THE BLOCK ANALYST

Bitmine Immersion Tech (BMNR) Announces $200 Million Investment in Beast Industries

> "MrBeast and Beast Industries, in our view, is the leading content creator of our generation, with a reach and engagement unmatched with GenZ, GenAlpha and Millennials," - Chairman of Bitmine.

> Deal expected to close on or about Jan 19, 2026.
#mrbeast

Lighter Launches $LIT Staking With LLP Access, Yield, and Fee Benefits

> For every 1 LIT staked, 10 USDC can be deposited into LLP, effectively immediately, and there will be a 2 week grace period, ending Jan 28.

> Staking 100 LIT will also enable zero fees for withdrawals and transfers.

OpenSea Partners With MetaMask Rewards for Season 1 Points Program

> OpenSea has partnered with MetaMask Rewards S1 to distribute MetaMask points based on users’ performance in OpenSea’s latest rewards program.

> Eligible users may have MetaMask points ready to claim, with extra bonuses available via ref codes

> Opt in by Friday (1/16) to get the points

SEC Concludes Investigation Into Zcash Foundation With No Enforcement Action

> Zcash Foundation has announced that the SEC has concluded its review and informed them that it does not intend to recommend any enforcement action or other changes against the Foundation.

> On Aug 31, 2023, Zcash Foundation received a subpoena from the U.S. SEC in connection with an inquiry designated “In the Matter of Certain Crypto Asset Offerings (SF-04569)”.
#zcash $ZEC

Noise Raises $7.1M Series Seed Led by Paradigm

> Noise turns social data into tradable market primitives, a trading platform for relevance.

> Users can long and short trends, brands, and ideas, while prices combine social data with trading to measure cultural relevance.

MANTRA CEO Announces Company Restructuring and Team Layoffs After Difficult Year

“After the most challenging year MANTRA has faced for a multitude of reasons”

> “I’ve decided to restructure the company. This includes reducing our team size and parting ways with a number of talented colleagues.”

> The Mantra (OM) token remains about 99% below its all-time high of $8.99, recorded in February 2025.
$OM #MantaRWA

Privacy now moves from niche to signal.
In 2025, privacy coins outperformed BTC and ETH, held up better during volatility, and saw real usage grow — transaction share rose from ~9.7% to ~11.4%. #Monero and #zcash still dominate the flow, while market cap pushed past $24B and infra teams started rebuilding privacy as a default layer, not a feature.
Feels less like a rotation and more like a setup.
Privacy coins and tools are shaping up as a serious 2026 narrative as a response to growing surveillance and demand for on-chain discretion.
$XMR $ZEC

Jupiter’s prediction markets experiment hasn’t found traction yet.
After ~2.5 months, volume sits around $1.5M across 40K trades — roughly $38 per trade and $155 per user, with only ~$53K in fees flowing through. Integration is there, monetization isn’t.

Binance Wallet (Web) Introduces Perpetual Futures Trading, Provided by $ASTER

> Users can now trade perpetual contracts with leverage directly from their Keyless Wallet

> Trade Perpetuals with Self-Custody
> Initially available on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC).
#Binance

For over five years, Ethereum TVL has quietly acted as a valuation floor for ETH.
If that relationship holds, app-layer growth matters more than narratives — push Ethereum TVL toward $1T, and that number effectively underwrites the asset powering the system.

#ETH $ETH

Lighter Launches Mobile App On iOS and Android
> Users can now trade perps, spot, RWAs, pre-markets, and more directly from their phones.

Google Launches the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
A new open standard for agentic commerce that works across the entire shopping journey, from discovery and buying to post-purchase support.

> UCP is compatible with A2A, AP2, and MCP, and was co-developed with partners like Etsy, Shopify, Wayfair, and Target
#AI

Ethena and Safe Partner to Accelerate USDe Adoption on Multisig Wallets.

> Safe and Ethena have joined forces to accelerate USDe adoption on self-custodial rails.

> The partnership introduces gas-free mainnet txns and a 10x Sats boost for Safe users holding USDe.

Polygon Labs to Acquire Coinme and Sequence to Offer Regulated Stablecoin Payments in the U.S.

> Together with Polygon, they will power the Open Money Stack: one vertically integrated solution for compliant, global stablecoin payments
#Polygone $POL

Silver Prices Surge Above $88/oz for the First Time in History

Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams Launches a Memecoin that Hits $580M in Market Cap Before Crashing -80% in Minutes.😁😁😁

Phantom Enables Cross-Chain Swaps to Bitcoin from Ethereum, Base, and Solana
#solana $SOL

CZ Warns Traders Against Aping Into Meme Coins Inspired by His Tweets
> “If you are going to ape into every meme coin people create based on my random tweets, you are almost guaranteed to lose money.”
#CZ

OpenAI Acquires Torch, a Healthcare Startup that Unifies Lab Results, Medications, and Visit Recordings.
> Integrated with ChatGPT Health, it aims to create a new way for users to understand & manage their health

#AI

Trump Imposes a 25% Tariff on Any Country Doing Business with Iran😅😅😅

#TRUMP