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

Beating AI News: As its AI cloud business expands, Bitcoin mining firm IREN is projected to generate around $17 billion in annual AI cloud revenue by 2030, with its cloud computing capacity set to expand to approximately 2GW. Bernstein forecasts that IREN will phase out its Bitcoin mining operations by the end of 2026. Meanwhile, the price of IREN’s three-year AI cloud contracts has risen by roughly 125% since last November, reflecting sustained growth in AI computing power demand and related pricing power.

Per GMGN market data, Robinhood Chain meme project NUDES currently has a market capitalization of roughly $14.27 million, with its token trading at $0.0142, a 257.5% gain in the past 24 hours, and a 38.72% rise over the last six hours. The token’s market cap once touched a historical peak of about $15.94 million, and has now retreated to around $14.27 million.

Arthur Hayes stated in a post that Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) is considering a re-examination of its overseas and domestic asset allocations, which he cited as one of the factors behind today’s roughly 2% drop in the euro against the yen. Hayes argues that shifts in GPIF’s asset allocation could trigger large-scale capital reallocation, dubbing this the start of a “money printing feast”. He also recommends reading his latest article “Atencion” for more related perspectives.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo has published a post noting that Bitcoin has long been shaped by its halving mechanism, creating a relatively regular 4-year cycle. But as the supply boost from halving continues to fade, this endogenous cyclical driver is growing less significant. Woo highlighted that BTC’s current annual new supply makes up roughly 0.8% of its total supply, a figure set to fall further to 0.4% going forward. Meanwhile, short-term debt cycles in traditional financial markets typically span 6 to 8 years, leading him to argue Bitcoin may be gradually transitioning from its prior 4-year cycle to a 6 to 8-year one. The present period could mark the transitional stage of this cyclical structural shift.

According to an official announcement from Australia’s Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), firms relying on ASIC’s "no-action position" for the digital asset sector must apply for or amend an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license by September 30, 2026. Failure to meet this deadline may lead to violations of financial services laws starting October 1. ASIC added that entities needing either an Australian market license or a clearing and settlement (CS) facility license must also notify the regulator of their application intent in writing by the same date, and complete pre-application meetings. Firms failing to satisfy these requirements may face civil and criminal penalties, with maximum fines equal to 10% of their annual turnover. Since updating its digital asset regulatory guidelines in October 2025, ASIC has received over 45 relevant license applications. The regulator stated that ending transitional regulatory exemptions for digital asset businesses is a key step toward bringing the sector under formal regulatory oversight. Additionally, Australia’s Digital Asset Framework Amendment (DAF Act) was passed by parliament in April 2026, received royal assent on April 8, and will officially take effect on April 9, 2027. Even after the new framework is implemented, some existing licenses will remain valid.

Insight Beating AI Flash News: GPT-6 has directly appeared in OpenAI’s official GitHub repository. An OpenAI developer submitted a Pull Request (PR) to the Computer Use example project, adding two environments: gpt6-js-image and gpt6-py-image, with the branch named codex/gpt6-computer-use-images. The two environments are tailored for JavaScript and Python respectively: the former is pre-installed with Playwright and Chromium, while the latter uses PyAutoGUI, Chromium, and a Linux desktop environment, enabling agents to view screens and operate browsers and desktops. The PR has not been merged yet, and it does not include GPT-6 API calls—it is only preparing the runtime environment for Computer Use. Sam Altman recently stated in an interview that past models’ computer operations have always been too slow or unreliable, but Astra made him feel for the first time that “it has reached a level comparable to humans”. He now directly lets the model retrieve messages across different applications instead of opening and searching for them one by one himself.