Odaily reports that Vietnamese police have arrested five suspects in Da Nang for operating a cryptocurrency scam ring. Based in Cambodia, the group defrauded victims of 14 billion Vietnamese dong (approximately US$532,800) by operating a fake investment platform mimicking Nasdaq. Police investigations revealed that Nguyen Van Chung traveled to Cambodia in early 2024 and conspired with a Chinese national, A Long, to organize the scam. The group used Zalo and Telegram to post fake trading information, enticing victims to invest. Funds were then transferred through multiple bank accounts and converted into cryptocurrency to conceal their origin. Police have seized USB drives containing scam scripts, mobile phones, laptops, and over 5.2 billion Vietnamese dong in cash. The case is still under further investigation.

According to an official announcement, Binance Wallet has launched the second season of its "On-Chain Trading Competition." Registration is open from 06:00 on January 18, 2026 to 06:00 on February 2, 2026 (UTC), and the competition period is from 06:00 on January 19, 2026 to 06:00 on February 2, 2026 (UTC). During the event, users must use their Binance Wallet (Keyless) to trade on the BNB Smart Chain, and the trading pairs must include the specified tokens. The final ranking will be based on realized profit/loss (PnL) during the competition period. The top 200 users will share BNB token rewards, with the first-place winner receiving 60 BNB. (This news item was generated with AI assistance.)

According to Huoxun Finance on January 18th, Pantera Capital topped the profit and loss rankings this week, with its three wallets generating profits of $12.1 million, $6 million, and $3.6 million respectively. Meanwhile, Arrington XRP Capital also achieved profitability, but its size was smaller than Pantera Capital's. Most other funds had a mediocre performance this week.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that in response to online rumors that Binance founder CZ is dating actress Sydney Sweeney, CZ stated on social media that this is "fake news" and that he doesn't participate in social activities often and has "never met Sydney Sweeney." CZ also mentioned in his response that it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish which "news" is not credible, but if one could do so, "you would be richer."

On January 18th, Odaily Planet Daily reported that X's official creator account, @XCreators, announced that X's creator revenue payout at the end of 2025 reached a new high since the monetization plan's inception, and announced increased incentives for original writing. The official announcement stated that 2026 is designated as the "Year of Creators," with the platform focusing on longer content formats such as articles, and plans to launch a more detailed Creator Studio revenue overview panel. The announcement revealed that X will award an additional $1 million in bonuses to the best-performing original articles in the next revenue reward round. Participating articles must be original content, at least 1000 words, and the primary evaluation criterion is homepage timeline exposure. Participation is limited to US users only. Articles that violate platform policies or contain hate speech, fraud, or manipulative content are ineligible. The submission window for eligible articles is from January 16th to January 28th.