X Bans InfoFi, CT Celebrates

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ X bans "InfoFi" projects (Kaito, Cookie3, Wallchain, Xeet) citing "tremendous amount of AI slop & reply spam"; Kaito has since sunset Yaps & Cookie has since sunset Snaps.

• ⭐️ US White House reportedly considers pulling support for crypto market structure bill if Coinbase $COIN does not come back to the table; Coinbase withdrew support for the bill citing several issues on January 14th.

• US Government denies selling Bitcoin $BTC forfeited by Samourai Wallet developers amid recent reports; also says it will not sell the BTC per President Trump's EO 14233.

• Bitmine $BMNR invests $200M in MrBeast's Beast Industries; allocates 5% of its balance sheet for "moonshots"; currently holds 4,167,768 Ethereum $ETH (~$13.8B).

• Forward Industries $FWDI increases Solana $SOL holdings to over 6.97M SOL (~$1B); recently launched tokenized shares on Solana via Superstate Opening Bell.

• Ripple $XRP & LMAX Group partner to "accelerate institutional stablecoin adoption and cross-asset mobility"; Ripple to provide $150M in financing; LMAX to integrate $RLUSD.

• Polygon $POL reportedly lays off ~30% of its staff citing "restructuring tied to post-acquisition integration"; recently announced it acquired Coinme & Sequence for ~$250M.

• CME Group to launch Cardano $ADA, Chainlink $LINK, & Stellar $XLM futures on February 9th; available in both larger & micro size contracts; already supports BTC, ETH, SOL, & XRP futures and options.

• Interactive Brokers $IBKR launches 24/7 account funding with $USDC on Ethereum, Solana, & Base; to add Ripple's $RLUSD & PayPal's $PYUSD as early as next week; integration powered by Zerohash.

• BingX partners with Ferrari F1 Team in multi-year deal; partnership to span race events, digital platforms, and global content.

• Nexo partners with Audi F1 Team in multi-year deal; partnership to "activate globally through premium experiences and digital-first engagement"; notably, Revolut is also a partner with the team.

• Anchorage Digital reportedly seeks to raise between $200M & $400M ahead of potential IPO; last valued at $3B; competitor BitGo recently announced plans for its IPO.

• Canaan $CAN receives Nasdaq compliance notice after its stock trades below $1 for 30 consecutive days; must close above $1 for 10 consecutive days by July 13th to avoid delisting.

Alpha

• ⭐️ Nado $INK Private Alpha ends; to launch "The Choice" early next week; Nado users will be eligible for the upcoming Ink airdrop.

• Soneium launches Soneium Score Season 6; users with at least 80 points will be eligible for a badge; to launch claim for Season 5 badge soon.

• OpenSea $SEA unlocks Wave 4 of Treasure Chests; Wave 5 of Treasure Chests is now live; TGE & airdrop is expected in Q1 2026.

• ICYMI OpenSea $SEA to award MetaMask Rewards Season 1 points based on your OpenSea Wave 4 Chest tier; opt in to MetaMask Rewards by January 16th to be eligible.

• MetaMask $MASK launches support for Tron $TRX network; Rewards Season 1 to end on January 22nd; currently offering 3x points for prediction markets.

• Nansen to launch Season 3 next week; promises new partners, new perks, & new permissionless rewards; trading access to open to free users soon.

• Nansen to award MetaMask Rewards Season 1 points based on your Nansen points tier; to take snapshot on January 19th.

• Human $HUMN Passport launches Season 2, The Covenant of Humanistic Technologies; sign the The Covenant to earn 1K HUMN points & a limited-edition NFT.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Fogo $FOGO launches airdrop claim; Fogo Flames (points) holders, Discord role holders, & more are eligible; to launch Fogo Flames Season 2 next week.

• Owlto $OWL launches airdrop claim; Owlto points holders are potentially eligible.

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

• ICYMI Seeker $SKR (Solana Mobile) launches airdrop eligibility & allocation checker; Seeker users & developers are eligible; to launch claim on January 21st.

• ICYMI Espresso $ESP airdrop updates: created holder score based on past airdrop behavior & implemented sybil detection systems; airdrop registration is live.

• ICYMI Rainbow $RNBW to launch airdrop on February 5th (~19 days); Rainbow Points holders will be eligible; snapshot has yet to be taken.

• ICYMI Backpack teases "What's the ticker?" on X; to potentially launch TGE & airdrop soon.

Finance News

• US Treasury Secretary Bessent says it's unlikely the Supreme Court rules against President Trump's tariffs; ruling expected soon; Polymarket predicts a ~32% chance the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump's tariffs.

• US & Denmark to establish working group for technical talks on the "acquisition" of Greenland; Polymarket predicts a ~20% chance the US will acquire part of Greenland in 2026.

• US & Taiwan reach trade deal; US reduces tariffs on Taiwan to 15%; Taiwanese chip & technology companies to invest at least $250B in the US.

• London Stock Exchange Group launches Digital Settlement House, a 24/7 blockchain-based platform for settling tokenized commercial bank deposits across multiple currencies and networks.

• Saudi Arabia to open its financial markets to all foreign investors on February 1st; part of economic diversification efforts under Vision 2030.

• Merge Labs, a brain-computer interfaces company co-founded by Sam Altman, raises $252M; investors include OpenAI, Bain Capital, Gabe Newell, among others.

• Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI & Sam Altman to go to trial in late April; Elon Musk says "...The discovery and testimony will blow your mind" on X; Polymarket predicts a ~60% chance Elon will win the case.

• Oracle $ORCL sued by shareholders over alleged misleading statements related to $300B OpenAI data center build-out; alleges Oracle lied about how much money it needed to borrow.

• Cloudflare $NET acquires Human Native, an AI data marketplace company, for an undisclosed amount; integration to advance new internet economic models via the x402 Foundation.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ ZachXBT: victim loses $282M+ of Bitcoin $BTC & Litecoin $LTC due to a hardware wallet social engineering scam; attacker has since converted the stolen funds to Monero $XMR via multiple instant exchanges.

• Zerion ZERѲ Network returns online; block production was halted on December 19th due to a synchronization issue between the chain state & the sequencer.

• Verizon blames recent nationwide outage on a "software issue"; says there is no indication that a cybersecurity incident caused the outage.

• Brian Garry Sewell sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding investors of $2.9M & laundering $5.4M in cash into crypto for criminal entities; also ordered to pay more than $3.8M in restitution.

• ICYMI Microsoft releases January 2026 Patch; addresses 114 vulnerabilities across its product ecosystem, including one actively exploited zero-day.

Token Unlocks

• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$20M / JAN 16th
• deBridge $DBR / ~$11M / JAN 17th
• ZKsync $ZK / ~$6M / JAN 17th
• ApeCoin $APE / ~$3M / JAN 17th
• Melania $MELANIA / ~$4M / JAN 18th
• Trump $TRUMP / ~$269M / JAN 18th
• Ondo $ONDO / ~$744M / JAN 18th
• LayerZero $ZRO / ~$42M / JAN 20th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Konnex raises $15M in Strategic funding from several investors.

• Veera raises $10M in Pre-Seed & Seed funding from several investors.

• Saturn raises $800K in funding from YZi Labs & Sora Ventures.

• City Protocol raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding from 071labs.

The Degen Farmer