Important news from last night and this morning (January 21-January 22)

AI startup Humans& raises $480 million in seed funding, valuing the company at $4.48 billion.

According to a TechCrunch report citing The New York Times, Humans&, a human-centric AI company co-founded by Anthropic, xAI, and former Google members, has raised $480 million in seed funding, valuing the company at $4.48 billion. Investors include Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, SV Angel, GV, and Emerson Collective. The company focuses on developing AI tools to enhance human collaboration. Its team members come from OpenAI, Meta, AI2, MIT, and other institutions, focusing on multi-agent reinforcement learning, AI memory, and user understanding, aiming to reshape the way AI models are trained and interact.

$FIGHT will provide full refunds to ICO participants and simultaneously airdrop tokens.

Holoworld AI announced that $FIGHT, the flagship project of the Hololalaunch.ai platform, will provide 100% refunds to all ICO participants and airdrop tokens to relevant users, demonstrating its commitment to prioritizing community interests. The airdrop will be distributed to ICO participants on the BNB Chain and Solana Chain, x402 Fight Pass holders, Holler event participants, and $HOLO stakers. The total supply is 10 billion tokens, with 85 million tokens airdropped, representing 0.85%. Tokens will be unlocked gradually according to a schedule, requiring no manual intervention from users. The project team emphasized its ample capital and long-term development goals.

F/m Investments applies to the SEC for a pilot program for tokenized shares.

According to Bloomberg, F/m Investments has applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an exemption to register a portion of its $6.3 billion 3-month Treasury ETF (ticker symbol TBIL) on a blockchain, serving as a testing ground for the tokenization of traditional assets. The application will not alter the ETF's holdings structure or trading methods; it will only involve on-chain registration of shares in the back-end, ensuring consistency with existing shares in terms of fees, rights, and information disclosure. If approved, this case will be a key test of the integration of blockchain technology into the U.S. asset management system.

Binance Wallet: Sentient (SENT) tokens will be available for circulation on January 22nd at 18:00.

According to a Binance Wallet announcement, the SENT token will officially begin trading on January 22, 2026 at 18:00 (UTC+8). Users who have already claimed their Prime Sale Key can check their balance and participate in trading immediately after SENT is listed through Binance Alpha.

Uniswap launches Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA), now deployed on the Basechain.

Uniswap Labs announced that the Continuous Liquidation Auction (CCA) feature has been officially deployed to the Base chain. Any developer can now conduct fully on-chain token auctions on Uniswap v4 using CCA to discover real market prices and initiate liquidity. This feature is permissionless and freely available. Uniswap has also provided configuration guidelines to assist projects in quickly integrating the feature.

Bitmine purchased another 34,954 ETH within two hours, worth over $100 million.

According to Lookonchain, Tom Lee's crypto investment firm Bitmine appears to have purchased 34,954 ETH from Kraken and BitGo in the past two hours, with a total transaction value of approximately $105.5 million.

OpenAI seeks support from Middle Eastern investors, aiming to raise over $50 billion with a valuation of up to $830 billion.

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently met with top investors in the Middle East, including the Abu Dhabi state-owned fund, seeking a new round of funding of at least $50 billion, with a valuation target of $750 billion to $830 billion. This funding will support the high costs of chips, data centers, and talent required for the development of its AI systems. OpenAI has previously partnered with Abu Dhabi investment firms MGX and G42 and plans to invest over $1.4 trillion in AI infrastructure over the next few years. This funding round is still in its early stages and the amount is subject to change.

Whale 0xfb7 purchased another 10,000 ETH and transferred them to FalconX, or may continue to increase its holdings.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, address "0xfb7" acquired 10,000 ETH (approximately $28.9 million) from WinterMute and transferred approximately $58.13 million to FalconX, suggesting continued ETH purchases. This address currently holds a total of 60,098 ETH, with a market value of approximately $179 million.

Farcaster's founding team has left, and Neynar has officially taken over the protocol and applications.

According to CoinDesk, Dan Romero, co-founder of the decentralized social protocol Farcaster, announced that Farcaster will be fully taken over by its early infrastructure builder, Neynar, including the protocol's smart contracts, codebase, mobile app, and AI token issuance platform, Clanker. Farcaster received $150 million in funding from Paradigm and a16z in 2024 but has consistently failed to achieve sustainable growth. Founder Romero and some members of the Merkel team will step down from day-to-day operations, and Neynar will launch a new developer-centric roadmap.

Spot gold and silver both fell, with silver dropping more than 2%.

Spot gold fell 1.00% on the day, currently trading at $4780.56 per ounce. Spot silver plunged $2 on the day, currently trading at $91.07 per ounce, a drop of 2.15%.

CZ will deliver a speech at the WEF Forum in Davos and be interviewed by CNBC.

CZ announced on social media that he will participate in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos at 08:30 (Central European Time) on January 22, and will be interviewed by CNBC at approximately 15:00 that afternoon. These correspond to approximately 15:30 and 22:00 Beijing time on January 22, respectively.

Huang Licheng has already lost $4.16 million this week, bringing his total losses to -$24.5 million.

According to Arkham's monitoring, Machi Big Brother (Huang Licheng) lost $4.16 million on Hyperliquid this week, bringing his total profit and loss to a new low of -$24.5 million. He currently holds $1.7 million in long ETH positions, with a floating profit of $6,800.

Category Labs plans to repurchase MON tokens through the open market in the first half of 2026.

Category Labs (formerly MonadLabs) announced on the X platform that it may repurchase up to $30 million worth of MON tokens on the open market in the first half of 2026, subject to applicable regulations. The announcement stated that any repurchase will be at its own discretion and may be initiated, suspended, or terminated at any time. This announcement does not constitute a commitment to purchase a specific number of tokens, but only indicates that Category Labs will consider opportunistic repurchases based on market conditions.

A major whale unpledged and sold 98,328 SOL tokens that had been pledged for two years today, incurring a loss of over $6.6 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, whale degen-retard.sol withdrew 99,153 SOL tokens from Binance approximately two years ago at a price of about $192 each (worth $19 million at the time) and staked them. Today, he unstaking the remaining 98,328 SOL tokens (now worth $12.34 million) and sold them through a DCA (Regular Fixed-Amount) strategy. After nearly two years of staking SOL, he not only failed to make a profit but actually lost more than $6.6 million.

David Sacks: The banking and crypto industries will eventually merge into a "digital asset industry".

According to CoinDesk, David Sacks, White House cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence advisor, stated that once new market structure legislation is passed, the US banking industry will widely adopt cryptocurrencies, especially stablecoins. He predicts that the boundaries between banking and the crypto industry will disappear, eventually merging into a single "digital asset industry." Sacks points out that many large banks are currently taking a wait-and-see approach due to regulatory uncertainty, but the legislation will provide a clear framework for institutional participation. He believes banks may view issuing stablecoins as a way to offer yields and compete with fintech companies. Although the banking industry is currently lobbying against allowing companies to offer stablecoin yields, Sacks anticipates that banks will also tend to pay yields through stablecoin businesses in the future.

Agent of "1011 Insider Whale": Ethereum's short-term decline cannot be attributed to the Greenland incident.

Garrett Jin, an agent for "1011 Insider Whale," posted on the X platform that Tuesday's US stock market decline was not strongly related to the Greenland crisis. Although US stock indices fell on Tuesday, the decline was led by sectors related to artificial intelligence. In principle, this was merely a sector rotation driven by fundamentals within the technology industry, a micro-level logic, and not a significant panic sell-off driven by macroeconomic factors. The global bond market sell-off was the more significant driver of asset price volatility that day. The decline in European and American bonds was related to the Greenland crisis, while the decline in Japanese government bonds was triggered by the Prime Minister's proposal to abolish the food consumption tax. Today, Japanese financial institutions announced market stabilization operations, and the Finance Minister met with the US to reassure the market, leading to a rebound in Japanese bonds. The main reason for the volatility in European and American bonds was a report by Deutsche Bank analysts bearish on the dollar and US Treasuries, which triggered market concerns about the reallocation of dollar assets. The US Treasury Secretary subsequently responded that the Deutsche Bank CEO had called to express disagreement with the report's views, a move aimed at preventing a potential dollar credibility crisis caused by a sharp sell-off in US Treasuries. Following Trump's statement that he would not use force against Greenland, the stock market rebounded. In summary, attributing the short-term decline of ETH to the Greenland incident is not a solid argument: the main reason for the decline in US stocks was rotation within the technology sector; Trump has begun to reassure the stock market; and the US and Japanese finance ministers have also taken action to stabilize the government bond market.

Trump: New Fed Chair to be announced soon, but fears "disloyalty" if appointed.

According to reports from foreign media cited by Jinshi, US President Trump addressed the Federal Reserve in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Trump explicitly stated that his nominee for Fed Chair will be a man. This aligns with the currently reported shortlist: White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett, Fed Governor Chris Waller, former Fed official Kevin Warsh, and BlackRock executive Rick Reid. Trump stated, "I will announce a new Fed Chair in the near future. He will be a man. I think he will do a very good job and will be a highly respected person." He added, "Every Fed Chair candidate has a great interview. But the problem is that once he takes office as Fed Chair, he changes his stance, which is somewhat disloyal. The changes a person can make once they hold the position of Fed Chair are astonishing. In short, Fed Chair Powell has been too slow in his actions on interest rates. I hope the new Fed Chair will do a good job."

A whale deposited 2,000 BTC into Binance; if it were to sell them, it would incur a loss of $40.8 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, the whale address bc1q8g bought 2,000 BTC three months ago at an average price of $109,759 (worth $219.5 million at the time) and just deposited 2,000 BTC into Binance (now worth $178.7 million). Selling now would result in a loss of $40.8 million.

The European Parliament has announced an indefinite freeze on the review of the EU-US trade agreement.

According to Jinshi News, on the 21st local time, Alain Lange, Chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade, announced that the review of the EU-US trade agreement would be suspended indefinitely. Lange stated that the European Parliament's negotiating team decided that day to suspend the Committee's review of the EU-US trade agreement. Lange claimed that the EU's sovereignty and territorial integrity are currently under threat, making it impossible to continue the work as usual.

Tokenization startup Cork raises $5.5 million in seed funding, led by a16z and CSX.

According to The Block, startup Cork announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed funding round, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), CSX, and Road Capital, with participation from 432 Ventures, BitGo Ventures, Cooley, DEPO Ventures, Funfair Ventures, G20 Group, Gate Labs, Hyperithm Gate, IDEO Ventures, PEER VC, Stake Capital, and WAGMI Ventures. Cork aims to build a "programmable risk layer," making the risks inherent in real-world assets transparent and tradable through tokenization. Its infrastructure allows asset managers, issuers, and others to create customized swap markets to improve on-chain asset redemption liquidity, risk transparency, and market confidence. The tool can also be used to assess the risks of crypto-native products such as stablecoins and staking tokens. The team plans to launch its first production-grade risk markets in the coming months and expand its partnerships with vaults and asset issuers.

The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee is about to release the text of the latest cryptocurrency market structure bill.

According to Crypto in America, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to release the text of its latest cryptocurrency market structure bill before the end of the day today, in preparation for its committee review meeting next Tuesday. This release will reveal key points of consensus reached by both parties after two weeks of additional negotiations. Major points of contention in the bill include whether memes should be included in the definition of "digital goods," overall listing standards, the classification of different tokens, regulatory funding from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and ethical provisions. A strong bipartisan agreement by the Agriculture Committee could pave the way for similar legislation by the Senate Banking Committee. Meanwhile, the Banking Committee's review, postponed since last week, has yet to set a new date. Pressure is currently focused on Coinbase, whose sudden withdrawal of support for the bill caused the review to pause; it now needs to reach an agreement with the banking industry on stablecoin yield terms to bring all parties back to the negotiating table. The executive director of the White House Cryptocurrency Council hinted on social media that delaying legislation could lead to harsher regulation from a less cryptocurrency-friendly government in the future.

Trump: Hopes to sign cryptocurrency bill as soon as possible

According to Watcher.Guru, US President Trump stated at the Davos Forum that he hopes to sign the cryptocurrency bill (i.e., the Crypto Market Structure Act) as soon as possible.

Ondo Finance expands its offerings of over 200 tokenized US stocks and ETFs to the Solana blockchain.

According to CoinDesk, Ondo Finance announced the expansion of its tokenized stock and ETF business to the Solana blockchain, bringing more than 200 tokenized US stocks and ETFs to the network for the first time. This will further expand its Ondo Global Markets platform from its original Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Coinbase will launch spot trading for Seeker (SKR).

According to an official announcement, Coinbase will launch spot trading for Seeker (SKR). If liquidity conditions are met and the supported trading regions meet the trading requirements, the SKR-USD trading pair will open later today.

Architect, founded by the former president of FTX US, plans to introduce cryptocurrency-style perpetual futures into the AI computing power market.

According to The Block, Architect Financial Technologies, founded by former FTX US president Brett Harrison, plans to introduce perpetual futures contracts, popular in the cryptocurrency market, to the AI computing power market. Its AX exchange is about to launch perpetual futures contracts pegged to GPU rental prices and memory prices, currently awaiting regulatory approval. These contracts aim to provide AI companies, data center operators, and hardware vendors with tools to hedge against price volatility and depreciation risks associated with computing power infrastructure. The contracts will be developed in partnership with computing power index provider Ornn Data, whose index is based on real-time GPU trading data. Positions can be held using USD or USD stablecoins as margin.

Guernsey authorities seized $11.4 million in assets linked to the OneCoin scam.

According to Decrypt, authorities in Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency, have approved the forfeiture of $11.4 million (£9 million) in assets related to the OneCoin fraud case, at the request of authorities in Bielefeld, Germany, under its Proceeds of Crime Act. The funds were held in an account at RBS International Bank in Guernsey. This forfeiture represents only approximately 0.2% of OneCoin's total losses, highlighting the significant challenges in fully recovering assets in cryptocurrency fraud cases.

Italian central bank governor: Stablecoins can only play a supplementary role in the monetary system.

According to Cointelegraph, Fabio Panetta, Governor of the Bank of Italy, stated that commercial bank money and central bank money will continue to serve as the cornerstone of the monetary system, while stablecoins can only play a supplementary role. He pointed out that the stability of stablecoins ultimately depends on their peg to fiat currency, which limits their ability to operate independently within the financial system. Panetta believes that payments have become a core strategic area of competition for banks; against the backdrop of a global economic shift towards technological power and a fragmented geopolitical environment, digital finance is putting pressure on banks. The Bank of Italy maintains a cautious stance on stablecoins. Its deputy governor previously warned that "multi-issuer stablecoins" issued in multiple jurisdictions could pose legal, operational, and financial stability risks to the EU, thus requiring them to be confined to areas with equivalent regulatory standards and subject to strict reserve requirements.

Trump: US inflation has been defeated; core inflation is 1.5%.

According to Jinshi News, US President Trump stated at the Davos Forum that US inflation has been defeated, with core inflation at 1.5%, and that the economy is projected to grow by 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025. He added that the US economy is growing at twice the rate predicted by the International Monetary Fund, and he believes his policies will lead to even higher economic growth.

The whale "pension-usdt.eth" closed all its long positions in BTC, incurring a loss of $7.09 million, and opened short positions in ETH.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, the whale "pension-usdt.eth" has closed out all its long BTC (10x leverage) positions, incurring a loss of $7.09 million, and opened a short ETH position with 3x leverage. Position details: Quantity: 25,000 ETH (worth $73.54 million); Average entry price: $2,927.33; Liquidation price: $3,990.63.

Bloomberg: Wall Street firms are withdrawing from Bitcoin "buy now, sell now" arbitrage trading.

According to Bloomberg, a key arbitrage trade in the cryptocurrency derivatives market is crumbling. The "cash-and-carry trade" strategy, where Wall Street institutions previously bought spot Bitcoin and sold futures to capture the price difference, has seen its annualized return plummet from approximately 17% a year ago to around 4.7% currently due to a massive influx of funds causing the spread to narrow sharply, barely covering funding costs. As arbitrage profits shrink, the value of open interest in Bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has fallen significantly from its peak and has been overtaken by Binance. This primarily reflects a strategic retreat by large US accounts such as hedge funds. Market maturity has given institutions more tools to express directional views, leading to narrowing spreads between exchanges and naturally squeezing arbitrage opportunities. Market analysts point out that the era of near-risk-free, high-return trades may be over, and traders are turning to more complex strategies in decentralized markets. CME Group states that institutional investors are diversifying from Bitcoin to other tokens such as Ethereum.

Binance Alpha will list SPACECOIN (SPACE).

According to an official announcement, Binance Alpha will list SPACECOIN (SPACE) on January 23. Eligible users can claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha event page after trading opens. More details will be announced soon.

A certain "rollover trader" has turned 3 million USDC into $22.5 million, with a total position value of $332 million.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, the initial capital of "rollover trader 0xD83...Fd7" has grown from 3 million USDC to $22.5 million. During the recent price drop, he continued to add to his short positions on ETH while still enjoying unrealized profits, and also added to his short positions on PEPE. He is now shorting five cryptocurrencies: ETH, BTC, HYPE, PEPE, and XMR, with a total position value of $332 million.

Vietnam has begun piloting a formal licensing system for cryptocurrency trading platforms.

According to Cryptonews, Vietnam's Ministry of Finance issued a resolution this week to launch a pilot program for a formal licensing system for cryptocurrency trading platforms, aiming to bring the industry out of a long-standing legal gray area and into the regulatory framework. According to the resolution, the State Securities Commission will be responsible for issuing, adjusting, and revoking operating licenses for cryptocurrency trading platforms, and has published detailed application guidelines. The system requires applicant companies to be Vietnamese companies with a minimum paid-up capital of 10 trillion VND (approximately US$380 million) and to meet stringent standards regarding infrastructure, governance, cybersecurity, and professional staffing. Currently, about 10 securities firms and banks have indicated their intention to enter the market after obtaining a license, including SSI Securities, VIX Securities, MBBank, Techcombank, and VPBank, which have already established subsidiaries or partnered with technology companies.

BlackRock deposited 635.16 BTC and 30,827.68 ETH into Coinbase Prime.

According to Onchain Lens, BlackRock deposited 635.16 BTC (worth $56.64 million) and 30,827.68 ETH (worth $91.45 million) into Coinbase Prime, and may deposit more.

Garrett Jin, agent of "1011 Insider Whale": Increased institutional participation has not ended the crypto bull market, but rather represents a structural shift from speculation to allocation.

Garrett Jin, an agent for the "1011 Insider Whale," published an article on the X platform stating that some media outlets have seriously misinterpreted Wintermute's views. The increased institutional participation has not ended the crypto bull market, but rather marks a new phase where the market is shifting from speculation-driven to allocation-driven. The expansion of institutional funds (especially ETF assets under management) typically pushes up asset prices and reduces volatility—a fundamental market principle. Historical data shows that in both the Chinese A-share market and the US stock market, market structures have become more stable and trend-driven after large-scale institutional entry. Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum are experiencing the same path: large-scale purchases by ETFs and digital asset treasuries are driving price increases while volatility is significantly decreasing—this is precisely the transition from a "speculative system" to an "allocation system." The core argument of Wintermute's original report is that with deepening institutional participation, top crypto assets, led by BTC and ETH, are transforming from speculative tools into allocable assets. Key observations include: institutional trading volume has far surpassed retail trading; a sharp drop in Meme coin trading and capital inflows; accelerated institutional inflows in the second half of 2025; the market crash of last October further solidified the dominance of mainstream assets and widened the structural gap between them and Meme coins; and retail funds also flowed back to BTC and ETH as defensive holdings after the crash. Garrett concludes that this is not the end of the bull market, but rather the end of the "retail-driven, high-volatility, Meme-dominated" phase for mainstream crypto assets. The market is undergoing a systemic transformation: from speculation to allocation, from retail sentiment-driven to institutional position-driven, and from extreme volatility to institutional-level volatility. Misinterpreting this maturation process as the "end of the bull market" is a misunderstanding of the laws of market development.

Binance Futures will launch ACUUSDT and I'm coming USDT USDT U-margin perpetual contracts.

According to the official announcement, Binance Futures will launch perpetual contracts at the following times: January 21, 2026, 20:45 (UTC+8): ACUUSDT perpetual contract, with a maximum leverage of 10x; January 21, 2026, 22:30 (UTC+8): Wodamoo USDT perpetual contract, with a maximum leverage of 20x.

Vitalik proposed a "native DVT staking" initiative aimed at improving Ethereum's security and decentralization.

According to The Block, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a "native DVT staking" proposal, aiming to natively integrate Distributed Validator (DVT) technology into the Ethereum staking protocol to improve network security and promote decentralization. This proposal allows validators to register multiple independent keys, operating collectively as a single validator identity. Block proposals or validations are only considered valid when the number of participating entities reaches a set threshold, thus reducing the risk of validators going offline due to single node failures or damage. Unlike current DVT implementations that rely on complex external coordination layers, this scheme embeds the mechanism directly into the protocol layer. Validators holding at least a multiple of the minimum staking requirement can specify up to 16 keys and signature thresholds, essentially with multiple standard nodes collaborating to act as a single validator. Buterin points out that this design only adds one round of delay to block production, with no additional delay for validation, and is compatible with any signature scheme, reducing reliance on potentially weak cryptographic features in the long run. Besides technical simplification, he believes this will reduce the management complexity of fault-tolerant staking, encouraging security-conscious individuals and institutions to stake independently rather than delegate to large service providers, thereby enhancing the decentralization of the Ethereum validator set. The proposal is currently in the suggestion stage and requires extensive community review.

OKX Wallet launches a new version of its smart account system to enhance the on-chain transaction experience.

According to official news, OKX Wallet Smart Accounts are now fully available. Based on TEE technology, these Smart Accounts create an isolated and secure environment within the device, maintaining user assets in self-custodial mode, thus enhancing user experience while ensuring security. In terms of trading functionality, Smart Accounts support various advanced trading strategies using the OKX DEX aggregator on the EVM and Solana networks, including Copy Trade, Limit Order, and automatic take-profit/stop-loss (TP/SL). When preset conditions are triggered, the system will automatically execute the transaction on-chain after signing by the TEE. Furthermore, Smart Accounts integrate Scanner and Tracker capabilities to help users discover trading opportunities and track on-chain addresses. Users can experience this by updating the App to version 6.155 or manually enabling Smart Account mode in the wallet management page.