Crypto VC Fund Escape Velocity Raises $62 Million, Bets on ‘DePIN’ Crypto Network

As of Jan. 29, Lookonchain data shows whale address **0x8709ac3CeaAe2a7A70c1D8e39DF9804def7cAC54** has been accumulating spot gold, while also taking long positions in silver and gold, and shorting NVIDIA (NVDA). Key operations: - Spent 5.6M USDC to buy 1,066 XAUT at an average price of $5,261; - Deposited 3.5M USDC into Hyperliquid to open long positions: - 53,528 silver units (~$6.48M); - 158.36 gold units (~$876k); - Shorted 4,229 NVDA shares (~$809k). Address: 0x8709ac3CeaAe2a7A70c1D8e39DF9804def7cAC54

**U.S. Equities Trade Mixed at Open on January 29** U.S. stocks opened mixed on January 29: the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 0.14%, the S&P 500 gained 0.18%, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.13%. Meta Platforms Inc. (META.O) jumped ~10% after reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, first-quarter guidance, and full-year capital expenditure (capex) that beat forecasts. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) slid over 8% as slowing cloud business growth and record-high capex stoked investor concerns. Among crypto-related stocks: - MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) fell 3.89% - Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) dropped 3.97% - Crypto.com Coin (CRCL) declined 4.02% - Sports Betting & Gaming Inc. (SBET) was down 1.30% - Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (BMNR) lost 3.98%

As of January 29, per AI Auntie’s monitoring, the address that entered the gold rally when prices hit $5,338 has continued to expand its position: Address 0x0E4…4927E withdrew an additional 204.28 XAUT from Bybit 1 hour ago, valued at $1.13M; it has accumulated 1,454.28 more XAUT since yesterday (worth $7.802M), with an average cost of ~$5,365 and current unrealized profit of $230k.

January 29: Moonbirds ecosystem token BIRB has seen ongoing volatility since its launch, tanking more than 10% in under an hour and dropping its market cap to $89.93 million. Since the official airdrop claim page went live this evening, multiple technical glitches have been reported: users are facing page loading failures, crashes, eligible tokens showing up as 0, invalid password/verification prompts, and a brief outage from unexpected traffic surges. Community feedback notes the "vibe coded" rollout is low-quality and lacks planning—the claim function crashed within minutes of launching, and some features remain partially un restored.

On January 29, Robinhood announced it has invested in Talos’ Series B extension round, pushing the institutional-grade crypto trading infrastructure provider’s valuation to approximately $1.5 billion. This round includes $45 million in new capital, with backers including the Sony Innovation Fund, IMC, QCP, and Karatage—while existing shareholders like a16z crypto, BNY, and Fidelity also participated. Talos delivers end-to-end crypto trading infrastructure to hundreds of global institutional clients, which collectively manage roughly $21 trillion in assets. This funding underscores institutional demand for crypto market infrastructure and reflects Robinhood’s accelerated push into blockchain and crypto-native finance—including building its own Arbitrum ecosystem blockchain, tokenized stock trading, and a suite of diversified crypto products.

Copper prices hit an all-time high of over $14,000 per ton on Thursday, January 29, as speculators ramped up buying pressure—fueled by strong demand expectations, a weaker dollar, and geopolitical worries. They brushed off analyst warnings that high prices would cool physical demand from industrial users, and current supply-demand fundamentals don’t justify the level. London Metal Exchange (LME) benchmark three-month copper futures jumped 7.9% in Asian trading, hitting a record $14,125 per ton. Britannia Global Markets analyst Neil Welsh noted in a report: “Copper posted its biggest single-day gain in years, driven by heavy long-side speculative trading. Investors are piling into base metals on bets of strong U.S. economic growth and higher global spending on data centers, robotics, and power infrastructure.” A weaker U.S. dollar also boosted metal prices. The dollar index neared multi-year lows, lowering costs for buyers of dollar-denominated commodities using other currencies. (FX1