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

According to Yonhap News Agency, Lee Won-uk, chairman of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), stated that the ongoing Digital Asset Basic Act’s provisions on shareholding limits for major shareholders of virtual asset exchanges are not targeted at specific individuals or firms, but are designed to address the higher public responsibilities exchanges must assume after operating on an institutionalized basis. Currently, South Korea’s virtual asset exchanges operate under a triennial renewal and reporting system, which will be switched to a licensing-based operation system once the Digital Asset Basic Act takes effect. Lee emphasized that virtual asset exchanges possess infrastructure attributes and need to demonstrate the level of public accountability commensurate with their status.

It has been one year since the "Oct 11 Crash". Back then, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of roughly $126,000, then plummeted rapidly from around $122,000 to $105,000, sparking about $19 billion in epic liquidations across the crypto market. On the anniversary, institutional analysts are revisiting the crash’s impacts and lessons on the crypto sector. Mark Connors, head of Risk Dimensions, pointed out the market topped out extremely quickly, with open interest near all-time highs, as numerous traders bet on Bitcoin’s continuation of its four-year cycle rally—ultimately suffering losses when the market reversed. Connors noted the Oct 11 Crash was driven primarily by the derivatives market, not shifts in on-chain demand, underscoring that leveraged positions can still dominate Bitcoin’s price movement in the short term. He added that leveraged trading such as perpetual swaps remains widespread, leaving the market primed for a similar crash. Chris Sullivan, co-founder of Hyperion Decimus, advised traders to reduce leverage and track metrics including open interest, funding rates, and market sentiment to identify risks of excessive one-sided bets. Connors also stated that investors’ understanding of market structure has improved, but Bitcoin’s "four-year cycle" as a price predictor is losing validity, with macroeconomic and political factors likely playing a larger role. (CoinDesk)

According to crypto analyst alicharts, during the ongoing Bitcoin correction, whale groups have adopted an accumulation strategy for major cryptocurrencies. Over the past 72 hours, whales have added approximately 15,000 Bitcoin, more than 166,000 ETH, and over 45 million XRP to their holdings.

According to Arkham's monitoring, Morgan Stanley added approximately 91.685 Bitcoin to its holdings two days ago via its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) MSBT, bringing its total Bitcoin position to 10,639 coins, currently valued at roughly $880 million.

Insight Beating AI News: 9-year-old Yu Zhile, a fourth-grade pupil from Xiamen, Fujian, has recently established the "Zhile AI Scholarship" at Longshan Middle School in Nanjing, Zhangzhou, to award scholarships to students at the school. According to a report by *Minnan Daily*, Yu started learning AI in January this year, then used AI tools to develop products and websites and attempted to sell them. Including earnings from competition awards, his cumulative income is reportedly six-figure RMB. His mother Zhuang Sehui runs an internet company in Xiamen, and Longshan Middle School is her junior high alma mater. She has long supported students in her hometown. This time, the mother and son decided to set up the scholarship with part of their income, planning to reward outstanding students annually. Longshan Middle School Principal Wu Ruixing stated that the scholarship will be used to encourage students who excel in both character and academics and have a passion for technological innovation.

Beating AI Express News reports that Pine AI has launched Pine Computer, a cloud computer designed specifically for AI Agents. It integrates cloud virtual machines, AI models, and operational tools. Developers submit tasks via API, enabling the AI to operate browsers, software, and files in the cloud without requiring users to use their own devices. Pine’s core improvement is enabling the computer to proactively inform the AI of changes, addressing a key limitation of traditional vision-based Agents, which typically need repeated screenshots to assess click outcomes. Pine instead lets browsers and operating systems directly feed back changes to the AI model executing the task, cutting down on repeated screenshots and page checks. Pine claims its new solution completes tasks 2 to 5 times faster than traditional approaches in internal tests. In the SaaS-Bench v1.1 test, Pine’s checkpoint score hit 78.3%, outperforming Claude Code’s 74.3% and Codex’s 71.1%. This score measures how many check requirements are fulfilled during task execution, not overall task success rate. However, X Community notes point out Pine’s full task completion rate is only 27.4%, lower than Claude Code’s 31.1% and Codex’s 29.2%. Pine’s model costs are also far lower, averaging around $1.02 per task, versus $20.50 for Codex and $26.50 for Claude Code. That said, these fees exclude cloud server costs, and each solution uses different models and execution budgets. Currently, Pine Computer remains in an invitation-only closed beta phase.