Ethereum Foundation Announces 2025 Q4 Ecosystem Grants List, Grant Amount Approximately $7.3855 Million

On January 27, Tether officially launched USAT — a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin subject to federal regulation in the United States. Developed under the federal stablecoin framework established by the GENIUS Act, USAT is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally regulated stablecoin issuer in the U.S. Bo Hines has been appointed CEO of Tether USAT. Cantor Fitzgerald serves as the designated reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer for the token. Targeted at the U.S. market and digital payment infrastructure, USAT will go live on its first batch of platforms including Bybit, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX, and Moonpay. Meanwhile, USDT will continue operating globally. Currently, Tether Group ranks as the 17th largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds worldwide.

January 27 — A Fortune report projects Tether will post roughly $15 billion in profit by 2025. The firm’s U.S. Treasury bond holdings have surpassed those of major economies like South Korea, and it has also made significant investments in Bitcoin and gold. Data firm CoinMarketCap notes that as of early January, USDT’s market capitalization has reached $187 billion, with daily trading volume exceeding the combined volume of all rival stablecoins. Notably, U.S. citizens are barred from using Tether’s stablecoin in most cases. Today, Tether is no longer targeting just the financial sector for disruption. Over the past two years, it has poured large-scale investments into sectors including satellites, data centers, agriculture, telecommunications and media.

On January 27, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped to its lowest level since March 2022.

**Flash News: Jan 27 – Standard Chartered Analyst Flags Stablecoin Risk to Global, U.S. Bank Deposits** Global Head of Digital Asset Research Geoff Kendrick at Standard Chartered said in a report Friday (Jan 27) that stablecoins present a real risk to global and U.S. bank deposits. Kendrick noted the delay of the U.S. CLARITY Act underscores stablecoins’ threat to banks. He estimates U.S. bank deposits will shrink as stablecoin market cap grows, with the decline representing a percentage of stablecoin market value. U.S. regional banks are poised to bear the brunt of the impact, while investment banks will see the least effect, per the report. Notably, the report found only 0.02% of Tether’s reserves and 14.5% of Circle’s reserves are held in bank deposits, indicating an extremely low rehypothecation ratio.

January 27th (CoinDesk) — The Bitcoin-to-silver exchange rate currently sits around 780, already below the peak seen when Bitcoin hit $20,000 in 2017 and near the ~700 level from November 2022 (when Bitcoin bottomed around $15,500). This renewed convergence signals silver may be entering a more fragile phase relative to Bitcoin. Historically, silver’s cyclical tops tend to cluster in the early months of each year—mostly in the first half. This pattern flags a potential risk for silver’s current price trend: if history repeats, silver may have already hit this cycle’s peak, with odds it has topped out.