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

Per an official announcement, Binance will gradually launch a range of TradFi USDT-margined perpetual contracts, including CRML/USDT, BWET/USDT, ACN/USDT, MP/USDT, SECZ/USDT, UNH/USDT, NKE/USDT, DE, and more.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.6%, in line with market expectations, pushing the rate to its highest level since November 2011.

Driven by relatively high yields attracting investors, Japan’s 40-year government bond auction drew its strongest demand since 2020. The bid-to-cover ratio for the auction stood at 3.1, up from 2.82 in the prior sale and above the 2.67 average over the past 12 months. Japanese government bond futures continued to rise after the auction, with the 40-year JGB yield last quoted at 4.23%. The bond sale comes as investors grow increasingly concerned that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) may be falling behind the curve on monetary tightening. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, after delivering a widely expected interest rate hike earlier this month, failed to provide clear guidance on the pace of future hikes, stoking market expectations that the central bank may ultimately need to implement more aggressive rate increases.

Crypto hedge fund BlockTower Capital founder and CIO Ari Paul said that Coinbase "lost" roughly $25 million from his firm several years ago, an incident later revealed to be a cover-up for multiple large-scale hacks, with the funds still unrepaid to date. Paul also claimed that at least a dozen affected institutions have been identified, with the total amount concealed exceeding $1 billion, though he cannot disclose more details due to multiple ongoing legal proceedings. In response, Coinbase’s official customer support account has contacted Paul to arrange a private conversation, and the platform has not yet issued any further public response.

Beating AI Express News: Noah Shinn, founder of personal AI agent Instinct, detailed the company’s monetization plans in his first public in-depth interview. Shinn aims for Instinct to eventually remain free long-term, with no subscription fees charged to users. After the agent completes transactions on users’ behalf—such as booking hotels or shopping—Instinct collects a small commission from the merchants receiving the orders. However, this is currently just his goal; Instinct has not yet committed to permanent free access. Shinn also explicitly ruled out advertising. Personal AI agents will grow more familiar with users and increasingly adept at influencing their decisions. If the platform relied on ad revenue, agents might start pushing users to purchase items they had no intention of buying. He prefers Instinct to generate revenue solely from transactions users were already set to complete. The exact commission rate has not been finalized. Shinn cited the platform fees charged by Shopify, Amazon, and Apple as references. Currently, roughly half of Instinct’s transaction volume comes from travel, with some boutique hotels willing to pay commissions of over 30% for orders it drives—though Instinct may not charge that high a rate. Coincidentally, Mark Zuckerberg previously envisioned the same model for Muse: most users would access the service for free, with the agent charging merchants for transactions it facilitated.

According to GMGN data monitoring, the market capitalization of Solana-based meme coin RuneScape Gold (GP) briefly exceeded $9 million, surging more than 82.5% in 24 hours with a trading volume of $3.6 million. GP is themed after in-game gold from the classic game *RuneScape* and paired with tokenized gold GLDx. Each GP transaction incurs a 3% tax; accumulated fees are periodically converted by StonkFun and distributed proportionally to eligible holders in GLDx form, forming a mechanism of "earning gold price exposure rewards by holding tokens". It is a high-volatility meme asset integrating nostalgic gaming narratives, transaction tax dividends, and tokenized gold concepts. BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins lack practical use cases, have significant price volatility, and require caution when investing.