Mois : janvier 2025

What if you could put up your bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) as collateral to buy a house?

That’s essentially the idea behind real estate firm Propy’s upcoming sale, a condominium located in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is being sold at a starting price of $250,000. If they so choose, the prospective buyer will be able to take out a loan from Propy to acquire the property — as long as they provide 100% collateral in bitcoin or ether, and pledge the property as well.

“It’s a great proposition for bitcoin holders,” Natalia Karayaneva, CEO of Propy, told CoinDesk in an interview. “It’s not a taxable event. They get a loan and buy real estate with it, instead of exiting bitcoin, paying taxes, and then buying real estate.”

It’s a two-year loan, and it comes with 10% yearly interest. If the given cryptocurrency’s value drops more than 50%, the buyer will face a margin call; in a worst-case scenario, the crypto holdings may end up getting liquidated, and the real estate resold at an auction. However, if the cryptocurrency doubles in price, the buyer could end up paying the loan back simply through their gains. The interest payments, and loan itself, can be paid back in bitcoin, ether or USDC.

Another important aspect of the deal is that the property has been tokenized. Launched in 2017, Propy aims to bring real estate transactions on-chain, thus speeding up settlement times and liquidity. In the case of the Hawaiian property sale, slated for January 29, a potential loan would be processed immediately, and upon completing repayment, a buyer would automatically be able to reclaim their crypto.

“This isn’t just a milestone; it’s a glimpse into the future of real estate,” Karayaneva said. “We’re demonstrating how blockchain technology can simplify home buying, replacing the traditionally lengthy loan approval process with an instant, efficient solution.”

Buying real estate on-chain

Based on Ethereum layer 2 solution Base, Propy hasn’t tokenized properties on a regular basis, at least as of yet. More often that not, the firm simply uses smart contracts to make real estate purchases quicker and reduce attorney fees. “The main business is coming from normal consumers. They even don’t know that we use smart contracts on the back-end, but they love how quickly and transparent the whole process is,” Karayaneva said.

When it tokenizes a property, the firm sets up an LLC for the property in the county register and then creates a token, a process that takes roughly two weeks. Upon acquisition, the LLC is amended to reflect the change of ownership, and the property’s token is transferred to its new owner.

As of right now, pure crypto native deals only account for roughly 5% of the company’s volume, according to Karayaneva. One of these deals, for example, involved TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington turning his apartment into an NFT. Propy also auctioned a 17th-century Italian mansion on the blockchain back in 2017. “We haven’t done many of those transactions yet because we needed the loan product in order for us to scale,” she said. “People need a mortgage or a loan to get real estate exposure.”

Propy also provides escrow services in collaboration with Coinbase, the goal being to support the crypto community in making real estate purchases in crypto. For example, the escrow service helps bitcoin holders avoid wrapping their holdings in ERC-20 tokens like wBTC.

Once a property has been tokenized, nothing prevents the buyer from eventually selling it to another crypto native without necessarily going through Propy. If the token is sent to a new wallet, the buyer will automatically be given a link to provide Know-Your-Customer (KYC) information; their name will subsequently appear in the LLC as the property owner. And the buyer can also unwrap the property from the LLC and own it the traditional way — a process that Karayaneva called “un-chaining.”

“Our premier goal is really to on-chain as many real estate assets as possible,” Karayaneva said. “Imagine making an on-chain swap between a real estate on-chain asset and bitcoin asset, or another crypto asset. … It’s a $300 trillion market. Imagine if it becomes liquid.”

Read More: Propy Teams With Abra to Offer Property Purchases Backed by Crypto

Le “Crypto Tsar” de la Maison Blanche, David Sacks, a déclaré lors d’une interview à Fox Business qu’il considérait que les memecoins et les NFT devaient être considérés comme des “objets de collection”. Une prise de position perçue comme un signal extrêmement bullish par l’écosystème crypto. Les memecoins, objets de collection Les signaux positifs s’accumulent…

L’article Trump vient-il de donner le signal d’une nouvelle saison des memecoins ? est apparu en premier sur Cryptonaute.

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The past 24 hours have been among the most hectic in the crypto industry for years, and this was reflected in Thursday’s bitcoin (BTC) price, which whipsawed 2% to 3% multiple times in a matter of minutes. Still, it managed to stay above the psychological $100,000 level and is is currently around $105,000.

President Trump’s rhetoric is continuing to help weaken the dollar, which generally boosts risk assets such as cryptocurrencies. The DXY index, a measure of the U.S. currency against a basket of major trade partners, has dropped to the lowest since Dec. 17, so that should give risk-on assets a feel-good boost. U.S. bond yields and WTI crude oil are also heading down, with oil below $75 a barrel, the lowest in two weeks.

On the other side of the world, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) delivered on its promise with another interest-rate increase, taking the policy rate to 0.50%, the highest in more than 16 years. That followed a very hot inflation print, with headline inflation of 3.6% from the previous year, the fastest since January 2023. The question is whether we will get a second iteration of the yen carry trade unwind that occurred in August of last year. Time will tell. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

Jan. 25: First deadline for SEC decisions on proposals for four spot solana ETFs: Bitwise Solana ETF, Canary Solana ETF, 21Shares Core Solana ETF and VanEck Solana Trust, which are all sponsored by Cboe BZX Exchange.

Jan. 29: Ice Open Network (ION) mainnet launch.

Feb. 4: MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) Q4 FY 2024 earnings report.

Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 pepecoin.

Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based L2 mainnet.

Macro

Jan. 24, 4:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025 eurozone HCOB Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.

Composite PMI Est. 49.7 vs. Prev. 49.6.

Manufacturing PMI Est. 45.3 vs. Prev. 45.1.

Services PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.6.

Jan. 24, 4:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025’s U.K. Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.

Composite PMI Est. 50 vs. Prev. 50.4.

Manufacturing PMI Est. 47 vs. Prev. 47.

Services PMI Est. 50.9 vs. Prev. 51.1.

Jan. 24, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025’s U.S. Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.

Composite PMI Prev. 55.4.

Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.6 vs. Prev. 49.4.

Services PMI Est. 56.5 vs. Prev. 56.8.

Jan. 24, 10:00 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases January U.S. consumer sentiment data.

Index of Consumer Sentiment (Final) Est. 73.2 vs. Prev. 74.

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Frax DAO is discussing a $5 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by the family of President Donald Trump.

Jan. 24: Arbitrum BoLD’s activation vote deadline. BoLD allows anyone to participate in validation and defend against malicious claims to an Arbitrum chain’s state.

Jan. 24: Hedera (HBAR) is hosting a community call at 11 a.m.

Unlocks

Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.

Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.

Conferences:

Day 12 of 12: Swiss WEB3FEST Winter Edition 2025 (Zug, Zurich, St. Moritz, Davos)

Day 5 of 5: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos-Klosters, Switzerland)

Day 1 of 2: Adopting Bitcoin (Cape Town, South Africa)

Jan. 25-26: Catstanbul 2025 (Istanbul). The first community conference for Jupiter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Solana.

Jan. 30, 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: International DeFi Day 2025 (online)

Jan 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)

Jan. 30 to Feb. 4: The Satoshi Roundtable (Dubai)

Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)

Feb. 5-6: The 14th Global Blockchain Congress (Dubai)

Feb. 6: Ondo Summit 2025 (New York).

Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)

Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.

Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong

Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong

Feb. 23 to March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)

Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

A humorous new decentralized autonomous organization, FartStrategy (FSTR) DAO, is investing user funds into FARTCOIN.

The DAO is leveraging borrowed SOL to acquire the token, offering investors a chance to gain exposure to its price movements through FSTR.

If FSTR trades below its FARTCOIN backing, token holders can vote to dissolve the DAO, redeeming their share of FARTCOIN proportionally after settling any outstanding debts.

The VINE memecoin jumped to a $200 million market capitalization less than 48 hours after issuance.

It was launched on the Solana blockchain by Rus Yusupov, one of the co-founders of the original Vine app, and introduced as a nostalgic tribute to the eponymous platform known for its six-second looping videos. Vine was a significant cultural phenomenon before closing in 2017.

There have been recent discussions around potentially reviving the app, with Yusupov and technocrat Elon Musk expressing interest in its return.

Derivatives Positioning

TRX leads growth in perpetual futures open interest in major coins.

Funding rates for majors remain below an annualized 10%, a sign the market isn’t overly speculative despite BTC trading near record highs on optimism about Trump’s crypto policies.

BTC and ETH call skews have firmed up, with block flows featuring outright longs in higher strike BTC calls and a bull call spread in ETH, involving calls at strikes $5K and $6K.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 2 % from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $105,450.57 (24hrs: +3.43%)

ETH is up 4.96% at $3,409.62 (24hrs: +6.18%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 2.4% to 3,988.16 (24hrs: +4.79%)

CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bp to 3.16%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.58% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 0.48% at 107.53

Gold is up 0.68% at $2,775.28/oz

Silver is up 1.21% to $30.86/oz

Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 39,931.98

Hang Seng closed +1.86% to 20,066.19

FTSE is down 0.33% at 8,537.12

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.73% at 5,255.47

DJIA closed on Thursday +0.92% to 44,565.07

S&P 500 closed +0.53 at 6,118.71

Nasdaq closed +0.22% at 20,053.68

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.48% at 25,434.08

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.57% at 2,310.35

U.S. 10-year Treasury was down 13 bps at 4.64%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.13% at 6,143.75

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.56% at 22,005.50

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 44,709.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 58.51 (-0.11%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.032 (0.68%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 784 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $61.0

Total Fees: 6.8 BTC/ $104,070

CME Futures Open Interest: 191,645

BTC priced in gold: 38.1 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 10.83%

Technical Analysis

Ether seems have chalked out a falling wedge pattern, characterized by two converging trendlines, representing a series of lower highs and lower lows.

The converging nature of trendlines indicates that sellers are slowly losing grip.

A breakout is said to represent a bullish trend reversal.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $373.12 (-1.11%), up 2.55% at $382.62 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $296.01 (+0.05%), up 2.16% at $302.39 in pre-market.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$33.94 (+3.44%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.95 (+1.32%), up 1.8% at $20.31 in pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.99 (-1.14%), up 2.62% at $13.33 in pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.34 (+2.32%), up 1.04% at $16.51 in pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.41 (+2.42%), up 2.19% at $11.67 in pre-market.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $25.65 (+0.47%), up 1.75% at $26.10 in pre-market.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $61.15 (-1.55%), down 10.89% at $54.49 in pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $44 (+7.32%), up 0.75% at $44.33 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $188.7 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.42 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.169 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$14.9 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.79 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.663 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

The market capitalization of Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, has flattened near $138 billion.

The USDC supply continues to increase and has risen to nearly $52 billion this week, the highest since September 2022.

While You Were Sleeping

Bitcoin Steady Near $104K After Bank of Japan Delivers Hawkish Rate Hike (CoinDesk): Bitcoin held steady above $104,000 in early Asian hours Friday despite the Bank of Japan’s rate hike as markets eyed President Trump’s Thursday executive order on crypto and potential U.S. policy changes.

Trump Issues Crypto Executive Order to Pave U.S. Digital Assets Path (CoinDesk): President Trump issued a pro-crypto executive order, directing the creation of a digital asset framework, banning CBDC development and considering a national digital asset reserve.

Vitalik Buterin Calls for Added Focus on Ether as Part of the Network’s Scaling Plans (CoinDesk): In a Thursday post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined strategies to boost the value of ether including using it as collateral, implementing fee-burning incentives and increasing temporary transaction data called blobs.

Japan Hikes Rates, Solidifying Exit From Rock-Bottom Borrowing Costs (Bloomberg): The Bank of Japan raised its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.5% on Friday, the highest in 17 years, strengthening the yen and lifting 10-year bond yields to 1.23%.

U.S. Stocks at Most Expensive Relative to Bonds Since Dotcom Era (Financial Times): Stocks in the S&P 500 hit record valuations, with the equity risk premium turning negative for the first time since 2002 driven by soaring demand for dominant tech companies.

Trump 2.0 Is Going Well for China So Far. Can the Honeymoon Last? (CNN): In a Thursday interview, President Trump called tariffs a “tremendous power” but suggested deals could avert tougher measures. Beijing cautiously welcomed the reprieve, eyeing negotiations while bracing for future tensions.

In the Ether

La guerre des memecoins. La campagne présidentielle américaine aura été l’occasion de voir éclore une multitude de memecoins associés à des candidats. Une tendance largement soutenue par le candidat Donald Trump, avec son memecoin TRUMP qui reste pour le moment le plus populaire de ce marché improbable. Mais ce succès ne fait pas l’unanimité. En particulier dans le camp des Démocrates et de la sénatrice anti-crypto Elizabeth Warren. Cette dernière bien décidée à faire la peau de ces « cryptomonnaies liées à Trump ».

Memecoin Trump : la nouvelle croisade d’Elizabeth Warren

Autant dire que l’arrivée en fanfare des memecoins dans la campagne présidentielle américaine n’a pas manqué de déclencher des critiques. Et c’est principalement Donald Trump qui se retrouve dans le collimateur de ses opposants.

Une situation qui vient de pousser la sénatrice Elizabeth Warren à sortir une nouvelle fois son arme préférée : la lettre ouverte. Cela afin de tenter de stopper « les risques » associés aux memecoins.

Car selon elle, « ces cryptomonnaies ne créent pas de nouveaux réseaux de paiement plus rapides, moins chers et plus sûrs ». Et elles ne permettent pas non plus d’emprunter à moindre coût ou d’améliorer le système financier pour les consommateurs.

Une vision des choses qui revient à réduire le secteur des cryptomonnaies à sa seule fonction utilitaire. Comme si l’ensemble des projets numériques devaient nécessairement entrer dans le cadre d’une amélioration du système financier. Ce qui n’est clairement pas le cas des memecoins. Mais également de toute la partie culturelle et artistique associée aux NFT, par exemple.

Des « risques de conflits d’intérêts »

La sénatrice Elizabeth Warren s’inquiète également des « risques de conflits d’intérêts » associés à ce memecoin. Car, selon les données fournies, la famille Trump en contrôle 80 %, via la Trump Organization et ses filiales.

Une situation qui « laisse le reste des 20 % d’investisseurs supporter le coût de la volatilité des prix de la pièce. » Mais également exposés à un possible rug pull, dans le cas où la famille Trump déciderait de revendre ses parts. Ce qui aurait pour conséquence de « faire chuter le prix de la pièce pour ses partisans ».

Il est important de préciser que ce type de problème de répartition est très fréquent dans le domaine des memecoins. C’est la raison pour laquelle il est fortement conseillé de se renseigner sur les projets concernés, avant de décider de miser dessus. Et de rester à l’écart de ceux dont la distribution est trop centralisée.

La sénatrice Elizabeth Warren demande aux régulateurs fédéraux de se pencher sur les memecoins de Donald Trump alors que ce dernier signait cette nuit le premier décret pro crypto de son mandat. Affaire à suivre.

L’article L’ennemie de Bitcoin, Elizabeth Warren, veut la peau du memecoin Trump est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor.

In this issue:

DAO governance tool merger

Ethereum Foundation drama

Stablecoin USDh comes to Bitcoin

$25 million grant program for DePIN

Network News

DAO GOVERNANCE PLATFORM ACQUIRES RIVAL: Agora, a blockchain governance startup, is set to acquire its competitor Boardroom. The company framed the acquisition as a strategic move to enhance governance within the broader Ethereum ecosystem, citing expectations of renewed growth in decentralized governance due to President Trump’s promise of regulatory clarity for the blockchain industry. « 2025 is the year we make good governance the standard for all protocols in Ethereum, » Agora co-founder Yitong Zhang told CoinDesk. Agora was founded in 2022 by Zhang, Charlie Feng, and Kent Fenwick. The trio initially started working on governance tooling at Nouns DAO, one of the buzzier blockchain protocols to emerge from 2021’s DAO and NFT hype cycle. Agora was founded on the premise that token governance is central to the value of crypto protocols. It aims to provide user-friendly, open-source governance tools for DAOs like Uniswap and Optimism, which both currently use Agora to organize token holders and hold governance votes.Boardroom, which predated Agora and has similar goals, took a more horizontal approach to blockchain governance. Boardroom has gradually transitioned from an Agora-style DAO tooling software to a data feed — similar to a « Bloomberg » for crypto governance data. Agora declined to disclose how much it paid to acquire Boardroom. Boardroom’s employees have been offered roles at Agora, and Boardroom’s founder, Kevin Nielsen, will remain as an advisor. « There’s no plan to deprecate » Boardroom, according to Zhang. Rather, the Agora team will keep both platforms running and will work with users to determine how the tools might gradually be integrated. Read more. – Sam Kessler

ETHEREUM TURMOIL: Konstantin Lomashuk, the founder of the Lido staking protocol, has teased his intention to build a « Second Foundation » to advance Ethereum’s ecosystem. Over the past several days, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined plans for a major restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the nonprofit organization responsible for supporting Ethereum’s development. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Buterin shared details of the reorganization, which he said would streamline decision-making processes and address inefficiencies. The announcement has sparked criticism, with some arguing that Buterin’s central role in the restructuring process undermines Ethereum’s ethos of decentralization. The EF has long been scrutinized for its own centralizing influence. Over the past year, the organization has faced mounting pressure to define a clearer vision for Ethereum’s future as competing networks like Solana make strides. Read more. – Sam Kessler

BITCOIN GETS NEW STABLECOIN: The developers of USDh, a stablecoin built on Bitcoin layer 2 Stacks, have completed a deal to bring around $3 million in liquidity to the token. Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Hermetica has secured the liquidity, which it says will make it the largest stablecoin on Stacks, through collaboration with Bitcoin lending protocol Zest. The two plan to offer yield on USDh through lending against sBTC, the bitcoin-backed bridging asset that users can use to put their bitcoin wealth in the Stacks ecosystem. The initial liquidity boost could create a short-term window of higher yields, Hermetica said, with projections of an annual percentage yield (APY) as high as 50%. It currently provides an average APY of 18%, Hermetica said in an emailed announcement on Wednesday. Stablecoins play an integral role in the crypto economy, giving users a means of holding their assets in a token that isn’t prone to such significant ebbs and flows in value, because they are pegged to a fiat currency (usually the U.S. dollar). Provision for stablecoins therefore would naturally be an important development in Bitcoin’s evolution into a network that can support DeFi capabilities, a trend that has gathered momentum in the last couple of years. It should be pointed that, however, that the $3 million in liquidity that USDh provides is tiny compared to the dominant stablecoins in crypto. USDT and USDC have market caps of over $138 billion and $51 billion respectively, highlighting the relative infancy of the Bitcoin DeFi sector. Read more. – Jamie Crawley

DEPIN GRANT PROGRAM: World Mobile, a decentralized wireless network, has announced a $25 million grant program aimed at fostering Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) projects. Tenity, an early-stage investor and global leader in innovation programs and startup acceleration, is a partner in the initiative, which will make available its six international hubs. “By partnering with Tenity, we’re ensuring that the World Mobile Chain Grant Program doesn’t just fund projects but provides the guidance and resources necessary to drive scalable, impactful innovation,” said Micky Watkins, CEO of World Mobile Group. The $25 million offers funding starting at $5,000 and has a focus on decentralized communications, on-chain governance, and the tokenization of real-world assets. World Mobile is an EVM-compatible “Layer 3” developed on Base. Read more.

In Other News

L2s Getting Faster

Layer 2 protocols have achieved record throughput, led by Base.

Letters of Credit for DeFi

Anvil, an Ethereum-based smart contract project, is a step towards creating a new form of money, says its founder Tyler Spalding.

Regulatory and policy

Trump issues executive order on digital assets, among host of post-inauguration initiatives

Calendar

Jan. 20-24: World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

January 21-25: WAGMI conference, Miami.

Jan. 24-25: Adopting Bitcoin, Cape Town, South Africa.

Jan. 30-31: PLAN B Forum, San Salvador, El Salvador.

Feb. 1-6: Satoshi Roundtable, Dubai

Feb. 19-20, 2025: ConsensusHK, Hong Kong.

Feb. 23-24: NFT Paris

Feb 23-March 2: ETHDenver

March 18-19: Digital Asset Summit, London

May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto.

May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas.

Agora, a blockchain governance startup, is set to acquire its competitor Boardroom. The company framed the acquisition as a strategic move to enhance governance within the broader Ethereum ecosystem, citing expectations of renewed growth in decentralized governance due to President Trump’s promise of regulatory clarity for the blockchain industry.

« 2025 is the year we make good governance the standard for all protocols in Ethereum, » Agora co-founder Yitong Zhang told CoinDesk.

Agora was founded in 2022 by Zhang, Charlie Feng, and Kent Fenwick. The trio initially started working on governance tooling at Nouns DAO, one of the buzzier blockchain protocols to emerge from 2021’s DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and NFT hype cycle.

The term « DAO » generally describes crypto communities that are governed by their token holders. They’re a favorite among those who believe crypto’s decentralization ethos can be a world-changing force, albeit an unwieldy way to run a pseudo-company. That’s created an opening for support projects like Agora.

Agora was founded on the premise that token governance is central to the value of crypto protocols. It aims to provide user-friendly, open-source governance tools for DAOs like Uniswap and Optimism, which both currently use Agora to organize token holders and hold governance votes.

Boardroom, which predated Agora and has similar goals, took a more horizontal approach to blockchain governance. Boardroom has gradually transitioned from an Agora-style DAO tooling software to a data feed—similar to a « Bloomberg » for crypto governance data.

Agora declined to disclose how much it paid to acquire Boardroom. Boardroom’s employees have been offered roles at Agora, and Boardroom’s founder, Kevin Nielsen, will remain as an advisor. « There’s no plan to deprecate » Boardroom, according to Zhang. Rather, the Agora team will keep both platforms running and will work with users to determine how the tools might gradually be integrated.

A new day for DAOs?

« DAO » is less of a buzzword in 2025 than it was a few years ago. They were pitched as a way to leverage blockchain’s core strengths in decentralized coordination to advance a new kind of community-owned company, but they’ve been implemented in various ways and to varying degrees of success.

Many DAOs have floundered due to organizational difficulties; it can be hard to coordinate thousands of token-holders around a single goal. Improving DAO tooling can help to address this, but it is only one side of the equation. Another barrier for DAOs has been a lack of regulatory clarity, which has left open questions of legal liability and has made it difficult for DAOs to determine how tokens should be issued, and how decisions should be divided between token holders and a platform’s core developers.

« From a business perspective, DAOs are coming back in a really, really large way, » said Zhang, who says his own business has grown « 10X » over the past year. « People haven’t noticed yet because people have so much trauma over DAO bulls**t. »

The Trump administration has signaled its intention to create clearer guidelines for cryptocurrency issuance, which has led to optimism among Zhang and some of his competitors.

« I think we’re gonna finally get reasonable definitions for sufficient decentralization, security, and compliant ways of doing a token, » said Zhang. »

Animecoin, the governance token tied to non-fungible token (NFT) project Azuki, has debuted at a fully diluted value (FDV) of $1.2 billion with tokens trading at $0.12 on HyperLiquid.

The total supply of the token is set at 10 billion, and holders of the Azuki NFT can claim the airdrop.

Users reported that the official airdrop claims website suffered downtime moments after it went live.

Le prix du PENGU augmente alors que la communauté se prépare au lancement du réseau Abstract.
Les ventes de NFT de Pengu Penguin sont en hausse de 80 %, malgré une baisse plus large du marché des NFT.
L’analyse technique laisse entrevoir une correction prochaine pour PENGU.

Le prix du jeton Pudgy Penguins, PENGU, est à nouveau sous les feux des projecteurs après avoir enregistré une hausse de 8,7 % le 23 janvier, atteignant un sommet intraday de 0,0264 $, ce qui en fait l’un des acteurs les plus performants parmi les 100 premières crypto-monnaies par capitalisation boursière.

Ce rallye a propulsé la capitalisation boursière de PENGU au-delà de 1,6 milliard de dollars, avec des volumes d’échanges en hausse de 20 % à plus de 411 millions de dollars.

L’attente entourant le lancement du réseau Abstract

Le principal catalyseur de la flambée des prix de PENGU est l’anticipation de la communauté concernant le lancement d’Abstract, un réseau Ethereum de couche 2 développé par Igloo Inc., la société mère derrière PENGU et la collection Pudgy Penguins NFT.

Il y a un buzz palpable au sein de la communauté crypto, alimenté par des rapports selon lesquels les détenteurs de PENGU pourraient être éligibles à un airdrop du jeton natif d’Abstract lors de son événement de génération de jetons.

Cela constituerait un énorme coup de pouce pour PENGU étant donné que cela intervient un mois après l’ airdrop de 1,5 milliard de dollars de PENGU sur Solana .

Bien que les rapports d’airdrop restent non confirmés, l’ annonce d’un lancement du réseau principal en janvier pour Abstract a suscité un intérêt significatif des investisseurs, ce qui a conduit les détenteurs de PENGU à se positionner tôt pour capitaliser sur les avantages potentiels.

Les ventes de NFT de Pengu Penguin augmentent

La hausse de la valeur de PENGU est également soutenue par une augmentation notable des ventes de NFT Pudgy Penguin, qui ont augmenté de près de 80 %, ce qui en fait l’une des collections les plus performantes selon les données de CryptoSlam .

Il convient de noter que la hausse des ventes intervient malgré le fait que le marché NFT dans son ensemble ait connu une baisse de 3,8 % au cours de la dernière journée.

Cette augmentation du volume des transactions et de l’intérêt pour les NFT eux-mêmes a encore souligné la confiance des investisseurs dans l’avenir du projet, en particulier avec l’intégration prochaine dans l’écosystème Abstract.

Correction potentielle à l’horizon

Bien que la flambée des prix du PENGU ait suscité l’enthousiasme des traders/investisseurs, tous les signes ne laissent pas présager d’une croissance continue.

Les indicateurs techniques suggèrent une correction potentielle imminente pour le PENGU. Le prix du jeton a été observé près de la bande de Bollinger inférieure, signalant un contrôle baissier, et l’indice de force relative (RSI) à 41 laisse entrevoir une dynamique baissière.

De plus, l’indicateur Supertrend et un Chaikin Money Flow négatif suggèrent que la pression d’achat pourrait diminuer, ce qui pourrait conduire à un repli des prix vers des niveaux de support à 0,022 $ ou même 0,020 $.

Un facteur externe qui pourrait modifier ce scénario baissier implique des changements de politique spéculatifs sous la présidence de Donald Trump, notamment la fin potentielle de l’impôt sur les plus-values sur les bénéfices des crypto-monnaies basées aux États-Unis.

Un tel changement de politique pourrait bénéficier considérablement à des projets comme Igloo Inc., offrant un avantage pour le PENGU. Bien que l’avenir soit à la fois prometteur et prudent, l’impact immédiat a indéniablement été une augmentation de l’intérêt et de la valeur pour le PENGU.

The post Le lancement du réseau abstrait déclenche une hausse du prix des Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) appeared first on CoinJournal.

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin and most major cryptocurrencies are weaker after Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a proxy for institutional activity, denied reports of listing futures tied to XRP and SOL. Traditional markets are also holding their breath for the expected Bank of Japan interest-rate increase on Friday.

Despite BTC’s continued range play above $100,000, retail demand remains robust. Glassnode’s shrimp-Crab cohort, which includes addresses holding up to 10 BTC, have absorbed 1.9 times the newly mined supply last month, totaling over 25,600 BTC. Meanwhile, long-term holders have slowed their spending and profit-taking activities, indicating a cautious, but firm, commitment to their investments.

Still, dropping below $100,000 might prove costly. According to Wintermute’s OTC trader Jake Ostrovskis, that would « frame Monday’s inauguration as a sell-the-news event and the narrative could switch pretty quickly. »

Reports suggest the number of whale wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP has surged to an all-time high of 2,083, signaling increased accumulation and confidence in its future performance.

In the world of innovation, chatter around Bitcoin Synths is gaining traction on X. These synthetic assets allow users to benefit from bitcoin’s price movements without actually owning the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Synths can be traded or used as collateral in lending protocols, avoiding the complexities associated with wrapped tokens and specialized bridges.

Ethereum layer-2 protocols are also making headlines with record transaction volumes, even as concerns about their capacity nearing limits persist.

On the macroeconomic front, recent data from the Labor Department shows that the « all tenant rent » index, an indicator of shelter inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose at a slower pace last quarter. The data suggest that recent worries about inflation may be overdone and the Fed could pivot away from its hawkish forecast, which would be a positive sign for risk assets. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto

Jan. 23: First deadline for SEC decision on NYSE Arca’s proposal to list and trade shares of Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL), a closed-end trust, as an ETF.

Jan. 25: First deadline for SEC decisions on proposals for four spot solana ETFs: Bitwise Solana ETF, Canary Solana ETF, 21Shares Core Solana ETF and VanEck Solana Trust, which are all sponsored by Cboe BZX Exchange.

Jan. 29: Ice Open Network (ION) mainnet launch.

Feb. 4: MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) reports Q4 2024 earnings.

Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 pepecoin.

Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based L2 mainnet.

Macro

Jan. 23, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for the week ended Jan. 18.

Initial Jobless Claims Est. 215K vs. Prev. 217K.

Jan. 23, 10:00 a.m.: The National Association of Realtors releases December 2024 U.S. Existing Home Sales report.

Existing Home Sales Est. 4.16M vs. Prev. 4.15M.

Existing Home Sales MoM Prev. 4.8%.

Jan. 23, 4:30 p.m.: The Fed releases the H.4.1 report, the central bank balance sheet, for the week ended Jan. 22.

Total Reserves Prev. $6.83T.

Jan. 23, 6:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications releases December 2024’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.

Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.6%.

Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3% vs. Prev. 2.7%.

Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.9%.

Jan. 23, 10:00 p.m.: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) releases Statement on Monetary Policy.

Interest Rate Decision Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. 0.25%.

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Morpho DAO is discussing reducing incentives by 30% across all networks and assets.

Yearn DAO is discussing funding and endorsing a subDAO called Bearn to focus on building and launching products on Berachain.

Frax DAO is discussing a $5 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by the family of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Jan. 23: Livepeer (LPT) is hosting a Core Dev call.

Jan. 24: Arbitrum BoLD’s activation vote deadline. BoLD allows anyone to participate in validation and defend against malicious claims to an Arbitrum chain’s state.

Jan. 24: Hedera (HBAR) is hosting a community call at 11 a.m.

Unlocks

Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.

Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.

Token Launches

Jan. 23: Sky (SKY) is being listed on Bitget.

Jan. 23: Animecoin (ANIME) is launching, with claims starting at 8 a.m. The token will be listed on multiple exchanges including Binance, OKX and KuCoin.

Conferences:

Day 11 of 12: Swiss WEB3FEST Winter Edition 2025 (Zug, Zurich, St. Moritz, Davos)

Day 4 of 5: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos-Klosters, Switzerland)

Jan. 24-25: Adopting Bitcoin (Cape Town, South Africa)

Jan. 25-26: Catstanbul 2025 (Istanbul). The first community conference for Jupiter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Solana.

Jan. 30, 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: International DeFi Day 2025 (online)

Jan 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)

Jan. 30 to Feb. 4: The Satoshi Roundtable (Dubai)

Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)

Feb. 5-6: The 14th Global Blockchain Congress (Dubai)

Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)

Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.

Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong

Feb. 23 to March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver, Colorado)

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

Azuki, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, is introducing its Animecoin (ANIME) today on Ethereum and Arbitrum. The token was announced on Jan. 13.

An airdrop will encompass Azuki NFT holders, Hyperliquid HYPE stakes, some Arbitrum ecosystem participants and Kaito yappers.

It will also include certain anime communities and BNB token holders who, between Jan. 17 and Jan. 20, subscribed to Simple Earn with their tokens on Binance.

The debut builds on a growing trend of NFT collections launching their own tokens, a trend that started in 2021 when Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched ApeCoin.

Other examples include DeGods’ DUST and Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU tokens, which have a $1.6 billion market capitalization.

Other signs indicate the NFT market is heating up, with Nansen recently pointing out that a Crypto Punk was sold for 170 ETH (around $540,000) while an Azuki was sold for 165 ETH. The Azuki NFT had been bought a month before for 105 ETH.

Derivatives Positioning

The cumulative volume delta indicator reveals that major cryptocurrencies, with the exception of TON, have experienced net selling pressure in the perpetual futures markets over the past 24 hours.

Block flows on Deribit and Paradigm featured long positions in short-dated BTC puts at $100K, $95K and $70K. An entity bought ETH put at $2.9K.

Front-end BTC and ETH calls now traded at par with puts.

Market Movements:

BTC is down 4.1 % from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday to $102,020 (24hrs: -2.71%)

ETH is down 3.85% at $3,206.18 (24hrs: -2.83%)

CoinDesk 20 is down 3.61% to 3,799.21 (24hrs: -3.58%)

CESR Composite Ether Staking Rate is down 15 bps to 3.15%

BTC funding rate is at -0.0019% (-2.08% annualized) on OKX

DXY is unchanged at 108.25

Gold is down 0.35% at $2,761.10/oz

Silver is down 0.73% to $30.57/oz

Nikkei 225 closed up 0.79% at 39,958.87

Hang Seng closed down 0.4% at 19,700.56

FTSE is unchanged at 8,538.7

Euro Stoxx 50 is unchangedat 5203.6

DJIA closed +0.3% to 44,156.73

S&P 500 closed +0.61% at 6,086.37

Nasdaq closed +1.28% at 20,009.34

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.12% at 25,311.5

S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.21% at 2,297.32

U.S. 10-year Treasury is up 3 bps at 4.59%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.19% to 6,109.00

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.56% to 21,876.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchaged at 44,384.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 58.59

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.031

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 781 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $58.9

Total Fees: 8.5 BTC/ $876,410

CME Futures Open Interest: 188,396 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 37.1 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 10.56%

Technical Analysis

BTC’s retreat from Monday’s high is teasing a formation of a double top bearish reversal pattern.

A move below the horizontal line would confirm the pattern, potentially bringing more chart-led sellers to the market.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $377.31 (-3.03%), down 1.89% at $370.19 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $295.85 (+0.56%), down 2.59% at $288.18 in pre-market.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$32.81 (+4.99%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.69 (+0.66%), down 2.54% at $19.19 in pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $13.14 (+3.14%), down 1.75% at $12.91 in pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.97 (+4.58%%), down 1.63% at $15.71 in pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.14 (+1.64%), down 2.51% at $10.86 in pre-market.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $25.53 (+2.24%), up 2.58% at $28.27 in pre-market.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $62.11 (-4.36%), up 2% at $64.90 in pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.00 (+2.5%), down 2.07% at $40.15 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $248.7 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.23 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.161 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: $70.7 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.81 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.648 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

The chart shows a spike in the number of active addresses on Solana.

Addresses holding USDC led the growth as TRUMP token frenzy gripped the market over the weekend.

While You Were Sleeping

Bitcoin Is Like Coiled Spring Nearing Burst of Price Volatility, Key Indicator Suggests (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s tight 60-day price range suggests impending volatility, according to Glassnode and bullish options activity signals market optimism.

Trump’s CFTC Pick Clears Top Ranks of Key US Crypto Regulator (CoinDesk): Newly appointed CFTC Chair Caroline Pham has overhauled the agency’s leadership. The changes could reshape the CFTC’s role in cryptocurrency oversight.

Bitwise Registers Delaware Entity for Potential Dogecoin ETF (Decrypt): Bitwise Asset Management has registered a statutory trust in Delaware named “Bitwise Dogecoin ETF,” a preparatory step toward potentially filing a Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dollar Treads Water as Trump Tariff Clarity, Central Banks Awaited (Reuters): The dollar held steady as traders awaited clarity on Trump’s tariff plans. Focus is shifting to rate decisions from the Bank of Japan, Fed and ECB.

China Ramps Up Support for Its Stock Markets (The Wall Street Journal): Chinese regulators said state-owned insurers and mutual funds would invest at least 100 billion yuan ($13.7 billion) into the A-shares market. The central bank also pledged to support the stock market.

Davos Hits ‘Peak Pessimism’ on Europe as U.S. Exuberance Rises (Financial Times): U.S. executives at Davos expressed optimism over Donald Trump’s “America First” policies, while their European counterparts voiced pessimism about the potential harm to struggling EU economies from tariffs and regulatory changes.

In the Ether

Among the most vocal critics of TRUMP, the controversial and wildly popular memecoin launched by Donald Trump on the eve of his 2025 inauguration, are the very crypto enthusiasts he may have hoped to court.

The TRUMP coin, launched on Jan. 17, saw a dramatic price surge, climbing from $7 to an all-time high of $75 within 24 hours before settling at $38. While the token’s volatile trajectory has minted a few overnight millionaires, it has also drawn sharp criticism from industry insiders.

Two days after TRUMP’s debut, MELANIA, a coin endorsed by First Lady Melania Trump, entered the market. Unlike its predecessor, MELANIA has struggled, starting around $7 and plummeting below $4 after a briefly peaking at $14.

The potential for conflicts of interest has been a focal point of the backlash, with critics — including members of the U.S. senate — raising concerns that the token could enable individuals to curry favor with the president.

Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director turned crypto advocate, voiced his apprehensions on X (formerly Twitter): “The most perilous aspect of Trump coin for the nation is what follows. Now, anyone globally can effectively deposit money into the bank account of the President of the United States with just a few clicks. Every favor—be it geopolitical, corporate, or personal—is now openly for sale.”

The decision to launch a memecoin has also sparked broader criticism within the crypto industry. While memecoins have become a prominent use-case for blockchain technology, many developers argue they reinforce a get-rich-quick perception that undermines the sector’s credibility.

Gabor Gurbacs, founder of digital asset firm Pointsville, posted on X: “Trump needs to dismiss his crypto advisors, from top to bottom.”

Nic Carter, a general partner at a crypto investment firm and a vocal Trump supporter, was similarly scathing: “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this, » he told Politico. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch.”

Specific concerns have been raised about the coin’s distribution. 80% of TRUMP tokens are concentrated in a small number of blockchain addresses controlled by CNC Digital, the firm that launched the coin. Such concentration is a hallmark of potential « pump-and-dump » schemes, where insiders inflate a token’s value before selling off their holdings, leaving other investors with losses.

There’s no evidence that Trump’s team plans to « dump » its tokens. Nicolas Vaiman, CEO of blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, noted to CoinDesk that the distribution of TRUMP tokens at least matched what was outlined on its official website. Additionally, the insider-held tokens align with prior distributions of Trump’s NFT trading cards, which were also managed by CNC Digital, meaning the tokens may be reserved for the president’s NFT holders.

The same transparency does not apply to MELANIA, however. About 89% of MELANIA tokens are controlled by insiders, according to Bubblemaps. The on-chain supply does not match an official distribution breakdown on the token’s website, which earmarked 35% of tokens for « public distribution » and « community. »

Vaiman said the First Lady’s memecoin has cast a shadow over the original TRUMP coin: “TRUMP could have been a statement from President Trump saying, ‘I endorse crypto,’” Vaiman said. “Melania launching her tokens feels like they just want to make as much money as they can on this, and then forget about it. It gives this a different flavor.”

This is not the first time the crypto community has questioned Trump’s forays into the industry. In August, Trump and his sons launched World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a platform that promised to develop a lending product. The project drew backlash for pre-selling tokens before delivering any tangible value, and critics were quick to point out the involvement of a former dating coach and memecoin promoter on the WLFI team, as well as the allocation of a percentage of presale proceeds directly to a Trump-controlled company.

The conflict-of-interest potential was also immediately apparent. Tron blockchain-founder Justin Sun recently became WLFI’s largest investor, making a $30 million purchase of the project’s tokens. In an X post on Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. announced that World Liberty Financial would acquire some of Tron’s TRX tokens for its treasury.

A Hong Kong-based crypto billionaire, Sun was previously charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission — a department now under the control of Trump’s White House.