ZKP Infrastructure Platform Irreducible Completes $24M Series A Funding Round, Led by Paradigm and Bain Capital Crypto

On January 31st, Circle announced that its cross-chain transfer protocol, CCTP, now has support for Aptos. This enables developers and users to securely transfer USDC across 10 blockchains, achieving a 1:1 capital efficiency. CCTP employs a native burn and mint mechanism, obviating the need for liquidity locking or reliance on third parties. As a result, capital efficiency is maximized and trust assumptions are minimized. Currently, multiple applications, wallets, cross-chain bridges, and trading platforms, such as Wormhole and Portal, support CCTP.

On January 31st, US President Trump declared that he would demand that BRICS countries neither establish a new BRICS currency nor support any other currency to replace the predominant US dollar. In the event that they do so, they will be subject to 100% tariffs. (Fx678)

January 31st - After Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda implemented the third rate hike within a week, the inflation rate in Tokyo picked up pace, offering support to the Bank of Japan's economic outlook. The Japanese government announced on Friday that in January, the consumer prices in Tokyo, excluding fresh food, increased by 2.5% year-on-year, which was in line with the median forecast of economists and marked the largest rise since February of last year. The latest CPI data indicates persistent inflationary pressures. According to a survey, the most likely time for the Bank of Japan's next rate hike is in July, followed by September. It is noteworthy that 45% of the respondents believe that in a risk scenario, the rate hike window may be advanced to April. Economist Taro Kimura stated that Tokyo's inflation rebounding vigorously once again will further convince the Bank of Japan that inflation is steadily approaching its 2% target, prompting it to continuously scale back stimu

On January 31st, according to HTX market data, there has been a resurgence in the altcoin market. This includes: USUAL breaking through $0.46 and currently priced at $0.426, with a 24-hour gain of 40.11%; AR breaking through $16 and currently priced at $16.47, with a 24-hour gain of 26.17%; OM breaking through $5.9 and currently priced at $5.62, with a 24-hour gain of 17.13%; W breaking through $0.25 and currently priced at $0.249, with a 24-hour gain of 15.43%; LDO breaking through $2.18 and currently priced at $2.138, with a 24-hour gain of 12.84%; ENA breaking through $0.79 and currently priced at $0.77, with a 24-hour gain of 10.94%.

On January 31st, as per Diario El Salvador, Jesse Knutson, the Chief Operating Officer of Bitfinex Securities, declared that the company intends to issue the Blockstream Mining Note 2 (BMN2) in El Salvador during the first quarter of this year. BMN2 is a tokenized financial instrument that enables investors to obtain Blockstream company's Bitcoin mining rewards by holding it. The previously issued BMN1 in Luxembourg has paid investors more than 1,212 BTC (approximately $70.68 million) over a three-year period, achieving a 108% return on investment. In contrast to the Luxembourg version, the BMN2 issued in El Salvador will reduce the investment threshold and no longer mandate a minimum investment of $100,000.

On January 31st, as per the NVIDIA (NVDA.O) website, DeepSeeK R1 671b has been made available as an NVIDIA NIM Microservice Preview on build.nvidia.com. A single NVIDIA HGX H200 system can handle up to 3,872 tokens per second with the DeepSeeK R1 NIM Microservice. Developers are able to test and experiment with the API, and it is anticipated that the API will be released shortly as part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform in downloadable NIM Microservice format. (Jinse)