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The latest report from blockchain analysis company Elliptic points out that a cryptocurrency exchange related to Russia, known as the "shadow network," is assisting in evading international sanctions through large-scale cryptocurrency transactions and names five platforms, most of which have not yet been sanctioned and still provide Russian entities with funding channels to bypass traditional banking regulations. Among them, ABCeX is identified as the largest, having processed at least $11 billion in cryptocurrency transactions.The report also notes that although Exmo claims to have exited the Russian market, on-chain data shows that it still shares custodial wallet infrastructure; Rapira, registered in Georgia and with an office in Moscow, is said to have direct transactions exceeding $72 million with the sanctioned exchange Grinex; Bitpapa evades monitoring by frequently changing wallet addresses; and Aifory Pro provides cash-to-crypto exchange services in Moscow, Dubai, and Turkey.Analysis indicates that the previously targeted cryptocurrency-related sanction evasion infrastructure in Russia has not disappeared but has instead dispersed across more platforms.

Matrixport released a research report on platform X, which pointed out that Bitcoin recently experienced a rapid decline, with implied volatility in options soaring at one point and then partially retreating. The price of Bitcoin dropped from around $85,000 to a low near $60,000, before stabilizing around $66,000.Meanwhile, the implied volatility for March 2026 quickly surged from just over 40% to a panic high close to 65%, reflecting a strong demand for downside protection during the decline. Subsequently, implied volatility fell back to around 50%, indicating that some tail risk hedges are being unwound, and short-term pressure has eased. The crypto market is approaching a critical turning point: volatility remains high, sentiment lingers at extremely low levels, and market liquidity continues to flow out. Traders are gradually unwinding their crash hedges, resulting in a noticeable reduction in overall positions and a significant decline in participation.Historically, such combinations often appear before the initiation of significant directional trends. The macro environment is showing signs of improvement, but the prices of crypto assets have not followed suit significantly, and this divergence is typically difficult to sustain in the long term.

According to Jinshi, the United States has updated its sanctions measures related to Russia.

According to The Block, Canary Capital and Grayscale simultaneously launched a spot SUI ETF on Wednesday, providing investors with the opportunity to directly participate in the token's price and earn staking rewards.The Canary Stake SUI ETF is listed on Nasdaq (ticker symbol: SUIS) and will track the spot price of SUI while providing investors with net staking returns through SUI's proof-of-stake mechanism. Grayscale converted its SUI trust into an ETF, listed on NYSE Arca (ticker symbol: GSUI).

According to Crowdfund Insider, Joseph Lubin, founder and CEO of Consensys and co-founder of Ethereum, recently shared his views on the current state and future trajectory of the cryptocurrency market during an interview in Hong Kong. Lubin expressed a cautiously optimistic outlook. He emphasized that the digital asset economy is continuously evolving, driven by functional utility rather than pure speculative forces.When discussing Bitcoin, Lubin believes it should not be viewed as a traditional safe-haven asset at this stage. He described the broader crypto landscape as still resembling a "startup ecosystem," suggesting that positioning Bitcoin as a secure store of value amidst current developmental challenges may be premature. In contrast, he highlighted that Ethereum's native cryptocurrency, ETH, has a stronger functional demand.Lubin believes that the practicality of ETH in driving decentralized applications, smart contracts, and broader ecosystem activities gives it an advantage in real-world adoption compared to Bitcoin's main narrative. He emphasized Ethereum's enduring importance in the evolving financial infrastructure.He pointed out that institutional participation is deepening, with major banks, trading platforms, and financial networks increasingly building on Ethereum-based technologies and layer two scaling solutions. He stated that this momentum at the institutional level indicates that even amid market fluctuations, Ethereum is transitioning towards becoming the next-generation financial foundation.Overall, Lubin's remarks reflect confidence in Ethereum's long-term potential under short-term market pressures. He portrayed the ecosystem as resilient and innovative, with tools like Ethereum and MetaMask poised to drive meaningful progress in the digital economy.

According to the official announcement, Bitget has made several optimizations to its CFD contract products to comprehensively enhance user trading transparency and decision-making efficiency. Users can upgrade the Bitget App to version 2.77.0 to enjoy the updated experience. This upgrade mainly includes:Added asset favorites: Quickly locate preferred assets and view dynamic details in real-timeSupport for commonly used order volumes: Pre-set commonly used order volumes for one-click convenient orderingNew comprehensive position details: Display of positions for the same asset type, providing real-time feedback on position statusAdded one-click close position: Supports closing all positions, enhancing decision-making efficiencyIn addition, new users can also participate in the CFD new customer lottery event. By completing specified registration, trading, and other tasks, they can participate in the scratch-off lottery, with a maximum individual prize of 1,000 USDT. The prize pool is limited and operates on a first-come, first-served basis. The event ends on March 13 at 0:00 (UTC+8).

According to Jinshi, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed sanctions on the gold trading company Jood SARL (headquartered in Lebanon).

According to Newspim, Lee Chan-jin, the head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea, stated that the "Bitcoin misdelivery incident" at Bithumb is a serious event that undermines the credibility of cryptocurrency exchanges. He pointed out that Bithumb actually holds only about 42,000 bitcoins, and this misdelivery exposed the severe risks of "bookkeeping transactions" trading fictitious assets without security guarantees.He emphasized that if the investigation confirms illegal negligence, the highest level of sanctions will be imposed, including fines and business suspensions. He also suggested adding provisions for revocable or restricted access licenses in the future "Basic Law on Digital Assets" to strengthen the regulation of internal controls at exchanges.The incident occurred on February 6, when Bithumb mistakenly distributed 2,000 bitcoins to each of 249 customers as rewards (originally intended to be 2,000 Korean won), totaling 620,000 bitcoins, which was valued at approximately 61 trillion won (about 45 billion USD) at the time. Bithumb intercepted the transactions within 20 minutes, but 125 bitcoins were still sold.

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned two digital asset exchanges, Zedcex Exchange and Zedxion Exchange, for the first time due to their connections with Iranian businessman Babak Morteza Zanjani. This marks the first time that OFAC has sanctioned digital asset exchanges for operating in the Iranian economic and financial sector.Since its registration in August 2022, Zedcex has processed over $94 billion in transactions. Multiple addresses from these two exchanges have previously handled funds for wallets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran. Additionally, OFAC has sanctioned several Iranian officials, including Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni Kalagari, accusing them of being responsible for domestic violence repression in Iran.

According to the official announcement, Bitget has made several optimizations to its TradFi products to comprehensively enhance user trading transparency and decision-making efficiency. This upgrade mainly includes:Added leverage reminders: Understand available leverage, optimize position planning and strategy allocationAdded overnight rate reminders: Transparently display holding costs to assist in calculating expected returnsNew opening margin estimation reminders: Real-time feedback on capital occupation status to improve decision-making efficiencyNew profit and loss details page: Clarify profit and loss analysis to assist in asset review

Aperture Finance announced on platform X that it has detected an exploit affecting the Aperture V3/V4 contracts. To prevent new authorizations, core functionalities have been halted in the front-end application, and they are investigating the root cause of the incident in collaboration with security partners. To ensure wallet safety, please revoke all authorizations for the following contract address on the Ethereum mainnet immediately: 0xD83d960deBEC397fB149b51F8F37DD3B5CFA8913.Previously, it was reported that Aperture Finance was attacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $3.67 million.

The Paradex team stated that on January 19, the technical team quickly identified the issue and will roll back the blockchain state to block 1604710 (UTC 04:27:54). All accounts will be restored to their state prior to the database maintenance, and the technical team will continue the rollback process, providing more updates through official Twitter and Discord in a timely manner.As part of the post-incident recovery procedure, the withdrawal functions for the platform and treasury have now been re-enabled. The deposit and withdrawal functions for Gigavault will be temporarily suspended for 24 hours to complete the state verification process, and all assets are currently secure.

According to official news, the distributed AI small model (SLM) infrastructure network Another Me has officially announced that it has received special ecological support from the Layer1 public chain ENI Network. The cross-chain bridge function has now officially launched, allowing users to securely migrate assets from BNB Chain to the ENI mainnet through the official entrance.It is reported that Another Me is committed to training high-performance vertical small models (SLM) through distributed user data and feedback. The project employs an "interaction is mining" mechanism, enabling users to contribute computing power and capture token rewards while running AI digital twins. With the launch of the cross-chain functionality, users participating in Another Me interactions will simultaneously activate a 1.5 times ENI mainnet points bonus, achieving dual value capture at both the public chain infrastructure and AI application layer.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Gate is continuously expanding its TradFi features, offering users trading services for traditional financial asset contracts for difference (CFDs) that include gold, foreign exchange, indices, commodities, and some popular stocks. This feature marks Gate's further extension of its product system into the trading of traditional financial asset prices.According to the introduction, Gate TradFi contracts use USDx as the margin and account display unit, pegged to USDT at a 1:1 ratio. Users can participate in trading after transferring USDT, without the need for additional exchanges or payment of fees. This product follows the trading rules of traditional financial markets, with fixed trading hours and a fixed leverage ratio for contracts, where foreign exchange, indices, and other varieties support up to 500 times leverage, and stock CFDs support up to 5 times leverage; the margin adopts a full position model, allowing for hedging calculations between long and short positions in the same trading pair, with a single transaction fee as low as $0.018.On the system and risk control level, Gate TradFi provides trading services based on the MT5 system and employs a margin ratio risk control mechanism, which triggers a forced liquidation when the account margin ratio falls to 50% or below. In addition, Gate has launched a TradFi experience activity, offering users up to 110 USDT in experience rewards and up to 3,000 USDT in phased incentives.

The Vice President of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and Executive Director of the China Finance Society, Fan Wenzhong, wrote an article in the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po titled "Steadily Promoting the Coordinated Innovation of Digital Renminbi and Hong Kong Stablecoins," in which he pointed out: Currently, the cross-border use of digital renminbi mainly relies on the internal regulations and pilot policies of the People's Bank of China, lacking clear legal authorization. It is suggested to add provisions in the revision of the "People's Bank of China Law" to clarify the cross-border payment functions of digital renminbi and the legality of its interconnection with compliant overseas digital currency systems, while striving to clarify the "special regulatory requirements and preferential policies for stablecoin issuing institutions that exchange with the mainland central bank's digital currency" in the implementation rules of Hong Kong's "Stablecoin Ordinance," forming a synergistic institutional force.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Tether's role as the world's leading stablecoin has been influenced by Maduro, as Tether serves as an important tool for the Venezuelan state oil company (Petróleos de Venezuela, abbreviated as PdVSA) to evade sanctions, being used as a currency for oil trade settlements and providing an economic lifeline for Venezuelans suffering from the plummeting value of their national currency, the bolívar.A spokesperson for Tether responded that the company complies with all applicable U.S. and international sanctions regulations and works closely with U.S. authorities, including the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and regularly assists law enforcement in freezing addresses related to illegal activities or sanctions violations upon legitimate requests.

A comprehensive bill aimed at regulating the cryptocurrency industry comprehensively is expected to make progress in the new year, with a glimmer of optimism despite unclear prospects. According to informed sources, Democratic and Republican members met on Tuesday to discuss the bill, and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, is pushing hard to revise and vote on the bill during a hearing scheduled for this month.Scott informed lawmakers and staff that he will hold a markup of the crypto market structure bill by January 15, regardless of whether the bill receives bipartisan support. Scott later confirmed in an interview that his committee will hold the markup on January 15. He stated, "I believe we must have a public record and vote, so next Thursday we will vote on the market structure bill. The relentless efforts over the past six months have ensured that every member of the committee has access to multiple draft versions." However, sources noted that as of Tuesday, the bill may still not have enough support from either party.

According to the Financial Times, Telegram's $500 million bonds in Russia have been frozen by the national settlement depository due to Western sanctions against Russia, despite founder Pavel Durov's efforts to distance himself from Moscow.This move poses obstacles to its debt buyback and raises concerns among investors. Telegram still plans to repay the related debt on schedule, and its recent half-year revenue has increased by 65% year-on-year to $870 million, but it has incurred a net loss of $222 million due to the depreciation of Toncoin. Telegram is pushing for the integration of the Ton ecosystem and preparing for an IPO.