeking early-stage projects in areas such as on-chain trading markets, stablecoins and payment infrastructure, tokenized real-world assets, enterprise AI agents, robotics, and new drug development. Accelerator mentors and speakers include prominent industry figures such as Binance co-founders Changpeng Zhao and He Yi, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

The New York Stock Exchange announced that it is developing a tokenized securities platform.

According to Businesswire, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has announced it is developing a tokenized securities trading and on-chain settlement platform and will seek regulatory approval for it. The platform will support a tokenized trading experience, including 24/7 operation, instant settlement, USD-denominated orders, and stablecoin-based funding. Its design integrates the exchange's Pillar matching engine and a blockchain-based post-trade processing system, and will support multi-chain settlement and custody. Upon regulatory approval, the platform will provide the NYSE with a new trading venue supporting the trading of tokenized stocks interchangeable with traditional securities, as well as natively issued digital security tokens. Tokenized shareholders will enjoy traditional shareholder dividends and corporate governance rights. The trading venue is designed in accordance with established market structure principles and will be distributed to all qualified broker-dealers through non-discriminatory channels.

A major whale borrowed 155 million USDT and purchased 65,700 stETH in the past four hours.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, the whale "0x81D" borrowed an additional 155 million USDT and purchased 65,700 stETH in the past four hours. Currently, this whale holds a total of 142,777 ETH through two wallets, worth $460.11 million.

Garrett Jin, a whale: The current Bitcoin market is fundamentally different from that of 2022; it's too early to be bearish.

Garrett Jin, suspected to be the "1011 insider whale," posted on the X platform that comparing the current Bitcoin market to 2022 is highly unprofessional. He believes there are fundamental differences between the two from the perspectives of long-term price structure, macroeconomic background, investor composition, and chip distribution. He points out that the current macroeconomic environment is diametrically opposed to the high-inflation and interest rate hike cycle of 2022: the situation in Ukraine is easing, CPI and risk-free interest rates are declining, and the AI technology revolution is likely to drive the economy into a long-term deflationary cycle. Interest rates have entered a phase of rate cuts, and central bank liquidity is returning to the financial system, defining the risk-averse behavior of capital. Since 2020, Bitcoin and CPI year-on-year changes have shown a clear negative correlation, and with the AI-driven technological revolution, long-term deflation is a high-probability outcome. Technically, 2021-2022 formed a weekly M-top structure, while 2025 represents a break in the upward channel, probabilistically more likely a "bear trap" before a rebound. He pointed out that for a bear market like the one in 2022 to repeat itself, stringent conditions must be met simultaneously, including a resurgence of inflationary shocks, central banks restarting interest rate hikes or quantitative tightening, and a decisive price drop below $80,850. It's premature to be bearish before these conditions are met. Regarding investor structure, 2020-2022 was a highly leveraged speculative market dominated by retail investors. Since the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in 2023, structural long-term holders have entered the market, effectively locking up supply and significantly reducing trading speed and volatility. Bitcoin has shifted from its historical volatility of 80-150% to a range of 30-60%, becoming a distinctly different asset. The current market has entered a more mature institutional era, characterized by stable underlying demand, locked-up supply, and institutional-level volatility.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister stated that the country's government is seeking investment partners to mine Bitcoin.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, the Ethiopian Prime Minister stated that the country's government is seeking investment partners to mine Bitcoin.

Strive's perpetual preferred stock has reached a par value of $100 for the first time, which may help it continue to increase its Bitcoin holdings.

According to CoinDesk, Strive's perpetual preferred stock (SATA) reached a par value of $100 per share for the first time last Friday, a level that allows it to sell more shares to raise funds for further Bitcoin purchases. The stock offers a 12% dividend yield, resulting in an effective yield of 12.2%. Strive currently holds 12,797 bitcoins on its balance sheet, with its common stock priced at $0.94. The SATA structure is similar to Stretch (STRC), a similar product from another Bitcoin reserve company, Strategy. Trading above par value means the company can raise cash through an at-the-market (ATM) issuance channel to increase its Bitcoin holdings. STRC reached par value earlier this month, with $755 million in trading volume last week, of which $582 million occurred above par value, the highest single-week total to date.

A major whale has added another 8,085 ETH to its position, bringing its total holdings to 50,537.79 ETH in the past 24 hours.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, a whale that "built a position of 42,452.79 ETH in a single day" has added another 8,085 ETH to its position. This address, 0x81D…74246, bought ETH again on-chain in the past 45 minutes at an average price of $3,932.8, spending $31.79 million; in the past 24 hours, it has accumulated a position of 50,537.79 ETH, with a total value of $162 million. The accumulation appears to be continuing.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate: Intensify anti-money laundering efforts, with a focus on punishing crimes such as money laundering through underground banks and virtual currencies.

According to Xinhua News Agency, at the National Procurators' Conference held in Beijing on January 19, the Supreme People's Procuratorate made arrangements for fully utilizing the power of the rule of law to serve high-quality development. The Supreme People's Procuratorate required procuratorial organs to safeguard economic and financial security according to law, severely punish serious economic crimes, and promote a rule-of-law business environment. The Supreme People's Procuratorate also required the severe punishment of crimes such as smuggling and exporting strategic minerals to safeguard national strategic interests; to work with the State Financial Regulatory Commission and other relevant departments to govern the chaos of illegal intermediaries in the financial sector according to law, severely punish crimes such as illegal fundraising and financial fraud, crack down on the entire chain of financial "black and gray industries," ensure the sound operation of the financial system, and protect the property safety of the people; and to intensify anti-money laundering efforts, focusing on punishing crimes such as money laundering through underground banks and virtual currencies. The Supreme People's Procuratorate proposed to work with the China Securities Regulatory Commission to deepen the rule of law in the capital market, improve the securities procuratorial resident work mechanism, and severely punish securities crimes such as financial fraud and market manipulation to safeguard the security of the capital market.

CoinShares: Net inflows of $2.17 billion into digital asset investment products last week.

According to CoinShares' latest weekly report, digital asset investment products saw inflows of $2.17 billion last week, the largest weekly inflow since October 10, 2025. Inflows were stronger earlier in the week, but market sentiment turned negative on Friday, with $378 million flowing out due to escalating diplomatic tensions in Greenland and renewed threats of additional tariffs. Furthermore, news that Kevin Hassett, a leading candidate for the next Federal Reserve Chair and a well-known policy dove, might remain in office also weighed on market sentiment. Regionally, market sentiment was generally positive, with the US leading the way with $2.05 billion in inflows, followed by Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the Netherlands with $63.9 million, $41.6 million, $12.3 million, and $6 million respectively. Bitcoin saw the largest inflows at $1.55 billion. Despite the Senate Banking Committee's Clarity Act potentially restricting stablecoin yields, Ethereum and Solana still recorded inflows of $496 million and $45.5 million respectively. Numerous altcoins also saw inflows, most notably XRP ($69.5 million), Sui ($5.7 million), LIDO ($3.7 million), and Hedera ($2.6 million). Blockchain stocks performed exceptionally well this week, with total inflows reaching $72.6 million.

A wallet suspected to be linked to Fenbushi Capital deposited 7,798 ETH, worth $25 million, into Binance.

According to Lookonchain, a wallet that may be associated with Fenbushi Capital has just deposited 7,798 ETH (worth $25 million) into Binance after staking for two years.