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Apple Inc. announced the expansion of App Store review rules to include the regulation of AI-generated non-consensual intimate images. The platform had previously banned pornographic content, and the new rules require developers to proactively prevent and remove AI-generated deepfake content. If effective action is not taken, applications containing such violations will be forcibly removed from the store.The updated Clause 1.2 specifically mentions applications that create AI content and names controversial products such as Grok. Previously, users complained that Grok, a product of xAI, was used to create nude and sexually suggestive deepfake images. Earlier this year, Apple warned xAI that if such content continued to spread, Grok would be removed from the App Store; subsequently, xAI implemented safety measures, and the updated version was approved.The newly added Clause 2.5.19 targets so-called "bait-and-switch" tactics, stating that if developers hide new features or modules outside of the submitted review version, especially harmful features like "de-clothing" that are activated only after approval, they may be removed from both the App Store and the Apple Developer Program. Updates to Section 5 will also extend the ban on applications promoting human trafficking or child exploitation to alternative application distribution channels. Apple stated that when developers violate these guidelines, the related applications will be removed, and the developer's eligibility will be terminated.

The identity project World, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced the launch of a World ID verification product suite aimed at banks and financial institutions, marking the first industry-specific version of the identity protocol. World co-founder Alex Blania unveiled the product at the Money20/20 conference. The suite integrates three existing products, and World claims it can help institutions guard against deepfake fraud and AI-driven identity theft, covering scenarios such as customer accounts, employee workflows, and AI agents.Specifically, the World ID app is an identity wallet used to store and present what World refers to as user Proofs. World ID for Zoom allows call participants to confirm that the other party is a real person and not a deepfake; this feature has officially launched after a limited testing phase that began in April. World’s main developer, Tools for Humanity, has also joined Zoom's Independent Software Vendor Exchange Program. World ID for Agents, also known as AgentKit, allows users to delegate Proofs to AI agents, which present them to third-party platforms.World stated that it is collaborating with OpenExchange, Bain Capital, VanEck Funds, and Outtake as design partners to explore how its technology can support banks and financial services, but did not disclose specific bank names or pricing for the product. A press release cited a Deloitte forecast predicting that by 2027, AI-related fraud losses in the U.S. could reach $40 billion, up from approximately $12.3 billion in 2023. World claims that over 18 million people currently hold Proof of Human. Last month, World also launched the World Money self-custody app, supporting stablecoin payments in over 150 countries; in July, World Foundation raised $52.5 million through a WLD token sale, with a lock-up period of one year.

New York state officials warn that AI-generated content and fake cryptocurrency projects are making investment scams more deceptive. Investment scam losses exceed $8 billion, a 38% increase from 2024, with 144,041 consumers reporting losses, and the median loss per incident is $10,560. AI can be used to clone voices, forge videos, impersonate financial professionals, and create social media advertisements.New York Attorney General Letitia James has warned that scammers attract investors through deepfake endorsements of celebrities, fake cryptocurrencies, pump-and-dump schemes, and fraudulent trading platforms. Some fake platforms display forged account balances, earnings, and transaction records, allowing victims to withdraw small amounts to build trust, and then request additional funds or fees. New York state officials advise consumers to verify the identity of promoters, companies, and investment projects, and confirm the destination of funds. According to the FBI, reported losses from cybercrime amount to $20.877 billion, with complaints involving cryptocurrency losses totaling $11.37 billion. Common signs of scams include promises of high returns, unsolicited investment opportunities, high-pressure sales tactics, and projects lacking clear documentation.

The engineering collective Shipyard, focused on IPFS and libp2p technologies, announced that Protocol Labs will not renew its funding. As a result, Shipyard will gradually cease its engineering, maintenance, and infrastructure operations related to IPFS, with a final deadline of September 30, 2026.Shipyard stated that several core projects it maintains (including Kubo, Helia, Boxo, Rainbow, IPFS Desktop, etc.) will no longer have dedicated maintainers responsible for new features, fixes, and releases; contributions to go-libp2p and js-libp2p will stop; and the public infrastructure it operates (such as ipfs.io, dweb.link, IPFS bootstrap nodes, etc.) will also cease, with the future of related domains and infrastructure to be determined by Protocol Labs. The team will assist with the transition before the end of September.

According to Bitcoin.com, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) disclosed that in the fiscal year 2026, over 19,400 online scams were removed (a year-on-year increase of 182%), among which cryptocurrency investment scam platforms reached 3,106, an increase of about 30% compared to the previous fiscal year.ASIC pointed out that scam groups are heavily leveraging generative AI technology to build a systematic fraud ecosystem: by using deepfake videos of well-known figures such as Australian Prime Minister Albanese and financial commentators to promote fake cryptocurrency trading robots, while simultaneously creating counterfeit media websites, AI-generated comments, and fake profit dashboards to lure victims into continuously increasing their investments, with funds ultimately flowing to overseas criminal groups. Just from the impersonation of high-profile individuals alone, the related losses have exceeded 7.4 million Australian dollars.

The Ethereum Foundation Protocol Support team has been dissolved. This team was primarily responsible for coordinating the Ethereum protocol development process, including organizing and coordinating core developer meetings, tracking network upgrade progress, supporting EIP advancement, operating the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) program, and providing educational, community, and infrastructure coordination support.This adjustment is part of the recent organizational restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation, which has seen multiple team and personnel changes recently.

PumpFun announced that, based on community feedback, the various issuance options recently added to the platform have led to user distraction and unnecessary competition. Therefore, it has decided to stop providing the Tokenized Agent issuance feature effective immediately.This feature will no longer support new token issuances, but existing tokens that have enabled this feature will not be affected. PumpFun stated that it will focus on issuance models that can significantly improve the retail trading experience in the future.

According to the official announcement, Bitget has launched a total of 90 stock spot products including rMS (Morgan Stanley), rNKE (Nike), rPFE (Pfizer), rXOM (ExxonMobil), rOXY (Occidental Petroleum), covering multiple sectors such as energy, healthcare, financial services, and technology communications.

In response to Bloomberg's report on CME and ICE pressuring the CFTC regarding Hyperliquid, the Hyperliquid Policy Center, a lobbying organization led by prominent crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky and funded by the Hyper Foundation, tweeted that the concerns lack basis.The organization stated that Hyperliquid publishes complete on-chain transaction records in real-time, with transparency far exceeding that of traditional exchanges, which serves as a strong deterrent against insider trading and price manipulation, and is beneficial for regulatory agencies and law enforcement to conduct monitoring and investigations.Additionally, Hyperliquid offers 24/7 uninterrupted trading, effectively eliminating price gaps between the opening and closing of traditional markets. The organization acknowledged that current U.S. laws have not yet made specific provisions for on-chain derivatives markets and will continue to work with Washington policymakers to promote the implementation of relevant regulatory frameworks.Previously, the Hyperliquid Policy Center was established on February 18 of this year in Washington, with former Blockchain Association and Variant Chief Legal Officer Jake Chervinsky serving as CEO, receiving a donation of 1 million HYPE from the Hyper Foundation, focusing on promoting a compliant regulatory path for DeFi in the United States.

Pumpfun announced an adjustment to its token economic model, allocating 50% of net income for the repurchase of PUMP tokens and immediately burning them all, replacing the previous practice of using 100% of income for repurchase but retaining it in the treasury. The community had previously criticized that the repurchase failed to effectively support the token price. The 50% repurchase allocation covers the net income from Bonding Curve, PumpSwap, and Terminal products, while the remaining 50% will be used for operations, recruitment, and strategic investments.Pumpfun also disclosed that previous repurchases had destroyed approximately 36% of the circulating supply of PUMP, and the price of PUMP briefly rose after the announcement. Co-founder Alon stated that this move aims to establish a sustainable token value support mechanism.

According to Bloomberg, the SEC and CFTC jointly proposed to reduce the reporting requirements for hedge funds, intending to eliminate the reporting obligations for smaller advisors and raise the Form PF reporting threshold for private fund managers' assets from $150 million to $1 billion.The two agencies stated that the data collected from Form PF will be used confidentially for inspections and investigations of private fund advisors.

According to Vitalik Buterin (@Vitalik Buterin), the DNS registrar of eth.limo was attacked, and users are advised not to visit vitalik.eth.limo or other eth.limo related pages temporarily, until the official confirmation of normal recovery.

VanEck's Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF (PFXF) disclosed the purchase of 1.27 million shares of Strategy's perpetual preferred stock Stretch STRC, valued at $127 million. This accounts for 6% of its net assets in digital credit.

According to CertiK's latest report, losses from cryptocurrency ATM scams in the U.S. will reach $333 million by 2025, with the FBI receiving over 12,000 complaints, a 33% increase year-on-year. CertiK points out that cryptocurrency ATMs can convert cash into cryptocurrency within 5 minutes, and the identity verification requirements are extremely low, making them the least frictional channel for scammers to withdraw funds.Among the victims, 86% are seniors aged 60 and above, primarily due to their liquid savings, lack of knowledge about cryptocurrency, and social isolation. The main scam tactics include pig butchering investment scams, government impersonation, tech support scams, grandparent scams, and fake debt collection services.The involvement of AI technology has made the situation even more severe. By 2025, AI-driven social engineering scams are expected to yield 4.5 times the profits of traditional methods, and real-time deepfake technology has been systematically integrated into scam operations. Transnational criminal organizations also operate with a corporate division of labor model, significantly increasing the difficulty of law enforcement tracking.

According to the Sing Tao Daily, the chairman of the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) Authority, Liu Mai Jiaxuan, stated that a review of the MPF's investment in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) has been completed. This year, the MPF will continue to examine the scope of investable assets to include more diverse investment products. Currently, MPF funds can invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) approved by the MPF Authority.She further indicated that, with the development of the market, the next step is to explore the direction of MPF investments in gold ETFs. Additionally, the MPF Authority will complete a comprehensive review of the Default Investment Strategy (DIS) and formulate improvement recommendations by the end of 2026 to meet the needs of plan members.

PumpFun ecological account disclosure shows that in the past 7 days, PumpFun has repurchased approximately $9,195,312 worth of PUMP, bringing the total repurchase amount to $311,450,294, which corresponds to about 27.1% of the current circulating supply.Previously, on-chain monitoring indicated that the wallet address associated with PumpFun, "77DsB," had continuously sold PUMP tokens, with a total of 3.376 billion PUMP sold in exchange for 7.23 million USDC.

Hacker groups associated with North Korea are continuously upgrading their attack methods against individuals in the cryptocurrency industry. They are using AI-generated deepfake video calls to impersonate people familiar to or trusted by the victims, enticing them to install malware.Martin Kuchař, co-founder of BTC Prague, revealed that attackers initiate video calls using compromised Telegram accounts and lure victims into installing malicious software disguised as a plugin under the pretext of "fixing Zoom audio issues," thereby gaining complete control over the devices. Security research firm Huntress pointed out that this attack pattern is highly consistent with previous disclosures regarding actions against cryptocurrency developers. The malicious scripts can execute multi-stage infections on macOS devices, including implanting backdoors, logging keystrokes, stealing clipboard content, and accessing cryptocurrency wallet assets.Researchers have strongly attributed this series of attacks to the North Korean state-sponsored hacker group Lazarus Group (also known as BlueNoroff). The information security head of blockchain security company SlowMist stated that such attacks exhibit clear reuse characteristics across different operations, targeting specific wallets and cryptocurrency professionals. Analysts believe that as deepfake and voice cloning technologies become more widespread, images and videos are increasingly difficult to serve as reliable evidence of identity authenticity. The cryptocurrency industry needs to remain vigilant and strengthen multi-factor authentication and security measures.

According to CoinDesk, as of January 16, BlackRock's iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF (PFF) holds Strategy (MSTR) Stretch (STRC) as its fourth largest position, with an allocation of $210 million, accounting for 1.47% of its weight.The ETF also holds other MSTR perpetual preferred stock products, including an allocation of $97.5 million with a weight of 0.69% for Strife (STRF); an allocation of $90 million with a weight of 0.64% for MSTR common stock; and an allocation of $73 million with a weight of 0.51% for Stride (STRD).

The American law firm Burwick Law has announced a litigation update stating that the plaintiffs have submitted a revised complaint to the federal court, accusing multiple cryptocurrency entities of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).Defendants include: Baton Corp (operator of PumpFun), Solana Foundation, Solana Labs, and related executives. The complaint alleges that the defendants are involved in extortion activities.