Daily Dose of News 🎺
January 09, Friday


♟ General:

• Colombia's tax authority mandates crypto exchanges to submit user data. Link.

• Truebit's native token TRU plunges 99.9% after $26 million exploit. Link.

🔔 Product updates:

• Grayscale BNB ETF registered in Delaware. Link.

• Bitnomial wins U.S. regulator's nod on prediction markets push, joins growing crowd. Link.

• Meteora became the DeFi protocol generating the most fees in 2025, with $1.25 billion. Link.

🗳 Treasures:

• Ethereum treasury firm SharpLink stakes $170M ETH on Linea network. Link.

🛍 Incentives:

• Ethereal Weekly Points Distributed. Link.

• Zama Public Auction: Registration is Now Open. Link.

💰 Fundraising:

• Rain $250M Series C Round. Link.

• BlackOpal $200M Debt Financing Round. Link.

• PhotonPay Series B Round. Link.


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🎦 a16z highlighted three key trends for 2026:

Prediction markets, ZK proofs, and new media formats based on verifiable author reputation.

Author: Green But Red

#summary


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GM, fam!

You catching my drift? 😏


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Stablecoin transactions hit an all-time high of $33 trillion in 2025

USDC led the pack with $18.3 trillion in volume

Despite a sluggish market, Q4 alone saw a record $11 trillion, showing that stablecoin adoption isn’t slowing down

Bloomberg estimates total payments via stablecoins could hit $56 trillion by 2030


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👛 Rain just closed a massive $250M Series C at a $1.95B valuation, cementing stablecoin payments as one of the strongest narratives going into 2026!

Rain is positioning itself as the enterprise stablecoin rails layer: it powers compliant cards that work wherever Visa is accepted, fiat–stablecoin conversion, wallets, rewards, and payouts for over 200 partners, processing more than $3B in annualized volume.

The round was led by ICONIQ with backing from Sapphire, Dragonfly, Bessemer, Galaxy, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor, and comes just months after its Series B and A, with valuation up 17x in ~10 months.

In practice, this is another strong signal that large funds are betting on stablecoins as the default money format for global payments, while Rain’s bet is making the onchain rails “invisible” to end users but indispensable for enterprises.


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...if you think you've figured out a pattern between Nvidia's presentations and AI tokens 😅


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$250M poured into stablecoin infra? Rain just crushed a Series C led by ICONIQ – valuing them at $1.95B as enterprises bet big on on-chain payments.

But that's not all – this week's top 5 funding rounds are stacked with RWA tokenization, BTC staking & DeFi firepower:

• BlackOpal ($200M debt): Tokenizing Brazilian credit card receivables on Plume for 13% yields – unlocking LATAM's $100B market with zero-default structure.
• Babylon ($15M undisclosed): a16z-backed BTC staking protocol goes live, turning idle sats into PoS security for other chains.
• Tres Finance ($13M MSA): Blockchain-based accounting software scaling for institutions.
• ZenChain ($9.5M angel): Bitcoin-Eth interoperability layer for seamless cross-chain DeFi.

That's nearly half a billion dollars raised in just one week.


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On this day 17 years ago, the first ever Bitcoin transaction was broadcast to the network.

Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney in a simple test transaction that proved Bitcoin actually worked!

It was Satoshi’s only known on-chain payment to Hal – a quiet moment between two cypherpunks that ended up changing financial history.

From a 10 BTC test tx in block 170 to a trillion‑dollar asset class.
Legendary doesn’t even begin to describe it.


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🇺🇸 Major macro US data for this week

I wanted to make a similar post, but Darkfost already did it all for me!

Author: Darkfost

#macro


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📣 Interview with Ilan Rakhmanov & Jayson Burgess. Link.

ChainGPT Story: Making Crypto Intelligible

Author: Green But Red

#article #interview


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Daily Dose of News 📺
January 12, Monday


♟ General:

• Dubai bans privacy tokens, tightens stablecoin rules in crypto reset. Link.

• Digital asset funds saw $454m in weekly outflows; four-day $1.3bn streak nearly wiped out early-year $1.5bn inflows. Link.

🔔 Product updates:

• Stablecoin market cap on Solana is at an all-time high of $15 billion. Link.

• StanChart said to prepare crypto expansion with prime brokerage. Link.

🖥 Release:

• World Liberty launches lending markets powered by Dolomite. Link.

🗳 Treasures:

• Strategy has acquired 13,627 BTC for ~$1.25 billion at ~$91,519 per Bitcoin. Link.

• Tom Lee's BitMine adds another 24,266 Ether as holdings approach 4.2 million ETH and staked assets nearly double. Link.

🛍 Incentives:

• Metamask Rewards Season 1 Ending Soon. Link.

• idOS Arena is Live: Earn Free Points. Link.

• Perle Labs Badges Now On-Chain. Link.

🍜 M&A:

• Bakkt has acquired DTR. Link.

💰 Fundraising:

• Ranger Raised $8M via an IDO. Link.

• KOLECT $1.2M Pre-Seed Round. Link.

• VelaFi $20M Series B Round. Link.

• Crypto custody startup BitGo aims to raise about $201 million in US IPO. Link.


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Rounds that went unnoticed amid major deals but whose projects have very strong potential in 2026

Details: Green But Red


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Come up with the funniest comment about the current state of crypto.

You can submit your version on X.


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It's worth rereading my long article about MetaDAO projects.

Author: Green But Red

#article


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🔮 My 2026 crypto fundraising bets:

After 2025's $45B+ VC recovery, expect mega-rounds exploding in RWA tokenization, stablecoins doubling to $550B+, and AI-blockchain infra

VCs concentrate on fewer winners:

DeFi yield protocols, prediction markets hit ATH OI, plus ETF festival unlocking $50B+ inflows.

M&A records shatter as institutions pile in – RWA & stablecoin deals dominate.

And of course, there will be a new viral trend (for example, quantum blockchain), which almost no one is talking about now, but which will take off in the new year.

Your thoughts? Share in the comments on X.

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Daily Dose of News 💿
January 13, Monday


♟ General:

• Senators move to shield crypto developers as lawmakers race toward advancing sweeping digital asset bill. Link.

• Senate unveils updated market structure bill limiting stablecoin rewards on idle holdings. Link.

• Bank of Thailand monitors USDT ‘grey money’ trades. Link.

🔔 Product updates:

• Crypto data platform CoinGecko weighs sale for around $500 million, sources say. Link.

• ETF data shows Bitcoin dominance held firm in 2025 as Ethereum gradually gained share. Link.

🖥 Release:

• BNB Chain to get 40% speed boost in upcoming Fermi upgrade. Link.

• Zama launching token sale at $55 million floor FDV via CoinList and own auction app. Link.

🛍 Incentives:

• Perle Labs Season 1 Soon. Link.

• Probable Points Program is Live. Link.

• ETHGas Token & Airdrop Incoming. Link.

🍜 M&A:

• Polygon Labs has acquired Coinme. Link.

💰 Fundraising:

• L3Harris $1B Funding Round. Link.

• ICEX $70M Strategic Round. Link.

• Neuramint $5M Seed Round. Link.

• Naoris Protocol Strategic Round. Link.

• Genius Funding Round. Link.

• XMAQUINA $10M Funding Round. Link.


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Prime VC letdown: Privasea AI

Raised $15M total, Series A at $180M valuation (GSR, Amber Group, Binance Labs, OKX Ventures)

Market cap now ~$1.3M, FDV ~$4.5M


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💵 Despite its strong start, Bitcoin has still lagged behind silver and gold in terms of growth since the beginning of 2026.


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Just yesterday, I was dreaming up a scenario where the aerospace industry would explode in 2026 – and now there's a $1 billion round!

The Pentagon is investing in a spinoff of L3Harris for solid rocket motors.

The US Department of Defense is taking a stake in Missile Solutions (formerly Aerojet Rocketdyne) to accelerate production of engines for the Patriot, THAAD, and Tomahawk missiles – IPO in the second half of 2026.


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a16z raised $15B – 18% of all US venture capital in 2025

Ben Horowitz frames this as a mission-critical allocation: America must win the next century of technology, with AI and crypto as foundational architectures.

More: Green But Red


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Last year we saw privacy shift from a niche feature to the narrative

From institutions asking “how do we stay compliant?” to builders asking “how do we keep data safe?”

So, privacy in 2026 – where are we headed?

Join iExec’s live stream for a 30-min deep dive with privacy leaders from Horizen Labs, Fhenix, and Inco Network

Key topics:

•Privacy’s 2025 growth & TradFi onboarding
•Compliance vs censorship resistance
•Crypto’s biggest privacy myth
•2026’s killer app

📅 Jan 14, 5:30 PM GMT+1 | FREE

More info: luma.com/0mam7tyk


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