U.S. CFTC issues final ruling on two FTX co-founders: Ellison and Wang are each banned from trading for 5 years, with no restitution or civil penalties sought.

As Bitcoin surges past $75,000, it is now holding steady near the $75,500 level. Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings have fully recovered all unrealized losses, which had once topped $10 billion. The cost basis of Strategy’s Bitcoin positions stands at $75,385.

Lighter CEO Vladimir Novakovski stated at the first meeting of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Innovation Advisory Committee that DeFi has long been misunderstood and should not be viewed as an adversary of regulators. He noted that DeFi transactions are recorded on-chain in verifiable ways, which helps regulators advance work on transparency, consumer protection and market fairness. Novakovski added that decentralized, verifiable finance is poised to become a key component of America’s future financial infrastructure, especially in areas like cybersecurity and operational resilience, and the industry should push more technologies toward open-source, verifiable tech stacks. Additionally, he said AI has the potential to drive financial democratization: users can build trading packages or investment strategies via AI based on their own judgments of macroeconomics, industries and other fields—capabilities that were previously mostly limited to high-net-worth individuals and professional fund managers. Novakovski pointed out that the main risk AI faces in finance is consumer protection issues, such as users not understanding the actual functions of AI models or misleading promotion of model capabilities. Therefore, before AI models are widely applied to consumers, it is necessary to establish corresponding sandbox mechanisms to verify the models’ effectiveness and formal verifiability.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin briefly rallied to break through $75,000, and has now pulled back to $74,800, with a 24-hour increase of 7.74%.

The crypto sector has been recovering for three consecutive days. Bitcoin briefly topped $75,000 this morning and is now holding around the $74,500 level. Following a series of positive remarks on the crypto space from US President Trump this Wednesday, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) held its first meeting of the Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC) this Thursday, chaired by CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig and other officials. The attendee list features a large number of crypto founders and executives, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, a16z crypto Managing Partner Chris Dixon, Multicoin Capital co-founder Tushar Jain, Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara, Chainlink Labs CEO Sergey Nazarov, Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, plus representatives from Anchorage Digital, Grayscale, OKX, Consensys, and more. Executives from traditional financial institutions and exchanges—such as CME Group, Cboe, Nasdaq, ICE—also joined the meeting. The session focused on topics including crypto regulation evolution, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets. The CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC) was officially established on January 12, 2026. On that same day, CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig announced the launch of the committee, which was renamed from the former Technology Advisory Committee to advise the commission on innovative areas like fintech, crypto assets, and artificial intelligence.

According to HTX market data, BNB briefly broke through $660 and has now pulled back to $658.40, with a 24-hour gain of 5.31%.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) held its first Innovation Advisory Committee meeting this morning, focusing on three core topics: the evolution of crypto regulation, artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent financial markets, and prediction markets. The first session, titled "Evolution of Crypto Regulation: From Uncertainty to Clarity," discussed the development of the U.S. crypto asset market, regulatory fragmentation stemming from state-level licensing, the lack of a federal market structure framework, and the impact of regulatory enforcement uncertainty on innovation, investment, and the location choices of crypto firms. Attendees explored how to advance regulatory modernization under existing legal authorities and lay groundwork for future congressional legislation on frameworks for market integrity, customer protection, cybersecurity, and operational resilience. The second session centered on AI and intelligent markets, covering topics including AI applications in trading, compliance, market surveillance, and risk management, as well as the rise of "Agentic Finance"—where autonomous AI agents execute financial transactions and manage investment portfolios. The session also examined the intersection of AI and crypto markets and related regulatory principles. The third session focused on prediction markets and event contracts, exploring their role in price discovery, information aggregation, and risk management, alongside issues such as federal and state regulatory authority, market manipulation, product design, exchange responsibilities, and customer protection. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig, who serves as the initiator of the Innovation Advisory Committee, attended the meeting. The CFTC is positioning crypto assets, agentic finance, and prediction markets as key priorities for the next phase of financial market innovation and regulatory framework development.