Today's top news highlights:

Macro & Regulatory

European stocks opened sharply lower as tariff risks between the US and Europe reignited.

European stock markets opened sharply lower today after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on eight European countries over Greenland. The Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 1.7%, the German DAX index fell 1.3%, the UK FTSE 100 index fell 0.4%, the French CAC 40 index fell 0.7%, and the Italian FTSE MIB index fell 1.6%.

China's GDP growth target is 5% by 2025.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics: Preliminary calculations show that China's GDP reached 140,187.9 billion yuan in 2025, a 5.0% increase over the previous year. The per capita disposable income of residents nationwide was 43,377 yuan, a nominal increase of 5.0% over the previous year. In December, the electricity generation of industrial enterprises above designated size was 858.6 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 0.1%. In 2025, national online retail sales increased by 8.6% year-on-year.

US Treasury Secretary Bessant: The Senate will be satisfied with the current four candidates for Federal Reserve Chair.

According to Jinshi News, U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessant stated that Trump is committed to ensuring the independence of the Federal Reserve. "We have four excellent candidates for Federal Reserve Chair. I believe the Senate would be satisfied with the election of any of these four candidates."

Previous reports indicated that Trump might drop Hassett's nomination, with Kevin Warsh leading the predictions for the next Federal Reserve Chairman .

US Treasury Secretary Bessant: Unlikely chance of the Supreme Court overturning Trump's tariffs

According to Jinshi News, US Treasury Secretary Bessant stated that the Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn Trump's tariffs, as a trade agreement with the EU has not yet been finalized. Trump possesses emergency powers to invoke tariffs.

The crypto industry is divided on the market structure bill: Kraken, Ripple, a16z, and others hold opposing views to Coinbase.

According to The Verge, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had previously indicated his intention to withdraw support for the Crypto Markets Structure Act (CLARITY), stating that he would "rather have no bill than a bad one." However, several major industry players hold opposing views. Kraken CEO Arjun Sethi stated that legacy issues should be resolved through negotiations rather than abandoning years of bipartisan cooperation. Chris Dixon, Managing Partner of a16z, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, and David Sacks, White House Special Advisor on AI and Cryptocurrency, also expressed similar views, urging all parties to resolve their differences by the end of the month. Seth Hertlein, Global Head of Policy at Ledger, pointed out that it's difficult to imagine a future environment as favorable as the current one. The industry generally feels that if legislation isn't completed now, it will either be impossible to achieve in the future or will proceed under very unfavorable conditions. The crypto industry does not want software availability or content distribution rights to change with each change of administration.

Project Updates

Caixin: Smart contract development for the digital yuan supports fully Turing-complete languages such as Ethereum's Solidity.

According to Caixin, a technical expert familiar with the digital yuan revealed that both smart contracts based on the account system and smart contracts on public blockchains are essentially "conditionally triggered, automatically executed code," differing only in whether they possess full Turing completeness. Smart contracts based on the account system are restricted Turing complete, with their programming strictly limited to template scripts permitted by the central bank, supporting only preset, simple condition-triggered functions. This design is primarily for security and risk control considerations. The development of digital yuan smart contracts supports multiple programming languages, including fully Turing complete languages such as Ethereum's Solidity, so the technology itself is not the problem. The core challenge lies in designing a standard access and auditing mechanism acceptable to the financial system.

ETHGas: GWEI airdrop eligibility will be available on January 20th, and the community airdrop will take place on January 21st.

According to official news, the ETHGas Foundation announced that the GWEI airdrop snapshot has been completed, with the snapshot time being 08:00 (UTC+8) on January 19, 2026. GWEI airdrop eligibility will be available from 21:00 (UTC+8) on January 20, and the community airdrop will take place from 21:00 (UTC+8) on January 21. Airdrop eligibility will be determined based on a user's historical gas consumption on the Ethereum mainnet and their social and community engagement records in the Gasless Future project. Eligible users must meet specific historical gas consumption thresholds using their Gas ID to track their gas usage on the Ethereum mainnet, and participate in designated community activities, including sharing their Gas ID on the X platform or engaging in social activities related to the Open Gas Initiative.

Aster has implemented an automatic buyback mechanism, using 20%-40% of its daily revenue to buy back $ASTER.

According to an Aster announcement, the platform has launched the Strategic Buyback Reserve mechanism. Based on the fifth phase of the buyback plan announced last month, 20%-40% of the platform's revenue will be automatically used daily to buy back $ASTER tokens. The initial on-chain buyback has already been executed through address 0x5E4969C41ca9F9831468B98328A370b7AbD5a397, aiming to dynamically respond to the market, reduce circulating supply, and strengthen the confidence of long-term holders.

X Updates Creator Revenue Sharing Rules: Replies will no longer be counted towards revenue; only homepage timeline views will be counted.

Nikita Bier, X's product manager and Solana consultant, stated that X has updated its creator revenue sharing rules. Replies will no longer be counted towards earnings; only impressions on the timeline of verified (Premium) users' profiles will be counted. However, if a reply itself appears on a Premium user's profile, it will still be included in the earnings.

Trove has rebuilt its DEX on Solana, and the launch date for the TROVE token has been delayed to January 19th.

Trove recently announced it will abandon its plans to deploy on Hyperliquid and instead rebuild its TROVE token and perpetual contract DEX on Solana. This strategic shift was triggered by liquidity providers who previously supported Hyperliquid withdrawing 500,000 HYPE tokens. The TROVE token's TGE expiration date has been postponed to January 19th at 24:00 (UTC+8). The project will arrange refunds of approximately $2.44 million to some ICO participants, which will be transferred to a multisignature account for subsequent distribution.

CZ responded to Binance's high fiat withdrawal fees: Increased usage will drive down fees, possibly related to banks.

CZ responded to Binance's high fiat withdrawal fees in a post on the X platform, stating, "It's a new product; the more people use it, the lower the liquidity becomes. Although I understand that the fee is from the bank, the more people use the product, the lower the fee will be." Previously, some community users reported that their chosen fee was a fixed $25, with a one-day arrival time, suitable for large withdrawals. The larger the withdrawal amount, the lower the relative fee loss. Some community users also claimed that the fee may have been reduced recently.

Michael Saylor has released another Bitcoin Tracker update; he may disclose his accumulating data next week.

Michael Saylor has released Bitcoin Tracker information again. Based on previous experience, Strategy may disclose its increased holdings next week.

Previously, Michael Saylor stated that Strategy's official website had added a "BTC Rating" metric .

FTX creditor representative: The next round of FTX compensation payments is underway, and some users have reported a significant increase in KYC requirements.

Sunil, a representative of FTX creditors, stated on the X platform that some users have reported passing the KYC verification for the next batch of FTX payouts, but are required to provide information such as their work experience over the past 10 years, trading strategies, trading history, and initial investment capital. Other users are still awaiting KYC verification approval. According to previous reports, registration for the next batch of FTX payouts must be completed by February 14th. Users need to complete KYC verification, submit a W-8 BEN form, and select and confirm a payout distribution agent.

Binance Alpha will launch HeyElsa (ELSA) and ETHGas (GWEI) airdrops.

Binance Alpha will launch the HeyElsa (ELSA) airdrop on January 20th and the ETHGas (GWEI) airdrop on January 21st. Eligible users can claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha event page after trading on Alpha opens. Further details will be announced later.

Binance will delist more than 20 spot trading pairs, including BTC/ZAR and ENS/BTC, on January 20.

According to a Binance announcement, to improve market quality, 22 spot trading pairs, including 0G/BNB, 1MBABYDOGE/FDUSD, ADX/ETH, AGLD/BTC, ALT/FDUSD, ARKM/BTC, ATOM/ETH, BTC/ZAR, ENS/BTC, ETH/ZAR, HOLO/BNB, HOLO/FDUSD, MOVR/BTC, NEWT/FDUSD, OP/ETH, ORDI/BTC, OXT/BTC, POLYX/BTC, SLP/ETH, SSV/BTC, STO/FDUSD, STORJ/BTC, and TRB/BTC, will be delisted on January 20, 2026, at 16:00 (UTC+8). This is primarily due to low liquidity or trading volume. This only affects the relevant trading pairs; the tokens involved can still be traded through other trading pairs. The platform advises users to cancel any related trading bots promptly to avoid potential losses.

Binance Alpha will launch on Acurast (ACU) on January 20th.

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will list Acurast (ACU) on January 20th. Eligible users can claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha Events page after trading opens. More details will be announced soon.

Solana Mobile: The first round of SKR distribution will remove some abnormal Seeker clusters and return the airdrop pool.

Emmett, the project lead for Solana Mobile, stated on the X platform that, in preparation for the upcoming launch of SKR, the Solana Mobile team will further identify additional abnormal Seeker clusters beyond existing anti-Syllabic measures. SKR tokens from these addresses will be removed from the initial distribution and returned to future airdrop pools. Emmett has not yet disclosed specific identification details, only emphasizing that the team is continuously monitoring the issue. He also stated that the goal of SKR's launch is to ensure fair distribution, ensuring that tokens ultimately flow to users and developers who truly drive the platform's development. This will have a positive impact on most users who purchase Seeker phones for practical use.

Hurun released its list of China's Top 50 AI Companies, with Cambricon topping the list with a value of 630 billion yuan.

According to the "2025 Hurun China AI 50" report released by the Hurun Research Institute, Cambricon, an AI chip company, ranked first with a value of 630 billion yuan, a 165% increase from the previous year; Moore Threads, the first domestic GPU company to go public, ranked second with a value of 310 billion yuan; and Muxi, one of the first high-end GPU companies in China to achieve full-process localization, ranked third with a value of 250 billion yuan.

Analysis & Opinions

Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum protocol development needs to introduce simplification and "garbage collection" functions to avoid bloat.

In an article on the X platform, Vitalik Buterin stated that a crucial and long-underestimated aspect of "trustlessness," "leaving tests," and "self-sovereignty" is protocol simplicity. The Ethereum development process needs a clear "simplification" or "garbage collection" feature, with three metrics for "simplification": 1. Minimizing the total number of lines of code in the protocol. 2. Avoiding unnecessary dependencies on fundamentally complex technical components. 3. Adding more invariants: core properties the protocol can rely on, such as EIP-6780 (removing selfdestruct), which adds the property that at most N storage slots can be changed per block, greatly simplifying client development. Garbage collection can be piecemeal or large-scale. A piecemeal approach attempts to simplify existing functionality, making it more concise and logical. An example of large-scale garbage collection is replacing PoW with PoS. Another approach is "Rosetta-style backward compatibility," where complex but rarely used features remain available but are "degraded" to smart contract code rather than being part of the mandatory protocol, so new client developers don't have to deal with them. The goal is for client developers to no longer need to handle all older versions of the Ethereum protocol. In the long run, the pace of change in Ethereum can be slowed down, and efforts should be made to prevent useless parts from becoming a permanent drag on the Ethereum protocol.

Vitalik called for building a “better DAO” and emphasized privacy and AI to combat governance fatigue.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that DAO development has deviated from its original purpose. The current mainstream "token voting to control the treasury" model is inefficient, easily manipulated, and fails to address human political weaknesses. He pointed out that DAOs remain a necessary mechanism, especially in areas such as oracle design, on-chain dispute resolution, project launch, and long-term maintenance, where they should play a greater role. Vitalik emphasized the importance of using ZK technology to protect privacy, leveraging AI to alleviate governance fatigue, and considered the communication platform a key part of the DAO stack, calling for DAO governance design to prioritize the "communication layer" and "consensus tools" as core development goals.

Investment and Financing

Anthropic plans to raise $25 billion or more, with Sequoia Capital participating in the financing round.

According to a report by the Financial Times, cited by Jinshi, Sequoia Capital plans to make a significant investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. Anthropic is seeking funding at a valuation of $350 billion, aiming to raise a total of $25 billion or more. Microsoft and Nvidia have already pledged to invest a total of up to $15 billion in the company.

Important data

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

PANews reported on January 19th that, 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 his current position also put pressure 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 U.S. 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.

Avalanche's active addresses have reached a new high, with daily active users surging by 986% to 1.71 million.

Data shows that on January 18, 2026 (yesterday), the number of active addresses on the Avalanche chain reached 1.71 million, a surge of 986.5% compared to the previous average, setting a new record. The total number of active addresses has reached nearly 49.86 million. Previously, the daily active users of Avalanche C-Chain remained between 300,000 and 600,000, but on-chain interactions have surged since mid-January. The official statement is that "the chain is awakening."

Data: ZRO, RIVER, PLUME and other tokens saw large-scale unlocks this week, with ZRO unlocking value totaling approximately $44.5 million.

Token Unlocks data shows that tokens such as ZRO, RIVER, and PLUME saw significant unlocks this week, including:

LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock approximately 25.71 million tokens at 7 PM Beijing time on January 20th, representing 6.36% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $44.5 million.

River will unlock approximately 1.5 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on January 22, representing 4.32% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $36 million.

Plume (PLUME) will unlock approximately 1.37 billion tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on January 21, representing 39.75% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $22.3 million.

Humanity (H) will unlock approximately 105 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on January 25th, representing 4.57% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $19.3 million.

Plasma (XPL) will unlock approximately 88.89 million tokens at 8 PM Beijing time on January 25th, representing 4.33% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $12.4 million.

MBG By Multibank Group (MBG) will unlock approximately 24.73 million tokens at 8 PM Beijing time on January 22, representing 12.13% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $9.7 million.

SOON will unlock approximately 21.88 million tokens at 4:30 PM Beijing time on January 23, representing 5.63% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $7.4 million.

SoSoValue (SOSO) will unlock approximately 13.33 million tokens at 5 PM Beijing time on January 24th, representing 5.00% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $7.4 million.

Animecoin (ANIME) will unlock approximately 835 million tokens at 9 PM Beijing time on January 23, representing 13.84% of the circulating supply, worth approximately $6.3 million.

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

A certain "rollover trader" used the floating profit from his ETH short position to open another BTC short position worth $52.48 million.

Huang Licheng continued to reduce his long positions in HYPE and increase his long positions in ETH, incurring a loss of approximately $1.87 million in the past day.

A certain whale (a large investor) bought over 42,000 ETH in a single day, suspected of continuously adding to its position with high leverage.

A whale liquidated its ASTER and other assets, incurring a loss of $4.21 million, and reopened a 25x long position in ETH.

The "255 BTC whale" suffered a loss of $16.14 million before reversing course and opening a long position.

Arthur Hayes received 132,730 ETHFI from Anchorage Digital

The Trump Token team deposited 381,000 Trump tokens, worth $2 million, into Binance.

Exodus discloses August financial update: holding 2116 BTC, 2756 ETH and 43738 SOL

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