PA Daily News | US lawmakers plan legislation to ban officials from participating in "insider trading" in prediction markets; Ranger to launch ICO on MetaDAO next week.

Today's top news highlights:

US lawmakers are considering legislation to ban officials from using prediction markets for "insider trading."

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic plan to launch their IPOs in 2026, potentially marking one of the most significant IPO waves in history.

Binance Alpha will list Brevis (BREV)

Ranger will launch an ICO on MetaDAO next week, with a fundraising floor of $6 million.

SlowMist has warned of a critical vulnerability in HitBTC, but has not yet received a response.

The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index has been negative for 20 consecutive days, currently at -0.0413%.

US spot crypto ETFs have surpassed $2 trillion in cumulative trading volume, doubling in just half the time.

Solana's on-chain spot trading volume reached $1.6 trillion in 2025, surpassing most centralized exchanges (CEXs).

Macro & Regulatory

US lawmakers are considering legislation to ban officials from using prediction markets for "insider trading."

According to The Block, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres plans to introduce the "Public Integrity Act for Financial Prediction Markets of 2026," which would prohibit federal officials from participating in political prediction market trading when they have access to material, non-public information. This proposal stems from a Polymarket account that bet on Maduro's downfall before the U.S. military raid and subsequent arrest, turning a mere $32,500 into over $400,000, raising concerns about insider trading. The total trading volume in prediction markets is projected to reach $44 billion by 2025.

Trump: Air, land, and sea forces were used in the military operation against Venezuela.

US President Trump held a press conference regarding the military action against Venezuela. Trump stated that the US military raided a "heavily guarded military fortress in downtown Caracas" and captured Maduro. This was one of the most shocking, effective, and powerful demonstrations of US military strength and capability. Air, land, and sea forces were used in the operation in Venezuela. All Venezuelan military forces have been completely suppressed. President Trump stated that we will continue to govern Venezuela until we are able to complete a safe, proper, and prudent transfer of power. President Trump stated that if necessary, we are prepared to launch a second strike. We once thought a second wave of action was necessary, but now that may not be the case. Trump stated that, as everyone knows, Venezuela's oil industry has been severely damaged and has been in a state of complete collapse for a long time. Their production is far below what it should be and far below potential capacity. We will let America's largest oil company—the world's largest company—into [Venezuela], invest billions of dollars, repair the severely damaged oil infrastructure, and start creating wealth for the country.

Later reports indicated that Trump denied the possibility of the Venezuelan opposition seizing power and endorsed the vice president .

Macroeconomic Outlook for Next Week: The situation in Venezuela has deteriorated sharply; the December non-farm payroll report is the most anticipated.

The world remains turbulent as the new year begins. The tranquility of the Caribbean has been shattered as the United States launched a military strike against Venezuela and reportedly arrested President Maduro. A series of US economic data releases are also poised to trigger market volatility, with the December non-farm payroll report being the most closely watched – the first normal monthly report since the end of last year's record-breaking government shutdown. Here are the key events the market will be focusing on this week: Monday 1:30 AM, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, a 2026 FOMC voting member, speaks at the American Economic Association; Tuesday 9:00 PM, Richmond Fed President Barkin, a 2027 FOMC voting member, speaks; Tuesday TBD, the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the "Tech Spring Festival," will be held in Las Vegas from January 6-9; Wednesday 9:15 PM, US December ADP Employment Change; Thursday 8:30 PM, US December Challenger Job Cuts; Thursday 9:30 PM, US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending January 3, October Trade Balance; Friday 12:00 AM, US December New York Fed 1-Year Inflation Expectations; Friday 9:30 PM, US December Seasonally Adjusted Non-Farm Payrolls and Unemployment Rate, US October Housing Starts (Annualized) and Building Permits; At 23:00 on Friday, Neel Kashkari, a 2026 FOMC voting member and president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, will deliver a welcome address and participate in informal talks at an online conference hosted by the bank; at 23:00 on Friday, the preliminary readings of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January and the preliminary readings of the one-year inflation rate expectations will be released.

Project Updates

Digital RMB tops Baidu's trending searches: Interest-bearing on current account balances, fundamentally different from WeChat and Alipay wallets.

The topic "The difference between digital RMB and WeChat Pay/Alipay" topped the Baidu hot search list. According to Baidu's hot search analysis, starting from January 1st, the balance of digital RMB wallets will accrue interest at the rate of demand deposits. The difference between digital RMB and WeChat Pay/Alipay can be explained as follows: digital RMB is money, which is equivalent to paying merchants directly with a handful of electronic money; WeChat Pay and Alipay are wallets, where money is taken from the wallet to pay merchants.

Binance Alpha will list Brevis (BREV)

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will list Brevis (BREV) on January 6th. Eligible users can claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha event page after trading opens on Alpha. Further details will be announced separately. Please follow Binance's official channels for the latest updates on the event.

Ranger will launch an ICO on MetaDAO next week, with a fundraising floor of $6 million.

According to the official announcement, Ranger, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange within the Solana ecosystem, will launch a four-day ICO on the MetaDAO platform on January 7, 2026 at 00:00 (UTC+8). The minimum target funding amount is $6 million, with a public offering pool of 10 million RNGR tokens, representing approximately 39.02% of the total supply. Tokens will be 100% unlocked at TGE. Ranger will employ an "oversubscription + project team confirmation of acceptance amount" mechanism and introduce "Ranger Points" to ensure priority allocation for early users. Furthermore, the project will implement a "buy-the-wall" mechanism within 90 days of the ICO to stabilize initial market liquidity.

SlowMist has warned of a critical vulnerability in HitBTC, but has not yet received a response.

The SlowMist team issued a security advisory stating that they have identified a potentially serious vulnerability in the HitBTC trading platform and have responsibly disclosed it in advance via private message, but have not yet received a response. The team urges HitBTC to contact them as soon as possible to discuss subsequent remediation measures.

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic plan to launch their IPOs in 2026, potentially marking one of the most significant IPO waves in history.

According to a recent Financial Times report, three of the largest unlisted U.S. tech giants—SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic—are preparing for IPOs in 2026, with expected fundraising reaching tens of billions of dollars. OpenAI's valuation may reach $750 billion, SpaceX's secondary market valuation has already reached $800 billion, and Anthropic is seeking financing with a valuation exceeding $300 billion. If all three go public, it will surpass the total size of all U.S. IPOs in 2025, potentially bringing unprecedented returns to investment banks and venture capitalists.

Opinions & Analysis

CZ: The crypto market is still small, and the technology has huge untapped potential.

Binance founder CZ wrote that the crypto market is still “extremely small” in size, while its underlying technological potential is “huge and yet to be realized” and is currently in its early stages.

Yi Lihua: Stick to trend investing; wins or losses are determined by the market.

Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua responded on the X platform to the claim of recovering his losses on 626,574 ETH, stating: "Adhering to trend investing has a very simple logic: buy when you're bullish on a bull market, sell when you're bearish on a bear market, be greedy when others are fearful. You can never buy at the lowest point or sell at the highest point. We haven't deliberately been high-profile or low-profile; we're simply sharing our understanding and operations. There's no game involved; wins or losses are determined by the market. At the same time, we gain personal growth, witness the journey, and make friends along the way."

Analysis: Bitcoin rebounds to $90,000, but derivatives and spot ETF data show market sentiment remains cautious.

According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin prices rose above $90,000 today, reaching a near three-week high. Data shows that despite the price rebound, demand for leveraged long positions in Bitcoin remained stable, with Bitcoin futures basis rates below the neutral threshold and a current annualized premium of 4%. Furthermore, fund flows in derivatives and spot ETFs indicate that traders remain cautious, suggesting limited market confidence in further price increases. Bitcoin spot ETFs have recorded net outflows of over $900 million since December 15th, while Bitcoin put options traded at a premium on Saturday, indicating increased demand from professional traders for downside protection.

Institutional holdings

Ethereum treasury company Quantum Solutions disclosed that its ETH holdings have increased to approximately 5,418.

Quantum Solutions, a Japanese-listed Ethereum treasury company backed by Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood, officially disclosed that after purchasing 187.53 ETH, the company now holds a total of 5418.32 ETH, with an average purchase price of $3943 and a total purchase cost of $20.58 million. Its ETH holdings rank 15th among listed Ethereum treasury companies. In addition, the company also holds 11.6 BTC.

Bitmine has added over 49,000 ETH to its staked portfolio, bringing the total staked amount to over 590,000 ETH.

According to Onchain Lens, Bitmine has newly staked 49,088 ETH, equivalent to approximately $152.7 million at the current market value. Its total staked amount has reached 593,152 ETH, with a market value of approximately $1.85 billion.

Important data

US spot crypto ETFs have surpassed $2 trillion in cumulative trading volume, doubling in just half the time.

According to The Block, the cumulative trading volume of US spot crypto ETFs surpassed $2 trillion on January 2nd, taking only eight months—half the time it took to reach $1 trillion in May 2025. On January 2nd, Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs recorded a combined net inflow of $646 million, with BlackRock's IBIT holding approximately 70% market share. Spot ETFs now cover more assets such as SOL and XRP, with XRP-related products attracting $1.2 billion since their launch last November.

Data: ETH strategic entities and ETFs collectively hold over 12.99 million ETH, representing 10.74% of the total supply.

According to data from the Strategic ETH Reserve, as of now, Strategic ETH Reserve Entities (SER Entities) and spot ETFs together hold approximately 10.74% of the Ethereum supply, totaling 12.99M ETH (approximately $40.9 billion). Of this, SER holds 6.81M ETH ($2.145 billion, or 5.63%), and spot ETFs hold 6.18M ETH ($1.946 billion, or 5.11%).

Scam Sniffer: Crypto-phishing losses fell by 83% in 2025, but risks still increased significantly in active market conditions.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, Web3 security platform Scam Sniffer reported a significant decrease in cryptocurrency phishing attacks related to wallet drainers in 2025, with total losses falling to $83.85 million, an 83% decrease from nearly $494 million in 2024. Despite the substantial drop in losses, the report warns that phishing activity hasn't disappeared, but attackers are shifting to low-risk, high-frequency strategies, with losses closely correlated with market cycles, increasing during periods of high on-chain activity and decreasing during market downturns. The third quarter of 2025 coincided with Ethereum's (ETH) strongest annual rally, with phishing losses reaching $31 million, accounting for nearly 29% of the year's total. The report notes, "When the market is active, overall user activity increases, and the proportion of victims also rises—the probability of phishing attacks is positively correlated with user activity." Monthly losses ranged from $2.04 million in December, the calmest month, to $12.17 million in August, the most active month.

Solana's on-chain spot trading volume reached $1.6 trillion in 2025, surpassing most centralized exchanges (CEXs).

According to data from Jupiter and Artemis Research, Solana's on-chain transaction volume reached $1.6 trillion in 2025, accounting for 11.92% of the global spot market, surpassing Bybit, Coinbase, and Bitget, and second only to Binance ($7.27 trillion, accounting for 55.11%). Since 2022, Solana's on-chain share has jumped from 1% to 12%, indicating that crypto trading activity is rapidly migrating to on-chain. Meanwhile, Binance's market share declined from 80% in 2022 to 55%.

The "ETH-holding whale who switched to WBTC after four years" once again exchanged 4013 ETH for 138.04 WBTC.

A trader turned $58,700 into $489,900 within a week by going long on PEPE.

A whale that had been dormant for five months has returned and has spent $1.73 million to buy nearly 70,000 HYPE tokens.

Six contracts in the market betting on Maduro's downfall totaled $56.6 million.

Yi Lihua's averaging-down strategy worked; 626,574 ETH have already broken even.

Two newly created wallets withdrew 2.08 million APAX from the CEX 9 hours ago.

A whale with a 100% success rate in PEPE swing trading has narrowed its unrealized losses to $14.24 million, but needs to rise another 281% to break even.

A whale deposited 74,002 ZEC tokens, worth $35.75 million, into Binance today.

The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index has been negative for 20 consecutive days, currently at -0.0413%.

A whale withdrew a total of 20,000 ETH from multiple centralized exchanges, worth $62.3 million.