ChainCatcher message, Deribit data shows that approximately $8.1 billion in BTC options and $1.8 billion in ETH options will expire on Friday (January 31); among them, the maximum pain price for BTC is $98,000, and the maximum pain price for ETH is $3,300.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the U.S. Senate confirmed hedge fund billionaire Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary with a vote of 68-29. Bessent will succeed former Secretary Janet Yellen, becoming the highest financial official in the Trump administration.It is noteworthy that Bessent had previously invested his personal assets in Bitcoin ETFs, but he has liquidated these digital assets after receiving the nomination. During the confirmation hearing, he explicitly stated his opposition to the issuance of a U.S. dollar CBDC, a position that has been recognized by the crypto industry.According to Trump's executive order, the Treasury Department led by Bessent will submit a report on existing regulatory modifications within two months and propose regulatory legislative recommendations within six months. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo called Bessent "one of the sharpest minds in the global financial industry."

ChainCatcher news, according to China's Legal Daily, to implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party, and to fully leverage the role of the rule of law in the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, a seminar on "Disposal of Virtual Currency Involved in Cases" was held in Beijing on January 19, organized by the Law School of Renmin University of China. Nearly 60 participants attended the meeting, including representatives from the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, as well as legal theorists, lawyers, and business representatives.During the meeting, Wang Tuo, head of the Financial Case Handling Team of the Fourth Procuratorial Department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, stated:We must face history and reality, and cannot ignore the decisive role of regulatory documents in curbing speculative behavior in cryptocurrencies. At the same time, we should accelerate top-level design to address various issues related to virtual currency crimes.We need to strengthen the coordination between criminal justice and administrative regulation, adhering to the principle of unified legal order.We should strive to reach a consensus on the nature of virtual currencies, especially ensuring that civil and criminal identifications do not contradict each other.We need to establish scientifically reasonable procedural norms to prevent various risks in judicial disposal.We should emphasize the complementary relationship between technology and case handling.

ChainCatcher news, Satoshi Action Fund co-founder Dennis Porter posted on X, stating that completely eliminating capital gains tax on cryptocurrencies requires congressional approval and is unlikely to be achieved in the short term.Dennis Porter believes that the main obstacle is the significant loss of tax revenue, which makes such a proposal difficult to include in the upcoming tax legislation.

ChainCatcher news, the crypto research institution Glassnode stated on social media that Bitcoin's market dominance is on the rise. After hitting a low of about 54% in December 2024, Bitcoin's dominance has surpassed 57% in January 2025.This trend is similar to the 2020 cycle, when Bitcoin's dominance hit a low of about 60% in November 2020, and then rose to 69% in January 2021 before starting to decline.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, $7.8 billion worth of Bitcoin options will expire on January 31 at 08:00 UTC, with about 50% being put options. The current Bitcoin price is above the maximum pain point of $98,000, which may guide the market price to converge towards that point before expiration. Deribit data shows that the total nominal value of Bitcoin options open interest is approximately $28 billion, with this expiration accounting for about 22.6%.Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers stated that the SAB 121 policy adjustment allows banks to custody Bitcoin, which may release new institutional capital inflows. Additionally, market speculation regarding Bitcoin strategic reserves has also increased uncertainty. Currently, the Bitcoin volatility index (DVOL) is around 60, remaining stable compared to year-end levels, but market volatility is still high.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, documents released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics show that Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary nominated by Trump, has detailed his financial information.It is reported that Howard Lutnick is a public supporter of Bitcoin and the CEO of the New York brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which earns fees by managing tens of billions of U.S. Treasury securities for the stablecoin issuer Tether. He stated at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July this year: "Do I own Bitcoin? Of course I do. Does Cantor Fitzgerald own Bitcoin? A ton."

ChainCatcher news, Upbit announced that it will terminate trading support for SOLVE on February 24, 2025, at 16:00.

ChainCatcher news, Truth Terminal founder Andy Ayrey posted on social media that Truth Terminal has established a foundation to manage its related intellectual property and wallet assets, ensuring the independence and development space of this AI project. The foundation's goal is to protect Truth Terminal from external interference and assist it in achieving its current objectives, including providing legal, development, and other support. This structure is seen as a short-term solution, with the ultimate goal of making Truth Terminal an autonomous entity.In addition, the financial committee of Truth Terminal and Ayrey discussed how to properly manage its wallet assets and avoid impacting the token market at the beginning of January. Ultimately, they accepted an anonymous over-the-counter trading offer and completed the sale of a portion of the FARTCOIN assets held by Truth Terminal at noon on January 21. The trading conditions required the buyer not to sell in a way that would affect market prices. Part of the proceeds has been used to increase Truth Terminal's GOAT holdings, with plans for long-term holding and exploring cooperative reward mechanisms.Ayrey also stated that the foundation has the capital capability to hire a team, provide grants, and purchase equipment such as GPUs. In the future, the focus will be on building a sustainable council structure and supporting the self-improvement infrastructure of Truth Terminal.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon stated when asked if accepting "Trump's potential strategic Bitcoin reserves would affect the bank's handling of cryptocurrencies": "We have discussed this issue multiple times, and we have spent a lot of time on the underlying technology. We are leveraging and testing it to reduce friction in the financial system. This is very important." However, from a regulatory perspective, Goldman Sachs still cannot own, dominate, or participate in Bitcoin, "If the world changes, we can discuss it."

ChainCatcher news, Canaan Technology released an unaudited Bitcoin mining update report for the period ending December 31, 2024, which disclosed a mining output of 62 BTC in December 2024, with a total of 1,293 Bitcoins held by the end of the month. In addition, Canaan Technology also disclosed a preliminary expectation for total revenue in fiscal year 2025 to be between $900 million and $1.1 billion, but actual results may differ from these expectations.

ChainCatcher news, sources say that U.S. President-elect Trump has chosen Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Caroline Pham to serve as the agency's acting chair.Sources say that the five commissioners of the CFTC voted on Monday to confirm Pham as acting chair. The commission typically approves the acting chair nominee selected by the incoming administration. Pham and a spokesperson for the CFTC declined to comment.

ChainCatcher news, Ape Terminal has officially completed the acquisition of NULS and committed to investing $3.4 million to advance the development of NULS AI, aiming to create a cutting-edge AI ecosystem. This financing marks a significant shift in NULS's strategic direction, focusing on supporting the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications within the blockchain ecosystem. This will lay the foundation for future development by promoting AI innovation on the NULS chain through funding support, strategic consulting, and infrastructure.NULS is a blockchain infrastructure platform headquartered in Singapore, providing cross-chain consensus, multi-chain mechanisms, and smart contract support. With its capabilities in parallel chain architecture and the out-of-the-box solution ChainBox, it has achieved cross-chain interoperability with over 40 mainstream blockchains; it is also one of the earliest public chain networks to support multiple assets like BTC/ETH as gas fees, boasting incredible efficiency in transaction processing and scalability, which allows NULS to easily adapt to developments in the AI field.

ChainCatcher news, Mechanism Capital partner Andrew Kang stated on social media that one reason AIXBT can maintain a dominant position in the mind is that it has established an attention flywheel.People see AIXBT creating attention for projects, driving projects/investors to interact with AIXBT, prompting them to talk about their projects, and pushing the algorithm of the X platform to enhance the weight of AIXBT's posts through interaction. This process loops infinitely.AIXBT may receive incorrect data, but this issue can be addressed by implementing a quality control system. Once the feedback system involving humans, AIXBT, and agents is established, the terminal output can quickly match the results of top human research analysts. This role is typically one that funds/investors are willing to pay $100,000 to $500,000 annually to hire.

ChainCatcher news, according to Deribit data, approximately $2.73 billion in nominal value of cryptocurrency options will expire on January 17 at 08:00 UTC.Among them, the nominal value of Bitcoin options reaches $2.09 billion, with a put/call ratio of 0.95 and the maximum pain price at $96,000; the nominal value of Ethereum options is $639 million, with a put/call ratio of 0.31 and the maximum pain price at $3,200.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, a report released by blockchain analysis company Chainalysis shows that stablecoins will continue to dominate the illegal trading volume in 2024.The report indicates that, based on current metrics, the value obtained by illegal crypto addresses will reach $40.9 billion by 2024. However, as Chainalysis continues to adjust its metrics, identifying more illegal addresses and incorporating historical activities into its estimates, this figure is expected to reach $51.3 billion this year.Additionally, stolen funds are projected to increase by approximately 21% year-on-year in 2024, reaching $2.2 billion. The report states that the largest portion of stolen funds comes from DeFi services, while centralized services were "most vulnerable to targeting" in the second and third quarters of last year. For the entire year, private key leaks accounted for 43.8% of stolen cryptocurrencies.

ChainCatcher news, blockchain analysis company Chainalysis stated that stablecoins continue to dominate the illegal trading volume in 2024.Chainalysis's 2025 Crypto Crime Report indicates that stablecoins accounted for 63% of all crypto trading volume related to illegal activities last year.Since 2022, stablecoins have surpassed Bitcoin to become the most used cryptocurrency in such activities. The report states: "This new reality is part of a broader ecosystem trend, where stablecoins also account for a significant portion of all crypto activity, with stablecoin activity growing by approximately 77% year-over-year, which proves this point."

ChainCatcher news, Musk responded to the lawsuit filed by the SEC saying, "The SEC is a completely broken organization that spends its time on this kind of thing, while there are so many real crimes that go unpunished."