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Bitcoin’s post-holiday momentum fades, slipping back into bearish territory as capital rotates into altcoins amid renewed ETF speculation. Meanwhile, crypto leaders and Wall Street race to strike a last-minute compromise on market structure reform, Google supercharges Gmail with Gemini 3 AI, and Europe’s new crypto tax rules spark a privacy backlash.
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News Roundup
Artificial Intelligence
Google Turns Gmail Into an AI Assistant With Gemini 3 Integration (Decrypt)
Scientists Build Autonomous Robots the Size of a Grain of Salt (Decrypt)
Anthropic Seeks $10B Raise at $350B Valuation as AI Funding Boom Continues (Cointelegraph)
Boston Dynamics Debuts Commercial Atlas Humanoid (Decrypt)
Australia Flags Grok Amid Surge in AI-Generated Abuse Complaints (Decrypt)
Decentralized, Centralized, & Traditional Finance
Morgan Stanley Pushes Deeper Into Crypto and Tokenized Private Markets (Barron’s)
Polygon Nears Deal to Acquire Bitcoin ATM Operator Coinme (CoinDesk)
Stablecoin Transactions Hit Record $33 Trillion in 2025 on Policy Tailwinds (Bloomberg)
Plume Brings Brazilian Credit Card Receivables Onchain With Institutional RWA Launch (Plume Network)
Ondo Finance Adds 98 New Tokenized Stocksand ETFs (Ondo Finance)
Stablecoin Payments Firm Rain Reaches $1.95B Valuation After $250M Raise (Bloomberg)
BNY Rolls Out Tokenized Deposits to Speed Up Institutional Payments (Bloomberg)
Tether Quietly Invests Up to $50M in Crypto Lender Ledn at $500M Valuation (CoinDesk)
Ripple Wins FCA Approval, Paving the Way for UK Expansion (The Block)
Nasdaq and CME Group Relaunch Joint Crypto Index to Power Institutional Investing (Nasdaq)
Exchanges
Exchange-Traded Funds
Grayscale Lays Groundwork for Potential BNB and HYPE ETFs (Cointelegraph)
On Jan. 8, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded net outflows of $398.95 million.
U.S. Ethereum spot ETFs saw $159.17 million in net outflows on Jan. 8.
On Jan. 8, U.S. Solana spot ETFs posted net inflows of $13.64 million.
U.S. XRP spot ETFs attracted $8.72 million in net inflows on Jan. 8.
South Korea Signals Green Light for Spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2026 Growth Plan (News1)
Infrastructure
Former Electric Coin Company Team Launches Rival Zcash Wallet After Mass Exit (The Block)
Markets
SUI Group Now Holds 108.1 Million SUI Tokens While Accelerating Share Buybacks (SUI Group)
Polymarket and Delphi Digital Turn Crypto Research Into a Tradable Asset (Forbes)
Bitcoin Slips Back Into Bearish Territory as Post-Holiday Rally Fades (Decrypt)
Myriad Traders Bet on Zcash Bounce While Cooling on Bitcoin and Ethereum (Decrypt)
Truebit Token Collapses After $26M Exploit Drains Ethereum-Based Protocol (The Block)
Polygon Jumps 13% After Unveiling New Stablecoin Payments Framework (DL News)
U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls Rose by 50,000 in December, Unemployment Rate Down to 4.4% (BLS)
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index Rose to 54.0 in January (UMich)
Altcoins Rally as Capital Rotates Away From Bitcoin Amid ETF Buzz (Decrypt)
Mining
Bitmain Firmware Bug Limits Control on Popular Antminer Bitcoin ASICs (Criptonoticias)
Politics & Regulation
New York Targets Prediction Markets as Polymarket Strikes Sports Deal (Decrypt)
Europe’s New Crypto Tax Rules Spark Privacy Backlash (The Block)
Trump Rules Out Pardon for Jailed FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried (The Block)
CFTC Clears Bitnomial to Launch Crypto-Linked Event Contracts (The Block)
Wall Street and Crypto Leaders Seek Last-Minute Compromise on Market Structure Bill (Decrypt)
Iran Enters Near-Total Internet Blackout as Protests Escalate (Decrypt)
Colombia Mandates Crypto Transaction Reporting Under New Tax Rules (Criptonoticias)
UK FCA to Open Crypto Licensing Gateway in September 2026 (FCA)
Democrats Push to Bar Officials From Political Prediction Market Bets (The Block)
DeFi Developer Protections Stall Senate Crypto Market Structure Push (DL News)
Treasuries
SharpLink Deploys $170M in ETH to Linea For Higher Staking Returns (SharpLink)
Venture Capital
Andreessen Horowitz Raised $15B+, Capturing Nearly One-Fifth of U.S. VC in 2025 (a16z)
Other News
Solana Accelerate to Kick Off Consensus Hong Kong With Developer-Focused Forum (CoinDesk)
Truebit Protocol Hit by Suspected Exploit as 8,535 ETH Go Missing (Lookonchain)
How Investors Are Rethinking Scarcity Across Bitcoin, Gold, and Silver in 2026 (Cointelegraph)
Crypto Wrench Attacks Escalate in France After Armed Home Invasion (Decrypt)
French Tax Data Leak Fears Grow After Agent Linked to Crypto Owner Exposure (Cryptopolitan)
Tether Teams Up With UNODC to Strengthen Cybersecurity and Fight Crypto Crime in Africa (Crypto Briefing)
Vitalik Buterin Defends Tornado Cash Developer, Calls Privacy a Human Right (Decrypt)
Check This Out!
Crypto in 2025 was driven more by shifting narratives than by fundamentals.
Source: Tiger Research
Meme of the Day
Source: naiivememe
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