BlackRock CEO Eyes Ethereum ETF

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• Bitcoin ETF's see $4.6B in volume on first day of trading.

• Senator Warren says SEC is wrong with Bitcoin ETF decision.

• Vanguard blocks clients from trading Bitcoin ETFs.

• CoinShares acquires Valkyrie Funds following Bitcoin ETF approval.

• ⭐️ Circle files for US initial public offering (IPO).

• StarkWare CEO Uri Kolodny steps down due to medical challenges.

• ⭐️ Near Foundation to cut 40% of staff though treasury “remains strong.”

• Do Kwon counsel request US court delay SEC trial due to extradition uncertainty.

• Genesis settles with NYFDS, forfeits BitLicense, and pays $8M fine.

• Coinbase partners with Yellow Card to expand USDC access in Africa.

• Optimism RetroPGF Round 3 results are live distributing 30M $OP.

• Gelato's proposal to power ApeChain is live.

Alpha

• ⭐️ Berachain Artio Testnet is live.

• Linea announces first mint date for LXP is set for January 22nd.

• Mantle Journey Season Alpha ends January 15th.

• Orbiter Finance launches Manta Airdrop Extravaganza.

• Encode Club announces Q1 bootcamps.

• Binance Bytes by Binance Research.

• Q1 Roadmap Calendar by LayerGG.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Orbiter Finance confirms launch of token is set for this year.

• Dymension $DYM airdrop claim closes in several days.

• Namada $NAM airdrop claim closes.

• Ambient airdrop strategy by mztacat.

Finance News

• Robinhood $HOOD lists all eleven Bitcoin ETFs.

• US Inflation rises to 3.4% for December, higher than expectations.

• IRS waives penalties on unpaid taxes for 2020, 2021.

• Biden administration to forgive some student loan borrowers' balances early.

• BlackRock $BLK to buy Global Infrastructure Partners for $12.5B.

• Citigroup $C to cut 20K jobs by 2026.

• Wells Fargo $WFC second branch votes to unionize.

• Metro Bank CFO James Hopkinson leaves company due to personal reasons.

• Google $GOOG cuts hundreds of jobs across engineering and hardware teams.

• Tesla $TSLA faces supply chain delays due to crisis on the Red Sea.

• EBay $EBAY to pay $3M penalty to resolve a US criminal probe.

Security and Exploits

• CoinGecko secures X accounts following phishing attack.

• SlowMist issues security alert for a Uniswap arbitrage MEV bot scam.

• GitLab releases security updates fixing two critical vulnerabilities.

Token Unlocks

• CyberConnect / 1.26M $CYBER / ~$9.24M / JAN 14

Funding

• SkyArk Chronicles, a Triple-A game creation system and online gaming platform; raises $15M in funding led by Binance Labs.

• Pontem, a Web3 product development studio; raises $6M in funding co-led by Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

• Bitfinity, a Bitcoin Layer 2; raises $5.5M in funding.

• Kasu, a risk-optimized RWA yields platform; raises $3M in Seed funding.

• Eesee, a one-stop liquidity solution for sellers; raises $2.9M in funding.

• De(.)Fi, a Web3 superapp and Web3 antivirus; raises an undisclosed amount in funding led from 21Shares.

• Orbiter Finance, a ZK-Tech based Ethereum acceleration engine; raises an undisclosed amount in Series A funding led by OKX Ventures.

• Particle, a permissionless leverage trading protocol; raises an undisclosed amount in Seed funding led by Polychain.

The Degen Farmer