ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana rose after the Federal Reserve maintained interest rates on Wednesday and the Fed Chair delivered reassuring remarks, with U.S. stock markets also climbing. Looser financial conditions seem to be boosting risk appetite. The dollar recorded its third-largest three-day decline since 2015, while U.S. Treasury yields and bond market volatility also significantly decreased.Real Vision's chief cryptocurrency analyst Jamie Coutts stated that these changes could lay the groundwork for a significant rise in Bitcoin over the next 90 days. Coutts said, "Historically, these signals often precede significant volatility in Bitcoin. The market may currently underestimate the speed at which Bitcoin could rise rapidly—despite ongoing issues with Trump tariffs and potential economic recession, Bitcoin could reach an all-time high before the end of the second quarter."

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, informed sources say that the crypto payment company MoonPay has acquired the API-focused stablecoin infrastructure company Iron for a "nine-figure" price, meaning a value of at least 100 million dollars.

ChainCatcher news, according to CNBC, cryptocurrency payment giant MoonPay is intensifying its push into the enterprise market by acquiring API-first stablecoin infrastructure startup Iron. This is MoonPay's second major acquisition in two months, highlighting its ambition to capture the rapidly growing stablecoin payment market.MoonPay co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright stated in an interview, "We believe that everyone will have a digital currency wallet, whether it's within a bank account or existing independently. And we are building backward compatibility with the existing financial system."Soto-Wright compared this acquisition to PayPal's acquisition of Braintree, which handled credit card transactions for companies like Meta, with a total payment volume of nearly $600 billion last year. Soto-Wright said, "This is our Braintree moment; Iron's technology positions MoonPay to become the authoritative infrastructure provider for enterprise stablecoin solutions."

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Base has acquired the Iron Fish development team to strengthen its efforts in privacy-focused blockchain solutions. This acquisition is limited to the team itself, and Base will not acquire the Iron Fish blockchain or its native tokens.This means that the acquisition will focus solely on the team's expertise, while the Iron Fish project will remain independent and unrelated to Coinbase or Base.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Bitcoin office of El Salvador, President Bukele recently met with a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and benahorowitz.eth. The topics discussed included: investment opportunities for El Salvador as an emerging regional tech hub focused on free technology, the AI landscape in the post-DeepSeek environment, and open-source versus proprietary models in AI, among others.

ChainCatcher news, QCP Capital's latest analysis points out that Trump announced a "25% or higher" tariff on pharmaceuticals and semiconductor chips, which companies can avoid by relocating to the U.S. He also emphasized that U.S. auto exports are treated unfairly and announced tariffs on cars starting April 2. The U.S.-China AI competition has once again become a focal point, with DeepSeek seeking external financing, attracting attention from institutional investors like Alibaba, which may accelerate the competitive threat to U.S. AI giants.In the cryptocurrency sector, altcoins have gained attention since Trump's administration, with multiple altcoin ETF applications submitted to the SEC. Brazil has approved the world's first spot XRP ETF, which could propel the U.S. to become a global cryptocurrency hub.In the options market, there is strong demand for high Delta bullish Bitcoin options from February to April, with 25 Delta implied volatility leaning bullish, suggesting the market may be preparing for a second wave of a bull market. As inflation concerns ease, the S&P 500 hits new highs, and the dollar index retreats to 107, the macro environment increasingly supports risk assets.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report released by Bernstein on Wednesday, suggests that a "perfect storm" of political and regulatory forces is creating ideal conditions for stablecoin legislation in the United States this year.Analysts added that potential legislation in the U.S. could prompt major financial institutions to evaluate how to integrate stablecoin issuance or settlement into their business models. Additionally, regulators are expected to intensify scrutiny of past "de-banking" practices, further incorporating stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and intermediaries into the traditional financial system.

ChainCatcher news, Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi posted on social media X, stating that the current low volatility in the Meme coin market may be just a temporary phenomenon. He believes that once the macroeconomic situation improves, the trading cycle of meme coins will become active again.However, Haseeb also pointed out that the Meme coin market has entered a later stage, and market participants seem to be showing signs of fatigue.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Standard Chartered believes that as long as yields remain stable and the economy runs smoothly, the current market environment is very favorable for Bitcoin and the broader digital asset space. Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital asset research, noted in a report on Friday that the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has remained below 4.50%, indicating that the bond market does not expect the Federal Reserve to take aggressive tightening measures, which provides strong support for risk assets like Bitcoin.Kendrick stated, "Despite strong U.S. employment data, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has consistently failed to break above 4.50%, which is good news for digital assets. With yields not rising and the economy still robust, this 'just right' environment is very conducive to the development of digital assets." He also added that if the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield continues to stay below 4.50% before the weekend, Bitcoin could break through the key resistance level of $102,500.Furthermore, if there are no new negative factors (such as unexpected regulatory actions or macroeconomic shocks), market conditions for digital assets are expected to improve further, and Bitcoin could even break through $108,000 in February, setting a new all-time high.

ChainCatcher news, DeAgentAI announced a partnership with Rena Labs to introduce Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology. The introduction of this technology can enhance the security of AI agents in critical scenarios such as trading, preventing malicious manipulation by developers (Rug Pool), thereby improving the security and transparency of AI trading agents.By incorporating Rena Labs' TEE ML technology, DeAgentAI's first trading AI model, AlphaX, will have stronger verifiability, ensuring that funds and data are not accessed without authorization. At the same time, RenaAI, as DeAgentAI's first on-chain fund, will leverage TEE technology to achieve safer on-chain autonomous trading, enhancing market analysis and risk management capabilities, and providing users with professional-grade autonomous trading solutions.As the largest AI agent infrastructure in the Movement, BTC, and BSC ecosystems, DeAgentAI is committed to building a trustworthy decentralized intelligent system through a minimum entropy consensus mechanism. In the future, both parties will continue to explore the application of trusted technology in decentralized AI agents, jointly promoting the security upgrade of the Web3 ecosystem.

ChainCatcher message, VItalik posted on platform X stating: "No, this game does not work that way. I am the one who decides the new EF leadership team. One of the goals of the ongoing reforms is to provide EF with a 'proper board', but until then, the decision-making power is with me. If you 'continue to apply pressure', then you are creating an environment that is harmful to top talent.Some of Ethereum's best developers have recently been messaging me, expressing their disgust at the social media environment being created by people like you. You have made my job harder. And you have also reduced my interest in doing 'what you want to do'."

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to the controversy over the leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation (EF) in a tweet.He made it clear that the decision-making power of the current new leadership team of EF is in his hands, and the ongoing reforms aim to introduce a suitable board for the foundation, but until then, the decision-making power still belongs to him personally.Vitalik criticized the pressure tactics on social media, stating that they undermine the working environment for excellent developers. He pointed out that such behavior is not only unhelpful for achieving goals but also diminishes his interest in catering to these demands.

ChainCatcher news, U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer, who supports the cryptocurrency industry, stated: "I am honored to be selected as the Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion.With President Trump in the White House and Gary Gensler locked in the Washington dumpster, we have a tremendous opportunity to ensure that the future of digital assets is guided by Americans and aligned with American values. I look forward to working with Chairman French Hill, Chairman Bryan Steil, and other colleagues to create an environment where digital asset innovation can thrive."Previous news, U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill has appointed Tom Emmer as the Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion. He also nominated other Republican members to the committee.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, the decentralized AI data execution layer Alpha Network, incubated by KEKKAI Labs, announced a strategic partnership with the decentralized GPU cluster network io.net. This collaboration aims to combine Alpha Network's privacy technology with io.net's decentralized GPU network, with the goal of jointly promoting data security, the popularization of AI infrastructure, and industry innovation.Both parties will explore the creation of a compliant and privacy-first AI training environment through io.net's decentralized GPU cluster. With io.net's distributed GPU infrastructure, Alpha Network can securely process sensitive training data without relying on traditional trusted environments.

ChainCatcher news, 10x Research stated in its latest report that the cryptocurrency trading environment remains complex and volatile during the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in December 2024 and the subsequent holiday season. However, there are still profit opportunities in specific areas. Bitcoin is in a consolidation phase during this period, showing no signs of a sustained upward trend, but fluctuating within a tactical trading range, which provides opportunities for strategic positioning rather than a simple bullish trend. While some initial enthusiasm is expected at the beginning of the new year, it is not the time to recreate the bullish sentiment seen from late January to March or from late September to mid-December 2024. A positive performance is anticipated at the start of the year, followed by a slight pullback before the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data on January 15. If the inflation data is favorable, it may reignite optimism and drive the market up before Trump's inauguration on January 20. However, this momentum may weaken, and the market could slightly retreat before the FOMC meeting on January 29.From January to mid-November 2024, Bitcoin's dominance surged from 50% to 60%, creating significant resistance for altcoin performance. Although the dominance metric briefly plummeted to 53% within three weeks, igniting hopes for an altcoin season, it quickly rebounded to nearly 58% and then consolidated around 55%. This consolidation highlights Bitcoin's enduring dominance as the main driving force in the cryptocurrency market while also indicating that altcoins may face potential challenges—unless Bitcoin's dominance metric declines again.

ChainCatcher message, Bloomberg columnists Marcus Ashworth and Mark Gilbert's key takeaway for 2025 is: buckle up, it’s going to be a rollercoaster ride.Regarding the future of Bitcoin, they pointed out that Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman stated last month on the Bluesky social platform that although Bitcoin has surpassed $100,000, there are still no legitimate use cases even after 15 years.The recent surge in Bitcoin prices has at least one identifiable catalyst: the hope that the Trump administration will take a more lenient stance on cryptocurrencies. This expectation is likely to be realized under the leadership of incoming SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, who is believed to have a more favorable attitude towards the crypto market than his predecessor, and the regulatory environment is almost certain to become less hostile.

ChainCatcher message, Abstract Chain contributor cygaar posted on X stating that the Abstract testnet has no incentives, and noted that in the past two weeks, the network has added 10 million transactions, merely transferring ETH between wallets.cygaar explained that its existence is to familiarize users with Abstract and to provide developers with a temporary environment for mainnet deployment. The team does not care about easily manipulated testnet metrics.