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Creator of Controversial LIBRA Memecoin Introduced MELANIA, Says He Sniped Both Tokens

Kelsier CEO Hayden Davis, the brains behind the controversial LIBRA memecoin, said he also launched the MELANIA memecoin and that his team sniped both tokens as soon as the contract addresses went live.
LIBRA was released on Friday, sparking a now-deleted tweet of support from Argentina’s President Javier Milei saying it would support small and mid-sized businesses in the country. His backtracking on the project prompted a 95% plunge in the token’s value.

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Sniping is when people use bots to buy memecoins seconds after the smart contract goes live. Wallets that snipe funds are often those that end up with the majority of profit.
The token was “not a rug pull,” Davis insisted in an interview with crypto scam hunter Coffeezilla. “It’s just a plan gone miserably wrong with $100 million sitting in an account that I’m the custodian of.”

Profit made from MELANIA liquidity
It turns out this isn’t Davis’ first rodeo. He also had a part in launching the MELANIA memecoin linked to U.S. First Lady Melania Trump.
“I’m happy to share the truth. You’re asking a question that’s going to put me in a lot of danger, but I’ll answer it,” Davis said when questioned about MELANIA. “I was part of it. I think the team did want to snipe it because how big the snipe was on Trump’s [memecoin]. We definitely weren’t the big sniper. There was no money made from the MELANIA team, we didn’t take any liquidity out, zero.”
Davis appeared to contradict himself shortly after being confronted with on-chain data: “We didn’t swap liquidity [but] I didn’t say there was no money sold. There’s a difference between swapping liquidity and selling liquidations.”
MELANIA is currently trading at a $625 million market cap after debuting at $2.1 billion on Jan. 20.
Refunds … for insiders
The controversy surrounding LIBRA continued as Davis sent Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy a $5 million a refund after Portnoy lost money on LIBRA.
In a conversation with Coffeezilla, Portnoy said that he knew about the project for weeks before the launch and that he purchased the tokens 10 minutes after Milei’s tweet.
That Portnoy knew LIBRA so early and that he received a refund afterwards raises the specter of insider trading. But Davis dismissed that idea.

“The idea of insiders is always bullshit because every memecoin I’ve ever known or invested in or been a part of, the people that benefit are the people that know … people that structure the deal.
“[It’s] similar to any other business in the world. So I think that’s a bit of bullshit and that’s just crypto people that are angry because there’s an unfair advantage.”
CoinDesk contacted Davis and Portnoy for comment, but had not heard back by publication time.

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EU Commission Warns a Host of Member States on Adoption of Energy Rules

The European Commission has issued so-called reasoned opinions to several member states for failing to comply with energy-related laws.

The Commission urged Bulgaria, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Sweden to transpose EU rules accelerating permitting procedures for renewable energy projects. The rules, in Directive (EU) 2023/2413, amend the Renewable Energy Directive (Directive (EU) 2018/2001), providing new rules to simplify and shorten permitting procedures for renewable energy projects and infrastructure projects necessary to integrate additional capacity into the electricity system.

The Commission said the deadline to transpose these provisions into national law was July 1, 2024. In September 2024, the Commission sent letters of formal notice to 26 member states for failing to fully transpose the directive into national law. After having examined the replies from the eight member states, the Commission decided to issue reasoned opinions to Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Sweden for failing to notify transposition measures and to Bulgaria, France, and the Netherlands for failing to provide sufficiently clear information on how their transposition align with the directive’s provisions.

The eight member states have two months to respond and take the necessary measures. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to refer the cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Commission said.

The Commission also said Hungary and Poland have not fully transposed EU rules for the internal electricity market contained in Directive (EU) 2019/944, amending Directive 2012/27/EU. The directive lays down key rules regarding the organization and functioning of the EU electricity sector to create integrated, competitive, consumer-centered electricity markets across the EU.

The deadline to transpose the directive into national law was December 31, 2020. The Commission notified Hungary in February 2021 and Poland in May 2022 that they had not fully transposed the directive. After reviewing their replies and national measures, the Commission determined compliance issues remain.

Both countries have two months to respond and take action, or the Commission may refer the cases to the Court of Justice of the EU.

The Commission also issued additional reasoned opinions to Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, and Romania for not fully transposing EU Directive (EU) 2018/2001 on promoting renewable energy use. This directive establishes a legal framework for renewable energy in the EU, setting a binding target for 2030 and including rules for guarantees of origin, which inform customers about renewable energy in their supply. It also sets sustainability criteria for biofuels and facilitates citizen participation in the energy transition.

The Commission said the deadline for transposing the directive into national law was June 30, 2021. After sending formal notices in July 2021 and following up on responses, the Commission deemed their transpositions incomplete. The four member states have two months to address the issues, or the cases may be referred to the Court of Justice of the EU.

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Young people unlikely to replace retiring oil workers

The oil and gas workforce is older than other sectors and it is unlikely that young people will fill the gap left by retirees, according to a new report.The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) Workforce Census sectoral report found that oil and gas “has the oldest workforce in the industry”.
The trade body collected data across the engineering construction industry (ECI) and has broken it down by sector, with nuclear, renewables, carbon capture storage and others listed alongside oil and gas.
Those over the age of 60 make up 18% of the oil and gas workforce – a 6% increase since the last report in 2021 and a 4% increase when compared to the entire ECI.
Those aged between 16 and 29 make up as little as 12% of the industry, lagging behind the broader industry figure of 17%.
The largest age demographic in oil and gas is people aged between 40 and 49, accounting for a quarter of the workforce, which remains consistent with 2021’s figures and exceeds the wider industry’s reported 23%.

© Supplied by ECITB/ Dave Dodge
ECITB CEO Andrew Hockey meeting Work Ready learners at SETA in Southampton. Photo by Dave Dodge.

ECITB chief executive Andrew Hockey said: “The report highlights that transitioning the oil and gas workforce into sectors such as renewables, hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear will be essential to help meet the country’s net-zero commitments.
“However, the age profile of the sector showcased in our report raises concerns about the feasibility of transferring oil and gas workers to these sectors beyond the short term.
“On current trends, it is unlikely the number of younger people joining the sector will grow sufficiently to compensate for those taking retirement in the coming years.”
Previously, the ECITB’s Labour Forecasting Tool predicted that the oil and gas workforce may begin to decline from 2026 and could account for as little as 20% of the ECI workforce by 2035.

According to the latest figures the oil and gas workforce makes up 35.2%, falling just behind nuclear which accounts for 39.2%.
Concerns raised over oil’s ‘ability to transition its workforce’
As the UK edges closer to its energy transition goals, the report raises concerns about whether the ageing workforce will be able to move into other sectors if needed.
The report states: “This demographic profile raises concerns about the sector’s ability to transition its workforce to other sectors in the medium to long term.”
ECITB’s census, published last month, found that 71% of employers across the ECI are experiencing issues with recruitment.
The latest sectoral report has shown what positions are hardest to hire for, they are: “project managers, riggers, platers, pipefitters, design technicians and engineers, electrical engineers, project engineers and subsea engineers.”
Despite concern that the industry will be unable to replace its retiring workforce, employers in the oil and gas sector forecast a 12% uptick in headcount.
However, this growth will be down to “employers securing contracts, many of which are highly competitive,” the report added. The projected increase is also in line with the wider ECI’s predictions.

© Supplied by RMI
A worker ascending an offshore wind turbine.

Last week ECITB launched an initiative, in partnership with the Global Wind Organisation and ORE Catapult to drive cross-sector working.
The scheme aims to train two cohorts of 12 oil and gas or wind workers in Grangemouth and Aberdeen to ensure that they are equipped to work across both sectors.
Hockey added: “Oil and gas work will continue, certainly in the short and medium term and longer term too as decommissioning activity increases. We need to ensure the industry has the skilled workforce it needs to deploy to both existing oil and gas fields as well as onshore and offshore wind.

“This pilot will enable the two-way transition of qualified oil and gas technicians into offshore wind and then back again as and when maintenance activity is needed.”
Renewables sector shows recruitment optimism
This comes as the renewables sector experienced an uptick in its share of the ECI workforce.
Last month’s census found that the sector had experienced a “rapid growth” as its in-scope workforce share has now jumped to 6.2% almost double the share it had in the last report.
This increase in the renewables workforce stands to benefit those working in the sector, ECITB said.
The sector breakdown predicted: “The rapid growth of the renewables sector may naturally drive wages higher, emphasising the importance of facilitating the transition of part of the oil and gas workforce into renewables roles.”
Employers in the renewables sector are among the most optimistic of all those in the ECITB as they predict an 18% increase in headcount between 2024 and 2027, the second largest growth forecast in the report.
Additionally, the renewables workforce is younger than oil and gas with the report stating 22% of the workforce is below 30, 5% higher than the rest of the ECI.

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Ether ETFs Register $393M in Inflows This Month as Crypto Investors Turn Their Back on Bitcoin

If you believed that ether’s (ETH) early-month price crash to $2,000 on some exchanges would drive investors away, think again. Activity in the U.S.-listed spot ETFs indicates that traders have strongly pivoted to ether from bitcoin (BTC).
This month, the nine ether spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed in the U.S. have recorded a cumulative net inflow of $393 million, according to data from Farside Investors. This figure is also seven times larger than the inflows seen in January, as reported by Glassnode. Notably, these funds experienced outflows on only two trading days.

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In contrast, the 11 bitcoin ETFs have faced a net outflow of $376 million this month. Sentiment has been so weak that these funds have recorded inflows on just four trading days.

The pivot to ETH is driven by carry trading, which involves purchasing spot ETFs and shorting ETH CME futures simultaneously. Plus, some of the inflows into ETFs could be outright bullish directional plays.
However, investors’ pivot to ether has not yet translated into higher prices for cryptocurrency.
ETH, which powers Ethereum’s smart contract blockchain, has primarily traded between $2,600 and $2,800 since the Feb. 3 crash. Bitcoin too has been locked in a narrow range below $100,000 amid volatile price action in memecoins.
Still, some observers expect ether price gains on the back of Ethereum’s impending Pectra upgrade, which is said to optimize both the execution and consensus layers of Ethereum and help it compete against rival Layer 1s such as Solana.
“ETH has a solid foundation for a resurgence. The Pectra upgrade, scheduled for April 8 for example, is bringing network improvements, faster transactions, and better staking mechanics,” Nick Forster, founder of the decentralized options platform Derive.xyz said in an email.
Forster explained that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s push for a 10x increase in the L1 gas limit points to improved application development and security. Further, the ETH Foundation’s recent $120 million allocation to DeFi projects is signaling a renewed focus on adoption and institutional interest through ETHrealize. Led by Vivek Raman, ETHrealize aims to integrate traditional financial institutions into the blockchain world.
“There’s now a 30% chance ETH will hit above $3K by the end of the quarter, up from 28% last week,” Forster added.

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XRP in Focus as Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E Sets Eyes on SEC

Shaurya Malwa
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

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Bitcoin Is Coiled Like a Spring, A Breakout of This Range is Coming: Van Straten

Bitcoin (BTC) is known to be a volatile asset, but as of late, this is not the case; bitcoin has been trading in a very tight range since the end of November, between $91,000 and $109,000.
In other words, bitcoin’s volatility has compressed enormously. According to Glassnode data, the 2-week realized volatility, which provides of how turbulent the asset was in the past two weeks, measures volatility over the past two weeks annually, has dropped to an annualized 32%, one of the lowest levels in years. In addition, the options implied one-month volatility, which is the market’s expectation for volatility over four weeks, has slipped below annualized 50%, again one of the lowest levels in years.

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To put into context how much bitcoin has been in this sideways consolidation, consider what analyst Checkmate calls is the “Choppiness Index”. The data shows that bitcoin, on a weekly time frame, based on its choppiness, is at its highest level since 2015, which shows how tight this trading range has been.

Implied and realized volatility (Glassnode)
Volatility tends to mean-reverting, meaning an unusually stable market often paves the way for a big move in either direction and vice versa. The longer and tighter the consolidation, the violent the eventual volatility explosion.
To cut the long story short, the ongoing rangeplay, the most intense since 2015, could soon pave the way for wild price action. Bitcoin, at some point, will break out of this range; the question remains if it will go higher or lower.

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Trump’s Memecoin, Ethereum’s New Marketing Arm, and More!

This week on Unchained: Interviews with Lyn Alden and Vivek Raman. Plus, new episodes of Bits + Bips and The Chopping Block.Why Lyn Alden Isn’t a Fan of Trump’s Memecoins, but Neutral on a Strategic Bitcoin ReserveTrump’s memecoin. A strategic Bitcoin reserve. Tariffs. The current inflection point in the geopolitical world order. Lyn Alden dissects these headlines and their implications for the U.S. economy, global trade, and the crypto industry.The crypto world was shaken this weekend when Donald Trump and Melania Trump launched their own memecoins, ahead of Trump’s inauguration as president.Financial analyst Lyn Alden joins Laura to explain why she’s not a fan of memecoins, neutral on a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve, and doubtful the U.S. can disrupt itself even as Bitcoin, crypto and blockchain technology hold the possibilities of upending the geopolitical world order.Discussing everything from rising tariffs to reshoring strategies, Lyn offers a sharp analysis of the U.S. fiscal and monetary outlook and explains why she believes fiscal policy now overshadows monetary policy. Plus, hear her take on the TikTok ban debate, her skepticism that Bitcoin’s future security could be at risk as the block subsidy decreases, and her Bitcoin projection for 2025.Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.Why Ethereum’s New Marketing Arm Is Convinced Wall Street Will Adopt ETHThe Ethereum community has been experiencing a crisis of confidence on social media—but Vivek Raman, founder of Etherealize, believes the future is brighter than ever.Ethereum has had a tough year, losing ground to Solana in price performance, developer activity and as the home to the latest crypto trends. Yet, Vivek Raman, founder and CEO of Etherealize, is doubling down on Ethereum’s future.In this episode, Vivek explains how Etherealize, a “marketing arm for the ETH ecosystem,” was in the works long before the current criticisms of the Ethereum Foundation’s marketing, and how it got funding from Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and the foundation. He discusses why he believes layer 2 solutions make Ethereum a better fit for Wall Street than Solana.Plus, Vivek shares his thoughts on Ethereum’s value accrual, the state of its ecosystem, and how Etherealize plans to bridge the gap between Wall Street and Web3.Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.Bits + Bips: Debate: Is Trump’s Memecoin a Gift or a Grift?Trump’s memecoin launch shocked and polarized the crypto world. The Bits + Bips hosts break down its launch during the Crypto Ball, discuss whether it marks a local top for crypto, and touch on aftereffects like fake $BARRON coins.This week, Trump’s memecoin launch had everyone talking—and scrambling for Phantom wallets. But was it a strategic masterstroke or just another speculative frenzy?On this episode of Bits + Bips, the hosts unpack the wild moments of the Crypto Ball, where $TRUMP made its surprise debut. 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See the details and apply here.An Audience Development Director to broaden the reach of the publication’s content, whether through the web, social media, newsletters, podcast platforms, or videos. See the details and apply here.🔝 Are you hiring and want to promote the postings in the Unchained newsletter? Let us know! If You Like Unchained:🎧 Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Putin Says He’s Ready to Discuss Oil, Energy Issues With Trump

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he’s ready to discuss crude oil prices and other energy issues at a face-to-face meeting with US leader Donald Trump.

Both Russia and the US are top global oil producers and consumers, Putin said in an interview with state-owned Rossiya 24 TV. Price movements in the commodity impacts both economies, he said.

“We have a lot to discuss here, and there are other energy issues that might be mutually interesting,” Putin said. “I doubt that Mr. Trump — even if we are hearing about the possibility of additional sanction on Russia — would make decisions that could hurt the US economy.” 

Putin’s comments follow Trump’s Thursday address to world leaders in Davos, when he urged Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to “bring down the cost of oil.” 

“If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” Trump added.

Earlier this week, Trump also stepped up pressure on Russia to make a peace deal with Ukraine “soon,” or else he would “have no other choice” but to impose additional taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Russian imports to the US, along with “other participating countries.” 

Earlier this month, the US imposed its harshest sanctions so far on Russia’s energy industry, the key source of the Kremlin’s revenue that funds the war in Ukraine. The restrictions could disrupt Russia’s exports of petroleum and reduce the global supply surplus.

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It’s All One Trade: TBL Weekly #126

Good morning Readers!At the moment, we are entrenched in our framework, and we think that the current lot in the White House is as well. To boost stocks, TBL Liquidity must be supported, which means an expanding banking system, easier rates, a softer dollar, and calming inflation which softens bond volatility. We see some tailwinds within each component, and we’ll unpack them individually as we go. You can say all you want about Donald Trump, but one thing is certain: he is an entertainer. From alt-coins to executive orders to AI negotiations to tariffs, he keeps markets moving almost 24/7. So, despite the lack of economic releases this past week, we had no shortage of tradable news (so much so that even the Fed was pushed out of the spotlight for a minute there). Among the news moving markets were his highly anticipated protectionist policies—policies that his 2024 campaign relied so heavily on. In what is only the first week of this new administration, we are seeing immediate price action in foreign exchange markets on any mention of tariffs. This is why today’s article focuses heavily on the US dollar and its centricity to how we’re thinking about markets. Here’s what we will cover today:Dollar price actionTBL Liquidity, stocks and bitcoin price actionThe FedSo, without further ado, grab a coffee, and let’s dive into TBL Weekly #126As bitcoin’s role in the global financial landscape evolves, understanding its potential impact on your wealth becomes increasingly crucial. Whether we see measured adoption or accelerated hyperbitcoinization, being prepared for various scenarios can make the difference between merely participating and truly optimizing your position.This is why Unchained developed the Bitcoin Calculator – a sophisticated modeling tool that helps you visualize and prepare for multiple bitcoin futures. Beyond traditional retirement planning, it offers deep insight into how different adoption scenarios could transform your wealth trajectory.What sets this tool apart is its integration with the Unchained IRA – the only solution that combines the tax advantages of a retirement account with the security of self-custody. In any future state, maintaining direct control of your keys remains fundamental to your bitcoin strategy.Weekly MonitorKey numbers that pop out from this table:

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Trump plans to use emergency powers to fast-track generation co-located with AI

President Donald Trump plans to speed power plant development for co-located artificial intelligence data centers using his energy emergency declaration, he said Thursday.
“I can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting,” Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I’m going to give emergency declarations so that they can start building them almost immediately.”
Earlier this week, Trump hosted several of the founders of the Stargate Project at the White House. The Stargate Project is a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX. The project envisions “immediately” spending $100 billion on co-located data centers with an initial focus on a site in Abilene, Texas.
“We need to double the energy we currently have in the United States … for AI to really be as big as we want to have it” to compete with China and other countries, Trump said.

Co-locating generation and data centers “was largely my idea,” Trump said. “Nobody thought this was possible … I told them that what I want you to do is build your electric generating plant right next to your plant as a separate building connected.”
Coal-fired generation could be used as a backup for the data centers, according to Trump. “Nothing can destroy coal, not the weather, not a bomb, nothing,” Trump said. “It might make it a little smaller, might make it a little different shape, but coal is very strong as a backup.”
Trump’s co-location comments appear to align with newly appointed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie, according to ClearView Energy Partners.
“Chairman Christie has supported co-location on the condition that developers site data centers adjacent to new power plants,” the research firm said in a client note on Thursday. “He has raised concerns about data centers or other energy-intensive facilities co-locating next to existing baseload resources, which, in his words, would reduce ‘big dispatchable resources out of the supply stack.’”
In November, Christie joined FERC Commissioner Lindsay See in a 2-1 vote to reject an amended interconnection service agreement that would have facilitated expanded power sales to a co-located Amazon data center from the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania that is majority owned by Talen Energy. Talen on Jan. 15 asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to overturn FERC’s decision.
Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, said fast-tracking fossil fueled power plants for data centers would hurt utility ratepayers.

“Trump’s fake emergency to justify fast-tracking coal- and gas-fired power plants to supply power-hungry AI data centers will expose American families to higher utility bills, spoil air quality and gush increased greenhouse gas emissions,” Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said in a press release.

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State of Crypto: Trump’s Second First Week

Donald Trump is officially the 47th President of the United States, and the U.S. government is going in some different directions from the last administration.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

The narrative
U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn into office on Monday and quickly signed a flurry of executive orders. While it took him a few days to get to crypto-specific items, we’ve seen a number of actions from his administration already — not to mention the broader Republican Party.
Why it matters
These agencies and Congressional bodies’ initial actions set the tone for what we can expect as the new Congress and administration really get going this year.

Breaking it down
There’ll be time to go more into detail on some of these later, but for now:
White House/Administration
Donald Trump signed a highly-anticipated executive order on crypto. Among its provisions are items that:

Create a working group composed of Cabinet officials, White House advisers and others tasked with identifying regulations that address crypto and recommending whether they be changed. AI and crypto czar David Sacks will chair this working group.
Task the working group with evaluating a digital asset stockpile.
Ban any central bank digital currency, with a somewhat broad definition of a CBDC.
Revoke former President Joe Biden’s executive order on crypto, which mostly just directed his Departments to craft reports about various aspects of crypto and consumer protections.

Trump also announced that Sacks would co-chair his President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, now operating under Acting Chair Mark Uyeda, formed a crypto-focused task force headed up by Commissioner Hester Peirce. Trump previously named Paul Atkins as his pick to serve as the agency’s chair, once he’s confirmed by the Senate.
One of the SEC’s first moves was to rescind Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which directed publicly traded companies holding crypto for their clients to mark those holdings on their own balance sheets. SAB 121 was strongly opposed by the crypto industry, which argued that it made it more difficult for banks to provide certain crypto services.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now operating under Acting Chair Caroline Pham. Pham named CFTC Senior Policy Advisor Harry Jung as the regulator’s lead for crypto industry engagement. Trump has not yet named a nominee to take over as permanent chair.
Trump pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, saying on Truth Social that he did so “in honor of [Ulbricht’s mother] and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.” Ulbricht was convicted on criminal enterprise, narcotics distribution and various conspiracy charges and sentenced to double life in prison and 40 years with no parole.
Trump announced he would rename the existing U.S. Digital Service as his Department of Government Efficiency, the entity headed up by Elon Musk (Vivek Ramaswamy, who was previously a co-head, has now left to run for Ohio governor). Initially, the entity’s website just had the Dogecoin logo on it. Companies are also filing for dogecoin exchange-traded funds now.
Trump spoke with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele shortly after signing his crypto executive order, though an official readout of the call did not mention crypto in any form.
Senate
The Senate Banking Committee has confirmed the creation of a subcommittee focused on digital assets, led by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.). The subcommittee’s other members include freshmen Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who unseated former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) with $40 million worth of support from crypto political action committee Fairshake, Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who received $10 million worth of support and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), among others.

The Banking Committee is also holding a hearing on Feb. 5, though the specific time and witness list have yet to be announced.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a joint Congressional Review Act resolution alongside House Rep. Mike Carey (R-Ohio) to overturn the IRS’ recent crypto broker rule. The rule, finalized late last month, defines the term “broker” for IRS tax reporting purposes, but has already drawn a lawsuit from the Blockchain Association. The industry lobbyists argue the final rule “puts unlawful compliance burdens on software developers.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the new lead Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is also asking the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to look into the TRUMP token. She sent an open letter co-signed by Massachusetts Representative Jake Auchincloss.
House of Representatives
The House Oversight Committee sent out a letter announcing it would investigate whether banks de-banked crypto companies at the government’s behest.
The House Financial Services Committee has already scheduled two hearings on crypto next month. The first, on Feb. 6, 2025, will focus on the aforementioned debanking. The second, set for Feb. 11, is titled “A Golden Age of Digital Assets: Charting a Path Forward.”
The leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerry Connelly, asked the panel’s leading Republican, Rep. James Comer, to probe Trump’s issuance of the TRUMP coin and his ties to World Liberty Financial.

Tuesday

16:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. MT) The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Custodia Bank’s ongoing case against the Federal Reserve.

(Sam Curry) Some security researchers discovered they could track and control certain Subaru cars (i.e. ones connected to the internet). The vulnerability has been patched, per the writer of this.
(Bloomberg) Walgreens spent $200 million replacing refrigerator doors with screens whose vendor is now in a legal fight with the pharmacy/convenience store chain.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See ya’ll next week!

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Meta wants everyone to know that it, too, is investing a lot in AI

In his Facebook post this week, Zuckerberg wrote that Meta will also “significantly” grow out its AI teams and will build an “AI engineer” AI agent that will contribute code to Meta’s R&D efforts. Planned investments for this year already represent a 50% increase over the company’s 2024 spending, and Zuckerberg noted, “we have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead.”

His announcement comes just four days after OpenAI dropped its “Stargate Project” bombshell, and four days before Meta’s planned fourth-quarter financial reporting on Jan. 29. It also follows on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order on AI that specifically revokes previous administration policies that he said “act as barriers to American AI innovation.”

“This will be a defining year for AI,” Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post, also saying he expects that Meta AI will be the world’s “leading assistant,” serving more than 1 billion people, and that Llama 4 will become the “leading state-of-the-art model.”

“This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership,” he wrote. “Let’s go build!”

Big tech racing to build the data centers of the future

Undoubtedly one of the biggest stories out of the tech world this week was the US President Donald Trump-endorsed Stargate Project, an ambitious, $500 billion initiative to build out AI infrastructure in the US for OpenAI over the next four years. It is an industry collaboration, with participation from OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, MGX, Arm, Nvidia and Microsoft, and will deploy $100 billion “immediately,” OpenAI said in a blog post earlier this week.

Other industry players are investing as well. Microsoft has announced its intent to spend $80 billion in fiscal year 2025, more than half of which will be in the US. Amazon continues to pour money into data centers — including $11 billion in new infrastructure in Georgia — and says it will exceed its $75 billion 2024 capex expenditures. And other leading data infrastructure companies like Databricks and Snowflake continue to invest billions.

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