US Marshals Investigate $40M Crypto Theft

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ US Senate Ag Committee reschedules crypto market structure markup for January 29th citing winter storm; to debate and vote on the bill and proposed amendments.

• BlackRock files S-1 registration with US SEC for an iShares Bitcoin $BTC Premium Yield ETF; generates yield by selling call options on IBIT shares & other Bitcoin ETP indices.

• Strategy $MSTR buys an additional 2,932 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$264M at ~$90,061 per BTC: now holds 712,647 BTC (~$62.4B) acquired for ~$54.2B at ~$76,037 per BTC.

• Bitmine $BMNR buys an additional 40,302 Ethereum $ETH (~$117M); now holds 4,243,338 ETH (~$12.3B) & $682M in cash; stakes 2,009,267 ETH (~$5.8B).

• Tether $USDT $XAUT bought 27 tons of Gold $XAU (~$4.4B) in Q4 2025; now holds ~143 tons of Gold (~$23.5B).

• Digital Asset Investment Products recorded $1,73B in outflows last week; Bitcoin $BTC ~$1.1B outflows, Ethereum $ETH ~$630M outflows, Solana $SOL ~$17M inflows, Ripple $XRP ~$18M outflows.

• VanEck Avalanche $AVAX ETF (VAVX) begins trading; Grayscale recently filed to convert its existing Grayscale Avalanche Trust into an ETF; Bitwise also recently filed to launch an Avalanche ETF.

• Zerohash reportedly in talks to raise $250M at $1.5B valuation; recently pulled out of acquisition talks with Mastercard after it decided to remain independent.

Alpha

• Kraken launches DeFi Earn; earn up to 8% APY on all your assets; powered by Veda, Sentora, & Chaos Labs.

• Upcoming TGEs: Infinex $INX TGE on January 30th, Zama $ZAMA TGE on February 2nd, MegaETH $MEGA TGE in ~February, Aztec TGE in ~February (if proposal passes).

• ⭐️ Aztec $AZTEC launches TGE proposal; AZTEC holders can now vote to make AZTEC transferable; TGE expected in February if proposal passes.

• Infinex $INX to take snapshot of Patrons NFT holders on January 30th at 07:00 UTC; 1 Patron is equal to 100K INX; to also launch TGE on January 30th.

• ICYMI MegaETH $MEGA launches global stress test on mainnet; users can access 3 apps while the chain is under sustained load; to launch public mainnet soon.

• ICYMI OpenEden $EDEN launches PRISM pre-deposit campaign; users will earn 4.7M EDEN tokens over the ~30 day campaign; full launch expected in February.

Airdrops

• Upcoming Airdrops: Moonbirds $BIRB on January 28th, Rainbow $RNBW on February 5th, Mezo $MEZO in ~February.

• Mezo $MEZO launches airdrop allocation checker; Mezo Mats (points) holders & Mezo Bitcoin borrowers were eligible to register; to potentially launch airdrop claim in ~February.

• ⭐️ Rainbow $RNBW completes snapshot of points holders; points holders will be eligible for upcoming airdrop; to launch airdrop on February 5th.

• ICYMI Moonbirds $BIRB to launch airdrop on January 28th; recently launched several SBTs for several communities; Moonbirds NFT & SBT holders will be eligible to claim.

• ICYMI Sentient $SENT launches airdrop claim; Sentient Chat users, open-source AI researchers, & more were eligible to register in November.

• ICYMI Seeker $SKR (Solana Mobile) launches airdrop claim; Seeker users & developers are eligible; closes in ~90 days.

• ICYMI ETHGas $GWEI launches airdrop claim; Beans (points) holders who also shared their Gas ID on X or quote-tweeted ETHGas’ Open Gas Initiative announcement are eligible.

Finance News

• Upcoming Events: January Consumer Confidence data on January 27th; Fed Interest Rate Decision, Microsoft $MSFT, TSMC $TSM, & Tesla $TSLA Q4 earnings on January 28th.

• US Federal Reserve to announce interest rate decision on January 28th; Polymarket projects a ~99% chance the Fed leaves rates unchanged.

• US Senate Democrats to potentially oppose spending bill citing ICE funding; Polymarket projects a ~75% chance there will be another US government shutdown by January 31st.

• Gold $XAU & Silver $XAG reach new all-time highs (again); Gold is up ~17% YTD & Silver is up ~50% YTD.

• Nvidia $NVDA & CoreWeave $CRWV partner to build 5+ GW of AI factories by 2030; Nvidia also invests $2B in CoreWeave at $87.20 per share.

• ⭐️ Microsoft $MSFT launches Maia 200 AI chip to "reduce reliance on Nvidia" $NVDA; to roll out in Microsoft data centers in Iowa; produced by TSMC $TSM.

• Canada Prime Minister Carney says Canada has no plans to sign a "free trade agreement" with China; US President Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Canada if it made a trade deal with China.

• US President Trump increases tariffs on South Korea from 15% to 25%; affects cars, lumber, & pharmaceuticals; says Seoul’s legislature failed to approve a previously agreed trade deal.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ ZachXBT reveals John Daghita (Lick) stole $40M+ from the US government through CMDSS, a company owned by John's dad; CMDSS was contracted to assist the USMS in managing seized crypto assets.

• SwapNet exploited for ~$16.8M; users are advised to revoke approvals; Matcha Meta users who set direct allowances for SwapNet are affected.

• Aperture Finance exploited for ~$4M due to an arbitrary call vulnerability; team advises users to revoke approvals; to release post-mortem soon.

• Ethereum Foundation $ETH forms Post Quantum (PQ) team; will be led by Thomas Coratger with support from Emile; offers $1M Poseidon Prize to harden the Poseidon hash function.

• ICYMI Coinbase $COIN establishes the Coinbase Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain; to evaluate the implications of quantum computing and to provide guidance.

Token Unlocks

• Humanity $H / ~$17M / JAN 25th
• Plasma $XPL / ~$11M / JAN 25th
• Bitget $BGB / ~$500M / JAN 26th
• Sign $SIGN / ~$11M / JAN 28th
• Jupiter $JUP / ~$10M / JAN 28th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Zama raises $44M in Public Sale from individual investors.

• Everything raises $6.9M in Seed funding led by Humanity Protocol.

• Bitway raises $1M in Public Sale from individual investors on Kaito.

• Zona raises $500K in Pre-Seed funding from Animoca Brands, several angels, & individual investors on Echo.

The Degen Farmer