Attention Value and Market Dynamics

Macroeconomic Environment

U.S. December inflation data sparks market optimism

The latest published data shows that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United States rose by 2.9% year-on-year in December 2024, while the core CPI rose by 3.2% year-on-year. Although the overall CPI increased by 0.4% month-on-month, reaching a recent high, the core CPI only grew by 0.2% month-on-month. Several factors, such as a decrease in hotel accommodation prices, a slowdown in the increase of healthcare services, and moderate rent increases, have effectively suppressed inflationary pressures.

This data alleviated the selling pressure in the bond market and revitalized market expectations for an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve. Although investors generally believe that a rate cut may only be possible after June, the US stock and bond markets rebounded, with the S&P 500 index rising nearly 2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring over 700 points. The cryptocurrency market also performed strongly, with Bitcoin returning to the $100,000 mark, demonstrating sensitivity to macroeconomic trends.

Global pension funds begin to allocate Bitcoin

Pension funds from multiple countries are gradually beginning to attempt to purchase Bitcoin. The pension funds of Wisconsin and Michigan in the United States have become one of the main holders of U.S. stock market funds focused on cryptocurrency. As of the end of September last year, the Wisconsin Investment Board became the 12th largest shareholder of a certain Bitcoin ETF, with a holding value of approximately $155 million, while Michigan was the sixth largest shareholder of a certain Ethereum ETF, with a holding value of $12.9 million.

Some pension fund management institutions in the UK and Australia have also made small allocations to Bitcoin through funds or derivatives. A UK pension consultancy has facilitated the first Bitcoin transaction, with a small pension plan directly investing about £1.5 million in Bitcoin. In addition, more than 50 individual savers have expressed a desire to fully transfer their pensions to cryptocurrency.

Although cryptocurrency investment remains a minority in the pension industry and most advisors are cautious about their clients venturing into this field, an increasing number of pension funds are starting to pay attention to this emerging asset class.

Web3 Sector Dynamics

The United States will implement third-party reporting requirements for cryptocurrency transactions.

Starting in 2025, cryptocurrency trading in the United States will face third-party reporting requirements for the first time. All transaction information conducted on centralized trading platforms will be submitted directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to the new regulations, institutions such as custodial trading platforms, digital asset wallet providers, cryptocurrency ATM operators, and digital asset payment processors must track users' buying and selling transactions throughout the year and submit relevant reports to users and the IRS at the beginning of 2026.

The specific implementation timeline shows that the report on the cost basis information of crypto assets will begin in 2026, while the report on peer-to-peer transactions of decentralized platforms will be delayed until 2027, only requiring the reporting of total transaction volume. Additionally, newly listed Bitcoin spot ETF trades will also be reported via forms 1099-B or 1099-DA, including share trades and taxable events generated within the fund.

South Korea reports its first case of unfair trading in virtual assets.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea announced the first case of unfair trading after the implementation of the "Virtual Asset User Protection Act" on January 16. The law will take effect in July 2024, requiring local virtual asset service providers to report abnormal transactions and investigate unfair trading patterns.

According to FSC, the suspects manipulated the market using the "pump and dump" technique by placing multiple buy orders to drive up the price of a certain cryptocurrency, and then quickly sold off a large amount of pre-purchased assets. The entire manipulation process is usually completed within 10 minutes, causing severe fluctuations in the price of the targeted asset and resulting in illegal profits of hundreds of millions of Korean won within a month. This case marks an important step for South Korea in combating misconduct in the cryptocurrency market.

Hot Narrative

XRP market capitalization exceeds 170 billion USD

The price of XRP has first broken through $3 in the past 24 hours, reaching a new high since 2018, with a 15-day increase of 40%. Currently, XRP is only 17% away from its all-time high of $3.84, and its market cap has exceeded $170 billion, surpassing that of a certain asset management giant.

The recent surge is mainly driven by expectations of cryptocurrency-friendly policies and the push for regulatory reforms on digital assets in the United States, particularly the long-standing legal battles between related companies and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Industry insiders point out that the spike in XRP is attributed to new partnerships, the launch of stablecoins, and speculation about potential spot ETFs.

"Whales" holding large amounts of tokens continue to accumulate, providing support for this rebound. Analysis reports indicate that since November, these addresses have accumulated 1.4 billion XRP, valued at approximately $3.8 billion. In addition, Google Trends data shows that the search volume for XRP has surpassed that of Bitcoin.

Hot Projects

Introduction to Sora Labs

Sora Labs is an artificial intelligence organization focused on the Solana ecosystem. The main development projects include:

1. Zen: An open-source AI dialogue framework built with the Go language, designed to simplify and enhance the flexibility of developing proxy chat systems.
2. Hana: A Twitter AI agent based on the Zen framework, showcasing the features of Zen.
3. Toolkit: A tool developed with Go and Rust that helps manage seamless collaboration with AI models.
4. Solana Toolkit: An extension toolkit providing specific functionalities for Solana.

All projects have been open-sourced.

In terms of token economics, the development team has purchased a total of 100 million tokens, of which 99.2 million have been locked until March 12, with 24.75 million tokens being unlocked linearly every two weeks. The next unlocking date is January 29. Additionally, 829.6K tokens have been transferred into the contract but have not yet been locked.

The top 100 holdings account for 61.95%, with the largest holder accounting for 9.92% being the locked portion, and the average purchase price of the top 100 has doubled.