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

According to Bloomberg, Chinese AI startup Moonshot has achieved an unexpected technological breakthrough, triggering sharp declines in global AI and semiconductor stocks on Friday and prompting markets to once again reference the 2025 "DeepSeek Moment". The semiconductor benchmark index has fallen roughly 20% from its June peak, entering a bear market; the triple-leveraged semiconductor ETF SOXL has dropped more than 50% over the same period. This sell-off demonstrates that when rapid advances in AI technology reshape market perceptions of winners and losers, leveraged ETFs, options, single-stock funds, and crypto-related products may be liquidated simultaneously. Bloomberg Intelligence data shows leveraged ETFs make up around 13% of U.S. ETF trading volume but only 1.2% of industry assets. When accounting for embedded leverage, their share of the U.S. stock market remains less than 1%. While these products are generally small in overall size, their holdings are concentrated in AI chips, volatile stocks, and newly listed firms. When leverage, concentration, and volatility rise at the same time, the funds' daily rebalancing turns them into active trading forces that further amplify existing market trends. The South Korean market offers a clear recent case: local retail investors have heavily purchased leveraged products tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and as market sentiment turned weak, the related funds were forced to sell an estimated tens of billions of dollars worth of SK Hynix positions.

According to Bloomberg, Circle’s stock price has fallen more than 75% from its post-IPO high last year. Dan Dolev, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA, downgraded Circle this week from "Neutral" to "Underperform", setting a Wall Street-low target price of $50, which implies roughly 18% downside from Thursday’s closing price, well below the average analyst target of $123 tracked by Bloomberg. Dolev argues Circle faces rising competition risks in the stablecoin space. Over 100 fintech firms, payment networks, crypto companies and banks, including Visa, Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock, are backing the Open Standard project, which will issue OUSD. Circle’s stock fell 7.7% on Thursday, the same day Visa launched a stablecoin issuance, transfer and management platform for financial institutions. Circle generates most of its revenue from interest on USDC’s reserve assets, while new stablecoin initiatives like OUSD plan to share reserve returns with partners and charge lower management fees. Dolev says this business model could draw partners away from Circle, intensifying pricing and margin pressure on the firm. He projects Circle’s adjusted EBITDA for 2027 will hit $699 million, below the consensus market estimate of $907 million. He also noted that Circle and Coinbase’s USDC distribution agreement is set to be renegotiated in August, with Coinbase likely to leverage competitive pressure from OUSD to secure a higher revenue split.

According to Bloomberg, South Korea’s roughly $4 trillion stock market has become a key window for fund managers in London, New York and Tokyo to gauge global AI risk appetite. Stock fluctuations in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix continue to ripple through global chip stocks, and some Japanese traders have added the KOSPI index to their daily watchlists. The correlation between South Korea’s market and U.S. tech stocks has grown significantly. Bloomberg data shows the 60-day correlation coefficient between the KOSPI index and the Nasdaq 100 has risen to 0.46, near a two-year high—about three times the 0.16 average over the past five years. Last week, South Korea’s market fell nearly 9% at one point amid renewed doubts about AI demand prospects, with the selloff later spreading to Wall Street; SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts dropped 9.3%. However, high-leverage trading in South Korea has amplified volatility. The KOSPI index has fallen 25% from its June peak, erasing roughly $1 trillion in market capitalization, with both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix down at least 30%. South Korea recently suspended the launch of new single-stock leverage trading products to curb speculation and market volatility. Even so, the KOSPI index is still up 62% year-to-date, ranking among the top of major global markets. Given Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s critical positions in the global memory chip supply, multiple institutional players believe that as long as the AI rally persists, South Korea’s stock market will remain an important barometer for global AI and semiconductor trading.

Ostium has released an update on its security incident. Its liquidity provider fund pool was attacked on July 15, resulting in a loss of 23,752,746 USDC. Preliminary investigations show that the attacker breached the off-chain infrastructure supplying price data to the protocol, submitted falsified illegal price reports, and extracted artificially generated profits from the fund pool by rapidly opening and closing multiple large positions. Ostium stated that trader collateral is stored in an isolated smart contract and was not affected by the incident, with all trading positions remaining open. The team suspended trading and froze all trading contracts within 60 minutes of the first attack transaction. Currently, Ostium is collaborating with Mandiant, zeroShadow, Collisionless, SEAL 911, and law enforcement agencies, and coordinating with exchanges, bridge contracts, and stablecoin issuers to advance the investigation. The engineering team is focused on fixing and strengthening relevant infrastructure to support the safe resumption of trading. Ostium said it will provide at least 24 hours’ advance notice before unfreezing trading contracts. After trading resumes, existing positions will be marked at the price when they reopen, unaffected by price fluctuations during the suspension period. Supporting affected liquidity providers and safely resuming trading remain the top priorities.

Glassnode’s lead research analyst CryptoVizArt noted in a post that the short-term holder cost basis distribution heatmap shows a new round of coins shifting to new buyers in the $62,000–$65,000 range during Bitcoin’s rebound from $57,000. He pointed out that this structure has two sides: on one hand, buyers’ active accumulation during the rally could form a new cost basis support, paving the way for Bitcoin to test levels of $66,000 and higher. On the other hand, this round of coin accumulation is heavily concentrated toward the end of the local rebound. If Bitcoin fails to break above $66,000 convincingly, the risk of the market forming a short-term top will rise. $66,000 is the key short-term level to judge the above two scenarios.

MetaMask developer Consensys has uncovered that a North Korean hacker infiltrated the MetaMask team under a false identity for roughly a month, contributing to core wallet code development. Operating under the name "Tyler Knapp", the individual joined as a consultant via a contractor, with a GitHub account under the handle imyugioh. Their code commits spanned from March 9 through April, and the hacker worked on sections of code related to cryptocurrency-fiat currency transfers. Upon identifying the risk, Consensys immediately cut off the hacker’s access, instructed employees to pause product releases and avoid contact with the individual, and reported the incident to law enforcement. General Counsel Matt Corva stated that investigations confirmed no assets or data were misappropriated, no malicious code was deployed, and user funds and security remained uncompromised. The company is now re-evaluating its contractor background verification procedures. TRM Labs noted that developer work environments have emerged as a critical entry point for attackers to target crypto firms’ keys and withdrawal approval systems. This follows a prior finding by an Ethereum grant project that identified 100 suspected North Korean IT professionals across 53 crypto projects.