Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

On January 18, Axie Infinity announced the launch of bAXS—a non-transferable token directly tied to user accounts, backed 1:1 by AXS—to curb inflationary rewards for real players. Additionally, recent adjustments to SLP rewards in Axie Infinity Origins have targeted further inflation reduction. Per HTX market data, several blockchain gaming and metaverse tokens led gains in the altcoin space today. Top performers include: - AXS: Currently trading at $2.06, up 52.2% in 24 hours - STO: $0.116, 50.9% 24-hour gain - BERA: $1.04, 41% increase - RARE: $0.0303, 28.9% up - RONIN: $0.184, 16.2% gain - SAND: $0.1504, 15.6% rise - SLP: $0.000993, 13.2% 24-hour increase The broader crypto market remains range-bound. Bitcoin trades at $94,920, Ethereum at $3,301, and total market capitalization stands at $3.305 trillion—down 0.3% over the past 24 hours.

**Jan 18 Update:** The Hyperliquid Foundation announced on January 18 that it has donated 10,000 HYPE tokens to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT—valued at roughly $254,000, marking the second-largest donation ZachXBT has received to date. ZachXBT has confirmed receipt of the donation and shared details of other top 10 donors, including Optimism, Octant, The White Whale, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Unipcs, Nouns, CL207, and High Stakes Capital.

Jan. 18 — On-chain analyst Ai Auntie (@ai_9684xtpa) reported 1 hour ago that a Floki team-linked address (0xf12...3739B) sold 27.4 billion FLOKI tokens on-chain, netting 340.61 ETH worth roughly $1.35 million.

On Jan. 18, Solana co-founder Toly pushed back sharply against Ethereum co-founder Vitalik’s proposal that “Ethereum itself must pass the escape test.” Toly emphasized Solana’s need for continuous iteration and warned the network would perish if it stopped adapting to developers’ and users’ needs—stressing it must never rely on any single team or individual. He added Solana must deliver significant real-world utility, with large numbers of builders on the network earning meaningful income from transaction value there. This, he noted, is the only way to secure more LLM token credit for upstream improvements to Solana’s general-purpose protocol. For survival, he said, Solana must always prioritize practicality. While protocol changes should first solve developers’ or users’ problems, that does not mean addressing every issue—saying “no” to most requests is necessary.

**Trump Meme Coin Frenzy: Timeline & Impact** Last year on January 18 at 10 a.m. UTC+8, former President Trump announced his personal meme coin **TRUMP** on Truth Social. The token’s initial market cap hit $1 billion, sparking a crypto market frenzy. Community members split over whether Trump’s account had been compromised—rumors fueled a pump that pushed TRUMP’s market cap to $1.5 billion in 30 minutes, with $123 million in trading volume. At 10:38 a.m., the token plunged over 50% briefly, with its market cap touching $1.3 billion. A turning point hit at 10:44 a.m.: Trump reposted X posts about the "official TRUMP meme coin launch," quelling security doubts. TRUMP’s market cap then surged, peaking at 11:22 a.m. (a moonshot) with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) topping $4 billion. By 11:29 a.m., FDV exceeded $5 billion; it hit $10 billion by 1:07 p.m. (3 hours post-launch), $13 billion by 1:59 p.m. (4 hours), and $16 billion by 2:13 p.m. Binance suspended SOL withdrawals amid

On January 18, Donald Trump announced he will sue JPMorgan Chase—the top U.S. bank—within the next two weeks, citing the lender’s prior role in leading the move to stop services to him. Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, stated that following the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, the Trump family had no option but to enter the cryptocurrency space after banks refused to serve them. Additionally, Trump denied ever offering JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon the Federal Reserve chairmanship, labeling a related report by *The Wall Street Journal* as “completely false.”