Securities and Futures Commission: Hong Kong Has Completed Initial Regulatory Building Blocks in the Virtual Asset Space

January 20 — Philippine police in Pasig City rescued a Chinese national kidnapped by Chinese abductors on January 16, ABS-CBN News reports. The victim was held by four knife-wielding suspects, forced to transfer roughly $400,000 in cryptocurrency and an extra $14,000 in cash. The abductors broke into the victim’s apartment on Roxas Boulevard, claiming the victim owed them $1 million and threatening to harvest organs or sell the victim to Cambodia. The victim was rescued after sending a distress message to a friend.

Jan 20th — Per GMGN monitoring (via https://t.me/gmgnaibot?start=i_m4TE56o8), the Solana-based meme coin WhiteWhale nosedived suddenly around 0:00 UTC today. Its market cap plummeted from ~$50 million to nearly $20 million in roughly 5 minutes, a ~60% drop. As of press time, it has rebounded to a $37 million market cap, with a current price of ~$0.038 and a 36% 24-hour decline. Monitoring data shows the drop was driven by large-scale sell-offs from several top-holding addresses. Addresses starting with 6kas..., 5tf1..., and 5AAn... dumped over 48.36 million tokens (worth ~$1.6 million) starting around 0:27, creating heavy short-term selling pressure. Multiple other meme coins share the same name in the market. The token with the most liquidity has the contract address: WhiteWhale (contract: a3W4qutoEJA4232T2gwZUfgYJTetr96pU4SJMwppump). BlockBeats warns users: Meme coin trading is extremely volatile, often tied to market sentiment and hype, lacks actual value or utility, and in

Jan. 20 — The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced last night it’s developing a tokenized trading and settlement platform for U.S. stocks, featuring multi-chain settlement and custody capabilities plus 24/7 trading. The news sparked widespread debate in the crypto community; key takes follow: - Carlos Domingo, CEO of BlackRock-backed tokenization platform Securitize, said the upcoming NYSE native tokenized stock on-chain trading (no wrappers, derivatives, or tokenized equities involved) is an unprecedented win for the crypto market. - Blockworks Research analyst Shaun Da Devens commented the NYSE’s proposed 24/7 tokenized trading is a major win for stock traders—with weekend price discovery as its biggest benefit. - Binance founder CZ stated this morning: “This is good news for both crypto and crypto trading platforms.” The Block founder Mike Dudas retweeted the NYSE announcement, expressing optimism and interest. - Blockworks Data Director Dan Smith noted the announcem

On January 20th, cross-chain interoperability protocol LayerZero announced in a statement: “There’s a widespread belief in an inevitable truth—one day, the world will no longer be able to ignore it. 2.10.26.” The post hints at a major announcement scheduled for February 10th.

January 20th, per Coinbob Popular Address Monitor: Major long whales like the "BTC OG Insider Whale" didn’t adjust positions. The "Shanzhai Air Force Leader" closed some shorts after locking in expanded profits, while the "On-chain Gold Largest Long" for PAXG kept profiting from its long position. Details below: - **BTC OG Insider Whale**: Overall profit narrowed to $8.1M. Core holding is a long ETH position with $5.5M profit (4%), avg entry $3,161, holding size ~$713M. Also holds long BTC/SOL; total holding ~$874M, now #1 in ETH/SOL longs on Hyperliquid. - **CZ Counterparty**: Overall loss of $12M. Main loss from long XRP (~$75.6M holding, $13.3M loss). Also has long ETH ($1.4M profit, ~$183M holding, avg entry $3,190). Total holding ~$264M; now largest XRP long, #2 ETH long on Hyperliquid. - **ZEC Largest Short**: Continued closing large MON shorts to take profits. Current MON short reduced to $1.4M ($560k profit, 120%). Total short holding ~$166M; now largest on-chain ETH s