expansion

During Consensus HK, Gate hosted a high-end networking reception and invited over a thousand industry guests to participate. Gate's founder and CEO Dr. Han stated in the keynote speech "What's the Next Big Thing in Crypto" that the acceleration of RWA and TradFi assets onto the blockchain is driving the integration of traditional finance and the crypto system from conceptual fusion to large-scale implementation, with multi-asset collaboration becoming an important engine for the next phase of industry expansion.In line with this trend, Gate continues to enhance its TradFi product offerings, covering various asset classes such as stocks, metals, forex, indices, and commodities. It supports trading of popular assets like gold, silver, Tesla, Nvidia, and Apple, with leverage up to 500 times, and has launched an industry-first adjustable leverage mechanism for gold, enhancing the flexibility of asset allocation.Data shows that Gate's total TradFi trading volume has surpassed $33 billion, with a single-day peak trading volume exceeding $6 billion, demonstrating the platform's significant advantages in multi-asset trading structure and liquidity integration. This also provides a verifiable scale sample for crypto trading platforms to accommodate traditional financial assets, further driving the industry towards a multi-asset and integrated direction.

The digital asset trading platform Gate released its transparency report for January 2026, disclosing its phased progress in multi-asset trading and platform structure. The data shows that Gate continues to expand its influence in the derivatives sector, with a market share of derivatives rising to 11%; the trading volume of perpetual contracts grew from $911.2 billion in the first quarter of 2025 to $2.42 trillion in the third quarter, maintaining a high level of $1.93 trillion in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, Gate TradFi has covered metals, foreign exchange, indices, commodities, and some stocks, with trading volume exceeding $20 billion since its launch.In terms of products and infrastructure, Gate is simultaneously advancing intelligent and on-chain capability construction. GateAI launched in January, focusing on market analysis and asset interpretation, with a user satisfaction rate of approximately 88% in the first month. After the upgrade, Perp DEX's monthly trading volume exceeded $5.5 billion, and the number of on-chain addresses for Gate Layer surpassed 100 million. In asset management, the on-chain earning TVL reached $1.301 billion, and the ETH staking scale hit a record high. In January, the overall reserve coverage ratio increased to 125%, with major assets maintaining excess reserves.Overall, Gate is continuously solidifying its long-term development foundation as a comprehensive digital asset platform through multi-asset coverage, expansion of trading scale, and upgrades in technological capabilities.

The online trading giant IG Group has completed the acquisition of the cryptocurrency trading platform Independent Reserve, which has been approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. This acquisition marks IG Group's official commitment to expanding its presence in the digital asset space.Independent Reserve will be integrated into the IG Group system while maintaining the stability of existing services and compliant operations. IG plans to leverage Independent Reserve's cryptocurrency technology and operational experience to launch cryptocurrency trading products tailored for local markets in Singapore, Australia, and the UAE in the second half of 2026.IG Group stated that this acquisition will help it expand compliant digital asset services in a market where regulations are gradually becoming clearer; Independent Reserve believes that with IG's resources and regional network, it will accelerate the internationalization of its cryptocurrency products.

According to Jin Shi's report, the research report from China International Capital Corporation points out that it is difficult to shake the normalization of balance sheet expansion regardless of who is chosen as the Federal Reserve Chairman. Although the Federal Reserve began expanding its balance sheet last December, and there has been a marginal improvement in liquidity, narrow liquidity remains well below the lower limit of the "ample level," and the dollar liquidity indicators still show a relatively tight state since the pandemic.Under the pressures of debt and financial market stability, the trend of liquidity expansion is likely to be a high-probability event, and there is a possibility of a sustained global asset bull market.

According to The Block, driven by the expansion of its cryptocurrency business, SoFi Technologies, one of the largest online lending institutions in the United States, reported its first-ever quarterly revenue exceeding $1 billion in the fourth quarter, with a profit of $174 million.The company stated that it added 1 million new members in the fourth quarter, a record high, bringing the total membership to 13.7 million, a 35% increase compared to the same period last year.The San Francisco-based lending institution recently became the first nationally chartered bank to launch consumer cryptocurrency trading, and subsequently introduced the SoFiUSD stablecoin and blockchain-integrated remittance services in over 30 countries.

Jiuzi Holdings, a Bitcoin treasury company listed on NASDAQ, announced the signing of a strategic cooperation memorandum with Morgan International Finance Ltd, which intends to invest $90 million through equity investment.The specific investment structure, lock-up period, and other arrangements will be determined after further negotiations between the parties and the signing of legally binding final transaction documents. The new funds will be used to support Jiuzi Holdings in advancing blockchain and Web3 ecosystem expansion, as well as executing digital asset strategies.

According to The Block, Coinbase has expanded its prediction market business to all 50 states in the U.S. through a partnership with the CFTC-regulated prediction market platform Kalshi. Previously, this business was only in a limited pilot phase, and it is now fully rolled out, allowing users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events in politics, sports, entertainment, culture, and economic indicators.Coinbase users can manage their cryptocurrency, stock, and cash balances within the same interface, with a low entry threshold for prediction market contracts starting at $1 (supporting USD or USDC). This full launch coincides with a historic high in prediction market trading volume, with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi reaching transaction volumes in the tens of billions of dollars.Coinbase aims to further transform into a "full-service exchange" covering stocks, derivatives, stablecoins, and tokenized assets by incorporating prediction markets into its product line. Previously, Coinbase also acquired The Clearing Company, founded by the former growth lead of Polymarket, to accelerate the scaling of this business.

According to Jinshi reports, the Federal Reserve FOMC statement upgraded its assessment of economic activity, stating that it is expanding at a "robust" pace.

According to HyperInsight monitoring, the "Zhuankong New Coin" trader (0x26359) has increased their position with a 1x leverage MEGA short to 242,356 coins, with an average entry price of $0.214, an unrealized profit of $7,343, and a liquidation price of $0.3671.Previously, this trader shorted MON, LIT, and FOGO, totaling a profit of $41,600.

DeFi lending protocol Spark announced on platform X that its Spark Vaults will increase the Spark Savings limits, with the USDC limit on the Ethereum chain raised to $1 billion, the USDC limit on the Avalanche chain raised to $500 million, and the ETH limit increased to 250,000 coins.

According to CoinDesk, Bitmine Immersion Technologies has received shareholder approval to increase the cap on the number of shares the company can issue, enhancing flexibility for future financing.The company currently holds 4.203 million ETH, 193 BTC, a stake in Eightco Holdings valued at $22 million, and nearly $1 billion in cash. According to a press release issued by the company on Tuesday, Proposal No. 2 was approved with 81% of the votes at the annual shareholder meeting held on January 15, authorizing the company to expand the number of shares that can be issued.This proposal does not mean that the company will immediately issue new shares, but rather raises the cap on future issuable shares, providing room for subsequent financing, mergers and acquisitions, or supporting continued accumulation of Ethereum.The authorized capital size determines the maximum number of shares a company can legally issue. Raising this cap means that Bitmine can provide funding support for business expansion or asset allocation by issuing new shares in the future. Addressing potential equity dilution risks, Bitmine's management has assured shareholders that the company will not issue shares below the market net asset value (mNAV). Currently, the company's stock price is approximately 0.86 times the mNAV.

According to Bloomberg, UK fintech giant Revolut Ltd. has applied for a full banking license in Peru, marking the company's official entry into the Latin American market expansion plan, where it will compete directly with major fintech companies in the region.

Cointelegraph posted on the X platform that Arthur Hayes predicted in his latest article that as the Federal Reserve's balance sheet expands in 2026, bank loans increase, and mortgage rates decline, dollar liquidity will further expand, and Bitcoin will rise accordingly.

According to Jinshi, Federal Reserve official Kashkari stated that the current expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet is not a quantitative easing policy.

According to official news, the stablecoin protocol STBL has released its roadmap for the first quarter of 2026, with the core goal of shifting from infrastructure development to application deployment, activating USST as a productive asset for lending and yield generation.Key points include: deploying USST on the mainnet, integrating Hypernative to automate the anchoring mechanism, and launching DeFi lending features; conducting liquidity injection and expanding RWA collateral, as well as deploying ecosystem-specific stablecoin (ESS) structures on the testnet; planning to extend native USST minting to other high-performance chains such as Solana and Stellar, and releasing a simplified interface for the STBL DApp.

Ripple President Monica Long stated that the company currently has no plans to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) and will continue to operate privately, focusing on growth through product development and acquisitions. She noted that Ripple's financial situation is robust, and there is no need to seek capital market liquidity through a public listing, as it has the capability to continue investing in the company's development.Monica Long's remarks came after Ripple completed a round of financing of approximately $500 million in November 2025, which corresponded to a valuation of about $40 billion, with investors including Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities, and several funds in the cryptocurrency sector. Regarding the investor protection mechanisms involved in the financing terms, she only stated that the overall structure is relatively favorable for Ripple, without further elaborating on the details of the relevant terms.The report also mentioned that Ripple completed several acquisitions in 2025, including the prime broker Hidden Road, the stablecoin payment platform Rail, the treasury management system GTreasury, and the digital asset wallet and custody company Palisade, with a total acquisition amount close to $4 billion. Ripple disclosed that as of November last year, its payment business had processed a cumulative transaction volume exceeding $95 billion, and related products are continuously expanding around enterprise-level digital asset infrastructure.

According to CryptoSlate, the Ethereum network performed strongly in 2025, processing a record transaction volume and dominating the DeFi market (with a mainnet TVL share of 64%). However, the price of ETH fell by 10% over the year to below $3,000, decoupling from network activity. This was due to Ethereum actively reducing transaction fees through technical upgrades to promote the growth of L2 networks and the expansion of the entire ecosystem, resulting in a significant decline in mainnet revenue. Total L2 revenue in 2025 dropped by 53% to $129 million, but fees paid to the mainnet plummeted to just $10 million, with L2 operators retaining about $119 million in profit. This means that the Ethereum mainnet "sacrificed" over $100 million in potential revenue (a decrease of about $103 million compared to 2024) to subsidize ecosystem growth.