Huang Renxun has left Beijing, and NVIDIA has not disclosed whether Huang Renxun met with the DeepSeek founder.

On Wednesday, January 15, several Federal Reserve officials publicly stressed the importance of central bank independence in setting monetary policy. Most also signaled the Fed may pause rate cuts at this month’s meeting, citing the U.S. economy’s ongoing strength, elevated inflation, and the need for continued restrictive monetary policy. In response to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena over the Fed’s headquarters renovation and a probe into whether the project influenced policy decisions, multiple officials noted political or judicial pressure should not interfere with monetary policy choices. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari explicitly backed Chair Jerome Powell’s stance, stating the investigation touches on monetary policy independence and the Fed will keep making data- and analysis-driven decisions even if leadership changes. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, and New York Fed President John Williams also emphasized th

On January 15, investment bank TD Cowen cut its one-year price target for Bitcoin-focused firm Strategy from $500 to $440, citing ongoing dilution of its Bitcoin yield (defined as Bitcoin holdings per share growth) from the company’s continued use of common and preferred stock financing. TD Cowen analysts now project Strategy will add ~155,000 Bitcoin coins in fiscal 2026 (up from a prior forecast of 90,000), but the faster acquisition pace will rely primarily on equity financing—diluting the firm’s Bitcoin yield. The bank has cut its fiscal 2026 Bitcoin yield forecast to 7.1%, down sharply from a prior 8.8% and well below fiscal 2025’s 22.8%. Amid a recent Bitcoin price pullback, Strategy ramped up its coin purchases. For the week ended January 11, the firm issued ~6.8 million common shares and 1.2 million STRC floating-rate preferred shares, raising ~$1.25 billion—nearly all of which was used to buy 13,627 Bitcoin coins. TD Cowen noted the financing was priced near book value,

January 15 — The Zcash Foundation said Wednesday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally closed its years-long investigation into the group and confirmed it does not intend to take enforcement action or seek remediation. The foundation disclosed it received an SEC subpoena in August 2023 related to “Certain Crypto Asset Offerings.” The regulator has now completed its review and closed the case. An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on the existence of any investigation. The closure comes amid a shift in the SEC’s approach to crypto regulation. Over the past year, the commission has dropped or terminated enforcement actions and investigations against several crypto firms—including Coinbase and multiple DeFi projects—under the Trump administration, a stark contrast to the Biden administration’s aggressive “enforcement-first” stance. Current SEC Chair Paul Atkins is leading updates to crypto regulatory rules via “Project Crypto,” focused on on-chain activ

**January 15th: Coinbase Opposes Current Crypto Bill Ahead of Senate Banking Committee Vote** Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday the exchange will not support the current version of comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation set for markup and a vote by the Senate Banking Committee this Thursday. While praising senators’ bipartisan effort, Armstrong argued the draft is “worse than the current regulatory regime,” adding Coinbase prefers “no bill over a bad bill.” The legislation aims to clarify oversight boundaries between the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for digital assets, define when tokens qualify as securities or commodities, and establish new disclosure requirements. The committee will hold a hearing and vote on the bill Thursday morning. Armstrong flagged critical issues: provisions on decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoin yields, some of which could grant the governm

January 15th — Per OnchainLens monitoring, Ethereum treasury firm Bitmine has staked another 154,304 ETH, worth roughly $5.1976 billion. As of now, Bitmine’s total staked ETH stands at 1,685,088, with an overall value of approximately $5.65 billion. Earlier, the firm staked over 340,000 ETH in the past two days.

Jan 15: Ethereum briefly topped $3,400, per HTX market data, and is now trading at $3,385—up 6.22% over the past 24 hours.