Odaily Planet Daily reported that according to Trader T monitoring, BlackRock IBIT had a net inflow of $30.44 million (296 BTC) yesterday, with a trading volume of $1.7 billion.
Spanish authorities are crediting the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a consortium made up of Tron, Tether, and TRM Labs, for helping take down a multinational European financial crime syndicate.According to Spain's Guardia Civil, the crime syndicate operated across multiple European jurisdictions, providing cash-to-crypto laundering services for criminal enterprises. T3 said it seized $26.4 million, calling it the most significant coordinated freeze it has been involved with since its launch last year. So far, the group says it has frozen $126 million."Public-private partnerships are particularly effective in cryptocurrency investigations because they leverage our distinct but complementary strengths," Chris Janczewski, head of investigations at TRM Labs said in an email to CoinDesk."Law enforcement brings their traditional expertise to the investigation while the private sector is able to contribute technical capabilities which are necessary to a crypto investigation," he continued.Spanish authorities identified the organization through police surveillance, and were assisted by several investigative measures and Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) Know Your Customer (KYC) records, the release from T3 said."We have a team that can speak both 'crypto' and 'cop,’ including former law enforcement officials with extensive experience from several agencies," added Janczewski. "That has allowed us to strengthen on-the-ground police work by agencies like Guardia Civil so that they can connect on-chain activity with the tangible word."In a release, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, added that Tether has collaborated with more than 220 law enforcement agencies across more than 51 jurisdictions to freeze more than 2,400 addresses, amounting to nearly 2.2 billion USDT.A release from Europol noted that the organized crime syndicate was "composed of mostly Ukrainian but also Armenian, Azerbaijani, or Kazakh nationals."
Odaily Planet Daily News: Samara Cohen, the head of BlackRock ETF, stated in a recent interview with Bankless that the current Bitcoin ETF, Ethereum ETF, and others are "simulated versions" of encrypted assets, which is equivalent to forcibly embedding encryption technology into traditional financial frameworks. In the future, the business of traditional financial institutions (such as BlackRock and Nasdaq) may be transferred to blockchain, and specialized financial institution blockchain may emerge. In addition, Samara Cohen also pointed out that many people believe that Ethereum ETFs are not as successful as Bitcoin ETFs, but from the professional standards of the ETF industry, the launch of Ethereum ETFs is actually quite successful. She stressed that the primary criterion for judging the success of an ETF is whether it can achieve the expected goals. BlackRock's current digital asset strategy focuses on the operation and development of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, token projects (especially the token of treasury bond funds), and stable currency related businesses. In the future, new product development will continue to be customer demand oriented.
If someone told you that stock market investors are offloading their cherished holdings, you will most likely interpret it as a sign of an impending market downturn.The narrative, however, differs in the crypto market, where such selling indicates bullishness, according to analysts observing historical trends in the supply held by long-term investors or wallets holding coins for at least 155 days or over five months."Based on our analysis, sharp declines in long-term holder supply (purple line) have frequently coincided with strong bitcoin rallies (white line), as seen in Q1 and Q4 of 2024. As long as long-term holders continue reducing their balances, Bitcoin remains at risk of a short squeeze to the upside," Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said in a report shared with CoinDesk.The total supply held by these wallets has dropped to roughly 13 million BTC. According to analytics firm Glassnode, over 1 million BTC have changed hands during the recent price rise above $100,000 as short-term traders snapped up the long-term holder distribution."During the recent rally above $100K, 1.1M BTC have transferred from long-term to short-term holders, representing an impressive inflow of demand to absorb this supply at prices above $90K," Glassnode said in its weekly report.Note, however, that the pace at which long-term holders are selling has slowed. This slowdown is evident from the monthly rate of change in the long-term to short-term holder supply ratio. It's no longer as harmful as it was earlier this month, indicating a more measured approach to selling by long-term holders.The number of BTC held in wallets tied to centralized exchanges has declined to 2.7 million BTC from over three million about six months ago, according to Glassnode.The exodus of BTC from exchanges, which results in reduced availability of coins for quick sales, is widely viewed as a bullish indicator. The dynamics, however, have changed since the debut of spot ETFs in the U.S. a year ago."While many interpret this as a form of supply shock caused by a mass of coins being withdrawn by individual investors—potentially creating upward price pressure—we believe the majority of this decline stems from coins reshuffling into ETF wallets managed by custodians like Coinbase," Glassnode said.In other words, these coins have ended up in an ETF, an alternative investment vehicle that is liquid or active and can be bought and sold just as quickly as actual coins.Per Glassnode, the exchange balance adjusted for coins that have been moved to alternative vehicles is over 3 million BTC.
On January 29th, the Salvadoran Congress quickly passed the Bitcoin reform bill submitted by President Nayib Bukele to comply with the requirements of the $1.4 billion loan agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The new bill clarifies that the regulation for private sector acceptance of Bitcoin will be changed from mandatory to voluntary. This reform was passed with 55 votes in favor and 2 votes against. El Salvador became the first country to use Bitcoin and the US dollar as legal tender in 2021, but the IMF requires the country to reduce its dependence on Bitcoin and adjust related policies in the agreement. The ruling party legislator Elisa Rosales stated that the revision aims to ensure the "legal tender status" of Bitcoin and simplify its practical application. Despite policy adjustments, the Bukele government has recently stated that it will continue to increase its holdings of Bitcoin to enrich the country's reserves.
BlockBeats news, on January 30th, according to Reuters, hedge fund company D.E. Shaw has established a position in Riot Platforms (RIOT. O) and may push the company to make changes, making it the second radical shareholder to hold shares in this cryptocurrency mining company, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Reuters was unable to determine the size of D.E. Shaw's stake in Riot. Representatives from Riot and D.E. Shaw did not comment on this matter.