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

According to Arkham data, at around 16:15 today, three consecutive token burns occurred at CZ’s public donation address: 4,444 meme token “Niu Lai” (contract address starts with 0xD043B6, a namesake of the popularly traded 0xbee-started “Niu Lai” token), 4,444 meme coin MarsCoin, and 4,444 “Binance Life”. Verification reveals the 4,444 Niu Lai meme tokens were not burned by CZ himself. The transaction initiator is the token creator (0xcf86..383), who deployed the contract and set privileged authorization, minted 1 billion tokens to his own address, transferred ~800 million tokens to CZ’s address, then used the transferFrom function to forcibly withdraw 4,444 tokens from CZ’s address to a black hole address to simulate CZ’s burn. CZ’s address had no authorization for this token or the initiator during this period. This tactic is not uncommon. Previously, in 2025, the CAAB token project transferred 80% of its total supply directly to CZ’s donation address, promoting “CZ holdings” to push its market cap to a fake high in a short time and mislead investors. The SHORT token sent 99.9% of its total supply to CZ; after CZ “cleaned up” (burned) them, the token saw a short-term surge, allowing the project team to sell off their holdings. BlockBeats reminds users that on-chain monitoring tools will directly label this transaction as “From: Changpeng Zhao”. A single burn hash cannot be taken as CZ’s endorsement, project participation, or active burning. Contract creators can move balances from other token holders’ addresses, carrying extremely high risks. Meme coins generally lack practical use cases and have highly volatile prices, so investment requires caution.

CZ(@cz_binance)'s public wallet burned 4,444 $币安人生 and 4,444 $MARSCOIN 1 hour ago.

S&P 500 posted 31% year-over-year earnings growth in Q2, the strongest pace since 1992 excluding recession and recovery periods, far exceeding the prior consensus forecast of 23%. The core driver is AI’s substantial boost to profit margins, with net profit margins jumping from the long-stagnant 14% to nearly 16%. Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide Funds Group, noted that AI was a cost center for companies over the past five years, but this year has seen a turning point, with AI now truly acting as a profit center. The sharp earnings growth outpaced the index’s rally, pushing the S&P 500’s P/E ratio down from around 26x at the start of the year to below 22x, completing a "valuation reset". Scott Rubner, head of strategy at Citadel Securities, said: "Right now, earnings are doing the heavy lifting, not valuation expansion." Grace Peters, co-head of global investment strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank, also noted that double-digit earnings upgrades outside of a recovery period are almost unprecedented. Earnings expansion is no longer just a story for large-cap stocks. About three-quarters of US companies that have reported earnings beat both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue estimates, with small and mid-cap stocks’ beat rate near post-pandemic historical highs. European companies’ Q2 net profit margins surged to a record 12%, while the MSCI Europe Index posted 18% year-over-year earnings growth, its best performance since 2022. For the Asia-Pacific region, earnings upgrades since June have neared 10%, the largest such increase for the same period since 2009. Strategists have raised their full-year S&P 500 earnings growth forecast from 15% at the start of the year to 27%, with the average year-end target price rising to 7,894 points. Nvidia’s earnings report will be the last key piece of the puzzle this month, further testing the strength of this current earnings bull run.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $63,000, with a 24-hour decline of 0.04%.

According to OnchainLens monitoring, a Chainlink whale deposited 984,550 LINK tokens to Coinbase two hours ago, valued at approximately $9.23 million, likely for sale. Over the past month, this whale has accumulated around 2.41 million LINK tokens from Binance. It currently holds about 1.43 million LINK tokens, worth roughly $13.43 million, with an estimated unrealized profit of approximately $1.42 million.

According to Arkham monitoring, CZ’s public donation address made another abnormal movement 3 minutes ago, burning 4,444 units of the Meme token "Niu Lai". BlockBeats Note: The contract address of the "Niu Lai" Meme token burned by CZ’s address starts with 0xD043B6, while the highest-market-cap "Niu Lai" token on the BSC chain currently starts with 0xbeea. The two tokens share the same name. Meme tokens generally have no practical use cases, are highly volatile, and investment in them requires caution.