January 18th, according to the Validator Queue tracking website validatorqueue data, the current queue waiting to join the Ethereum PoS network ETH has risen to 2,596,246, worth approximately $8.61 billion, with an expected activation delay of about 45 days and 2 hours. The main reason is that BitMine recently staked a large amount of ETH it holds.Meanwhile, the Ethereum PoS network's unstaking queue has been cleared, and there are currently no users opting to redeem ETH from staking.

January 18th, Vietnamese police arrested five suspects accused of operating a cryptocurrency scam syndicate in the Da Nang area. Vietnamese police stated that these suspects were based in Cambodia and engaged in cryptocurrency scam activities. The scam is said to have imitated the Nasdaq exchange, with the suspects embezzling 1.4 billion Vietnamese dong (approximately $53,280). The group used Zalo and Telegram to create dozens of fake accounts, post false trading activities, pose as investment experts to deceive victims into investing, and falsely report profits. After embezzling the funds, this money was transferred through multiple bank accounts and ultimately converted into cryptocurrency to conceal its source.

January 18th, ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood stated, "The experience of the past few years tells us that the trend of declining inflation has been very clear. However, inflation has remained stagnant in the official report data. Many people are wondering, with current market valuations close to historical highs, if this looks like a prelude to a pullback. Looking back at history, starting from the 1990s until around 1997, and the early 2000s, during the process of declining valuation multiples, the market still experienced very strong gains. We must assume that valuations will be compressed, and this compression assumption is included in the bottom-up analysis of each company."Nevertheless, we remain fairly optimistic about the inflation outlook for several main reasons: first is oil prices, and second is housing prices. You can see that homebuilder KB Home has already reduced home prices by 7%, with other companies following suit. In addition, there is a significant improvement in productivity, and unit labor costs are decreasing significantly. Therefore, there are currently multiple deflationary pressures. The last factor I want to mention is technology."Our focus is entirely on technology-driven innovation, covering robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence (especially), blockchain technology, and multiomic sequencing in the healthcare field. We believe that inflation data is likely to be lower than market expectations."

January 18th, the probability of "Bitcoin reaching $100,000 in January" on Polymarket is currently at 43%. Additionally, the probability of it reaching $105,000 is 15%, dropping to $85,000 is 15%, and dropping to $80,000 is 5%.

January 18, Bybit announced that Elsa (ELSA) will be listed in the spot trading section.

January 18th, according to Nansen's disclosed data, crypto fund Pantera Capital has taken a commanding lead in the profit and loss rankings this week, with three wallets making profits of $12.1 million, $6 million, and $3.6 million, respectively. Meanwhile, Arrington XRP Capital has also achieved profits, but on a smaller scale compared to Pantera Capital. Most other funds performed averagely this week.

January 15th, Ethereum treasury company BitMine announced a $200 million investment in the renowned YouTuber MrBeast's Beast Industries. BitMine is also implementing an innovative digital asset strategy for institutional investors and public market participants.BitMine's Chairman, Tom Lee, stated: "In our view, MrBeast and his Beast Industries are the most influential content creators of our generation. Beast Industries is one of the world's largest and most innovative creator platforms, and we share highly aligned values at both the corporate and individual levels."Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold said: "We are thrilled to welcome Tom Lee and BitMine as new investors in Beast Industries, providing additional capital for us to achieve our goal of 'building the world's most influential entertainment brand.' We look forward to further exploring collaboration and introducing DeFi into our upcoming financial services platform."The transaction is expected to be completed around January 19, 2026. Additionally, BitMine will hold its annual shareholders' meeting on January 15, 2026.

January 15th, Galaxy has completed the issuance of Galaxy CLO 2025-1, which is a newly issued Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) and Galaxy's first CLO project, which will be used to support its lending business. The debt tranching of this CLO was issued on the Avalanche chain and tokenized, with the related tokens now trading on the INX platform, open to eligible investors.Galaxy's initial tokenized CLO issuance size for this round is $75 million, with Grove providing a $50 million anchor tranche. This tranche builds on Grove's previous deployment of $250 million of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on Avalanche.

January 15th, MilkyWay Protocol announced that it is gradually winding down its operations and will be shut down permanently. MilkyWay stated that the demand for decentralized finance did not meet expectations, the WayCard was launched too late, and did not alleviate the funding pressure in time.MilkyWay's revenue mainly came from the liquidity staking fee, with the protocol holding a 10% share. As part of the shutdown process, USDC will be proportionally distributed to eligible snapshot holders to refund the earned protocol fees back to MILK token holders.

January 15th, according to official sources, the BNB Foundation has officially announced that BNB Chain has successfully completed the 34th quarterly BNB token burn. Here are the key details of this burn:Total Burned: 1,371,803.77 BNB;Approximate Value at Burn: 1.277 Billion U.S. Dollars;Total Remaining Supply: 136,361,374.34 BNB.