📬 Gmail Gets AI Boost, Europe Tax Backlash

Good afternoon,

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.

Let’s dive in! 👇

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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

• Binance Crosses 300 Million Users as Trading Volume Hits New Milestone (Binance)

• OKX Restructures Institutional Unit, Cuts Global Sales Staff (CoinDesk)

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.

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