CoinPhoton

The CLARITY Act is emerging as a focal point in a growing conflict between U.S. banks and crypto platforms over how dollar-denominated value is distributed and monetized. While framed as a market-structure bill, the real battle centers on stablecoin rewards and whether they function as interest by another name.

Stablecoin rewards allow users to earn returns close to short-term Treasury yields simply by holding dollar-pegged tokens on crypto platforms. This directly challenges banks, whose retail deposit rates remain far below government benchmarks. As a result, banks fear deposit outflows, higher funding costs, and the loss of customer relationships tied to checking and savings accounts.

Lawmakers are now attempting to draw a legal line between prohibited “hold-to-earn” interest and permitted loyalty or activity-based rewards. While issuers may be restricted from paying interest, platforms can still offer rewards that feel economically similar, shifting the competitive pressure to the distribution layer rather than the token itself.

With DeFi rules largely left unresolved and stablecoin rewards continuing to gain traction, the CLARITY debate highlights a deeper structural question: whether stablecoins will remain simple “digital cash” or evolve into a full-fledged alternative to bank deposits in the U.S. financial system.

In 2025, crypto-related scams and frauds resulted in losses of up to $17 billion, according to Chainalysis’ latest report. Criminals increasingly turned to impersonation tactics and AI-powered tools, moving away from broad, low-value schemes toward more targeted and highly profitable social engineering attacks. These scams often involve fake exchange representatives, government notices, or trusted insiders, made more convincing by deepfakes and automation.
Chainalysis found that impersonation scams grew rapidly year over year, with average payment sizes rising as attackers focused on fewer but wealthier victims. AI-enabled scams were significantly more profitable than traditional methods, highlighting how advanced technology is reshaping crypto crime. While hacks and exploits remain a threat, the report shows that the largest losses now come from manipulation of human trust rather than technical weaknesses in wallets or smart contracts.

Lighter introduces LIT staking requirement for Liquidity Pool access

Lighter has announced the rollout of a new staking feature for its native token LIT, making staking mandatory to access the Lighter Liquidity Pool (LLP). The requirement takes effect immediately for new participants, while existing LLP depositors are granted a two-week grace period ending on Jan. 28.

Under the new model, users must stake LIT at a 1:10 ratio, meaning each staked LIT unlocks the ability to deposit up to 10 USDC into the LLP. After the grace period expires, staking LIT will be required to maintain funds in the pool.

Lighter said the change is designed to better align the interests of LIT holders and liquidity providers, while enhancing the LLP’s risk-adjusted returns. The liquidity pool remains a core component of the platform, supporting yield generation and acting as insurance during liquidations. Similar mechanics are expected to be introduced for other public pools in the future.

Additional staking benefits include zero fees on withdrawals and transfers for users staking at least 100 LIT, along with staking yield, although the APR has not yet been disclosed. Lighter also plans to adjust premium fees for market makers and high-frequency trading firms in the coming weeks, offering discounts tied to LIT staking, while keeping retail trading free.

The staking feature will be extended to mobile users in the coming days following Lighter’s recent mobile app launch. Lighter launched the LIT token last month, allocating 50% of the supply to the ecosystem, and began token buybacks on Jan. 5.

Launched on public mainnet in October, Lighter has quickly grown into one of the most active decentralized perpetuals exchanges, reporting more than $200 billion in monthly trading volume in December. The project recently raised $68 million at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Crypto ETFs post broad gains as Bitcoin sees strongest inflow of 2026

Crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) delivered a second straight session of synchronized gains, led by Bitcoin, which recorded its strongest daily inflow so far in 2026. The move highlighted a sharp rebound in investor confidence across the crypto ETF market.

Bitcoin ETFs attracted roughly $754 million in net inflows, the highest single-day total this year. Buying was broad-based, with Fidelity’s FBTC leading at about $351 million, followed by Bitwise’s BITB and BlackRock’s IBIT. No outflows were recorded, while trading volume climbed to nearly $4.8 billion, pushing total net assets to around $123 billion.

Ether ETFs extended their recovery with close to $130 million in inflows, spread across major products from BlackRock, Grayscale, Bitwise, and Fidelity. Trading volume reached about $1.5 billion, with net assets holding near $19.6 billion.

XRP ETFs remained in positive territory, posting nearly $13 million in inflows, while Solana ETFs closed green for a second consecutive day with around $5.9 million added, driven primarily by Fidelity’s product.

Overall, the session reflected a decisive shift in market sentiment. Bitcoin’s surge set the tone, Ether confirmed follow-through demand, and steady allocations into XRP and Solana ETFs reinforced growing confidence as the market moved deeper into January.

Bitnomial, a Chicago-based derivatives exchange, has launched the first U.S.-regulated Aptos (APT) futures contracts. The product is initially available to institutional traders and is expected to open to retail users via its Botanical platform in the coming weeks.

The contracts are settled monthly in either U.S. dollars or APT, depending on the direction of the position. Traders can post margin in cryptocurrency or U.S. dollars through Bitnomial’s clearinghouse. The exchange also plans to introduce APT perpetual futures and options at a later stage.

BitMine’s decision to stake 1.53 million ETH—around 4% of all staked Ethereum—marks a major institutional milestone for the network. The move has pushed total staked ETH to a record above 36 million, nearly 30% of circulating supply, sharply reducing Ethereum’s effective liquid float. Because staked ETH is subject to long activation and withdrawal queues, this “sticky” supply can amplify price movements as liquidity tightens.
Strategically, BitMine is positioning Ethereum as a yield-generating treasury asset rather than a purely speculative holding. At current staking rates, the firm expects hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, reinforcing ETH’s appeal as productive balance-sheet collateral. However, as more capital crowds into staking, yields are likely to compress, potentially weakening Ethereum’s relative attractiveness versus high fiat yields.
Beyond price and yield, the move introduces new governance and operational considerations. A single corporate entity controlling such a large share of validators raises risks around operational concentration, regulatory pressure, and market reflexivity. Scenario models suggest outcomes ranging from a modest liquidity premium and gradual yield compression, to ETH evolving into core institutional collateral, or—on the downside—heightened volatility if corporate holders are forced to unwind large staking positions.

More than half of all crypto tokens ever launched are now defunct, with 2025 emerging as the most destructive year on record, according to an analysis by CoinGecko. Of the nearly 20.2 million tokens listed on GeckoTerminal between mid-2021 and the end of 2025, 53.2% are no longer actively traded. Remarkably, around 11.6 million token failures occurred in 2025 alone, accounting for more than 86% of all project collapses over the past five years.
CoinGecko attributes this surge primarily to the explosion of low-effort memecoins and experimental projects launched through crypto launchpads that significantly lowered barriers to token creation. As a result, the market became flooded with highly speculative assets that lacked meaningful development, utility, or long-term support, many of which disappeared after only a few trades. The situation reached a critical point in the fourth quarter of 2025, when a massive liquidation cascade erased $19 billion in leveraged positions in a single day, triggering the largest wave of crypto project failures in the industry’s history.

Trader places $40,000 bet on U.S. strike against Iran by Jan. 15 Vietnam time

A trader on prediction market Polymarket went against market consensus by placing a $40,000 bet that the United States would strike Iran before the end of Jan. 14 U.S. time, equivalent to around midday on Jan. 15 in Vietnam.

The article was published at 8:14 a.m. ET on Jan. 15, 2026, corresponding to 8:14 p.m. Vietnam time. According to Polymarket data, a newly created account deposited $40,000 and placed a single wager on a U.S. strike occurring within that narrow time window.

At the same time, the Pentagon is reportedly weighing military options against Iran, with preparations said to be underway for a possible intervention in the coming hours or days. Iran has also closed its airspace to all commercial flights. Despite these developments, broader market sentiment suggests any strike is more likely to happen later rather than immediately. An NBC report on Wednesday evening indicated that an attack may not be imminent.

Polymarket Analytics shows the trader, using the handle “mutualdelta,” funded the position on the same day. The market currently prices only a 9% chance of a strike occurring within the specified timeframe, leaving the bet down more than $20,000 at the time of publication. If a strike were confirmed before midnight Eastern Time (around noon in Vietnam), however, the trader would win the contract.

Overall, bettors remain confident that some form of U.S. military action could occur in the region during the first half of the year, but uncertainty remains around timing. By late evening on Jan. 14 U.S. time (early Jan. 15 in Vietnam), Polymarket was assigning a 65% probability to a strike by the end of the month and a 74% probability by June 30.

Polymarket has drawn attention previously after a single bettor reportedly made $400,000 by wagering on U.S. military action in Venezuela shortly before an operation targeting the country’s leader took place.

TD Cowen has lowered its one-year price target on Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) to $440 from $500, citing a weaker outlook for bitcoin yield as dilution increases from ongoing issuance of common and preferred shares. Despite the cut, the bank said Strategy remains an attractive vehicle for investors seeking exposure to bitcoin.

Analysts led by managing director Lance Vitanza now expect Strategy to acquire around 155,000 bitcoins in fiscal year 2026, up from a prior estimate of 90,000. However, the higher pace of accumulation is expected to be funded with a greater mix of equity and preferred stock, which would dilute bitcoin yield, defined as the percentage change in bitcoins held per fully diluted share.

For fiscal 2026, TD Cowen now models bitcoin yield of 7.1%, down from its previous estimate of 8.8% and sharply lower than the 22.8% recorded in fiscal 2025. This implies a BTC dollar gain of about $6.315 billion, versus $9.4 billion previously, supporting the revised $440 price target based on an unchanged 5x multiple.

The analysts noted that Strategy has leaned aggressively into the recent pullback in bitcoin prices. In the week ended Jan. 11, the company issued roughly 6.8 million common shares and about 1.2 million shares of its variable-rate STRC preferred stock, raising around $1.25 billion, with nearly all proceeds used to buy an additional 13,627 bitcoins. Because the purchases were largely funded by equity issued near parity, they generated limited bitcoin yield.

Looking ahead, TD Cowen expects a reversal in fiscal 2027, with bitcoin yield accelerating to 8.1% and BTC dollar gain rising to more than $13.5 billion, assuming a meaningful recovery in bitcoin prices. The analysts continue to forecast bitcoin reaching about $177,000 by December 2026 and approximately $226,000 by December 2027.

Despite the lower near-term yield outlook, TD Cowen maintained a constructive stance on Strategy, highlighting opportunities across its capital structure, including preferred shares that could offer both income generation and capital appreciation.

Alpaca raises $150 million Series D at $1.15 billion valuation

Alpaca, a middleware brokerage infrastructure provider serving around 300 clients including Kraken, has raised $150 million in Series D financing and secured an additional $40 million credit facility, pushing its valuation to $1.15 billion.

The round was led by Drive Capital, with participation from Citadel Securities, Opera Tech Ventures (BNP Paribas), DRW Venture Capital, Bank Muscat, Kraken, and other investors. Revolut CTO Vlad Yatsenko also joined as an angel investor.

Alpaca says it now powers 94% of all tokenized U.S. equities and ETFs, providing embedded brokerage services, APIs, and self-clearing custody solutions to hundreds of organizations. In 2025, which the company described as a “breakout year,” Alpaca significantly expanded its product suite to include multi-leg options, fully paid securities lending, fixed-income products, and 24/5 U.S. stock trading.

The company also launched its Instant Tokenization Network at TOKEN2049 Singapore, partnering with the Solana Foundation and major real-world asset projects such as Dinari, Ondo Finance, and xStocks.

Financial advisors are moving beyond token crypto exposure and treating it as a structured portfolio allocation. Survey data from Bitwise and VettaFi show that nearly half of advisors with crypto exposure now allocate between 2% and 5%, while 17% allocate more than 5%, signaling a shift away from the long-standing 1% “toe-dip” approach.
This change is being reinforced by major institutions such as Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, which now publish explicit allocation guidance that frames crypto as a risk-managed asset class rather than pure speculation. Modeling from these firms suggests modest allocations can improve portfolio outcomes while keeping downside risk contained.
Improved infrastructure, wider access through ETFs and custodians, and rising personal conviction among advisors are accelerating adoption. Together, these factors indicate crypto is entering a new phase—transitioning from experimental exposure to a defined, risk-tiered sleeve within institutional and advisory portfolios.

The Sui blockchain experienced a major mainnet outage after a consensus failure disrupted validators across the network, bringing block production to a halt and freezing on-chain transactions for several hours. The incident marked Sui’s second significant outage, following a similar disruption in 2024.

While the Sui core team investigated and worked on a fix, users were warned of delayed or unavailable transactions and dApp disruptions. Despite the technical failure, the SUI token remained relatively stable, even posting a modest gain. The outage highlights ongoing reliability challenges faced by high-throughput blockchains as they continue to scale.

JPMorgan estimates that crypto markets attracted nearly $130 billion in capital inflows in 2025, a record level driven mainly by retail-led bitcoin and ether ETF inflows and aggressive buying by digital asset treasury (DAT) companies. More than half of total inflows came from DATs, although their buying activity slowed significantly toward the end of the year. Institutional participation via CME futures remained weaker than in 2024, while crypto venture capital funding stayed subdued, with fewer deals and a shift toward later-stage investments.
Looking ahead, JPMorgan expects crypto inflows to rise further in 2026, with institutional investors playing a much larger role. Clearer regulation, such as potential new U.S. crypto legislation, is seen as a key catalyst for renewed institutional adoption, alongside increased activity in M&A, IPOs, and infrastructure-related sectors. The bank also notes signs that crypto de-risking has eased, suggesting the pullback in positions by both retail and institutional investors in late 2025 is likely over.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has concluded its multi-year investigation into the Zcash Foundation without recommending any enforcement action. The nonprofit said the probe began with a subpoena issued in August 2023 and is now formally closed.
The decision reflects a broader shift in the SEC’s stance toward crypto under the Trump administration, as the agency has dropped numerous cases and investigations involving major crypto firms and DeFi projects. This marks a clear break from the more aggressive enforcement approach taken during the Biden administration.
The announcement also comes amid recent internal upheaval in the Zcash ecosystem, including the resignation of the entire Electric Coin Company team. Despite this, the Zcash Foundation emphasized that its commitments to the protocol remain unchanged and stressed that the Zcash network operates independently of any single organization.

Coinbase CEO says company cannot support Senate crypto market structure bill in its current form
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange cannot support the Senate Banking Committee’s draft crypto market structure bill after reviewing the text over the past 48 hours. In a post on X, Armstrong outlined several major concerns, arguing that the legislation, as written, would be worse than the current regulatory status quo.
According to Armstrong, the draft effectively imposes a ban on tokenized equities, introduces prohibitions on decentralized finance that would grant the government broad access to users’ financial records and undermine privacy, and erodes the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in favor of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He also warned that proposed amendments could eliminate rewards on stablecoins and allow banks to suppress competition.
While acknowledging the bipartisan effort behind the bill, Armstrong said Coinbase would “rather have no bill than a bad bill,” adding that the company will continue to push for a revised framework that treats crypto on a level playing field with traditional financial services and supports innovation, economic freedom, and regulatory clarity in the U.S.

Figure launches OPEN platform to bring native equities onchain
Figure, a fintech firm best known for onchain lending and led by SoFi founder Mike Cagney, has launched a new blockchain-based network for issuing and trading tokenized stocks. The platform, called the On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN), enables companies to issue equities natively on the Provenance Blockchain, bypassing traditional intermediaries such as the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC).
According to Figure, OPEN is integrated with the firm’s Alternative Trading System (ATS), allowing continuous trading through a limit order book. Investors will also be able to lend or borrow against their equity holdings using decentralized finance (DeFi) rails, removing the need for prime brokers. BitGo and Jump Trading will provide custody and liquidity support.
Figure said it will be the first company to list its own shares on OPEN, with plans to make its Nasdaq-listed stock interchangeable with the newly blockchain-registered equity. The launch reflects a broader push toward tokenization of real-world assets, as firms look to use blockchain infrastructure to improve transparency, reduce costs and modernize how public equities are issued, traded and custodied.

Aster launches Human vs AI Season 2 on Aster Chain Testnet
Aster has announced the launch of Human vs AI Season 2, moving the trading competition to the Aster Chain Testnet and introducing more advanced AI agents developed by leading labs. The new season is positioned as a rematch following Season 1, where human traders topped the leaderboards while AI agents achieved perfect survival rates and outperformed on ROI.
The competition is open to 100 traders, including both humans and AI, with each slot sized at $10,000 and offering zero downside risk. The total prize pool stands at $150,000, with Team Human’s share doubling to $100,000 if it secures an overall victory. According to Aster, Season 2 is designed to test both sides on a completely new battlefield, using a more sophisticated AI stack and a fresh trading environment.
Applications are open until Jan. 18, with selected participants to be announced on Jan. 20. The competition will run from Jan. 22 to Jan. 29. Aster said the event aims to provide deeper insights into how human decision-making compares with next-generation AI trading agents under new market conditions.

FTX schedules next creditor payout for March 31, continues asset clawback efforts
FTX’s bankruptcy estate said it will make its next payment to creditors on March 31, 2026, as it continues one of the largest and most closely watched repayment processes in the crypto industry. The distribution will be made to creditors on record as of Feb. 14, according to a statement released Tuesday.
The estate also said it has amended a proposal to reduce its disputed claims reserve, a move that could unlock additional funds for near-term distributions if approved by the bankruptcy court. At the same time, FTX is continuing to pursue litigation aimed at recovering assets it says were improperly transferred before the exchange collapsed in November 2022.
Among the ongoing cases is a lawsuit seeking roughly $1 billion from bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets, part of a broader clawback strategy to challenge pre-collapse transfers and maximize recoveries for creditors. Together, these developments highlight how FTX’s wind-down process now involves both returning funds to creditors and escalating high-stakes legal battles that could ultimately determine how much creditors recover.

Algorand Foundation returns to the U.S., re-establishes headquarters in Delaware
The Algorand Foundation announced that it will move its headquarters back to the United States, re-establishing its base in Delaware after operating in Singapore, while appointing a new board of directors to oversee its next phase of growth. The move signals a renewed focus on U.S. operations and policy engagement, as the crypto regulatory environment under President Donald Trump becomes more industry-friendly.
The newly appointed board brings together leaders from finance, crypto and U.S. regulatory backgrounds, and will be responsible for overseeing expanded U.S. operations while guiding key initiatives such as payments infrastructure, asset tokenization and broader financial access. Algorand said the return to the U.S. is intended to reinforce America’s role in shaping the next generation of financial infrastructure and to support continued growth of real-world blockchain applications across its ecosystem.

Deribit has launched USDC-settled options for AVAX and TRX, expanding its derivatives offerings for both assets, which already feature USDC-settled perpetual markets. The newly introduced option contracts are fully settled in USDC. Users in eligible jurisdictions who hold USDC in their Deribit accounts are eligible to receive monthly USDC rewards. In terms of contract specifications, each AVAX option contract represents 100 AVAX, while each TRX option contract represents 10,000 TRX.