U.S. CFTC Acting Chairman: Enforcement Division Restructured, Refocused on Combating Fraud

On January 16, per Globenewswire, U.S.-listed AlphaTON Capital—a TON Treasury firm—announced it has raised $15 million via a registered common stock offering. The company is issuing 15 million common shares at $1 per share, with HC Wainwright & Co. serving as the exclusive placement agent for the transaction. AlphaTON noted it intends to allocate the net proceeds toward expanding Cocoon AI GPU deployments, supplementing working capital, and general corporate purposes.

On January 16, Forward Industries—a Solana-native treasury-listed firm—announced its financial performance. As of January 15, the company held a total of 6,979,967.46 SOL, nearly all of which has been staked since it established its Solana Treasury. To date, it has earned 133,450 SOL in staking rewards.

On January 16, Hong Kong-listed firm Diginex announced that its Hong Kong subsidiary Diginex Securities Limited received conditional approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on January 15 to offer virtual asset advisory services—upgrading its existing Type 4 license (securities advising). Under the approval terms, Diginex Securities may only provide this advisory service to professional investors who are existing clients of its Type 4 business. The firm had previously secured approval to upgrade its Type 1 license (securities dealing). Diginex Holdings noted it expects to officially launch virtual asset trading services in February this year, following completion of system connectivity and testing with SFC-licensed platforms. This license upgrade will support the Group’s strategy in the virtual asset and Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization sector.

As of January 16th, Space—Solana’s on-chain leveraged prediction market—has raised over $14 million in its public sale, with an oversubscription rate of 567.58% and less than 13 hours left until the sale concludes. Per details, $2.5 million worth of tokens are being offered at a fixed fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $50 million. Once the target is hit, sales will continue, and the FDV will rise linearly to a cap of $69 million. Post-public sale, participants will receive tokens at a unified price calculated based on their contributions.

On January 16, CME Group announced that spot-traded XRP (QXRP) and SOL (QSOL) futures are now available for trading. Additionally, 24/7 electronic trading for crypto options and futures is set to launch soon. Furthermore, CME Group plans to launch Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), and Stellar (XLM) futures (expected to go live February 9, pending regulatory review) — along with micro futures for ADA, LINK, and XLM — at the same time.

Moldovan Finance Minister Andrian Gavrilita said on January 16 that the country plans to roll out its first comprehensive crypto regulation by the end of 2026, aligning its framework with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rulebook. The new rules will let citizens legally hold and trade crypto but will not recognize it as legal tender. Gavrilita noted the government is collaborating with the central bank, financial market regulators, and anti-money laundering (AML) agencies to build the framework and meet its EU alignment commitments. He emphasized crypto should be seen more as a high-volatility speculative space than a traditional investment, but citizens still have the right to participate in related activities if they follow compliance rules. Reports state this will be Moldova’s first formal crypto legal system. Previously, the Moldovan central bank had issued warnings about crypto’s price swings and money laundering risks. The EU’s MiCA fully took effect at