Important information last night and this morning (January 7th - January 8th)

U.S. CFTC Chairman warns of “void” in cryptocurrency regulation 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, is still insufficient and worrying. He warned of regulatory “gaps” in the U.S. cryptocurrency market and called for greater regulation of digital assets. He will leave office on January 20, the day President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

During his tenure as CFTC chairman, Behnam pushed for the first federal carbon offset guidelines and increased scrutiny of cryptocurrencies and event contracts, such as election betting. He also led the CFTC’s lawsuit against Binance, which resulted in a $4.3 billion settlement. Behnam said that the CFTC has the ability to become a regulator of digital commodity assets, but currently most areas of U.S. crypto assets remain unregulated. He stressed the need for comprehensive, strict regulations rather than quick fixes.

Trump has yet to name 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 US$2 billion at a valuation of US$60 billion

According to the Wall Street Journal reported by Jiemian News, artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is in negotiations to raise US$2 billion. This deal will bring its valuation to US$60 billion, more than three times its valuation a year ago. According to people familiar with the matter, 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. The deal will make Anthropic the fifth most valuable U.S. startup after SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks, according to data provider CB Insights. Anthropic was valued at $18 billion in a funding round last year led by Menlo Ventures.

People familiar with the matter: Spanish banks are developing regulatory and operational frameworks to offer cryptocurrency ETPs

Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, forwarded the news disclosed by insider Luis Berruga on the Adoption should accelerate across Europe in the coming months.”

Telegram provided details of over 2,000 users to US authorities in 2024

In 2024, messaging app Telegram significantly increased its response to data requests, providing details of more than 2,000 users to U.S. authorities, Protos reported. This 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 U.S. requests, affecting 2,253 users. The surge followed the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August. After Durov was arrested, Telegram updated its privacy policy to make it clear that it would provide IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities in response to a valid legal order, whereas previously such information was only provided in requests related to terrorism crimes. Telegram has long been seen as the communication tool of choice 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 US$27.4 billion to US$36.5 billion annually. In addition, unlicensed crypto exchanges are also promoting money laundering services on Telegram, and there are even advertisements claiming to "process 3 million USDT of overseas stolen funds every day."

Ripple CEO shares photo of himself having dinner with Trump on Monday night

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared a photo of himself, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, and US President-elect Trump on the The year has started strong.”

Sol Strategies secures C$25M credit line to invest in Solana ecosystem

According to The Block, Canadian listed company Sol Strategies announced on Monday that it will invest CAD 25 million in the Solana ecosystem through an unsecured credit line. This is the latest step in the company’s transformation into one of Solana’s largest stakers and ecosystem players. According to the announcement, the unsecured revolving credit facility has an annual interest rate of 5%, calculated on a daily basis. Wald said the financing package provides the most favorable structure for shareholders. The company has withdrawn $4 million in principal and plans to use the remaining funds to purchase Solana tokens on a large scale to support staking 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, in July this year, it hired Leah Wald as CEO and shifted its focus to the Solana ecosystem. To focus its resources, Sol Strategies sold multiple investments, including its stake in its second-largest holding, Animoca Brands, and directly invested in SOL tokens and Solana validation nodes. As of December 31, 2024, Sol Strategies had more than 1.5 million SOL tokens (valued at approximately C$450 million) staked through its validator node operations, including 140,000 SOL held by the company.

New York judge grants Coinbase’s interlocutory appeal request, halting SEC lawsuit

According to The Block, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday approved Coinbase’s interlocutory appeal request, temporarily suspending the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against the exchange. Interlocutory appeals are appeals filed before a judge makes a final decision, and such requests are rarely granted. The case will next go to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In his order, Judge Failla noted that the case raises a key legal issue regarding the scope of the Howey test in crypto-assets, an issue that is subject to significant disagreement, and that its resolution will help drive the final ruling on the SEC’s enforcement action. She stressed that further clarification from the Second Circuit was needed because of “conflicting authoritative interpretations” of the application of the Howey test to crypto-assets. Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said that this decision is another blow to the SEC leadership’s attempts to create continued uncertainty and confusion, and thanked Judge Failla for allowing the interlocutory appeal.

Arbitrum awards largest-ever developer grant to South Korean giant Rakuten to promote Caliverse blockchain integration

Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum has awarded South Korea’s Lotte Group its largest ever developer grant, CoinDesk reports. Lotte Group is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with operations in shopping malls, media and entertainment. The funding, provided by the Arbitrum Foundation, is intended to support Rakuten’s Metaverse gaming platform Caliverse and solidify Arbitrum’s position as its primary blockchain infrastructure provider. Offchain Labs shared the news at the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. A representative for the company declined to disclose the exact amount of the funding "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 fuel the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem. Rakuten showed interest in the Metaverse as early as 2022 and reached a strategic cooperation with Arbitrum last year. Caliverse is Rakuten's testing ground for exploring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and encryption technologies, where users can experience virtual shopping, concerts and other media content. Currently, Caliverse has cooperated with 7-Eleven, Tomorrowland Music Festival, and fashion brands such as Givenchy and MCM.

Usual will turn on the token fee switch before February 1st

Usual announced the launch of the “Revenue Switch” mechanism to distribute protocol revenue directly to $USUAL stakers. The activation condition is that more than 50% of $USUAL is pledged as USUALx, or it will automatically start at UTC+0 on February 1, 2025. Rewards are limited to full-month holders, and long-term staking is encouraged.

Jambo will launch J tokens on Solana this month with a total supply of 1 billion

Web3 mobile infrastructure provider Jambo 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, sold more than 650,000 JamboPhones, covered 128 countries, and created 4.5 million+ blockchain wallets.

JamboPhone 2 is positioned in the mass market at a price of US$99. Each phone comes pre-installed with top partner applications, supports multi-chain wallets, built-in dApp stores and JamboGPT. The development of Jambo is inseparable from the support of Paradigm, OKX, Coinbase, Pantera Capital and other institutions.

BlO Protocol now lists 6 new IP tokens

BIO Protocol announced that 6 new IP tokens are now available for trading, covering areas such as Alzheimer's disease, industrial hemp fiber, ovarian aging and cryopreservation.

In 2024, ETFs and listed companies bought a total of 859,454 BTC, absorbing 4.3% of the circulating supply in one year.

According to unfolded. data, in 2024, ETFs and listed companies alone purchased 859,454 Bitcoins. This is equivalent to absorbing 4.3% of the circulating supply in one year, which is roughly equivalent to the amount of Bitcoin issued over the next eight years.

The Bitcoin ETF had a net inflow of 8,238 BTC today, and the Ethereum ETF had a net inflow of 33,780 ETH.

According to Lookonchain statistics, on January 7, Bitcoin ETF had a net inflow of 8,238 BTC (approximately US$829 million), of which Fidelity added 3,625 BTC (approximately US$365 million), and its total holdings reached 209,135 BTC (approximately US$365 million). 21.05 billion U.S. dollars). The Ethereum ETF had a net inflow of 33,780 ETH (approximately US$123 million), of which iShares (BlackRock) added 33,618 ETH (approximately US$122 million), with its total holdings reaching 1,114,423 ETH (approximately US$4.05 billion).

MicroStrategy to buy over $22 billion in Bitcoin in 2024

Michael Saylor tweeted that MicroStrategy will purchase 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 coin. The annual Bitcoin holding return rate reached 74.3%, achieving a net increase of 140,630 coins (approximately 385 coins per day). Based on Bitcoin’s current price of $100,000, this has created a value of $14.06 billion for shareholders, equivalent to approximately $38.5 million per day.

Pump.Fun once again deposits 98,593 SOL to Kraken, worth $20 million

According to OnchainLens monitoring, Pump.Fun once again deposited 98,593 SOL to Kraken, worth US$20 million. So far, they have deposited a total of 1,662,648 SOL to Kraken, worth $340 million. In total, they earned 2,127,036 SOL, worth $431.51 million.