ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the founder of the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme Forcount, Antonia Perez Hernandez, has pleaded guilty to telecommunications fraud and has been sentenced to over two years in prison.On January 27, during a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Judge Analisa Torres (who is also the judge presiding over the SEC's case against Ripple Labs) sentenced Hernandez to 30 months in prison for her involvement in the cryptocurrency scam. Hernandez admitted to collaborating with accomplices from 2017 to 2021 to promote cryptocurrency trading and mining on Forcount, stealing approximately $8.4 million from investors by promising substantial returns.Hernandez apologized to those who "suffered financial losses" due to her actions. The project's senior founder, Juan Tacuri, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2024, while the indicted Nestor Nuñez was also sentenced to 4 years in November.

ChainCatcher news, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently shared his views on the current discussions regarding the U.S. government's establishment of a national digital asset reserve program. Despite Ripple's growing influence in the U.S., Garlinghouse reiterated the company's commitment to a multi-chain future and collaboration in the cryptocurrency space.He stated in an X post: "Let me be as clear as I can—if we work together instead of undermining each other, the crypto industry has a chance to achieve many of the goals we all share right now. This is not, and will never be, a zero-sum game. I hold a few tokens like XRP, BTC, and ETH—we live in a multi-chain world, and I advocate for fair competition, not one token against another.If a government digital asset reserve is created—I believe it should represent the entire industry, not just one crypto asset (whether it's BTC, XRP, or any other cryptocurrency). Maximizationism remains the enemy of crypto progress, and I’m glad to see fewer and fewer people subscribing to this outdated and incorrect notion."

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, Grayscale's communications chief Jennifer Rosenthal will be leaving to join the DeFi Education Fund as the new Chief Communications Officer. Since 2021, Rosenthal has held various positions at Grayscale, during a critical time when the company was vying for a Bitcoin spot ETF.

ChainCatcher news, well-known crypto analyst Miles Deutscher posted, "DeepSeek panic combined with FOMC hedging looks like a pretty good buying opportunity. Compared to chronic declines, market panic selling always provides better buying opportunities. Limit orders/TWAP orders have been set."

ChainCatcher news, ai16z co-founder Shaw posted on platform X, stating that more powerful models are always a good thing for AI agents.For years, AI labs have been surpassing each other in benchmarking and capabilities. Sometimes Google is ahead, sometimes OpenAI, and sometimes Claude. Today it is DeepSeek. The trend is that the largest and most capital-rich companies in the world are competing for a technology that ultimately tends towards being free, open-source, and running on home computers at no cost.The winners of this race have always been hardware and consumer products. Nvidia is always a winner. Every model is optimized for its hardware. Apple is also always a winner: they have invested in a unified memory architecture that allows high VRAM machines to run the latest models (albeit slowly).Products continue to benefit from the latest models. Cursor and Perplexity are examples that magically get better every few months, but as AI integrates into almost every product, all these products benefit from cheaper and faster AI models.AI agents represent a new application paradigm—the core argument is that applications need to migrate to the social media where users are, and agents are a form of application that can exist entirely on social media without users needing to leave. They are self-promoting and benefit from the network effects of every user interaction.When a new model emerges, integrating it into the agent framework usually requires just a few lines of code. Most model providers follow the same API conventions, adhering to OpenAI, so this work can typically be done in minutes. This allows any agent application to have immediate access to the latest models. Whenever a state-of-the-art model appears, agents become smarter.This week is a huge victory for all of us. For agents, for humanity, and for the AI model teams, who now have the motivation to work harder and do better. I am not worried at all about our position in all of this. We are building the next version of Eliza, which will only get better. Thousands of teams are building on our technology, with over 500 contributors to the core repository, and this number will continue to grow as we evolve. We are creating a template for ambitious founders on how to crowdfund their public product projects, and teams will be rolling out more content in the coming weeks and months to solidify this strategy.

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, during the famous crypto event Consensus HK, RootData will collaborate with ChainCatcher to hold an offline salon themed "Trends and Rhythms of the New Web3 Cycle" on February 19 from 14:00 to 18:00, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (28 Stanley Street, Central).It is reported that the salon will discuss hot topics of this crypto cycle such as AI Agent, Memecoin, RWA, etc., providing direction for investors. Key guests from the relevant sectors have already been confirmed to attend.

ChainCatcher news, Cynthia Lummis, the proposer of the "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act" and chair of the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Assets Subcommittee, posted a "laser eyes" image symbolizing Bitcoin supporters on social media, with the caption "Allow me to reintroduce myself."

ChainCatcher news, according to Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on February 5, focusing on the issue of "de-banking" of cryptocurrency companies by banks.Eleanor Terrett stated that this is the first-ever hearing on the topic of "de-banking" in U.S. history. Previously, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent letters to leaders of cryptocurrency companies, including Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, and Kraken CEO David Ripley, requesting them to explain their experiences with "de-banking."

ChainCatcher news, according to Jin10 data, the USD/JPY has risen sharply by 60 points, reaching a high of 156.4.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, cryptocurrency critic and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized Trump’s meme coin TRUMP and urged the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and financial regulators to investigate the ethical and regulatory details of the TRUMP token.Warren, a senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee responsible for overseeing U.S. financial regulators, stated that these assets, including First Lady Melania Trump's own namesake meme coin MELANIA, pose a conflict of interest for the president and highlight the most destructive and unstable factors in the cryptocurrency space. TRUMP and MELANIA pose serious risks to President Trump's ability to govern the country fairly and also present significant risks to investors in these currencies, who may become victims of a carefully orchestrated scheme by the Trump family.

ChainCatcher news, Cynthia Lummis, the sponsor of the "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act" and chair of the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Assets Subcommittee, stated on social media that SAB 121 is disastrous for the banking industry and will only hinder innovation and progress in digital assets in the United States. I am glad to see it being repealed and to get the SEC back on track to fulfill its intended mission.

ChainCatcher news, according to Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett, Senator Cynthia Lummis has officially become the chair of the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Assets Subcommittee. Other members of the subcommittee include Thom Tillis, Bill Hagerty, Bernie Moreno, Dave McCormick, Ruben Gallego (senior member), Mark Warner, Chris Van Hollen, and Tina Smith.

ChainCatcher news, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis announced on the X platform that she will serve as the chair of the Digital Assets Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee.

ChainCatcher news, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that the U.S. Senate Banking Committee plans to vote at 10 AM Eastern Time to decide whether Cynthia Lummis will serve as the chair of the Digital Assets Subcommittee, and it is unclear whether any other announcements will be made.

ChainCatcher message, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis hinted that a significant announcement related to Bitcoin will be made at 10 AM Eastern Time. She wrote: "₿ig things are coming" where "B" is replaced by the Bitcoin symbol.

ChainCatcher news, according to Digital Asset, South Korean prosecutors have requested to increase the prison term of the major shareholder of the quantitative trading company B&S Holdings to 15 years in an appeal case. This individual is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for a cryptocurrency fraud case involving a total of 6 billion won (approximately 41.75 million USD).The major shareholder, whose surname is Bang, was initially convicted in August 2024 of embezzlement from the digital asset management platform Haru Invest and the blockchain trading system developer Traum Infotech. The mismanaged assets were originally entrusted to Traum Infotech for management by the virtual asset deposit platform Delio. Due to the inability to recover these funds, both Haru Invest and Delio had to suspend customer withdrawal services.Investigators found that Bang had invested most of the customer assets into the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. However, FTX declared bankruptcy in November 2022 due to mismanagement, resulting in these assets being frozen.

ChainCatcher news, a court in Kazakhstan has sentenced three cryptocurrency exchange operators to imprisonment. According to the official report from the Financial Regulatory Agency (AFM) operated by the Kazakhstan government, the court sentenced these three individuals to 2.5 to 3.5 years in prison, and the bailiffs confiscated their assets worth $750,000.The three individuals "operated a platform without a license" and "charged fees for exchanging cryptocurrencies." The illegal exchange processed cryptocurrency transactions worth over $1.28 million for approximately 380 clients. Prosecutors provided "client" bank statements as evidence. The bailiffs confiscated the assets of the three, "including real estate, five cars, a four-wheeler, and expensive computer equipment."

ChainCatcher news, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju posted on X that cryptocurrency is essentially uncensorable finance, and that excessive regulation of Coinbase has missed the point. He believes that self-regulation based on customer trust is better in the crypto world, which is also the reason why Binance is used worldwide.Previously, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik had posted that Coinbase's user experience is worse than that of banks, including issues such as needing to fill out forms repeatedly for each withdrawal, accounts being randomly closed for security reasons, and Solana withdrawals taking 10 hours to process.