The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

According to GMGN data, the crypto meme coin Artificial Inu (AI) on the Robinhood Chain has hit a new all-time high, with its market cap exceeding $360 million, a 24-hour gain of 32.1%, and trading volume of $23.9 million. Artificial Inu was launched via Long.xyz, a launchpad on the Robinhood Chain, and uses tokenized Nvidia stock as its liquidity pool, with liquidity provided via the AI/NVDA trading pair. BlockBeats Note: Stock Meme is an emerging concept that combines traditional meme coins with tokenized U.S. stocks. Unlike standard meme coins that pair with USDT or ETH, Stock Memes are directly paired with on-chain U.S. stock tokens (such as NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, etc.). This model retains meme coins’ high volatility and community-driven speculative traits while leveraging the popularity and narratives of real stocks. A portion of transaction fees is typically funneled back to the community treasury to accumulate the corresponding U.S. stock tokens, forming a dual-driven model of "sentiment-driven speculation + real asset anchoring". BlockBeats reminds users that token prices are highly volatile, so investment should be approached with caution.

According to HTX market data, Backpack’s platform token BP has surged past $0.53, logging a more than 18.4% gain in the past 24 hours. The price movement is mainly driven by news that the SEC has approved limited trading of tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms. On July 10 this year, Backpack announced the launch of a 24/7 real US stock trading market for international investors, allowing eligible users to trade and hold actual US stocks around the clock rather than synthetic derivatives. Backpack stated that the platform provides actual equity ownership, leverages liquidity from traditional trading platforms, and supports instant settlement, continuous price discovery, as well as fiat and stablecoin settlements.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stated that for AMMs (Automated Market Makers), the most significant development today is not the main text of the SEC’s “innovation exemption” but the accompanying opinion from Commissioner Hester Peirce. The opinion notes: “This order is not targeting decentralized finance. Decentralized systems truly driven by automated software do not trigger the core concerns under securities laws: 'you entrust to an intermediary who may be foolish, negligent, or bribed'; investors using permissionless smart contracts for peer-to-peer transactions do not require an exemption.” Adams interprets this to mean that ordinary permissionless Uniswap is not included in this sandbox and does not need to apply for an exemption in the first place. The exemption applies to permissioned pools on Uniswap v4, a compliant option for when assets and users need regulated channels. He considers permissioned Uniswap v4 pools to be the new entry point for compliant trading in the U.S.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), driven by the U.S. SEC’s approval of limited trading for tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms, U.S. digital asset tokenization platform Securitize (ticker: SECZ) saw its intraday price jump more than 20%, surging to over 24% at one point. Its current share price stands at $9.36, with a market capitalization of $1.528 billion. Securitize is a U.S.-licensed tokenization infrastructure firm founded in 2017, which went public via a SPAC merger in July 2026. It registers fund shares, private credit, stocks and other assets as on-chain securities, offering end-to-end services including transfer agency, brokerage, Alternative Trading System (ATS) trading, and fund administration. Its partners, key clients and investors include BlackRock (whose tokenized money market fund is BUIDL), Apollo, and KKR. Securitize focuses on institutional-grade, real securities on-chain with shareholder rights, rather than synthetic stock price tokens. For more details, see the report: "Interpreting SEC’s Approval of Limited On-Chain Trading for Tokenized Stocks: A Setback for 'Synthetic U.S. Stock Tokens', A Milestone for 'Real Tokenized U.S. Stocks'."

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has returned to social platform X after a two-year hiatus. In a post today, he wrote "I'm back." alongside a photo of himself standing on an Australian street, pointing at his mural. His wife Stella confirmed this is his official account, noting more news will be coming next week. Assange, born in Australia in 1971, founded WikiLeaks in 2006. Around 2010, the organization released U.S. military records from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as U.S. diplomatic cables, sparking years of legal battles with U.S. and British authorities. He took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years before being arrested by the UK in 2019 and detained at Belmarsh Prison. In June 2024, he reached a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defense information in exchange for credit for time served, leading to his release and return to Australia. He has largely remained out of public view over the past two years. After Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and other payment providers cut off WikiLeaks’ fiat currency channels in late 2010, Assange shifted to accepting Bitcoin, making WikiLeaks one of the first major organizations to use BTC as a censorship-resistant settlement tool. Since then, he has repeatedly spoken publicly about cryptocurrency, viewing it as infrastructure to bypass bank blockades, protect sources, and safeguard fund flows. WikiLeaks has long accepted Bitcoin and other crypto assets as donations.

Beating AI Express News: Open-source project Hypit has recently gained rapid popularity on GitHub, currently boasting around 8,300 stars. It serves as a video production toolkit for coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, enabling these agents—originally focused on writing code—to now create videos. After users input a reference video, Hypit breaks down its scripts, shots, subtitles, B-roll footage, and special effects into a reusable, modifiable production workflow. The agent then calls tools including video model Seedance, image models, WhisperX, and FFmpeg to replace characters, scripts, and assets, regenerating the entire video. This approach is particularly suited for batch production of similar videos: for example, if an ad performs well, users can retain its original rhythm and structure, only swapping out products, characters, or copy to quickly generate dozens of different versions. Once a video workflow is set up, subsequent work mainly involves updating content, eliminating the need to start from scratch each time. Hypit is free to use and does not mandate binding to a specific generative model. However, it uses an open-source license with additional restrictions: internal commercial use by enterprises is permitted, but building a SaaS service for multiple clients requires separate commercial authorization.