A Whale Takes Profit of $12.8 Million on a $41.33 Million BTC Short Position

Jan. 8 – Federal Reserve Governor Milan said the Fed is expected to cut interest rates by around 150 basis points in 2026, per FXStreet.

On January 8, Flying Tulip—an encrypted project newly founded by Andre Cronje—announced that its Whitelist Intent is now live. Notably, Cronje specifically reminded that no fund transfers are currently involved, and advised checking Flying Tulip’s official channels for any related updates. Per the project’s previously disclosed public sale details, the offering will include four rounds: Early Participation, Supporter Whitelist, Intent Whitelist, and Public Sale, with identical fundraising terms across all rounds. Earlier in September last year, Flying Tulip completed a $200 million seed round financing at a $1 billion token valuation.

January 8th: Two wallets (0x6ef9 and 0x089f) took a 2x leveraged position on 27,985 ZEC (≈$11.1 million) yesterday, per LookOnChain monitoring. Their current unrealized losses have exceeded $2.2 million.

Florida lawmakers are reviving legislation to add digital assets to the state government’s balance sheet, per CoinDesk on January 8 — this comes after a proposal stalled earlier this year, with the bill again pushing for a state-run cryptocurrency reserve plan. Sponsored by Republican Rep. John Snyder, the measure (House Bill 1039) was filed on January 7 for the 2026 legislative session. It would create a separate “Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve Fund” outside the state’s treasury system and grant the Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) authority to oversee crypto investments under an established risk framework.

Nasdaq-listed Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has struck a deal with Monex Group to acquire approximately 97% of the shares of Canadian digital asset manager 3iQ. Under the agreement, 3iQ holds an overall valuation of $1.12 billion, with Coincheck Group’s common stock priced at $4.00 per share. Monex’s beneficial 3iQ stake—representing roughly 97% of the company’s beneficial ownership—will be exchanged for 27,149,684 newly issued Coincheck Group common shares. The pact also requires Coincheck to extend the same or substantially similar consideration to 3iQ’s minority shareholders between signing and closing, issuing up to 810,435 Coincheck Group shares in total. This will allow Coincheck to gain 100% beneficial ownership of 3iQ. Founded in 2012, 3iQ previously launched the first Bitcoin and Ethereum funds listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It plans to introduce a Solana Staking ETF and XRP Spot ETF in 2025.

January 8th Per HyperInsight monitoring, whale position shifts between 10 AM and 8 PM today are as follows: **Bull Camp (Long Positions)** - The "Long Position Swapping 350m BTC" whale had its BTC long position liquidated via stop-loss, posting a ~$3.6M loss. - The "Lightning Reversal" whale trimmed its ETH long position, incurring a $578K loss. Its account’s ETH longs now hold an unrealized loss of ~$5.7M. - Notorious "Bankrupt Whale" James Wynn reduced his ETH long position (losing $24.4K) but still holds 838.41 ETH longs with 25x leverage. **Bear Camp (Short Positions)** - Swing whale "pension-usdt.eth" closed a $63M ETH short position, locking in $393K in profits. - A whale closed 136 BTC longs (losing $22K) and immediately shorted 80 BTC with 40x leverage (~$7.26M).