Insider Trading on Prediction Markets to Be Banned?

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Kalshi endorses bill banning insider trading on prediction markets; US Rep. Ritchie Torres introduced a bill that would ban federal elected officials, political appointees, among others from betting on prediction markets.

• Morgan Stanley $MS files for Bitcoin $BTC, Ethereum $ETH, & Solana $SOL ETFs; recently launched crypto trading on its E*Trade platform in September 2025.

• MSCI announces it will not exclude crypto treasury companies $MSTR $BMNR $FWDI from its indexes; says distinguishing between investment companies and those holding digital assets requires further research.

• YZi Labs criticizes CEA Industries' $BNC poison pill & defensive measure to maintain board control; YZi Labs attempted to take over the board in December 2025 citing $BNB strategy betrayal & more.

• Wyoming Stable Token Commission launches public access to its Frontier Stable Token $FRNT; available on Solana $SOL through Kraken.

• JPMorgan Chase $JPM launches JPM Coin $JPMD on Canton Network $CC; initially launched on Coinbase's $COIN Base network in November 2025.

• Rumble $RUM & Tether launch Rumble Wallet, a non-custodial crypto wallet integrated directly into the Rumble platform; enables audiences to tip creators in $BTC, $USDT, & $XAUT.

• World Liberty Financial $WLFI applies for a National Trust Bank Charter to issue & custody $USD1 stablecoins; US OCC recently granted approvals to Circle $CRCL, Ripple $XRP, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, & Paxos.

• Polymarket $POLY partners with Dow Jones Media to supply prediction-market data to publications such as WSJ, Barron's, & Investor’s Business Daily; Polymarket also recently partnered with Yahoo Finance.

• Crypto[.]com $CRO announces partnerships with Stripe, Changer[.]ae, & Kyobo Lifeplanet; recently received approval for VASP License from Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.

• Fireblocks acquires TRES Finance, an onchain accounting platform, for reportedly ~$130M; Fireblocks also acquired First Digital Assets Group in 2022, BlockFold in 2023, & Dynamic in 2024.

• Nike $NKE reportedly sells RTFKT stake to an unnamed buyer for undisclosed amount; RTFKT wound down operations in December 2024.

Alpha

• ⭐️ Coinbase $COIN adds MegaETH $MEGA to its listing roadmap; MegaETH to potentially launch public mainnet & TGE soon.

• Tempo announces TIP-20, "Tempo's native token standard, designed for stablecoins and payments use cases"; Tempo recently launched its public testnet.

• Katana $KAT to launch TGE on ~May 20th; Katana Kaito Season 2 is live; Season 1 ended on December 31st.

• Cascade hits $3M pre-allocation cap for its Liquidity Strategy; depositors are currently earning Cascade Points; to potentially raise cap in the future.

• Mezo $MEZO launches Mezo Bankcard; users can create a Bankcard to earn up to 7,000 mats.

• Jumper extends SafePal perk until March 31st; level 10+ Jumper Pass users are eligible; to launch more perks soon.

• Octant launches Epoch 10 allocation window; cohort includes Protocol Guild, EthStaker, Revoke[.]cash, ZachXBT, among others.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Seeker $SKR (Solana Mobile) to launch airdrop on January 21st; Seeker users & developers will be eligible.

• Brevis $BREV launches airdrop claim; registration closed on January 3rd though unregistered users may still be eligible; to close claim after 30 days.

• ICYMI Binance $BNB launches Brevis $BREV HODLer airdrop; BNB Simple Earn and/or BNB On-Chain Yields subscribers from December 17th to December 19th are eligible.

• ICYMI Mezo $MEZO to close airdrop registration soon; Mezo Mats (points) holders are eligible.

• ICYMI Rainbow $RNBW to launch airdrop on February 5th (~31 days); Rainbow Points holders will be eligible; snapshot has yet to be taken.

• ICYMI Fogo $FOGO to launch airdrop on January 13th; Fogo Flames (points) holders & more will be eligible.

Finance News

• ⭐️ US Supreme Court to issue ruling on President Trump's tariffs on January 9th; Polymarket predicts a ~24% chance the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump's tariffs.

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the "acquisition" of Greenland with representatives from Denmark next week; Polymarket predicts a ~17% chance the US will acquire part of Greenland in 2026.

• Venezuela to "turn over" 30M to 50M barrels of crude oil to the US; notably, the average gas price in the US falls to the lowest level since 2021.

• Venezuela Caracas Stock Exchange is up ~100% following the US capture of Nicolás Maduro; up ~207% in the last 10 trading days.

• US President Trump to ban dividends, stock buybacks, & limit executive pay to $5M for defense companies $RTX $LMT $GD $NOC; says they need to build new production plants; also calls for the US military budget for 2027 to be raised to $1.5T.

• China tells companies to pause Nvidia $NVDA H200 chip orders; to consider how to go forward without jeopardizing its homegrown semiconductor industry.

• xAI raises $20B in Series E funding, exceeding target of $15B; investors include Nvidia $NVDA, Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority, Cisco $CSCO, among others.

• Riot Platforms $RIOT sold 1,818 Bitcoin $BTC (~$165M) in December 2025; currently holds 18,005 BTC (~$1.6B).

• Cipher Mining $CIFR appoints Lee Bratcher as head of policy & government affairs; appoints Drew Armstrong as head of strategic initiatives.

• US House of Representatives to vote on banning Congress from trading stocks by end of January; Polymarket predicts a ~16% chance Congress is banned from trading stocks before 2027.

• US President Trump bans institutional investors $BX $INVH from buying single-family homes; large institutional investors currently account for 2% to 3% of single-family home purchases.

• US December ADP employment increased by 41K, below expectations of 47K; November's ADP employment decreased by 32K.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ Chen Zhi, an alleged mastermind of a "pig butchering" crypto fraud ring, was arrested in Cambodia; the US DOJ charged Zhi & seized ~$12B in Bitcoin $BTC in October 2025; Zhi has since been extradited to China.

• IPOR recovers ~$336K after being exploited due to "external factors (Pectra/ERC-7702) combined with a legacy validation gap"; the attacker accepted a 10% bounty & returned remaining funds.

• DefiLlama launches new features for its DefiLlama browser extension; now hides scam ERC20 transfers & integrates its search directory of verified links to crypto websites.

• $ASML denies allegations that it had been hacked; says "...these claims are unfounded. No ASML data was exposed..."

Token Unlocks

• Hyperliquid $HYPE / ~$331M / JAN 06th
• Wormhole $W / ~$2M / JAN 09th
• Optimism $OP / ~$1.4M / JAN 10th
• Aptos $APT / ~$21M / JAN 11th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Babylon $BABY raises $15M in funding from a16z Crypto.

• HabitTrade raises $10M in Series A funding led by Newborn Town.

• ZenChain $ZTC raises $8.5M in funding led by Watermelon Capital, DWF Labs, & Genesis Capital.

• Ubyx raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding from Barclays $BCS.

• jpeg raises an undisclosed amount in Angel funding from several investors.

The Degen Farmer