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The Gwangju Prosecutor's Office in South Korea had $47.7 million worth of seized Bitcoin stolen in a phishing attack.

According to Gate's market data, the S&P 500 index has turned negative after rising as much as 0.7%; the Dow is currently down 0.18%, and the Nasdaq is down 0.4%. Cryptocurrency-related stocks are broadly down, including:Robinhood (HOOD) down 12.84%;Coinbase (COIN) down 7.02%;BitGo Holdings (BTGO) down 5.26%;Strategy (MSTR) down 5.12%;Bullish (BLSH) down 4.44%;BitMine Immersion (BMNR) down 4.2%.

According to Jinshi News, the A-share digital currency concept experienced fluctuations in the afternoon, with Yuyin Co., Ltd. hitting the daily limit, and Cuiwei Co., Ltd., Hengbao Co., Ltd., Yingshisheng, and Sifang Jingchuang following suit. On the news front, Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive John Lee stated that the Monetary Authority is actively handling the license applications for stablecoin issuers, with the first batch of licenses expected to be issued next month.

At the recent "Build and Scale in 2026" themed forum held in Hong Kong, guests including Lulu, the APAC market head of Billions, Laughing, the APAC head of KiteAI, Carter Feldman, founder and CEO of Psy Protocol, and Bitcoinmaodu, CEO of Huazhi Education RWA, engaged in a roundtable discussion on the topic of "Web3 New Phase: From 'Technological Vision' to 'Mainstream Consumption'."Lulu, the APAC market head of Billions, pointed out that the fundamental challenge in the AI era is the issue of identity and trust. She emphasized that future infrastructure must strike a balance between privacy protection and regulatory auditing, and believes that by 2026, the market's core will shift from speculation to infrastructure, particularly in meeting the identity and accountability verification (KYA) required by AI agents.Laughing, the APAC head of KiteAI, focused on the payment security of AI agents. He stated that blockchain technology is needed for permission control and behavior auditing of AI agents, establishing a "responsibility attribution closed loop" to build a secure and trustworthy payment system.Carter Feldman, founder and CEO of Psy Protocol, believes that the current blockchain cannot support the billions of concurrent transactions brought by AI agents. They are building a high-performance blockchain that supports AI scale and protects privacy. He pointed out that AI agents will ultimately bring massive users and sustainable transaction fee revenue to blockchain, driving the industry into a profit-driven phase.Bitcoinmaodu, CEO of Huazhi Education RWA, shared the Web3 practical path of Huazhi Education in the private education sector. He stated that education is a long-underestimated real asset, and RWA provides a new organizational method for private education. By assetizing course content, faculty contributions, and learning outcomes, Huazhi Education is promoting the transformation of traditional private education from a "cost center" to a "sustainable value network," making education a truly accumulative and replicable asset system.The attending guests unanimously agreed that the current period is crucial for building infrastructure, as Web3 is moving from concept to addressing real pain points. Identity verification, agent payment security, and RWA compliance in the AI era will become the core driving forces for industry development in 2026.

According to The Block, Russia's largest bank Sberbank is planning to launch a corporate loan product backed by cryptocurrency. A spokesperson for the bank stated that this move is driven by strong customer demand and mentioned that they are ready to collaborate with the Central Bank of Russia to develop the relevant regulatory framework.The plan follows a similar path to international banks, such as JPMorgan exploring such products, while Wells Fargo has already provided related services. At the end of last year, Sberbank completed a pilot transaction with mining company Intelion Data, which used its own digital currency as collateral, while the bank managed the collateral through its proprietary custody infrastructure and Rutoken hardware solution.

According to CryptoQuant data, BTC has not yet reached the typical surrender depth of -70% to -80% compared to previous cycles. Currently, the Bitcoin price is still about 50% lower than its all-time high.

According to Gate's market data, the three major U.S. stock indices are all down before the market opens, with the Dow Jones down 0.34%, the Nasdaq down 1.43%, and the S&P 500 down 0.84%.Cryptocurrency concept stocks are mixed before the market opens, including:MSTR down 0.46%;COIN down 0.48%;HOOD down 0.21%;SBET down 0.52%;BMNR down 0.94%;CRCL up 0.52%.

Matrixport released a chart today stating that although Bitcoin has dropped about 14% since the beginning of the year, crypto-related stocks overall have still outperformed BTC. However, within the sector, individual stock returns have shown significant divergence.Specifically, brokerage and trading platforms (such as Robinhood and Coinbase) have seen double-digit pullbacks; while some Bitcoin mining companies, after shifting their focus to AI data centers, have recorded double-digit gains year-to-date despite last week's pullback. This divergence indicates a change in the market's pricing approach. In the past, the market tended to treat crypto assets as a whole that moved "up and down together"; now, it is beginning to assess based on different companies' business models and primary business directions.As a result, the correlation between related stocks and Bitcoin has decreased, opening up Alpha space at the individual stock level. The noticeable dispersion of year-to-date (YTD) returns in the table is a direct reflection of this change.

The Executive Director of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Committee on Digital Assets, Patrick Witt, stated that the White House will not accept provisions in the cryptocurrency market structure legislation that directly target President Trump or his family's digital asset businesses, as such content has been clearly marked as a "red line."Witt mentioned that the anti-corruption or ethical provisions previously proposed by some Democratic lawmakers are "completely unacceptable," emphasizing that the core of the bill is the regulation of the cryptocurrency market, not ethical scrutiny. He expressed hope that the Democratic side could propose a more "reasonable and negotiable" version to advance the legislation.Witt also pointed out that the current primary goal of the White House is to facilitate a bill that can be submitted for the President's signature, while seeking a compromise amid the disagreements between the banking sector and the cryptocurrency industry regarding stablecoin revenues. However, he also admitted that the Democratic demand to restrict government officials and their families from participating in the cryptocurrency industry remains one of the main obstacles to advancing the legislation.

The BNB Chain developer team stated that as the ecosystem continues to expand, applications need to share rules for seamless collaboration. To this end, BNB Chain has launched the BAP (BNB Application Proposal) mechanism, allowing developers to reach consensus on application layer standards such as NFT utility, AI agent behavior, and identity specifications without touching the consensus layer or EVM.The official introduction also presented the first proposal BAP-578, which is the Non-Fungible Agent (NFA) token standard. This standard proposes that the NFA is an AI-driven asset existing on-chain, capable of autonomous operation, wallet holding, executing transactions, recording behavioral history, and functioning across multiple dApps. BAP-578 is seen as one of the infrastructures for the "agent economy," aiming to promote the flow and collaboration of AI agents within the BNB Chain ecosystem according to unified standards.BNB Chain pointed out that the BAP is designed to be community-driven, allowing developers to participate in reviewing BAP-578, providing feedback, or submitting new BAPs to collectively shape the application layer standard system.

According to Antpool data, as the price of Bitcoin recently dipped to around $78,500, currently, the vast majority of Bitcoin miners, except for the latest generation of mining machines, are either operating at a loss or close to breakeven.Data shows that only the latest models, such as the Antminer S23 series, are still profitable, with the Antminer S23 Hydro generating a daily revenue of about $18.53 per unit; meanwhile, the earlier Antminer S21 series has seen its daily revenue drop to around $0.12, and the Whatsminer M63S is experiencing a daily loss of approximately $0.47.

Tokenization company Securitize announced that its revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $55.6 million, representing an 841% increase compared to the same period in 2024. The company has currently submitted a public registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to advance its plan to go public through a merger with Cantor Fitzgerald-backed Cantor Equity Partners II (CEPT). The merger transaction with CEPT is still subject to approval by shareholders and regulatory agencies.If approved, Securitize will trade as a public company on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SECZ.

According to market news, the suspected ancient whale address 0x660...7Bf35 from 2016 transferred 5000 ETH to Wintermute three hours ago, worth approximately 14.7 million dollars. Tracing the source of the funds reveals that this address is linked to two main sources: 1️⃣ Address 0xDA2...80100 withdrew 10600 ETH from Gatecoin 10 years ago, costing only 99,000 dollars; 2️⃣ Address 0x132...38378 withdrew 18049.96 ETH from Kraken 9 years ago, at a price as low as 86 dollars.

As the participation of traditional financial assets in the crypto market continues to rise, the trading activity of contracts related to precious metals and commodities has significantly increased. According to data from the Gate platform, palladium (XPDUSDT) is currently priced at 2,085.72 USDT, with a 24H increase of 6.56%; copper (XCUUSDT) is currently priced at 6.239 USDT, with an increase of 5.19%.In addition, the Gate platform has launched metal contracts such as copper (XCUUSDT), platinum (XPTUSDT), palladium (XPDUSDT), aluminum (XALUSDT), nickel (XNIUSDT), and lead (XPBUSDT) as industry firsts, demonstrating outstanding performance in key indicators such as order book depth, transaction continuity, and spread control, ranking among the top in similar products.Gate has fully established a TradFi trading area in the contract sector, covering traditional financial assets including precious metals, stocks, foreign exchange, commodities, and indices, supporting various contract trading targets such as gold, silver, crude oil, euro, pound, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Hang Seng Index. Related products support uninterrupted trading 7×24 hours, offering up to 100 times leverage, continuously creating an integrated market for users to trade crypto assets alongside traditional financial assets.

According to Cointelegraph, the cryptocurrency options exchange Deribit pointed out that Bitcoin's recent price has been suppressed around $90,000, mainly due to a large number of open interest concentrated near the current strike price, especially ahead of the massive expiration date on January 30. This means that market risk exposure is primarily constructed through options rather than high-leverage futures, with traders using hedging and structured strategies to manage risk.Deribit analysis indicates that high options trading volume (especially short-term put options) suggests that capital is still in the market, but risk control is stricter, with short-term price behavior being driven more by position structure rather than external news. Bitcoin has been oscillating in the range of $85,000 to $95,000 since mid-November. This Friday will see the expiration of Bitcoin monthly options with a notional value of about $8.4 billion, with a put/call ratio of 0.54, and the maximum pain point located at $90,000, while open interest is most concentrated around the $100,000 strike price.

PayPal and the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA) survey shows that 39% of U.S. merchants have accepted cryptocurrency payments, and 84% expect it to become the norm within five years.Strong consumer demand: 88% of merchants have received inquiries from customers about cryptocurrency payments, with the highest demand from millennials (77%) and Generation Z (73%); the hospitality industry (81%) and digital goods and luxury retail (76%) lead the way. 90% of merchants stated they would accept cryptocurrency payments if the process were as simple as credit cards.Additionally, among the top 25 U.S. banks by assets, 15 have launched or announced Bitcoin custody trading services, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Analysts believe that 2026 could be a turning point for cryptocurrency payments.

Solana co-founder Toly changed the X account profile picture to a "penguin" themed concept image. According to GMGN monitoring, possibly influenced by this news, the Meme coin PENGUIN on the Solana chain briefly surged over 17%, with a market cap currently reported at $9,330 and a 24-hour trading volume of $80.6 million.ChainCatcher reminds users that Meme coin trading is highly volatile, largely relying on market sentiment and speculative hype, and has no actual value or use case. Investors should be aware of the risks.

Vitalik Buterin recently stated that he no longer fully agrees with the old view of blockchain as "only recording transaction order, not committing to state," and explained the reasons for his change in perspective.Vitalik pointed out that his early opposition to this idea was primarily based on the fact that if the chain does not commit to state, ordinary users must either fully verify all transactions from the genesis block or be forced to trust a single third-party service provider, both of which are not ideal options. In contrast, designs like Ethereum that commit to the state root in the block header allow for the verification of any state through Merkle proofs under the "majority honest" consensus assumption, which is much more feasible. He emphasized that the real game changer is the development of zero-knowledge technologies like ZK-SNARKs, which make it possible to verify the correctness on-chain without re-executing all transactions, thus "achieving both security and scalability."Additionally, Vitalik reflected on the uncertainties in the real world: network interruptions, service provider shutdowns, consensus centralization, and censorship risks can occur at any time. Therefore, the blockchain system must always retain a fallback that is "self-verifiable without relying on others." In his view, the "cabin in the woods" is not a model for everyone to live in daily, but rather a safety net in extreme situations, and it is also an important leverage against intermediaries and service providers. Maintaining such a minimally viable and autonomously usable path is an indispensable part of Ethereum's long-term evolution.