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

Strategy founder Michael Saylor has once again shared updates on the Bitcoin Tracker, stating, "Bitcoin is digital energy." Following past patterns, Strategy typically discloses news of increasing its Bitcoin holdings the day after such related announcements are released.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (handle @ai_9684xtpa), a suspected insider address built a position at a low point when CZ’s market cap was only around $150,000, and has now started selling. On-chain data shows that address 0xf34…fddee spent just $756.8 to purchase 5.108 million CZ tokens yesterday, at an average cost of roughly $0.0001481 per token. Ten minutes ago, the address sold 25% of its holdings at $0.06853 per token, generating around $87,000 in profit. Currently, the address has accumulated total profits of roughly $374,000 (including unrealized gains), with a staggering return on investment of 49,421.1%.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), meme coins continue to be a key factor driving growth in public blockchain metrics. Solana’s active address count jumped 38% year-over-year to 31.38 million over the past seven days, ranking first among major public chains by a large margin; its transaction volume rose 9.8% in the same period, while transaction fees climbed 38%. The analyst added that today, fueled by CZ’s response, trading activity for BSC meme coins has picked up noticeably, and BSC’s on-chain data is expected to post strong performance tomorrow.

According to GMGN monitoring, the BSC-based meme coin CZ (The Final Form Bull) briefly exceeded $80 million in market capitalization, hitting an all-time high, and is currently at $76 million, with a 24-hour surge of 380 times and trading volume of approximately $43.7 million over the same period. Earlier reports noted that crypto blogger @TCryptochicks released a series of "riddle" images, after which Binance founder CZ retweeted the post and replied: "Water (drop) your BNB wallet", reigniting market hype around celebrity-linked meme coins. BlockBeats Note: Meme coin trading is highly volatile, mostly dependent on market sentiment and conceptual hype, with no actual value or practical use cases. Investors should exercise caution and be mindful of the associated risks.

According to Coinglass data, current funding rates on major centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) crypto exchanges show that the bearish sentiment for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) has weakened compared to earlier, but most platforms have not yet formed sustained bullish signals. Specifically, BTC funding rates on multiple platforms hover around the 0.0100% benchmark line, reflecting an overall neutral-to-weak pattern. For ETH, funding rates on multiple platforms have risen above the 0.005% threshold, with ETH’s long sentiment recovering slightly stronger than BTC’s, though no broad bullish signal has emerged yet. BlockBeats Note: Funding rates are fees set by crypto trading platforms to maintain the balance between perpetual contract prices and their underlying asset prices, typically applied to perpetual swaps. They function as a fund exchange mechanism between long and short traders; platforms do not collect this fee, instead using it to adjust the cost or return of holding contracts to keep contract prices aligned with underlying asset prices. A 0.01% funding rate is the benchmark. A rate above 0.01% indicates widespread bullish market sentiment, while a rate below 0.005% signals widespread bearish sentiment.

According to Polymarket data, the probability that the CLARITY Act will be signed into law in 2026 has climbed to 52%, a 12-percentage-point increase from July 3. On the news front, the U.S. Major County Sheriffs' Association (MCSA) announced that after initially raising concerns about how the bill would affect illicit financial investigations, it no longer opposes the CLARITY Act. Analysts note that the MCSA’s shift in stance has eliminated a key barrier to the bill’s advancement, improving its feasibility of moving to a Senate vote. Still, opposition from the banking sector to stablecoin yield products and DeFi regulation remains a major source of uncertainty.