Bitcoin Price: US$43,302.70 (+3.03%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,317.60 (+2.69%)
In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission mandates a minimum insurance requirement of 50% for licensed crypto exchanges managing customers’ assets, with OSL Exchange revealing a two-year partnership with Canopius, covering 95% of user assets. Meanwhile, OKX’s NFT marketplace surpasses competitors in daily trading volume as it announces support for Bitcoin Ordinals, a protocol considered by some as spam in the Bitcoin ecosystem. OKX’s Chief Innovation Officer, Jason Lau, asserts that there’s “no such thing as spam” in open and permissionless networks like Bitcoin and views Ordinals as part of the growing and evolving ecosystem. In 2023, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported a decrease in global cyber theft to $2.61 billion, with over $674 million successfully recovered, marking a significant increase from the previous year. The recovery is attributed to active negotiations with hackers, bug bounty programs, and collaboration with centralised exchanges, Tether, and law enforcement, demonstrating ongoing efforts to enhance security and combat cybercrime in the crypto space.
The Solana Foundation aims to enhance its developer community by delegating the management of hackathons and an accelerator program to Colosseum, an online platform. Colosseum will conduct two to three annual hackathons and operate a five-week accelerator program for winners, offering a pre-seed investment of $250,000. The move is part of Solana’s strategy to attract more developers, with Colosseum focusing on fostering development within the Solana ecosystem. In a separate development, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) reportedly received its first application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) from Harvest Hong Kong, signalling a growing interest in crypto ETFs in the region. Meanwhile, U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to oppose the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States, expressing concerns about privacy and civil rights. He emphasised the importance of preserving paper cash and highlighted Bitcoin’s role in protecting financial privacy.
Solana’s decentralised exchange (DEX) Jupiter has experienced a surge in trading volumes, reaching $480 million in the last 24 hours, outperforming Ethereum-based Uniswap’s combined volumes from v2 and v3. The heightened activity is attributed to a frenzy around the new memecoin “Wen,” coupled with increased stablecoin swaps. Approximately $50 million of Jupiter’s daily volume came from Wen trading, designed as an experiment before the anticipated airdrop of Jupiter’s native JUP token on January 31. Notably, the majority of the trading volume involved swapping Solana’s SOL for USD Coin and Tether. The total estimated value of the JUP airdrop could exceed $600 million at current prices. In other news, Elon Musk announced that the first human implanted with Neuralink’s brain-computer device is “recovering well,” with promising results in neuron spike detection. Neuralink aims to assist individuals with injuries or paralysis in interacting with devices through thought. Meanwhile, CoinShares suggests that a recent $5 billion outflow from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) contributed to cryptocurrency price declines, affecting digital asset investment products in Europe and Canada, with Switzerland and Germany experiencing significant outflows.
Source:
https://cointelegraph.com
https://coindesk.com
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