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

Copper prices hit an all-time high of over $14,000 per ton on Thursday, January 29, as speculators ramped up buying pressure—fueled by strong demand expectations, a weaker dollar, and geopolitical worries. They brushed off analyst warnings that high prices would cool physical demand from industrial users, and current supply-demand fundamentals don’t justify the level. London Metal Exchange (LME) benchmark three-month copper futures jumped 7.9% in Asian trading, hitting a record $14,125 per ton. Britannia Global Markets analyst Neil Welsh noted in a report: “Copper posted its biggest single-day gain in years, driven by heavy long-side speculative trading. Investors are piling into base metals on bets of strong U.S. economic growth and higher global spending on data centers, robotics, and power infrastructure.” A weaker U.S. dollar also boosted metal prices. The dollar index neared multi-year lows, lowering costs for buyers of dollar-denominated commodities using other currencies. (FX1

**Bitcoin ZK-Rollup Project Citrea Launches Mainnet, Unveils BTC-Backed DeFi & Native Stablecoin** On January 29, Citrea—a Bitcoin ZK-rollup project backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures—officially went live on mainnet. The launch introduces BTC-collateralized DeFi lending, structured products, and its native stablecoin ctUSD, aiming to integrate "idle BTC" into a full DeFi and payment ecosystem. Citrea projects initial active DeFi liquidity on the mainnet will hit $50 million. Issued by MoonPay, ctUSD is pegged 1:1 to cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries. Unlike cross-chain assets, it’s native to Citrea, which mitigates bridge risks and avoids liquidity fragmentation. The project has rekindled a long-running debate: As Bitcoin’s block subsidies decline, should miners’ fee revenue be bolstered via non-payment use cases like DeFi and stablecoins? Proponents argue these use cases represent a sustainable demand source, while critics stress Bitcoin’s block space should priori

Jan. 29 – Per AI Whale Watching, an ancient ETH whale dating back to 2016 reportedly sold 5,000 ETH with an average cost as low as $9.35. Address 0x660…7Bf35 deposited 5,000 ETH (valued at $14.7 million) to Wintermute three hours ago. Tracing its origin, two key prior addresses stand out: - Address 0xDA2…80100 previously withdrew 10,600 ETH from Gate 10 years ago — with a total cost of just $99,000; - Address 0x132…38378 previously withdrew 18,049.96 ETH from Kraken 9 years ago, at an average price as low as $86.

January 29: U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 24 hit 209,000, topping the expected 205,000. The prior week’s figure was revised up from 200,000 to 210,000. (FXStreet)

On January 29, ALT5 Sigma Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTS) announced its board of directors has approved a share repurchase program of up to $100 million. The program includes a 50-million-share maximum for purchases made when the stock trades below its Net Asset Value (NAV)—representing roughly 40% of the company’s outstanding shares. The firm noted the initiative is intended to capitalize on valuation discounts and unlock shareholder value. Concurrently, the board has greenlit ongoing accumulation of WLFI tokens in the secondary market. ALT5 currently holds approximately 7.3 billion WLFI tokens, valued at roughly $1.5 billion, and remains bullish on the rapid growth of the World Liberty Financial ecosystem and its USD1 stablecoin. To kickstart these efforts, ALT5 has entered a $15 million loan agreement with World Liberty Financial. The company also signaled potential future financing by leveraging its robust balance sheet, which exceeds $1.6 billion. ALT5 CEO Tony Isaac stated th

As of January 29th, monitoring data from HyperInsight (via its Telegram channel: https://t.me/HyperInsight) reveals key whale movement trends between 10:00 AM and 8:00 PM ET today: ### Bullish Activity - Whale "Buddy" closed its HYPE long position, netting a $961,000 profit. - HYPE’s largest bullish whale withdrew $7 million in collateral, pushing its liquidation price up to $25. ### Bearish Activity - Whale "Silver Iron Head Air Force" added another silver short position with an average entry price of $116.76. - Whale "Lightning Reversal" closed its BTC and ETH short positions, locking in a total $351,000 profit. - Whale "20 Million Range Sniper" kept expanding short positions in gold and XMR — remaining the largest XMR short holder on Hyperliquid (link: https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/NTOD).