According to Odaily Planet Daily, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated in an interview with Bloomberg that Tether's role in the gold market is expected to expand further as US geopolitical adversaries may introduce gold-backed alternatives to the dollar. Ardoino pointed out that Tether plans to continue reinvesting its substantial earnings into gold assets, currently maintaining a pace of purchasing 1 to 2 tons of gold per week, and expects to continue this strategy in the coming months. He revealed that Tether currently holds nearly 140 tons of gold, stored in a Cold War-era nuclear bunker in Switzerland, making it one of the largest known single gold reserves globally, excluding central banks, ETFs, and commercial banks. With the recent rise in gold and other precious metal prices, Tether's gold holdings are now worth over $23.3 billion. Furthermore, Ardoino stated that Tether is assessing relevant market conditions and trading strategies, planning to capture arbitrage opportunities through more proactive gold trading. The company recently hired two senior gold traders formerly with HSBC to advance its physical gold market strategy. (The Block)

Huoxun Finance reports that Moonbirds has launched Nesting 2.0 and introduced the game BirdGameOne. Moonbirds announced on the X platform that Nesting 2.0 has officially launched. Holders of Moonbirds, Mythics, and Oddities NFTs can acquire BIRB tokens through a new design mechanism aimed at aligning holders with the long-term growth of the ecosystem. Users who deposit NFTs into the nesting protocol will receive corresponding soulbound NFTs, and the NFTs will no longer remain on the market during the nesting period. Over the next 24 months, nested NFTs can claim 1/24 of their allocated amount on the 28th of each month. If only part of the month was nested before the claim date on the 28th, the corresponding amount will be claimed proportionally. All NFTs nested within the first 7 days will be considered as nested tokens. Meanwhile, the free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game ForgottenRuniverse, based on the Ethereum scaling network Ronin, has announced it will shut down its servers, becoming the latest crypto game to cease operations. In a statement, the development team said that although they had worked hard to overcome the challenges, maintaining the game's operation was no longer financially feasible, so they decided to shut down the live service in the current state. All account data will be saved, but the game will be inaccessible. The team stated that they have not given up on the project and are evaluating potential future paths. The game originated from the Ethereum NFT project "ForgottenRunes Wizard's Cult," which launched globally last year and received investment from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and others. It was once planned to be released on Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms. A whale holding long positions in HYPE has seen its unrealized profits exceed $12 million. According to OnchainLens monitoring, as the price of HYPE rose above $32, a whale holding a long position in HYPE (5x leverage) has seen its unrealized profits exceed $12 million. This whale opened long positions in HYPE (5x leverage) and SOL (20x leverage) approximately 15-16 days ago, and its unrealized loss on SOL is $1.2 million. Spot gold broke through $5,200 for the first time, according to Jinshi News. The price rose by over $880, or 20%, in the first month of the new year. Tether holds approximately 140 tons of gold, worth about $23 billion. According to Bloomberg, stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings SA has become one of the largest participants in the global gold market, holding approximately 140 tons of gold, worth about $23 billion, and is believed to be the largest known holder of physical gold outside of banks and nations. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that the company is continuously purchasing gold at a rate of 1 to 2 tons per week, aiming to establish a long-term, stable physical gold reserve in a former Swiss nuclear bunker. He emphasized that this move is similar to playing the role of "one of the world's largest gold central banks," and predicted that geopolitical rivals will launch gold-linked dollar alternatives, for which Tether has prepared its gold token, XAUT. Tether plans to purchase over 70 tons of gold by 2025, exceeding the size of almost all single central banks except the Polish central bank, and also surpassing many large gold ETFs. In addition to direct holdings, Tether has hired a former senior gold trader from HSBC and plans to establish a gold trading platform to compete with banks such as JPMorgan Chase. The company is also acquiring stakes in several mid-sized Canadian gold mining concessions. Previously, it was reported that Tether increased its gold reserves by approximately 27 tons in the fourth quarter of 2025. Bitwise: Crypto Industry Faces Critical Crossroads as CLARITY Act Stalls in Congress. According to CoinDesk, Bitwise warned that the market may be at a critical crossroads as the CLARITY Act stalls in Congress. Bitwise pointed out that the bill aims to solidify the current regulatory environment supporting crypto into permanent law. However, due to opposition from within the industry (such as the Coinbase CEO), its probability of passage has dropped sharply from 80% in early January to about 50%. If the bill ultimately fails, the industry will enter a difficult "performance realization period." In this scenario, the crypto industry must become indispensable to the US economy within approximately three years through technologies such as stablecoins and asset tokenization, thereby forcing regulatory concessions. This is similar to the path taken by Uber and Airbnb. If successful, favorable regulations will follow; if unsuccessful, future political shifts in Washington could have disastrous consequences. Bitwise analyzed two market paths: if a viable bill passes, the market will rebound sharply due to the clear prospects; if the bill fails, the market will enter a "wait-and-see" phase, with price increases limited by regulatory concerns and linked to evidence of practical application, resulting in a "slow rise." Wall Street brokerage Benchmark also believes that legislative failure will delay, rather than stifle, the maturation of the crypto market, but will limit the potential of the US market. Investors will favor Bitcoin, entities with strong balance sheets, and cash flow infrastructure over regulatory-sensitive exchanges, DeFi, and altcoins. Huang Licheng (@machibigbrother) has deposited another 225,000 USDC into Hyperliquid, increasing his long ETH position and opening a new long HYPE position. According to OnchainLens monitoring, Huang Licheng (@machibigbrother) has deposited another 225,000 USDC into Hyperliquid, increasing his long ETH position (25x leverage) and opening a new long HYPE position (10x leverage), bringing his total holdings to $20.8 million. A PayPal survey shows that large enterprises are leading the adoption of cryptocurrency payments. According to The Block, a merchant survey released by PayPal shows that the adoption of cryptocurrency payments is being led by large enterprises, and nearly 85% of respondents expect cryptocurrency payments to become widespread within the next five years. The survey, conducted in late October 2025, found that approximately 40% of surveyed merchants said they already accept cryptocurrency payments. These merchants said cryptocurrency payments account for "more than a quarter" of their total sales, with about three-quarters saying their cryptocurrency sales have increased in the past year. Among large enterprises with annual revenue exceeding $500 million, the adoption rate is as high as 50%, significantly higher than that of small and medium-sized enterprises. The survey also indicates that nearly 90% of merchants said they would be willing to try crypto payments if the experience were as convenient as traditional card payments and the setup process as simple as accepting credit cards. PayPal's head of crypto business stated that the data shows crypto payments are moving from the experimental stage to everyday business applications, driven by customer demand for faster and more flexible payment methods. Analysis: The NickShirley token case highlights the Zora-driven surge in Base and the "vanity metric" problem. According to The Block, although the number of tokens issued on the Base network has recently surged due to Zora and its "content token" mechanism, the number of active addresses on the network is at its lowest level in 18 months, and transaction volume is also declining. This discrepancy highlights the "vanity metric" problem on the network. Zora's mechanism allows creators to issue tokens at near-zero cost and with extremely low friction, leading to a large influx of low-value tokens. While this inflates issuance statistics, it fails to bring sustained user engagement or actual economic activity. The token $thenickshirley, launched by content creator Nick Shirley last December, is a prime example. Despite his video exposing daycare fraud garnering over 100 million views and attracting attention from figures including Elon Musk and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, the token's market capitalization briefly surged to $15 million before plummeting to around $75,000, with a 24-hour trading volume of only about $45,000. It's estimated that Shirley himself earned between $40,000 and $65,000 in royalties from the token's trading, but has not engaged in any ongoing community building or content planning around it. Analysts point out that such "content tokens" lack a fundamental value proposition and are essentially "speculation on speculation." Meanwhile, SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $30 billion more in OpenAI, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal cited by Jinshi. A major ETH swing trader has sold for the first time since establishing his position on January 12th, dumping 10,000 stETH. According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, this "smart money" account, which has profited $98.18 million from ETH swing trading, sold for the first time since establishing its position on January 12th. Three hours prior, it deposited 10,000 stETH into Wintertermute, worth $30.12 million, and subsequently received 30.03 million USDC, suggesting it has already completed the sale. It recently accumulated 70,013 ETH, with an average cost of approximately $2,907.69. This sale yielded a profit of $1.039 million, leaving the remaining 60,013 ETH with a floating profit of $7.243 million. This brings its total ETH swing trading profit to $99.22 million. Trend Research borrowed 80 million USDT from Aave and transferred it to Binance. According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, after ETH rebounded and climbed back above $3,000, Trend Research borrowed 80 million USDT from Aave and transferred it to Binance in the last two hours this morning. NiftyGateway promises permanent custody of NFTs after shutdown, extends withdrawal window to April 23. According to The Block, Gemini's NFT trading platform NiftyGateway announced new details on how it will preserve user NFTs after ceasing operations. The company promised to permanently custody token metadata and media even after the platform shuts down. Specific plans include: migrating most NFT metadata to the decentralized storage network Arweave; for some NFTs minted in 2021 or earlier that are technically impossible to migrate, their metadata will continue to be held indefinitely by the company. In addition, the platform has extended the window for users to withdraw their NFTs to April 23, providing a total of 90 days. The company stated it is developing a bulk withdrawal tool to help users holding large amounts of NFTs complete asset transfers before the deadline. NiftyGateway, acquired by Gemini in 2019, rose to prominence during the 2021 NFT boom but subsequently struggled due to a decline in overall market trading volume, and entered a withdrawal-only mode earlier this year. The "1011 Insider Whale" has again increased its ETH long positions, but its total position still faces a floating loss of $29.79 million. According to OnchainLens monitoring, with the market rebound, the "1011 flash crash short-selling insider whale" has again increased its ETH (5x leverage) long positions. Its current positions are: 212,726 ETH (worth $643 million), 511,612.85 SOL (worth $66 million), and 572.71 BTC (worth $51.09 million). The whale still faces a floating loss of $29.79 million and has paid over $8 million in funding costs. Moonbirds Announces BIRB Token Economic Model: 65% Community Allocation. NFT project Moonbirds announced its BIRB token economic model, allocating 65% of the total supply to the community. The specific allocation is as follows: 27% for holder rewards, 12% for ecosystem partner expansion, 10% for value chain incentives, 8% for liquidity, 8% for innovation, 10% for the team, and 25% for investors and advisors. This model aims to build a closer community and drive the project's growth from scratch by incentivizing holders, expanding partnerships, rewarding community contributions, and ensuring market liquidity. The tokens allocated to the team and investors will serve as long-term incentives and strategic resources. Previously, Moonbirds announced that the BIRB token would launch on the Solana blockchain on January 28th. Arthur Hayes: If the Federal Reserve expands its balance sheet to intervene in the yen and Japanese government bonds, it will benefit risk assets such as Bitcoin. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes published an in-depth analysis in his latest article on the recent global market "anomalies" caused by the yen's depreciation and the decline in Japanese government bond prices. He believes this foreshadows a potential collaboration between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to directly intervene in the yen and Japanese government bond markets through "money printing," injecting new liquidity into the global fiat currency system. Hayes specifically analyzed possible intervention paths: the New York Fed creates dollar reserves, instructing primary dealers such as JPMorgan Chase to sell dollars and buy yen in the foreign exchange market to support the exchange rate, and may invest the resulting yen in Japanese government bonds to lower their yields. This operation will cause the "foreign currency-denominated assets" item on the Fed's balance sheet to expand, essentially meaning the Fed is absorbing the yen exchange rate and Japanese government bond interest rate risks through money printing. He analyzed the motivation and consequences of this move: aiming to stabilize the yen and lower Japanese government bond yields to prevent Japanese investors from massively selling off US Treasury bonds and returning to the domestic market, avoiding a runaway rise in US Treasury yields, while simultaneously enhancing US export competitiveness. This process will increase global dollar liquidity and may simultaneously push up the euro and renminbi exchange rates. Hayes pointed out that this "non-QE" balance sheet expansion will ultimately provide upward momentum for risk assets, including Bitcoin. Regarding trading strategy, he stated that a rapid strengthening of the yen against the dollar is usually a signal of risk asset reduction. Bitcoin fell due to the yen's strength, and he will not increase his risk exposure until it is confirmed that the Federal Reserve is intervening in the yen and Japanese government bond markets by expanding its balance sheet. He has closed his positions in leveraged Bitcoin-related assets such as Strategy and Metaplanet, and said he will re-enter the market if his judgment is correct. While waiting, his fund Maelstrom continues to increase its holdings of Zcash, while maintaining its positions in other high-quality DeFi tokens. He stated that if the Federal Reserve does expand its balance sheet to intervene in the foreign exchange and bond markets, it will increase its holdings of DeFi assets such as ENA, ETHFI, PENDLE, and LDO. BTC broke through $89,000, with a daily increase of 1.15%. OKX data shows that BTC has just broken through $89,000 and is currently trading at $89,053.80 per coin, a daily increase of 1.15%. CME Group reported that its cryptocurrency futures and options traded nearly $3 trillion in notional principal in 2025, with average daily trading volume increasing to 280,000 contracts (approximately $12 billion) and average daily open interest reaching 313,000 contracts (approximately $26 billion). Q4 trading volume increased by 92% year-over-year, open interest doubled, and LargeOI Holders reached a new high of 1,039. Bitcoin and Ethereum futures continued to contribute to liquidity, with Micro contracts and MET setting new trading records. In the spot-quoted futures market, QBTC saw a single-day trading volume of 128,000 contracts on December 30th, surpassing 1 million contracts for the month; Spot-Quoted Futures, including QBTC, QETH, QSOL, and QXRP, totaled 131,000 contracts traded that day, supporting CME's continued expansion of volatility indices and new products like TAS in 2026. TenbinLabs, a tokenized gold and forex marketplace, has raised $7 million, led by Galaxy Digital, according to CoinDesk. The project aims to build a tokenized gold and forex marketplace. It focuses on bringing traditional financial assets on-chain and expanding the practical application of crypto assets in the global market. Meanwhile, Coinbase has added TRIA and ZAMA to its listing roadmap. Coinbase Markets announced that it will add Tria (TRIA) and Zama (ZAMA) to its listing roadmap. Citrea, a Bitcoin Layer 2 network powered by ZK technology, has launched its mainnet and issued a stablecoin, ctUSD, powered by M0 infrastructure. According to The Block, Citrea, a Bitcoin Layer 2 project backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy, has officially launched its mainnet and issued a native stablecoin, ctUSD. Citrea uses zkEVM to process transactions and incorporates zero-knowledge proofs into the Bitcoin mainnet, supporting financial applications such as BTC-collateralized lending and structured products, with the goal of building a native Bitcoin financial market. Crypto payment network Mesh has raised $75 million in Series C funding, led by Dragonfly Capital, according to PRNewswire. The funding round valued the network at $1 billion post-money. Other participants included Paradigm, Moderne Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, SBI Investment, and LibertyCity Ventures. The company has now raised over $200 million in total funding. The funds will be used to accelerate expansion in Latin America, Asia, and Europe, and to drive product development. Mesh positions itself as an asset-agnostic unified payment network, already serving over 900 million users. It supports payments using any asset, including Bitcoin and Solana, while merchants settle instantly in stablecoins such as USDC and PYUSD, or their local fiat currencies. Part of this funding round was also settled in stablecoins. Data: Tether's 2025 Profits Reach $15 Billion. According to Fortune, Tether aims to generate approximately $15 billion in profits by 2025, with assets totaling $187 billion, encompassing US Treasury bonds, Bitcoin, and gold. CEO Paolo Ardoino points out that stablecoins are entering the mainstream financial landscape, driven by clearer compliance through the GENIUS Act. USDT, leveraging its first-mover advantage, is widely used in emerging markets. Tether is also investing heavily in areas such as satellites and data centers, seeking to disrupt traditional finance and infrastructure. Tether Launches New Stablecoin USA₮ for the US Market. Tether announced the official launch of the USD-denominated stablecoin USA₮, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, NA. This product operates under the newly passed GENIUS Act federal stablecoin framework in the United States. USA₮ is custodied and held by Cantor Fitzgerald and is issued to US institutions and platforms, initially launching on Bybit, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX, and Moonpay. Tether stated that the globally circulating USD₮ will continue to comply with GENIUSAct requirements, while USA₮ is specifically designed for the highly regulated US environment and issued through federally regulated banks. TetherOperations also emphasized that USA₮ is not a legal tender and does not enjoy insurance protection from government agencies such as the FDIC or SIPC. 1INCH liquidity is worrying; a single sell-off triggered a 13% drop in market capitalization. According to Yu Jin, although 1INCH has a circulating market capitalization of $180 million, its liquidity is extremely poor. A single sell-off of less than $2 million has caused the price to fall by more than 13%. The 24-hour trading volume of the Binance 1INCH/USDT pair was only $1.5 million, of which about 77% was provided by arbitrage bots, with actual trading volume only $340,000, reflecting the current weak liquidity in the altcoin market. Binance will launch the fifth PrimeSale Pre-TGE project, Zama (ZAMA). According to Binance's Chinese website, Binance Wallet will launch the fifth PrimeSale Pre-TGE project, Zama (ZAMA), from 16:00 to 18:00 (UTC+8) on January 29, 2026. Participation is limited to eligible users holding Alpha Points. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) distributed over $7.38 million in funding in Q4, covering areas such as ZK, education, and development tools. According to an EF announcement, the EF ecosystem support program distributed over $7.38 million in funding in the fourth quarter of 2025, covering multiple areas including ZK technology, consensus mechanisms, community education, development tools, and protocol research. This support includes dozens of projects and individuals such as @axiom_xyz, @ChainSafeth, @Nethermind, and @WalletConnect, continuously driving the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. AmericanBitcoin, backed by the Trump family, recently increased its holdings by 416 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 5,843 BTC, according to SolidIntel. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the UAE signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen cross-border cooperation on digital assets. This landmark MOU is the first agreement signed between the SFC and an overseas regulatory body on regulatory cooperation regarding regulated digital asset entities. The MOU establishes a framework for enhanced regulatory cooperation, including mutual consultation and information exchange on regulating cross-border regulated digital asset entities, fully demonstrating the SFC's commitment to promoting international cooperation in accordance with its ASPIRe roadmap. A dormant Ethereum whale transferred 135,000 ETH to Gemini this week, according to CoinDesk. The wallet, which purchased ETH in 2017 at around $90 per coin, currently holds a paper profit of approximately $385 million.

According to a post on January 28th by Huoxun Finance, ZachXBT previously reported that John (Lick) was linked to a major case in 2024 involving the theft of over $90 million from addresses seized by the US government, and also to a series of thefts targeting multiple unidentified victims between November and December 2025. Monitoring revealed that John (Lick) has begun depositing funds into TornadoCash, and as of now, 11,037 ETH (approximately $33 million) have been transferred to this mixer.

Huoxun Finance News, January 28th - According to Reuters, Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave, becoming its second-largest shareholder to accelerate their data center construction cooperation in the United States. The investment, at $87.20 per share, will increase Nvidia's stake by approximately 23 million shares, significantly increasing its ownership. CoreWeave stated that the funds will be used to accelerate land and power procurement, R&D, and team expansion, rather than for purchasing Nvidia processors. The company aims to build over 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity by 2030. CoreWeave, originally a cryptocurrency mining company, has transformed into a "new cloud" service provider leasing Nvidia GPUs to technology and AI companies.

According to Huoxun Finance on January 28, OnchainLens monitoring revealed that a whale withdrew 1,000 BTC from OKX in the past 17 hours, worth $89.2 million.