Tether is integrating its USDT stablecoin into the Bitcoin Lightning Network using the Taproot Assets protocol.

The S&P 500 rose 0.53% on Thursday and is up 3.2% for the month, driven by positive tech earnings despite ongoing market volatility. Gold prices surged to a record high on Thursday due to safe-haven demand amid U.S. tariff threats. Spot gold rose 1.4% to $2,796.15 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures increased by 2% to $2,824. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 1.01%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 0.65% and 3.31%, respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is AR, which surged nearly 20.9% following KYVE's archiving of 10TB of Web3 historical data on Arweave.

Arweave (AR), launched in June 2018, is a decentralized platform for permanent data storage. It uses its AR cryptocurrency to ensure data permanence, offers easy web access, and partners with the Internet Archive to secure data preservation. KYVE has 

 over 10TB of compressed, trustless data onto Arweave, including historical chain data from Ethereum, Osmosis, Celestia, and Archway, making Web3 history easily accessible.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

 its USDT stablecoin into the Bitcoin Lightning Network using the Taproot Assets protocol. This partnership, announced at the Plan B conference, aims to expand Bitcoin's functionality and allow USDT payments on Lightning. Tether, with a market cap of $139.4 billion, processed $10 trillion in transactions in 2024 and operates across multiple blockchains. The integration is expected to benefit users in emerging markets and support future transactions between AI agents and autonomous vehicles.

Yesterday, the BTC Spot ETF saw a total flow of $266.6 million, all from non-GBTC sources.

D3 is developing a DomainFi network on the Doma Protocol and has raised $25M from top VCs. They are partnering with projects like Solana Foundation and Avalanche. To potentially qualify for an airdrop, you can buy a domain for $10/year. Payments can be made with Ethereum or the domain's respective chain. Participation carries some risk.

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Tether Brings USDT to Bitcoin Lightning Network

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, as well as futures, options and perpetual contracts.

Markets faced a significant risk-off event early this week as DeepSeek's LLM announcement coincided with sharp declines in major indices and crypto markets. Despite the volatile sell-off in spot markets, open interest in perpetual swaps remained stable, with funding rates briefly turning negative before recovering. 

Options markets saw an increase in trading volume during the sell-off, although forward-looking volatility expectations declined. The period of positive funding rates for perpetuals ended due to bearish spot price action on Monday. In the options space, realized volatility fell below implied volatility, reflecting a small-scale repeat of the pre-inauguration term structure inversion. Notably, ETH options maintained a volatility premium over BTC options, while longer-dated volatility smiles exhibited a bullish skew toward out-of-the-money (OTM) calls.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Options open interest data shows minimal change over the past week, except for the expiration and reopening of short-dated options. Despite the largest single-day trading volumes in call options this month — nearly $250M during the spot price sell-off — trade volume did not significantly impact volatility, which has declined for both realized and implied metrics. Positioning has split between short- and longer-tenor volatility smiles. Short-tenor options are exhibiting lower volatility and a neutral skew, while longer-dated volatility smiles are reflecting increased volatility expectations and a persistent bullish skew toward OTM calls, as has been the case since the election.

ETH options trading volume has surged over the past week, marking its strongest levels in a month. While late December 2024 and early January 2025 saw robust activity, recent data indicates a more active calls market, with open interest remaining heavily weighted toward calls. The early-week global market sell-off briefly shifted short-tenor ETH volatility smiles away from calls, reminiscent of the volatility term structure inversion seen before the inauguration. Despite ETH's spot recovery being weaker than BTC's, its options have maintained higher volatility levels.

Following last week's rally in spot price due to the launch of two presidential meme coins, Solana's price has retreated with the broader crypto market. However, positioning from the rally remains largely unchanged, with open interest in puts and calls remaining elevated and trading activity surpassing pre-rally levels. The stable levels of newly opened put options likely reflect protective buying intended to hedge profitable long positions in other instruments.

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Jan 29, 2025): Options Market Recovers From Monday’s Sell-Off

Phantom wallet has officially integrated Sui, making it the first Move-based blockchain and third Layer 1 supported on the platform. 

The S&P 500 fell 0.47% amid Fed rate pause and mixed tech earnings. Gold fell 0.4% as the dollar and Treasury yields rose after the Fed held rates steady, offering little clarity on future cuts. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 2.07%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 2.99% and 2.90%, respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is TAI, which surged nearly 38.6% following the unveiling of the Sona framework by TARS AI for cost-efficient AI computation.

TARS AI (TAI), launched in 2022, is a decentralized, multichain platform offering AI-powered tools to help web3 projects launch and manage tokens efficiently. Rebranded in 2023, it supports eight blockchains, including Ethereum and BNB Chain, with plans for expansion. TARS AI is set to 

 two custom frameworks in V1 of its AI Market, including Sona, a proprietary framework compatible with DeepSeek AI for efficient, low-cost computations. More details will be revealed in February.

, making it the first Move-based blockchain and third Layer 1 supported on the platform. This gives Phantom’s 15 million users access to SUI, enabling them to send, receive, swap, and interact with Sui-based tokens and dApps. Sui has rapidly grown, reaching over $2 billion in TVL and becoming a major destination for Ethereum outflows. Phantom's CEO praised Sui’s scalability and user experience, aligning with their multichain vision. The integration marks a significant step in expanding Sui’s adoption and accessibility.

Yesterday, BTC Spot ETFs recorded $120.4M in inflows, entirely from non-GBTC funds.

 tasks to boost Grass points, offering up to 30% in bonuses. Users can earn boosts by swapping $10K on Lifinity, trading meme coins on Fighthorse, or betting $1K on Skate x Polymarket. These points may play a key role in the Eclipse airdrop.

Phantom Wallet Integrates Sui, Expanding Access for 15 Million Users

Ondo Finance is deploying its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, OUSG, on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) within six months, expanding institutional access to tokenized real-world assets. 

Daily Top Performer — Movement Labs (MOVE)

The S&P 500 rose 0.92%, rebounding ahead of the Fed’s rate decision. Gold climbed 0.8% to $2,762.02 as tariff uncertainties boosted safe-haven demand. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was down by 0.32%, with Bitcoin and Ether dropping by 0.20% and 3.40%, respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is MOVE, which surged nearly 17.7% following the launch of Movement Network's Developer Mainnet, paving the way for the Public Beta.

Movement Labs (MOVE), founded in 2023, is a modular blockchain network powered by the Move language, aiming to enhance security, performance, and UX in decentralized networks. Its key products include Movement SDK, the M1 Layer 1 network, and M2, an Ethereum Layer 2 rollup. 

, allowing select developers to deploy apps and access new infrastructure. This phase builds on the Mainnet Beta and will run until mid-February. The next phase, Public Mainnet Beta, will introduce full permissionless app deployment and user onboarding. Movement Network is built for modularity, leveraging Celestia.

 its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, OUSG, on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) within six months, expanding institutional access to tokenized real-world assets. Backed by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, OUSG offers 24/7 minting and redemption via Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, enhancing liquidity and financial flexibility. The integration leverages XRPL’s institutional-grade infrastructure, compliance tools, and deep financial relationships to bridge DeFi and traditional finance, positioning XRPL as a key hub for tokenized assets.

BTC Spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $11.7 million, with no change in GBTC and all outflows from non-GBTC funds.

" quest is now live on Galxe, offering tasks to earn points that may be useful for a future airdrop. Participants can complete onchain transactions, explore dApps, join social activities, and more. Week 1 is already underway!

Ondo Finance Brings Tokenized U.S. Treasuries to XRP Ledger for Institutional DeFi

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DeFi

Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixer, has recently made the news for being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury. Find out what actually happened in this article.

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Numerous crypto projects have become popular before meeting some form of controversy. A large number of them provide investors with a unique “hook” or feature that grabs their attention. In the case of Tornado Cash, this feature involves transaction anonymity by acting as a 

. Despite its advantages, the popular cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash has already stirred up a storm in the crypto world, the details of which are discussed further in this article.

Whenever a user intends to make a deposit with ERC-20 tokens or ETH into the Tornado Cash protocol’s liquidity pools, the protocol first generates a secret hash before admitting both the deposit and the hash. When the individual intends to withdraw their crypto, they simply input the secret hash to prove their ownership over the funds. Since the funds go through the protocol’s liquidity pools first, it becomes impossible to link the deposit to the withdrawal. This provides total asset privacy.

Currently, Tornado Cash is owned in full by its community, to whom ownership was transferred in 2020 when the Tornado Cash team relinquished its control. Since then, Tornado Cash has been a fully decentralized protocol.

A cryptocurrency mixer is a software tool that improves anonymity for some crypto transactions. Once crypto is deposited from one address, it’s mixed with crypto from other transactions and withdrawn from a different address.

The crypto assets must be deposited with a smart contract designed specifically to perform this mixing transaction. Once a set amount of time has passed, users can withdraw their deposited tokens from another address. Every mixer comes with its own distinct mixing process. Various cryptographic techniques (which differ with each protocol) can be used to confirm or verify crypto deposits.

. Storm first became involved in blockchain technology in 2011, later co-founding 

 with Semenov in 2018. He’s also worked with 

, taken part in creating smart contracts, and developed ERC-20 tokens and audited code.

Semenov specialized in quantum statistics and field theory. Prior to co-founding PepperSec, he co-founded 

 and assisted with optimizing eCommerce conversions and funnels. Semenov and Storm used the open-source code from 

 to create Tornado Cash. Even though Zcash operates as a privacy coin, Tornado Cash offers more uses by acting as a 

 mixer service. It's because of this unique value proposition that Tornado Cash quickly became popular after its introduction to the crypto industry in 2019.

Tornado Cash mixes its transactions with 

, which are able to obfuscate all transaction information. Hence, Tornado Cash is considered to be a decentralized service that's operated with the use of smart contracts. This means that centralized parties can't obtain funds from the mixing process.

When a user deposits their funds into Tornado Cash, the protocol generates a completely random hash before the deposit of ERC-20 tokens goes through. In order for the user to withdraw their funds from a different address, they’re required to submit the valid key. Withdrawals can be made with MetaMask or other 

One of the two core components behind Tornado Cash involves zero-knowledge proofs. These are digital protocols which improve privacy by facilitating data sharing between separate parties without providing info about the transactions, which could include passwords.

Since this type of information isn't provided to another party, zero-knowledge proofs greatly improve security and reduce congestion by obviating the need to store information on Layer 1.

Anonymity mining is designed to provide any Tornado Cash user who supports TORN's privacy features with liquidity. Users can obtain cash via a liquidity mining system, which has two stages to ensure user privacy is always maintained. When a user interacts with the Tornado Cash protocol, they receive a certain number of points, which are deposited directly into a shielded account. These can then be converted into TORN tokens, which have a fixed supply.

While Tornado Cash proved to be popular almost immediately after it was launched in 2019, the project itself has since experienced numerous issues, the primary one of which occurred in early August 2022 when 

 by the U.S. Treasury. However, the cause for these sanctions began at an earlier date. In March 2022, Roman Semenov 

 Bloomberg News that enforcing sanctions on decentralized protocols would technically be impossible.

Despite this claim, sanctions were set by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control on August 8, 2022. The reason was Tornado Cash’s ability to grant transactions anonymity as a coin mixer. Coin mixers have regularly been suspected as being a perfect solution for laundering funds.

While money laundering is possible with this service, it's also difficult to prove that it occurs. 

, an Australian computer scientist and businessman who claims he was part of the main team that created Bitcoin, believes that mixing standard transactions with potentially criminal activities ensures that every transaction within a crypto pool is effectively contaminated. Since its inception, the team at Tornado Cash has stated it will impose effective controls designed to limit or stop funds from being laundered by malicious cyber actors.

Despite these promises, the U.S. Treasury Department stated that Tornado Cash never took the necessary steps to prevent illicit activity, such as fraud and 

. It believes that currency mixers such as Tornado Cash pose a threat to national security — which is partially due to Tornado Cash allegedly being used in various crypto heists over the past year. For instance, in March 2022, 

. Another attack occurred on a start-up known as Harmony, which resulted in 

Before August’s sanctions, the TORN token was worth a little more than $30. At the moment, it's worth almost $9, with a market cap of over $9.63 million. TORN’s fully diluted market cap is approximately $87.6 million, with just under 1.1 million TORN tokens currently in circulation. The token’s maximum supply is locked at 10 million.

The Tornado Cash platform is mainly used by crypto investors and holders who want to perform completely anonymous transactions. Users can also access TORN tokens to make 

 proposals, or vote for changes in the protocol. When users obtain enough anonymity points through Tornado Cash, they can convert these points into TORN tokens.

Soon after U.S. sanctions were imposed on Tornado Cash, an arrest was made in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Dutch authorities 

 a 29-year-old Tornado Cash developer suspected of criminal activities. Many Tornado Cash developers quickly expressed concern over what would happen next.

The authorities believe that the developer they arrested, 

, was involved in money laundering and keeping criminal financial flows hidden by effectively mixing cryptocurrencies. 

The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service has since stated that more arrests are possible in the coming weeks. At the moment, it's unclear if Pertsev was engaged in criminal activity, or was simply involved with writing code for the Tornado Cash protocol.

The Treasury Department stated that Tornado Cash has been used for the 

 in virtual currency since 2019, which includes a theft of $455 million by what's known as the 

, a North-Korean cybercrime group made up of anonymous individuals from North Korea. As mentioned previously, these sanctions were made after the TORN team allegedly failed to eliminate these issues from its platform.

These sanctions directly prohibit U.S. individuals and businesses from providing any services centered on the Tornado Cash platform. U.S. individuals are also unable to access Ethereum wallet addresses that have been sanctioned by the protocol. Once these sanctions were implemented, TORN’s value dropped by nearly 46%. The sanctions placed on Tornado Cash were the first to be implemented on a DeFi platform.

As a result of these sanctions, any property or crypto assets related to Tornado Cash that a U.S. citizen or entity is in possession of must be reported directly to the Treasury Department. Moreover, any transaction involving these assets is prohibited in the U.S.

All funds that leave Tornado Cash are associated with the imposed sanctions, which means that any cryptocurrency exchanges or businesses that come into contact with these crypto assets will be notified that the assets are tainted. Crypto assets that were mixed through the Tornado Cash platform before the sanctions took place aren't of interest to the Treasury Department, and can be freely withdrawn.

If you hold any Tornado Cash assets that are blocked under these sanctions, a report needs to be filed within 10 business days after the virtual currency is blocked. Additional reports will need to be filed annually until the virtual currency is unblocked.

What This Means for Other Virtual Currency Mixers

The Treasury Department has made it clear that they want to resolve the money laundering issues which they believe are inherent to crypto mixers. Accordingly, other crypto mixers aren't necessarily safe from future sanctions.

Note, however, that according to Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson, the Treasury Department had

 Tornado Cash several times to improve their platform and reduce the possibility of criminal activities, to which they repeatedly failed to do so. Therefore, it could be years before other crypto mixers are sanctioned as well.

For innocent users, the sanctions can be particularly frustrating. Moreover, if you've conducted crypto transactions after a certain date, you could be blocked entirely from withdrawing your Tornado Cash assets. Because these events are so recent, it's difficult to predict what's going to happen next.

Some notable figures find these sanctions troubling, and are inquiring with the Treasury Department as to why they were made. For instance, 

 on his official Twitter page that he sent a letter to the Department on August 23, asking why Tornado Cash had been sanctioned. He believes that these sanctions diverge from precedent, and that the issues are tied to open-source software, as opposed to specific entities or people. A response to his letter has not yet been received.

Tornado Cash is a crypto platform that has proven to be highly popular among investors and crypto holders who want more anonymity with their transactions. However, because the platform’s decentralized nature and crypto-mixing capability can allegedly enable money laundering, the U.S. Treasury Department recently sanctioned Tornado Cash. While these sanctions won't necessarily be in place forever, Tornado Cash’s trajectory will likely remain unclear for the foreseeable future.

Tornado Cash: How It’s Stirring Up a Storm in the Crypto World

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