U.S. Marshals investigate John Daghita's alleged $40M government crypto theft

The U.S. Marshals Service is investigating allegations that the son of a federal contractor helping safeguard seized crypto stole more than $40M

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT identified the alleged thief as John “Lick” Daghita, son of CMDSS president Dean Daghita, and traced at least $23M in funds to roughly $90M in crypto seized by the government in 2024 and 2025.

The case has raised fresh concerns about oversight of U.S. government–held cryptocurrency, after earlier reporting indicated the U.S. Marshals Service may not know precisely how many digital assets it controls.

🔗 coindesk.com/business/2026/01/26/u-s-marshals-investigate-claims-that-son-of-government-contractor-stole-usd40-million-of-seized-crypto

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Tether launches federally regulated stablecoin - USA₮

USA₮ is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, and is available to institutions and platforms alike. USA₮ has been designed to operate within the GENIUS Act’s new federal stablecoin framework.

U.S.-regulated exchanges and banking partners are being lined up to support broad access to USA₮ across the American financial ecosystem.

During the first phase of the launch, USA₮ will be available on Bybit, Crypto.cоm, Kraken, OKX, and Moonpay.

🔗 tether.io/news/tether-announces-the-launch-of-usat-the-federally-regulated-dollar-backed-stablecoin-made-in-america

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Top Blockchains by Net Flows in last 30 days

Liquidity is fuel for any blockchain. The Net Flows metric (inflows minus outflows) reveals where real user interest and "smart money" are actually moving, looking beyond just inflated TVL numbers.

🔹 Base is the net leader (+$180M). The Coinbase ecosystem continues to vacuum up liquidity ahead of potential $BASE token launch. This is a major signal that real on-chain activity and opportunities for airdrop hunters are concentrated here.

🔹 Hyperliquid $HL has great volumes, with over $3B in turnover. This highlights incredible trader activity, with a solid net inflow of $81M.

🔹 Polygon $POL takes 2nd place, mostly thanks to Polymarket, proving that the "old guard" still has plenty of firepower left

🔹 New players rising. Ink (Kraken's L2 with Nado perp DEX) and Berachain $BERA are also topping the charts, outpacing older L1s, showing that market is hungry for new narratives and ecosystems.

⚠️ NFA. Always #DYOR

Source 🔗 Artemis

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Ethereum launches standard for AI agent economy - ERC-8004

Davide Crapis, the AI lead at the Ethereum Foundation $ETH, said the network is in a "unique position" to become the platform that settles AI-to-AI interaction. Part of Ethereum's mission is to connect the AI community with decentralized infrastructure.

By enabling discovery and portable reputation, ERC-8004 allows AI agents to interact across organizations ensuring credibility travels everywhere

ERC-8004 establishes three lightweight smart contract registries, deployable on mainnet or any Layer 2s, as a mechanism to discover and trust AI agents in untrusted settings.

🔗 theblock.co/post/387345/ethereum-ai-agentic-economy-mainnet

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Base Ecosystem Map - Tier List

Coinbase’s L2 Base has emerged as one of the L2 leaders by TVL, revenue, and DEX volume in 2025 - capturing nearly half of all L2 DeFi activity.

🔹$12.5B total value secured (#2 L2 after Arbitrum)
🔹46%+ of all L2 DeFi TVL (grew from 33% at year start)
🔹$180M net flows in last 30 days – leading all blockchains
🔹10M+ daily transactions
🔹700K daily active addresses
🔹30x revenue growth YoY

Base confirmed it’s exploring a token launch. JPMorgan estimates potential $12-34B market cap.

“Build, trade, create – and you will be rewarded.” @jessepollak has been dropping hints for months. This list is your $BASE airdrop roadmap.

Tier Breakdown:
S Tier – Core infrastructure powering the ecosystem
Aerodrome (60% of Base DEX volume, $480M TVL), Virtuals (leading AI agent platform), Morpho (grew 1900% YoY to $2B+), Avantis (perps), Zora (content tokenization), Neynar (social), Base App (native super app), Moonwell (lending), Venice (AI), Gauntlet (risk management)

A Tier – High-growth consumer & social layer
Blackbird (restaurant loyalty), Farcaster (social), Towns (onchain communities), Kaito (AI search), Carv (data layer), Clanker (token launchpad), Giza (AI agents), Limitless (prediction markets), River (stablecoin protocol)

B Tier – Emerging protocols with solid fundamentals
Syndicate (onchain orgs), Seamless (native lending), Summer.fі (DeFi aggregation), KernelDAO (restaking), Arcadia (yield optimization), B3 (gaming L3), Hydrex

C Tier – Early-stage, experimental, niche plays
Anzen (RWA), Extrafi (leverage farming), Metopia, Base Colors, and others still finding PMF

⚠️ Not financial advice. Position accordingly. Always #DYOR

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Inside Hyperliquid's HIP-3 – Breaking Down Permissionless DEX Boom

The HIP-3 update has fundamentally impacted crypto markets. The core team is no longer the gatekeeper – anyone can now launch a trading pair by staking $HYPE, unlocking a new utility for holders to earn protocol fees.

Since the update, HIP-3 DEXes has exploded in activity, hitting a record daily volume of $1.79B yesterday (Jan 27).

🔹 Total Cummulative Volume: $27.9B
🔹 Total Trades: 27.3M
🔹 Unique Users: 80K

From 24/7 equities (tradeXYZ) to yield-bearing collateral (HyENA), native stablecoin margin (Felix), liquid staking plays (Kinetiq), and pre-IPO perps (Ventuals) – HIP-3 is spawning specialized DEXes for every trading primitive.

Hyperliquid's CEO announced that the platform now leads the world in liquidity for both crypto markets and traditional asset futures - a milestone that's propelled HYPE +70% over $34 in 2 days.

The permissionless era just started.

Invite-only access to HyENA 🔗 app.hyena.trade/ref/TOP7ICO

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Arthur Hayes' New Essay – Woomph

In his latest essay "Woomph," Arthur Hayes explains why instability in the Japanese government bond market and the weakening of the yen could become a trigger for a new wave of money printing by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and how this will affect global financial markets and crypto assets.

Key Highlights:
Japan Crisis Alert
• JPY weakening + JGB yields spiking = dangerous combination
• BOJ losing control of long-term bond yields
• Risk of triggering global financial instability

Fed's Intervention Playbook
Hayes explains how the NY Fed will manipulate markets:
• Create bank reserves (print dollars)
• Sell dollars for yen (strengthen JPY)
• Buy Japanese Government Bonds with yen
• Result: Fed balance sheet expansion = more liquidity

Why This Matters for Crypto
• Fed balance sheet growth = Bitcoin pumps
• New QE disguised as "FX intervention"
• More dollar liquidity → risk assets rally

Trading Signals to Watch
• Monitor Fed's "Foreign Currency Denominated Assets" line item
• Wait for confirmation before increasing risk
• Rapid yen strengthening initially = short-term risk-off

Hayes' Portfolio Moves
• Continuing to accumulate $ZEC (Zcash)
• Holding DeFi positions: $ENA, $ETHFI, $PENDLE, $LDO
• Stopped out of MSTR & Metaplanet (3350 JP) - waiting to re-enter

🔗 cryptohayes.substack.com/p/woomph

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tradeXYZ & Ostium: Major Commodities Perp DEXes to trade now

Gold and silver keep hitting ATHs. Goldman predicted gold at $5,400 by EOY – and its already achieved. On-chain commodities trading is exploding too – and the main protocols capturing this flow are tradeXYZ and Ostium.

tradeXYZ is the HIP-3 leader – first deployer on Hyperliquid's HIP-3, which generates 90% of all ecosystem volume.

Ostium – a solid VC-backed RWA player, with $27.8M raised from General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute and GSR.

🔹24h Commodities Volume: $1.91B vs $505M
🔹30d Perp Volume: $13.9B vs $4.44B
🔹Open Interest: $912M vs $227M
🔹30d Fees: $2.7M vs $1.58M
🔹30d Revenue: $1.36M vs $989K
🔹Users: 60.1K vs 22.6K

Both are pre-token and scaling, with window before mainstream attention hits commodities perps is still open. Don’t miss the narrative.

Get 2% Boost to Ostium points with our link 🔗 https://ostium.app/trade?ref=OFK54

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Coinbase launches Prediction Markets for U.S. users

The new offering is built in partnership with Kalshi, a U.S.-regulated prediction market operator valued at $11B, and uses event-based yes-or-no contracts whose prices reflect market-implied probabilities. The products are offered through Coinbase Financial Markets, a CFTC-regulated entity.

Prediction markets on Coinbase are now live for U.S. users across all states, allowing customers to trade contracts on real-world outcomes spanning sports, politics, and culture.

🔗 coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/27/coinbase-rolls-out-prediction-market-to-u-s-customers

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Lighter [LIT] launches Staking Update: 25% of Circ Supply Staked

65M $LIT (25% of circulate supply) is already staked. From now on, staking LIT is required to access LLP at a ratio of $10 per 1 LIT. If users are currently in LLP without enough staked LIT, any excess liquidity will be returned gradually, either at 3% per day or with a minimum of $100.

The real kicker is that in roughly two weeks, LLP will be usable as trading collateral. This update finally aligns incentives properly: staking, liquidity provision, and selling now reinforce each other, and everything is fully on-chain and verifiable.

🔗 x.com/Lighter_xyz/status/2016633076344922127

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Escape Velocity raises $62M for DePIN Fund

The fund will focus on developing crypto networks for physical infrastructure such as telescopes and solar energy. Escape Velocity was founded by former Goldman Sachs employees, and has previously received backing from a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen.

🔗 fortune.com/2026/01/29/exclusive-escape-velocity-raises-a-62-million-fund-to-bet-on-depin-crypto-networks-for-telescopes-solar-energy-and-more

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Ethereum Foundation launches $220M Security Initiative powered by TheDAO

Unclaimed funds from the infamous 2016 DAO hack are being transformed into a $220M security endowment for Ethereum. The fund consists of $13.5M from the Curator Multisig and $206.6M from ExtraBalance - ETH that remained unclaimed after the hard fork returned stolen funds to DAO participants nearly a decade ago.

“It’s 2026 and we never touched any of those funds. They’ve appreciated substantially. And so it’s time. It’s time to put them to work to make Ethereum safer and more secure,” said Griff Green, one of TheDAO’s “curators” or maintainers who was an employee of Slock.it, the company that coded up the original DAO.

Of this, 69,420 $ETH will be staked to generate approximately $8M annually in perpetual funding for Ethereum security initiatives.

The grants will support mainnet and Layer 2 security, smart contract audits, incident response teams, and user protection tools—distributed through DAO governance mechanisms including quadratic funding and retroactive grants.

🔗 unchainedcrypto.com/exclusive-thedao-to-become-new-220-million-ethereum-security-fund

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