Metaplanet Doubles Down on Bitcoin, Plans to Raise $137 Million to Further Accumulate

On January 29, Robinhood announced it has invested in Talos’ Series B extension round, pushing the institutional-grade crypto trading infrastructure provider’s valuation to approximately $1.5 billion. This round includes $45 million in new capital, with backers including the Sony Innovation Fund, IMC, QCP, and Karatage—while existing shareholders like a16z crypto, BNY, and Fidelity also participated. Talos delivers end-to-end crypto trading infrastructure to hundreds of global institutional clients, which collectively manage roughly $21 trillion in assets. This funding underscores institutional demand for crypto market infrastructure and reflects Robinhood’s accelerated push into blockchain and crypto-native finance—including building its own Arbitrum ecosystem blockchain, tokenized stock trading, and a suite of diversified crypto products.

Copper prices hit an all-time high of over $14,000 per ton on Thursday, January 29, as speculators ramped up buying pressure—fueled by strong demand expectations, a weaker dollar, and geopolitical worries. They brushed off analyst warnings that high prices would cool physical demand from industrial users, and current supply-demand fundamentals don’t justify the level. London Metal Exchange (LME) benchmark three-month copper futures jumped 7.9% in Asian trading, hitting a record $14,125 per ton. Britannia Global Markets analyst Neil Welsh noted in a report: “Copper posted its biggest single-day gain in years, driven by heavy long-side speculative trading. Investors are piling into base metals on bets of strong U.S. economic growth and higher global spending on data centers, robotics, and power infrastructure.” A weaker U.S. dollar also boosted metal prices. The dollar index neared multi-year lows, lowering costs for buyers of dollar-denominated commodities using other currencies. (FX1

**Bitcoin ZK-Rollup Project Citrea Launches Mainnet, Unveils BTC-Backed DeFi & Native Stablecoin** On January 29, Citrea—a Bitcoin ZK-rollup project backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures—officially went live on mainnet. The launch introduces BTC-collateralized DeFi lending, structured products, and its native stablecoin ctUSD, aiming to integrate "idle BTC" into a full DeFi and payment ecosystem. Citrea projects initial active DeFi liquidity on the mainnet will hit $50 million. Issued by MoonPay, ctUSD is pegged 1:1 to cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries. Unlike cross-chain assets, it’s native to Citrea, which mitigates bridge risks and avoids liquidity fragmentation. The project has rekindled a long-running debate: As Bitcoin’s block subsidies decline, should miners’ fee revenue be bolstered via non-payment use cases like DeFi and stablecoins? Proponents argue these use cases represent a sustainable demand source, while critics stress Bitcoin’s block space should priori

Jan. 29 – Per AI Whale Watching, an ancient ETH whale dating back to 2016 reportedly sold 5,000 ETH with an average cost as low as $9.35. Address 0x660…7Bf35 deposited 5,000 ETH (valued at $14.7 million) to Wintermute three hours ago. Tracing its origin, two key prior addresses stand out: - Address 0xDA2…80100 previously withdrew 10,600 ETH from Gate 10 years ago — with a total cost of just $99,000; - Address 0x132…38378 previously withdrew 18,049.96 ETH from Kraken 9 years ago, at an average price as low as $86.

January 29: U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 24 hit 209,000, topping the expected 205,000. The prior week’s figure was revised up from 200,000 to 210,000. (FXStreet)

On January 29, ALT5 Sigma Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTS) announced its board of directors has approved a share repurchase program of up to $100 million. The program includes a 50-million-share maximum for purchases made when the stock trades below its Net Asset Value (NAV)—representing roughly 40% of the company’s outstanding shares. The firm noted the initiative is intended to capitalize on valuation discounts and unlock shareholder value. Concurrently, the board has greenlit ongoing accumulation of WLFI tokens in the secondary market. ALT5 currently holds approximately 7.3 billion WLFI tokens, valued at roughly $1.5 billion, and remains bullish on the rapid growth of the World Liberty Financial ecosystem and its USD1 stablecoin. To kickstart these efforts, ALT5 has entered a $15 million loan agreement with World Liberty Financial. The company also signaled potential future financing by leveraging its robust balance sheet, which exceeds $1.6 billion. ALT5 CEO Tony Isaac stated th