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

According to an official announcement, Upbit has launched spot trading for Numeraire (NMR), supporting KRW and USDT trading pairs.

Shell CEO Wael Sawan said oil flows in the Middle East have now recovered to around 80% of pre-conflict levels, one of the most authoritative assessments of the region's energy export recovery to date. Sawan spoke at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Tuesday, noting: "Despite all that has happened, we have now recovered to over 80% of pre-war levels, which demonstrates that many countries in the region still boast strong resilience and can continue to fulfill their commitment to supplying energy to the global market." While several major banks and shipping data analytics firms also hold that Middle East oil flows are approaching pre-conflict levels, the market remains divided on the exact scale of the recovery. Accurately counting the number of vessels actually transiting the Strait of Hormuz and parts of the Red Sea is challenging, as many ships frequently disable their satellite positioning signals, making it harder for external parties to calculate the precise volume of cargo transported.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), U.S. pre-market trading saw a broad rise in crypto-related stocks, with gains as follows: CRCL up 1.19%, MSTR up 1.05%, HOOD up 0.91%, BMNR up 0.85%, COIN up 1.11%, and HSDT up 1.89%.

Wells Fargo said it raised Meta Platforms (META.O)’s price target from $796 to $1,000, and Alphabet (GOOG.O)’s price target from $411 to $417.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared Nethermind’s development progress, stating that the team is consistently doing excellent work to make Ethereum more efficient and faster. Nethermind core developer Ben Adams noted that its Beacon Chain plugin has completed synchronization and is prepared for Sepolia’s Glamsterdam fork; additionally, running Ethereum’s Execution Layer (EL) and Consensus Layer (CL) as a single application does not appear to result in significant additional memory overhead. The Ethereum Foundation previously confirmed that Glamsterdam will activate on Sepolia on October 6, and Nethermind 2.1.0 already supports the upgrade.

The Hong Kong government has reaffirmed that it will submit amendments to the crypto asset licensing bill by the end of 2026, establishing a licensing regime covering digital asset trading, custody, advisory, and management services. Christopher Hui, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of Hong Kong, stated that the amendments will address developments in the fintech sector. In January this year, Hui disclosed that regulators plan to submit a crypto asset regulatory proposal by the end of 2026. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has started processing license applications for stablecoin issuers, and in April issued the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses to Anchorpoint Financial and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. (Cointelegraph)