5Money

Strong inflow returning to US ETF funds

🪙 On January 13, ETF fund $BTC Spot recorded an inflow of +$753.7M. Marking the largest positive inflow since October 7.

🪙 ETF $ETH Spot also improved with +$130M in inflows.

According to CoinDesk, after a period of year-end selling pressure due to tax settlement and risk avoidance, institutional investor inflows are showing signs of returning.

Proposing additional criminal penalties for crypto transactions on unlicensed exchanges

This is a suggestion from many experts regarding the draft decree on penalties for violations in the digital asset sector currently being consulted by the Ministry of Finance.

Specifically, criminal liability should be considered for individuals who intentionally organize or participate in large-scale transactions on unregulated markets (OTC, black markets) for purposes such as tax evasion or money laundering.

"In addition to fines, deliberate violations and repeated illegal digital asset transactions may be considered criminal acts and subject to criminal prosecution," proposed LS Vo Trung Tin - Deputy Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Blockchain Association.

The implementation of strong sanctions is expected to help guide funds back to legal trading platforms. This will create conditions for the State to manage, collect taxes, and fully monitor information about participants, transaction subjects, and transaction volumes.

CPI Inflation 🇺🇸 December

- CPI Y/Y 2.7% (Forecast = 2.7%, previous = 2.7%)
- CPI M/M 0.3% (Forecast = 0.3%, previous month = 0.3%)

- Core CPI Y/Y 2.6% (Forecast = 2.7%, previous = 2.6%)
- Core CPI M/M 0.2% (Forecast = 0.3%, previous month = 0.2%)
$BTC

Drop concerns over FBI investigation into Fed Chair, U.S. stocks still hit new highs with S&P 500 and Dow Jones reaching all-time highs. Crypto stagnates, $BTC fluctuating around $91K, $ETH $3.1K.

Optimism returns after a series of former Fed Chairs and former Treasury Secretaries publicly defended Powell and the independence of the Fed. Many believe Chair Powell will smoothly get through this issue, as criminal prosecution of the Fed Chair over office renovation appears unreasonable.

On the geopolitical front, President Trump unleashed another strong move, threatening to impose 25% tariffs on any country doing business with Iran. Major partners of Iran currently include China, Turkey, UAE, and Iraq.

Regarding economic data, this week's focus will be the U.S. December CPI inflation report, scheduled for release at 8:30 PM tonight. Following conflicting signals from the jobs report, this data is expected to clarify the Fed's upcoming interest rate trajectory.

Strategy continues to spend $1.25B to accumulate another 13.627 $BTC , with an average price of ~$91.519 / BTC.

This is the third consecutive week the company has added Bitcoin to its reserves, increasing the total holdings to 687.410 $BTC , with a weighted average purchase price of $75.353 / BTC.

🚨 BULLISH: South Korea will allow businesses to invest in crypto after 9 years of ban

According to Sedaily, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has developed guidelines permitting listed companies to trade crypto:

- Up to 5% of equity capital per year.
- Only the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap on 5 major domestic exchanges.
- Whether stablecoins pegged to USD like USDT will be included is still under discussion.

From 2017 to now, the South Korean crypto market has been nearly 100% retail investors. The new regulations are estimated to open the door for ~3,500 institutions to participate.

Although welcome, many voices are concerned that the 5% limit is still overly cautious, potentially preventing South Korea from having Bitcoin reserve companies like Japan's Metaplanet.

The FSC expects to release the final guidelines in February, with trading possibly starting by the end of this year.
$BTC

Token $LISA on Binance Alpha suddenly plunged

This token, familiar to AE users farming alpha points due to its stable price, unexpectedly split four times in a short period.

Many users reported being affected while trading this pair. The project has not yet provided an explanation.

Conflict with the management, Zcash developers collectively quit to start a new company

CEO Josh Swihart announced that he and the entire Zcash development team have resigned.

The reason is that working conditions have changed in a direction contrary to the project's mission. The development team is now establishing a new company to continue developing Zcash independently.

Although Swihart reassured that the Zcash protocol will not be affected, this drama has caused the price to plummet nearly 20% from $ZEC .

The truth behind Telegram's sale of $TON

The FT recently revealed that Telegram has sold over $450M worth of Toncoin (equivalent to 10% of market cap) in 2025.

TON Foundation chairman Manuel Stotz had to reassure AE holders:
- All TON sold by Telegram have a 4-year vesting schedule.
- These tokens were collected by TON Strategy Co., the company led by him, for staking purposes.
- The amount of TON held by Telegram in 2025 did not decrease, and in fact increased when counting the number of tokens.

Manuel concluded with a firm statement: Anyone still doubting Durov or Telegram's commitment to $TON will soon come to their senses by early 2026.👀

The ETF funds $BTC spot in the US recorded an inflow of +$928M in the first 3 sessions of the new year.

According to ETF experts from Bloomberg, BTC ETF products have previously absorbed significant amounts of capital even in a bleak market, so if things go more favorably, the potential for a boom is very large.

Another positive signal is that the banking giant Morgan Stanley has officially entered the fray with a filing for ETF $BTC and $SOL . This move indicates that crypto is increasingly attracting attention and major players can no longer remain on the sidelines.

Mr. Saylor breathed a sigh of relief after MSCI's decision

MSCI will temporarily not exclude crypto reserve companies (such as Strategy) from global indices during the February 2026 review. The reason is that MSCI needs to conduct thorough research and will launch a broader consultation.

This decision helps alleviate pressure on crypto reserve companies, and Strategy's MSTR stock surged 6.58%.

However, analysts remain cautious, as this development may not be the final outcome, and MSCI has left open the possibility of tightening regulations in the future.
$BTC

Before January 15, issue permits for enterprises participating in the pilot digital asset market

This afternoon on January 6, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the annual conference summarizing the finance sector for 2025 and outlining plans for 2026. A notable point was the requirement to issue permits for enterprises participating in the digital asset market pilot (Sandbox) ahead of January 15.

In addition to the Sandbox, the Ministry of Finance also needs to accelerate the implementation of the 'one-stop national investment' mechanism, enabling enterprises to submit applications once through a single point of contact, instead of handling fragmented procedures across multiple ministries and agencies.

At the same time, the Government requires the completion of the legal framework for the Da Nang International Financial Center, viewing it as a cornerstone for elevating the financial ecosystem in the long term.

AE holder $ETH theo Tom Lee is in line to stake

The amount of unstaked tokens has fallen sharply, currently only 222 $ETH ($716K) is waiting to be withdrawn. In contrast, the queue for staking participation has surged to 1,329,188 $ETH ($4.28B).

The ETH collection lead of boss Tom Lee is said to be driving this trend. BitMine has staked an additional 186,336 ETH ($604M) this morning, bringing the total to 779,488 ETH ($2.52B) staked.

Anh Nghiện tự tin giải xong bộ ba bất khả thi của blockchain

"Bộ ba bất khả thi đã được giải quyết - không phải trên lý thuyết, mà bằng mã nguồn đang vận hành thực tế."

According to Vitalik, the headache of balancing decentralization, security, and scalability that can run smoothly on the Ethereum mainnet is because the technology is ready:
- PeerDAS: launched in the Fusaka upgrade last December, helping transactions on Layer1 to be cheaper and faster.
- ZK-EVMs: a small part of the network is expected to be used from this year, significantly reducing hardware requirements, allowing more people to participate in operating the network.

Vitalik emphasizes that Ethereum needed 10 years to get here and the journey is not over yet, with security improvements continuing to be prioritized in the near future.
$ETH

Bitmine last week acquired an additional 32.977 $ETH (~$104M), bringing the total holdings to over 4.1 million $ETH (~$12.9B), equivalent to 3.43% of the total supply $ETH

According to Tom Lee, Ethereum in 2026 remains very bright thanks to:
- The US increasingly supporting the crypto industry
- Wall Street promoting stablecoins and asset tokenization
- The demand for identity verification and traceability exploding in the AI era
- Commodities and precious metals have surged in 2025, often a positive signal for crypto due to the trend of co-movement

Strategy continues to add $119M, totaling 1,287 $BTC

For the second consecutive week, the company has added more Bitcoin to its reserves, increasing the total holdings to 673,783 $BTC

Can the US seize Venezuela's giant stash of $BTC ?

According to various analyses, Venezuela, besides oil, also has undisclosed reserves of BTC and USDT amounting to tens of billions of USD through:

- Gold swaps (2018–2020): Venezuela likely transferred $2B from gold to $BTC at an average price of $5K/BTC, equivalent to ~400,000 BTC
- Exporting oil for USDT, then using USDT to buy BTC (2023–2025): $10–15B
- Seizures from mining activities (2023–2024): $500M

→ In total, from 2018 to now, Venezuela is estimated to hold between 600,000-660,000 $BTC (~$56–67B). This figure is comparable to the scale of Strategy and BlackRock.

This raises the hypothesis: The coming days will involve intense interrogations, and the US may offer a plea deal or family protection in exchange for providing seed phrases.

Possible scenarios if the US gains control of this BTC:
1️⃣ Assets are frozen (highest probability)
- The BTC stash is legally bound and remains idle for 5–10 years.
- Price impact: short-term volatility may occur due to instability, but long-term creates a supply shock, benefiting BTC.
2️⃣ Added to the US strategic Bitcoin reserves (high probability)
- Similar impact to the above scenario, reducing supply, benefiting BTC.
3️⃣ Immediate sell-off (very low probability)
- The US Department of Justice may declare BTC a risky/volatile asset and immediately liquidate through Coinbase Prime or via USMS auction.
- Very low probability because President Trump has a positive view on holding BTC from previous seizures.

The sky is so blue today 👀

The total market capitalization has recovered to $3.2T. BTC is close to $92K, ETH $3.1K.

Altcoins have shown a bit of a rebound as long-standing memecoins have surged significantly in the past 24 hours:
$BONK +28.5%
$BOME +25.7%
$WIF +20.35%
STX +18.16%
PEPE +16.78%
PNUT +16.43%
DOGS +16.24%

The focus of attention in the financial market is still directed towards the U.S. after geopolitical developments related to Venezuela.

Analysts currently have many differing opinions: one side believes the impact on BTC and Crypto prices is not significant, while the other advises investors to be cautious and wait for Wall Street's reaction when U.S. stocks reopen tonight.

TOP5 most dynamic blockchains of 2025

1️⃣ Solana (23.01 billion transactions): Exploded thanks to the memecoin wave at the beginning of 2025 and maintained its position throughout the year.

2️⃣ BNB Chain (3.89 billion): Also surged strongly due to a separate memecoin phase initiated by CZ.

3️⃣ Base (3.29 billion): Revenue increased 30 times, accounting for 62% of total L2 revenue, directly benefiting from the Coinbase user base.

4️⃣ Tron (3.22 billion): The backbone of the stablecoin system, with over 50% of the circulating USDT supply minted on this network.

5️⃣ Near (1.89 billion): Stands out with the privacy story, thanks to Zcash's (ZEC) Zashi wallet integrated into the NEAR Intents system.
$SOL $BNB $NEAR