US regulators conducting tokenization pilot, using stablecoins as collateral
According to CoinDesk, Caroline Pham, acting head of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is promoting a tokenization pilot program backed by stablecoins, and an upcoming summit will invite executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Circle, Crypto.com and other digital asset companies to participate. The specific date and further details of the Digital Asset CEO Forum have not yet been determined. Last November, Fan proposed the idea of a tokenization regulatory sandbox through his advisory committee, the Global Markets Advisory Committee, but the agency's previous leadership did not adopt it. "I am pleased to announce this groundbreaking initiative for the U.S. digital asset market," Acting Chairman Pham said in a statement on Friday. "I look forward to working with market participants to deliver on the Trump administration's commitment to ensure that the United States leads the world in economic opportunities." According to the agency, this plan, based on what Fan calls the concept of "responsible innovation," will promote the use of non-cash collateral through distributed ledger technology. In its recommendations last November, Pham's advisory committee had expected to allow market participants to experiment with non-traditional collateral. “By improving the operational infrastructure of assets that are already eligible for regulatory margin, blockchain or other distributed ledger technologies (DLT) could help reduce or eliminate some of the challenges without changing collateral eligibility rules,” the recommendation states. “Market participants could also use their existing policies, procedures, practices and processes to identify, assess and manage the risks of using DLT, just as they do with other forms of market infrastructure and technology.”
Florida Senator Introduces Bitcoin Investment Bill
According to The Block, Florida Republican Senator Joe Gruters filed a bill on Friday proposing to allow the state to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. According to the filing, the senator suggested that Florida's chief financial officer could use public funds to "invest in Bitcoin and other digital assets for specific purposes." Gruters' bill outlines that Florida's chief financial officer "shall not invest more than 10% of the total funds in any account" in Bitcoin. Some of the sources of public funds mentioned in the bill that can be used to invest in Bitcoin include general revenue funds, budget stabilization funds, trust funds, and "all institutional funds of each state agency and judicial department." The bill also proposes to "authorize the trustee of the State Administrative Commission to invest and reinvest available funds from the system trust fund in Bitcoin... and provide that public funds for Bitcoin investments are not subject to certain security requirements." Last October, Florida's chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis said the state held about $800 million in "crypto-related" investments. He also said that if Trump becomes president, the amount of state government investment in crypto assets may increase.
Kentucky and Maryland lawmakers separately proposed "Bitcoin Reserve" bills
As Utah becomes the first state to pass legislation allowing public funds to be invested in crypto assets, two more states joined the ranks this week: Kentucky and Maryland, according to CoinDesk. Although the state initiatives are broadly related to the so-called "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve" plan at the Republican-led federal level, the states have proposed their own measures, and the specific ways of investing state funds in digital assets vary. This week, Maryland Democratic Representative Caylin Young introduced a new bill to promote the establishment of a Bitcoin strategic reserve, similar to the reserve envisioned by U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis. In Maryland, the reserve will be funded by law enforcement revenue from gambling violations. Legislation in Kentucky was also introduced this week, and there are currently two bills that will allow state retirement funds to invest in digital asset ETFs. These bills will also set up obstacles to the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Fifteen other states are weighing related legislation in the current session, and more states are expected to follow suit. Two other states - Michigan and Wisconsin - have already invested part of their retirement funds in crypto ETFs. As of now, 22 states have enacted bills, are seriously discussing proposals, or have already begun investing in cryptocurrencies.
US SEC postpones decision on BlackRock Ethereum ETF options trading to April 9
According to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday postponed its decision on whether to approve BlackRock to list and trade options on its spot Ethereum ETF. According to the filing, the SEC said it will decide on April 9, 2025 whether to approve or refuse to allow BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust to trade options. The SEC said: "The Commission believes it is necessary to specify a longer time to issue an order approving or rejecting the proposed rule change to allow sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues it raises." Also on Friday, the SEC solicited public comments on a proposal submitted by Cboe BZX Exchange on behalf of Fidelity to list and trade options on its spot Ethereum ETF. These comments are required to be submitted within 21 days of publication in the Federal Register.
According to Caixin, after nearly two years of investigation, Hao Gang, former deputy director of the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in the first instance. According to Caixin's understanding from multiple channels, Hao Gang was involved in Bitcoin money laundering; in addition, he also assisted a senior executive of a leading Bitcoin mining company to lift border control, and the bribes may have reached 10 million yuan. On February 6, 2025, the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court publicly sentenced Hao Gang's bribery and money laundering case in accordance with the law, and sentenced the defendant Hao Gang to eight years in prison for bribery and a fine of RMB 500,000; sentenced to four years in prison for money laundering and a fine of RMB 800,000, and decided to execute eleven years in prison and a fine of RMB 1.3 million. The illegal gains and interest from his bribery will be recovered, confiscated, and turned over to the state treasury.
The seasonally adjusted non-farm payrolls in the United States in January were 143,000, compared with expectations of 170,000 and the previous value of 256,000. The unemployment rate in the United States in January was 4%, compared with expectations of 4.1% and the previous value of 4.1%.
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev has been temporarily released by a Dutch court
According to Bitcoin.com, after spending nine months in a Dutch prison, Alexey Pertsev, one of the developers of Tornado Cash, was temporarily released on Friday, but he still faces a 64-month (5 years and 4 months) sentence. In a recent positive turn of events, the court released Alexey Pertsev and placed him under house arrest and electronic monitoring until his trial date. Pertsev posted on the X platform: "Freedom is priceless. My house arrest was only possible through the efforts of my lawyers, who were paid for with your donations. My struggle is not over yet. For the final victory and confidence, I still need everyone's help." Earlier yesterday, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev was granted conditional release in order to appeal.
Trump: DeepSeek is a very positive development, not a bad thing
According to the financial sector, US President Trump expressed his views on DeepSeek and whether it poses a national security threat, saying that this is a developing technology, and if it is developed correctly, we will benefit from it because the cost of artificial intelligence involved now will be much lower than people initially thought, which is a good thing. Trump emphasized that it should be seen as a very positive development, not a bad thing.
Alibaba denies rumors of investment in DeepSeek
Alibaba denied the rumor of investing in DeepSeek. A relevant person said that as a company in Hangzhou, China, we applaud DeepSeek, but the rumor that Alibaba invested in DeepSeek is fake news.
Meta to conduct company-wide layoffs starting next week
According to Jinshi, an internal memo shows that Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) plans to carry out expected layoffs across the company next week while accelerating the recruitment of machine learning engineers. The memo shows that layoff notices in most countries (including the United States) will be issued starting at 5 a.m. local time on Monday. Employees in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands are not affected by layoffs "due to local regulations", while employees in more than a dozen other countries in Europe, Asia and Africa will receive notices between February 11 and February 18.
Solayer has opened LAYER token airdrop qualification inquiry
The Solayer Foundation announced on the X platform that the LAYER token airdrop qualification query is now open. Yesterday, Solayer announced the LAYER token economics: the maximum supply is 1 billion, and 51.23% is allocated to the community and ecosystem.
According to The Block, American rapper Kanye West said on social media that he hopes to have a dialogue with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on "cryptocurrency-related matters." Prior to this, he revealed that he had received a $2 million proposal asking him to issue tokens, but he rejected the proposal and stopped cooperating with the proposer. According to the chat screenshots released by Kanye, this cooperation requires Kanye to promote a RUG disk Meme coin, pay $750,000 in advance, and Kanye can announce that his account has been stolen 8 hours after posting, and pay another $1.25 million 16 hours after posting. The man behind the scenes said that this cooperation can make tens of millions of dollars in profit.
According to CoinDesk, DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert is betting heavily on decentralized artificial intelligence (deAI), calling it "the next major era of cryptocurrency" with potential that could even surpass Bitcoin. In a letter to shareholders from Digital Currency Group (DCG), the cryptocurrency group he leads, Silbert expressed strong optimism about deAI: this is the crypto industry's effort to merge artificial intelligence innovation with blockchain technology. He believes that this technological fusion may bring greater returns to humanity than the closed systems developed by OpenAI and other giants. "We are moving from digital ownership of assets to decentralized ownership of intelligence and the availability of vast decentralized computing resources," Silbert wrote in his fourth-quarter letter. He said the company has invested $105 million in a dozen deAI projects and is looking forward to increasing investment in 2025. He specifically mentioned DCG's investment in Bittensor, a crypto network focused on machine learning and AI applications, and wrote that Bittensor's TAO token has many similarities with Bitcoin. DCG plans to invest heavily to support the Bittensor ecosystem. Silbert pointed out that DCG established a company called Yuma in November last year to incubate Bittensor’s infrastructure projects. In addition, Grayscale, another company under DCG, now also offers investment products related to TAO.
Layer3 gaming network B3 will launch B3 tokens and airdrop on February 10
B3, a Layer3 gaming network built on Base, announced on Friday that it will launch its recently announced B3 token on February 10, accompanied by an airdrop event, according to Decrypt. A snapshot of network activity will be taken before the planned "S1 airdrop", and there will be more airdrops, tournaments, and gamified ways to earn B3 in the future. According to a post on the X platform, B3 stakers will receive certain benefits, including tokens for dedicated game chains, early access to new games on the network, and other potential rewards. The post also briefly introduced the token economics: 34.2% of the token supply will be allocated to the community and ecosystem, 23.3% to the team and advisors, 22.5% to the Player1 Foundation to support the B3 ecosystem, and 20% reserved for investors. Tokens for investors, team members, and advisors will have a one-year lock-up period, followed by monthly unlocking over the next three years. The total supply of B3 has not yet been announced.
Telegram Game TapSwap to Launch Its TAPS Token on BNB Chain, Not TON Network
According to Decrypt, the Telegram-based click-to-earn game TapSwap announced that its upcoming TAPS token will be released on BNB Chain instead of the originally planned TON network. The game was originally scheduled to complete the token airdrop in late January, but recently said that the token launch was postponed based on the advice of an unnamed "first-level" decentralized exchange in order to find better market conditions. However, after completing the first season of the game on February 6, the project decided to advance the token launch on BNB Chain, which is expected to take place on February 14 according to an X post earlier this week. The project said: "The release of TAPS tokens on BNB Chain will enhance speed, security and accessibility, making TapSwap more attractive to players and investors." Users will earn the upcoming tokens based on their overall participation in the TapSwap click-to-earn game. However, in the future, the game plans to transform from the click-to-earn model and integrate skill-based gameplay. In early January, Telegram and TON announced an exclusive agreement requiring all mini-games or applications that integrate cryptocurrencies to use TON exclusively. However, despite TapSwap having previously touted its partnership with TON, it made no mention of Telegram or any migration plans in its token launch announcement.
Coinbase adds MORPHO, PENGU, and POPCAT to its top coin roadmap
According to the announcement of Coinbase Assets, Morpho Token (MORPHO), Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) and Popcat (SOL) (POPCAT) have been added to the coin listing roadmap today.
Vitalik Buterin posted on social media that he would respect Apple more if it publicly promised to withdraw from the UK market if it could not avoid breaking encryption. He stressed that if Apple took this action, he would buy and use an additional Apple device (currently only owns AirPods). It was previously reported that the British government asked Apple to create a backdoor to allow security agencies to access the encrypted iCloud backups of users around the world and prohibit Apple from notifying users that their data security has been compromised. At the same time, the US NSA, FBI and other agencies have recommended strengthening end-to-end encryption to protect network traffic, but the UK has not joined the initiative.
Story Protocol announces token economic model, 58.4% will be allocated to the community
Story Protocol, a Layer 1 network backed by a16z, unveiled the economic model of its native token IP to support the upcoming mainnet launch. The initial supply of IP tokens is 1 billion, of which 58.4% will be allocated to the community (including initial incentives, ecosystems, and foundations) to ensure broad participation and decentralized ownership. 21.6% will be allocated to early investors and 20% to core contributors. In addition, the initial unlocked supply is set at 25%. Officials said that the staking mechanism will follow the "fair launch principle" and will not provide additional rewards to the foundation or early contributors, and all community members can obtain staking income simultaneously. Story Protocol was developed by PIP Labs and completed a $80 million Series B financing in August last year, led by a16z, with participation from Polychain Capital, Stability AI director Scott Trowbridge, and K11 founder Adrian Cheng.
BlackRock increases its stake in Strategy to 5%, STRK rises 5% pre-market
According to CoinDesk, BlackRock (BLK) disclosed in its latest 13G filing that its stake in Strategy (MSTR) has increased to 5%, about 11.2 million shares, an increase of 0.91% from 4.09% on September 30, 2024. 13G filings are usually used to disclose passive investments, that is, investors have no intention of influencing or controlling the company. At the same time, Strategy's perpetual preferred stock (STRK) has been listed on the Nasdaq, with a 2% increase in first-day trading, a trading volume of more than 650,000 shares, and a further 5% increase in pre-market trading.
CNBC: SoftBank is now set to invest $40 billion in OpenAI, with a valuation of $260 billion
According to CNBC: SoftBank is currently set to invest $40 billion in OpenAI, with a valuation of $260 billion.
Later news came out that SoftBank may replace Microsoft as OpenAI's largest investor .
Source: OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's new artificial intelligence startup will be valued at more than $20 billion in a new round of financing. Last June, it was reported that OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever established a new artificial intelligence company SSI.
According to PRNewswire, experiential reward technology company Superlogic announced the completion of the first round of Series A financing of US$13.7 million, led by Powerledger, and investors include Sangha Capital, 10SQ, Nima Capital, Actai Unicorn Fund, Hyla Liquid Venture Fund, Liquid 2 Ventures, etc. In addition, blockchain and enterprise funds such as Amex Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Mirabaud Lifestyle Impact and Innovation, and Recharge Capital also participated in the investment. This round of financing brings Superlogic's total equity financing to over US$21 million, which will accelerate its provision of white-label experience technology for global brands. Superlogic uses AI-driven technology to provide customers with personalized reward experiences, and helps brands improve user loyalty through API integration or white-label platforms. Powerledger Executive Chairman Dr. Jemma Green joins the board of directors and plans to promote Superlogic's business expansion in sustainable development.
Prodigy.Fi Completes $5 Million Seed Round and Receives Funding from Berachain Foundation
According to the official announcement of Prodigy.Fi, the decentralized yield and on-chain dual investment trading platform Prodigy.Fi announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Quantstamp and Republic, with participation from Arbelosxyz, PANONY Group, RSK Capital and Samara Alpha. This round of financing will be used to promote its DeFi yield mining and trading product development on Berachain. In addition, ProdigyFi has also received RFB funding from the Berachain Foundation and plans to distribute 10%-15% of BERA to testnet users as rewards.
Riot Platforms grew against the trend, with Bitcoin production reaching 527 in January
According to CoinDesk, Riot Platforms (RIOT) mined 527 bitcoins (BTC) in January, the highest monthly output since December 2023, up 2% from the previous month. In contrast, most major mining companies saw a decline in production in January, such as MARA Holdings (750 BTC, down 13%), Cleanspark (626 BTC, down 6%), Core Scientific (down 13%), Hut 8 (down 31%), etc. Miners are generally affected by the rising difficulty of Bitcoin mining, which is expected to hit a record high of over 108.11T on February 9. Despite the increased challenges, Riot CEO Jason Les said the company has increased production for two consecutive months. Since the beginning of the year, Cipher Mining's stock price has risen 27%, RIOT, IREN and CLSK have also recorded double-digit gains, while Bitdeer (BTDR) has fallen 25%.
According to Uniswap Labs' announcement, the monthly transaction volume of the Uniswap protocol on the Base chain hit a new high, with the total transaction volume reaching US$20.81 billion in January 2025.
A whale withdrew 1.7 million UNI from Binance in 4 days, worth about 15.54 million US dollars
According to Lookonchain, a whale is increasing its holdings of Uniswap (UNI). In the past four days, the address has withdrawn a total of 1.7 million UNI from Binance, worth about $15.54 million.
Grayscale address changes: over $360 million in BTC transferred on a large scale
On-chain data shows that multiple addresses under Grayscale have just transferred large amounts of Bitcoin (BTC), with a total amount of over $360 million, involving 4,457 BTC. The largest single transfer amount reached 694.019 BTC (about $67.96 million), and other large transactions included 692.684 BTC (67.83 million), 633.691 BTC (62.05 million), 557.457 BTC (54.59 million), 549.336 BTC (53.79 million), etc. All funds were transferred to multiple new addresses, and the specific purpose is still unclear.
