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

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s Division of Market Oversight and Division of Market Participants jointly released a letter reminding all regulated entities involved in event contract listing, solicitation or acceptance to clearly disclose derivative pricing information and refrain from misleading consumers. Regulators specifically warned that presenting pricing information in the "American odds" format may mislead market participants about the nature of trades, and could prevent users from accessing key metrics such as market depth and pricing impact. Earlier, Kalshi faces New York state charges over event contracts, while Polymarket has also come under regulatory scrutiny for its settlement mechanisms and false advertising. The CFTC’s latest warning further clarifies the compliance boundaries for prediction markets. The CFTC stressed that information displayed by market participants—including pricing details—must indicate to consumers that the product is an event contract traded on a CFTC-regulated exchange, not a product with higher profit margins and non-market pricing. Regulated entities must uphold regulatory standards by overseeing intermediary market participants, affiliates and partners; displaying misleading pricing information may violate federal laws prohibiting manipulative practices.

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, 25-year-old Wall Street’s rising AI stock prodigy and former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner has returned to the investment stage just days after his hedge fund neared collapse, splashing $400 million to back a private company backed by Sequoia Capital. The private firm, newly disclosed today, is chipmaking startup Source Foundry. The fund had previously invested $100 million in Source Foundry; with this additional $400 million, its total investment in the startup reaches $500 million. The Tuesday-completed investment is the first signal of how Aschenbrenner is resolving the crisis after his Situational Awareness fund nearly collapsed last week due to mass margin calls from multiple Wall Street lenders. Source Foundry is a stealth chipmaking startup founded in San Francisco in 2025, co-founded by Stanford materials scientist Abdulmalik Obaid (CEO) and Joe Burg. It focuses on developing simpler, lower-cost, faster semiconductor lithography and manufacturing processes and tools, aiming to challenge ASML’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, bridge the massive gap between the exponential growth of AI computing power demand and the linear expansion of traditional chip production capacity, and reshape the production of advanced AI chips.

Robinhood Crypto announced it is cutting the minimum gas sponsorship threshold for Robinhood Wallet on Robinhood Chain from $5 to $0.50. Moving forward, the platform will cover gas fees for an expanded range of swap transactions, and the promotion runs through September 29.

On-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa) has monitored that a new address has opened a $3.81 million position in ETH. The address 0x2fA…c5e1D withdrew 2,000 ETH from Binance four hours ago, valued at $3.81 million, then transferred the funds twice to address 0xA84…919DF. The receiving address currently holds $7.96 million in ETH and $1.03 million in LINK.

According to OpenSea market data, the floor price of NFT project StonkBrokers has climbed to 9.225 ETH, surging more than 20% in 24 hours, with cumulative trading volume totaling 1,734 ETH. The project has a fixed supply of 4,444 pixel-style "stockbroker" PFP NFTs (ERC-721 standard). Each NFT is linked to an ERC-6551 Token-Bound Account (TBA). At minting, tokenized stocks (including TSLA, AMZN, NVDA, AAPL, etc.) are pre-deposited, and the account can continue to receive rewards. Via the Anvil NFT AMM, users can swap a random StonkBroker NFT from the protocol vault for a fixed 666,666 units of meme coin STONKBROKER plus a small ETH gas fee; they can also sell an NFT back to the vault for an equivalent amount of tokens. Holders must spend STONKBROKER to "activate" their NFTs. The higher the activation level, the larger the weight of stock token rewards they earn. Part of the activation fee is burned, while the rest goes to the protocol. Fee flywheel mechanism: Around 70% of Anvil AMM transaction fees are converted into real stock tokens and airdropped to activated NFT-bound wallets. BlockBeats reminds users that relevant projects involve high uncertainty and price volatility, so users should exercise caution when investing.

Jiang Zhuoer, founder of BTC.TOP (formerly LTC Mining Pool), noted in a post that stablecoins in the crypto market are continuing to flow out. Over the past month, USDT’s market capitalization has slipped from $184.2 billion to $183.1 billion, while USDC’s fell from $73.28 billion to $72.15 billion, a total decline of $22.3 billion. The current liquidity situation shows no signs of an imminent bull market. Bitcoin could rebound to the $68,000–$70,000 range at most, before a final drop following the liquidation of short positions.