Morning News | Bitfarms sells its Latin American business for $30 million; Yilihua has recovered all floating losses on ETH holdings; Tether invests in QR code payment platform SQRIL
Overview of Important Market Events on January 3rd整理：ChainCatcher
Important News:
- Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms sells its Latin American business for $30 million, continuing its transition to AI and high-performance computing
- BTC OG insider whale agent: Gold and silver prices have reached local highs, and funds have begun to rotate into the crypto space
- Data: Bitcoin spot ETF saw a total net inflow of $471 million yesterday, with BlackRock's IBIT leading at $287 million
- Analyst: Yi Lihua's holding of 626,574 ETH has recovered all unrealized losses
- Solana founder responds to Jupiter co-founder token buyback issue: Staking is more beneficial for the protocol's capital structure
- Tether invests in cross-border QR code payment platform SQRIL
What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?
Tether invests in cross-border QR code payment platform SQRIL
According to ChainCatcher, stablecoin giant Tether has disclosed its investment in the real-time cross-border QR code payment platform SQRIL, although the specific investment amount has not been revealed. SQRIL currently targets markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and can integrate with APIs from traditional banks (such as Barclays or Bank of America) and digital banks like Venmo, Revolut, or Cash App. The new funds will support its exploration of better stablecoin and QR code cross-border payment methods.
Yi Lihua: Trends outweigh speculation, the bull market has been set
ChainCatcher reports that Yi Lihua, founder of Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital), stated on social media, "Investors like Buffett and Duan Yongping are respected because they earn money through value and trends, not through speculation.
This year's trend is a bull market, regardless of the macro environment or the industry's development stage; it is not something we can decide among ourselves. We can only see the trend and go with it. During this time, I see the bears making their last efforts, but as we said before, before the great bull market in 2026, the bears will have already closed their positions with small losses, and later they will suffer greatly.
Those who are still bearish in the market are either just talking or are cannon fodder. After more than a month of fluctuations (long and short speculation), the bulls will definitely have their moment, pessimists are always right, and optimists always move forward."
Analyst: Yi Lihua's holding of 626,574 ETH has recovered all unrealized losses
According to ChainCatcher, on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa monitored that Yi Lihua's institution added 46,036.72 ETH on the day of the drop on December 29, lowering the average on-chain holding cost to $3,105.5, which has just recovered $110 million in unrealized losses and reached the breakeven point.
"The difference between digital RMB and WeChat/Alipay" tops Baidu's hot search list
ChainCatcher reports that "The difference between digital RMB and WeChat/Alipay" has topped Baidu's hot search list.
According to Baidu's hot search analysis, starting from January 1, the balance of digital RMB wallets will earn interest based on current deposits. The interpretation of the differences between digital RMB and WeChat/Alipay is: digital RMB is money, equivalent to holding electronic cash directly to pay merchants; WeChat and Alipay are wallets, where money is taken from the wallet to pay merchants.
ChainCatcher reports that Solana founder toly responded on the X platform to Jupiter co-founders regarding the question of "whether to continue token buybacks or provide growth incentives for existing users." He stated: "Capital formation is inherently very difficult, and traditional finance usually takes over 10 years to truly accumulate capital. Compared to buybacks, I believe a more reasonable path is to replicate this long-term capital structure.
In the crypto industry, the mechanism closest to this is actually staking. Participants willing to hold long-term will dilute those who are unwilling to hold long-term. The protocol can retain profits as future protocol assets that can be claimed by tokens, allowing users to lock and stake for a year to earn token rewards. As the protocol's balance sheet continues to expand, those who choose long-term staking will gain a larger share of actual equity. The equity itself is linked to the protocol's future profits, which will continue to grow with future earnings."
According to ChainCatcher, Bitfarms Ltd., a Bitcoin mining company, has agreed to sell its remaining Latin American business as the company refocuses its strategic priorities on energy and data center infrastructure related to AI and high-performance computing in North America, marking its complete exit from the regional market.
The company announced in a press release on Friday that it has reached a final agreement with the Singapore-based Hawksburn Capital-managed crypto infrastructure fund Sympatheia Power Fund to sell its 70 MW Paso Pe mine in Paraguay for up to $30 million. According to the terms of the deal, Bitfarms will receive $9 million in cash at closing (including a $1 million non-refundable deposit already paid) and up to an additional $21 million over the next 10 months based on post-closing milestone conditions.
Management stated that this sale essentially cashes out the expected free cash flow from the mine for the next two to three years. Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon pointed out that the proceeds from the sale will be reallocated to North American high-performance computing and AI energy infrastructure starting in 2026, marking the completion of the company's multi-year plan to shrink its Latin American operations.
This sale fully concentrates Bitfarms' energy asset portfolio in North America, including 341 MW of operational capacity, 430 MW of capacity under construction in the U.S., and approximately 2.1 GW of multi-year project reserves in the region. Bitfarms is continuing its transition from geographically dispersed Bitcoin mining operations to domestic energy assets in the U.S. that can support AI and high-performance computing workloads. The company began signaling its transformation in mid-2025, emphasizing the higher return prospects brought by the growing demand for high-energy data centers, and subsequently announced plans to convert some mines into AI infrastructure.
According to ChainCatcher, Galaxy Digital's research team released a 2026 forecast indicating that Bitcoin reaching a historical high in 2026 is still possible. The options market currently prices the possibility of Bitcoin being around $70,000 or $130,000 by the end of June 2026 at 50/50, and the possibility of it being around $50,000 or $250,000 by the end of 2026 is also 50/50. These broad ranges reflect uncertainty in the short term. There remains a downside risk until BTC firmly re-establishes itself above $100,000 to $105,000. However, it is expected that BTC will reach $250,000 by the end of 2027.
Other parts of the forecast include: no Solana inflation reduction proposals will pass in 2026, the current proposal SIMD-0411 will be withdrawn without a vote; the ratio of application revenue to network revenue will double; the SEC will face lawsuits from traditional market participants or industry organizations due to innovation exemptions; a major bank/brokerage will accept tokenized stocks as collateral; DEXs will account for over 25% of total spot trading volume; Polymarket's weekly trading volume will continue to exceed $1.5 billion; the U.S. will launch over 50 spot altcoin ETFs, as well as another 50 crypto ETFs (excluding spot single-coin products); net inflows into U.S. spot crypto ETFs will exceed $50 billion; and over 15 crypto companies will conduct IPOs or uplist in the U.S.
Bitfinex hacker participant Ilya Lichtenstein will be released early
According to ChainCatcher, Ilya Lichtenstein, who admitted to participating in the attack on the crypto exchange Bitfinex, stated that he would be released early and thanked the criminal justice reform bill passed by President Donald Trump in 2018.
In 2024, Ilya Lichtenstein was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the 2016 Bitfinex hack, with charges including conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. Shortly thereafter, his wife Heather Morgan was also sentenced, but prosecutors indicated that her role in the money laundering conspiracy was smaller.
BTC OG insider whale agent: Gold and silver prices have reached local highs, and funds have begun to rotate into the crypto space
According to ChainCatcher, gold and silver prices have reached local highs. After the market opened today, funds have begun to rotate into the cryptocurrency space. Even though the stock market experienced a sell-off after opening, cryptocurrencies maintained an upward momentum. Fund inflows may continue, and upward momentum could accelerate, triggering a short squeeze, with little noticeable pullback during the process.
USDC Treasury mints an additional 750 million USDC on the Solana network
According to ChainCatcher, Whale Alert monitored that the USDC Treasury minted an additional 750 million USDC on the Solana network, completed in three transactions.
Cryptocurrency phishing attack losses plummet 83% to $83.85 million in 2025, with victims down 68%
According to ChainCatcher, the 2025 annual report released by Scam Sniffer shows that losses from cryptocurrency phishing attacks have significantly decreased, dropping 83% from $494 million in 2024 to $83.85 million, with the number of victims also decreasing by 68% to 106,106.
In terms of types, Permit signatures remain the most common type; malicious signatures from EIP-7702 appeared after the Pectra system upgrade, with two major incidents occurring in August. Phishing losses are closely related to market activity, with the probability of occurrence positively correlated with user activity. Ethereum prices rose most strongly in the third quarter, while phishing losses were also the highest ($31 million). When the market is active, overall user activity increases, and the proportion of affected users also rises.
Coinbase CEO responds to doubts: The market lacks understanding of "content/creator tokens"
According to ChainCatcher, former Coinbase employee hish posted on the X platform early this morning, stating that Coinbase has not truly understood the value of content tokens. Content tokens must have sustainable revenue capabilities and be able to share value with token holders; otherwise, it is difficult to form long-term value accumulation. If Base cannot solve this core issue of revenue sharing, related content tokens may ultimately only become more beautifully packaged meme coins. In contrast, the construction of creator tokens has a higher threshold and is more challenging, so exploring project tokens may be a more realistic path, but this may require Coinbase to make certain trade-offs at the wallet application level.
In response, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that the market still lacks understanding of the essence of content tokens and creator tokens. He indicated that when users purchase content tokens, they can indirectly promote the economic activities and demand of the underlying creator tokens, as both can achieve value linkage and transmission through liquidity pool mechanisms.
According to ChainCatcher, based on SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $471 million.
The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest single-day net inflow was BlackRock's ETF IBIT, with a net inflow of $287 million in a single day, bringing IBIT's historical total
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