Industry News

Tracks company news, strategic changes, funding activities, and personnel adjustments across the blockchain and crypto industries, delivering a full-spectrum industry overview for our users.

MEXC Begins 2026 With Strong Reserves: January Audit Shows BTC Coverage at 158%

MEXC has released its January 2026 Proof of Reserve Audit Report, showing strong reserve ratios for all major assets. BTC coverage increased to 158%, while USDC rose to 140%. USDT and ETH remained at 127% and 107%, respectively. The exchange holds 6,172.88 BTC, $2.24 billion USDT, $111.54 million USDC, and 61,729.67 ETH in reserves. The audit, conducted by blockchain security firm Hacken, uses a Merkle Tree system to allow users to independently verify their balances. MEXC emphasizes its commitment to user asset security through excess reserves and regular third-party audits to ensure transparency and trust.

TheNewsCrypto01/14 10:16

MEXC Begins 2026 With Strong Reserves: January Audit Shows BTC Coverage at 158%

TheNewsCrypto01/14 10:16

Changpeng Zhao Backs Non-Custodial Trading Platform Genius Through YZi Labs

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder of Binance, is investing in Genius Trading, a non-custodial crypto trading platform, through YZi Labs family office. The investment, worth tens of millions of dollars, supports a platform designed to protect large DeFi traders from front-running and MEV attacks. Genius uses Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and a non-custodial design to conceal trades by breaking large orders into smaller pieces and using temporary wallets, ensuring privacy and execution secrecy. CZ’s backing signals a strategic shift toward on-chain trading and institutional privacy tools, positioning Genius as a potential game-changer in crypto trading.

TheNewsCrypto01/14 09:44

Changpeng Zhao Backs Non-Custodial Trading Platform Genius Through YZi Labs

TheNewsCrypto01/14 09:44

South Korea Plans to Lift Ban on Listed Companies Investing in Cryptocurrency, Thousands of 'Whales' May Once Again Drive the 'Kimchi Premium'?

South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) is planning to lift the ban on cryptocurrency investments for listed companies and professional investors, a policy that has been in place since 2017. The draft guidelines propose allowing eligible entities to invest up to 5% of their net assets annually, focusing on top-20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The move aims to address the market imbalance where retail investors dominate, potentially attracting significant institutional capital and boosting liquidity. However, challenges remain, including limited investment quotas and competition from traditional equities and emerging ETFs. The final guidelines are expected in early 2026, marking a significant shift in South Korea’s digital asset strategy.

marsbit01/14 09:02

South Korea Plans to Lift Ban on Listed Companies Investing in Cryptocurrency, Thousands of 'Whales' May Once Again Drive the 'Kimchi Premium'?

marsbit01/14 09:02

Hotcoin 2025 Annual Review and Outlook

Hotcoin 2025 Annual Review and Outlook 2025 was a year of steady growth and capability upgrades for Hotcoin. The platform focused on global market expansion, product optimization, and user growth systems, achieving significant results in user scale, trading depth, and operational efficiency. By year-end, Hotcoin served users across 183 countries and regions. User growth was driven by expansion into emerging markets and improved localized services, with P2P payment support for over 40 fiat currencies across 70+ regions. Trading and liquidity improved throughout the year, with notable growth in derivatives trading reflecting deeper markets and better risk controls. Revenue streams became more diversified. Key product innovations included the launch of "Hotcoin Selection" for market analysis, USDC contract trading, new user incentive tools, a full brand visual upgrade, enhanced live streaming features, and Web3 wallet integration. Platform stability remained a core focus, achieving 99.99% system availability and a 15.1% improvement in trading efficiency. Security was robust with no major incidents and 100% asset safety, supported by new AI risk control systems. Compliance milestones included passing AUSTRAC audit in Australia, renewing remittance licenses, and joining Korea’s CODE-VASP Travel Rule alliance. Hotcoin strengthened its brand through global events, media collaborations, and KOL partnerships, resulting in over 3.7 million exposures. The live streaming ecosystem hosted 5,124 sessions by 93 streamers. Strategic initiatives included a $20 million Hotcoin Labs fund to support early-stage projects and partnerships with key ecosystems. Looking ahead to 2026, Hotcoin will focus on technology infrastructure, product expansion, deeper global localization, and exploring new areas like RWA, continuing its long-term, user-centric approach to growth.

marsbit01/14 08:58

Deconstructing Smart-Cashtags: How X Is Entering Web3 Financial Infrastructure?

X, formerly Twitter, is launching "Smart-Cashtags," a feature that integrates real-time financial data directly into its platform, marking a significant step in its evolution into an "Everything App." This update aims to eliminate the friction users face when switching between X for market information, charting tools like TradingView, and exchanges to execute trades. The core innovation is the binding of a cashtag (e.g., $SOL) to a specific on-chain smart contract address, combating the widespread issue of scam tokens with identical names. This provides a layer of verification and security for users. Beyond fraud prevention, Smart-Cashtags will display a financial dashboard with real-time price, volume, and on-chain data when a user clicks a tag. This transforms X into a "Bloomberg Terminal for retail," enabling near-instant decision-making without leaving the app and accelerating the platform's influence on asset pricing. This move is also a strategic play in the "Web3 traffic入口" war against Telegram, which has captured mobile trading demand via its trading bots. With the recent acquisition of payment licenses and an in-app wallet in development, X is positioned to eventually integrate "Buy/Sell" buttons, potentially becoming the world's largest social trading platform. Scheduled for a global rollout, Smart-Cashtags represent X's ambition to move beyond being a source of information to becoming the central hub for social finance (Social-Fi), capturing value directly within its ecosystem.

marsbit01/14 07:37

Deconstructing Smart-Cashtags: How X Is Entering Web3 Financial Infrastructure?

marsbit01/14 07:37

The Wall Street Maverick, Vance's Aide, and a Century-Old Bank: Lead Bank

Lead Bank, a century-old community bank from Missouri, has transformed into a fintech and crypto-friendly banking leader under the leadership of Wall Street veteran Jackie Reses. After acquiring the bank in 2022, Reses and her team rebuilt its core systems in-house, avoiding reliance on third-party middleware—a key vulnerability that caused industry-wide disruptions following the collapse of firms like Synapse. Lead Bank serves major fintech clients like Revolut and Ramp and is one of the first banks to support Visa’s USDC settlement on Solana. Its strategy focuses on low-cost transactional deposits from fintech and crypto firms, generating revenue primarily through fees rather than interest margins. With strong regulatory connections, including ties to the White House via Reses’s brother, the bank has navigated compliance challenges while positioning itself at the intersection of traditional banking and digital asset innovation. As of 2025, Lead Bank’s assets have doubled to $1.97 billion, driven by its tech-native approach and emphasis on real-time API-based banking services.

marsbit01/14 03:40

The Wall Street Maverick, Vance's Aide, and a Century-Old Bank: Lead Bank

marsbit01/14 03:40

Team Expansion, The Hyperliquid Story Continues

Hyperliquid, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, has rapidly emerged as a major player in crypto derivatives trading despite operating with a lean team of just 11 people and no venture capital funding. Founded by Harvard graduate Jeff Yan, the platform emphasizes transparency, security, and speed—key differentiators in the wake of the FTX collapse. In October, Hyperliquid handled over $100 billion in liquidations during a market “flash crash,” outperforming established giants like Binance and Bybit. The platform has generated over $616 million in annualized revenue, with its native token HYPE reaching a market cap of nearly $5.9 billion. Jeff Yan envisions Hyperliquid as the “AWS of finance,” supporting a growing ecosystem where developers can trade various assets, including equities. However, the platform faces challenges from well-funded competitors like Lighter and regulatory scrutiny due to its anonymous, non-KYC user model. Despite these hurdles, Hyperliquid continues to expand, recently increasing its team to 14 employees as it aims to redefine financial infrastructure.

marsbit01/14 03:28

Team Expansion, The Hyperliquid Story Continues

marsbit01/14 03:28

Interactive Tutorial | Seize the Last Chance to Earn Points Before ETHGas Token Launch

ETHGas, a DeFi project focused on solving Ethereum's high gas fees and network congestion, has announced that the snapshot for its GWEI token airdrop will occur on January 19 at 8:00 AM Beijing Time. The project, which raised $12 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital, aims to make Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper through partnerships with major protocols. The total supply of GWEI tokens is 10 billion, allocated to ecosystem, investors, team, community, foundation, and advisors. Users can earn Beans points by completing social and referral tasks on the platform. Discord interaction points will also be converted to Beans, with a snapshot on January 15. A step-by-step guide is provided: users need to bind their X account and Web3 wallet on the ETHGas website, generate a Gas Report, and complete tasks to accumulate points before the snapshot. Existing users are advised to renew their Gas ID to ensure eligibility.

Odaily星球日报01/14 03:09

Interactive Tutorial | Seize the Last Chance to Earn Points Before ETHGas Token Launch

Odaily星球日报01/14 03:09

Just 6 Days After Launching ChatGPT Health, OpenAI Is Surpassed on Its Own Medical Benchmark

In a significant development in the AI healthcare sector, Baichuan Intelligence has surpassed OpenAI's GPT-5.2 High on the HealthBench benchmark—a medical evaluation dataset created by OpenAI with input from 260+ doctors across 60 countries—just six days after OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health. Baichuan's new model, Baichuan-M3, achieved a top score of 65.1 and also led in the more challenging HealthBench Hard subset, while demonstrating the lowest hallucination rate (3.5%) without relying on external tools. Key to M3’s performance is its Fact Aware RL technique, which improves diagnostic accuracy by balancing factual precision with proactive questioning. The model avoids both over-confident errors and overly vague responses. Additionally, Baichuan introduced SCAN-bench, a new evaluation framework designed to simulate real doctor-patient interactions. In tests, M3 outperformed human specialists in areas like safety stratification, clarity, and diagnostic questioning, partly due to its ability to integrate knowledge across medical disciplines. Baichuan is now rolling out the model via its consumer product Baixiaoying (百小应), offering tailored interfaces for both doctors and patients. The company emphasizes a focus on "serious medicine," prioritizing complex areas like oncology over general wellness, aiming to augment—not just assist—medical professionals. According to CEO Wang Xiaochuan, enhancing AI’s capability in high-stakes medical scenarios is crucial for building user trust and advancing toward AGI through deeper biological understanding.

marsbit01/14 02:31

Just 6 Days After Launching ChatGPT Health, OpenAI Is Surpassed on Its Own Medical Benchmark