A financial manager in Hong Kong was defrauded of more than HK$17 million (approximately US$2,173,500) after falling for the "profit" bait of HK$2.6 million while investing in gold and cryptocurrencies through a fake trading platform.

21Shares President Ophelia Snyder predicts that the Bitcoin ETF market will contract before expanding. Snyder said the market will consolidate around the largest publishers, with only three to five major winners expected to emerge. Since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 10 spot Bitcoin ETF products, Ark’s 21Shares has crossed $1 billion in assets under management, joining giants such as BlackRock, Fidelity and Grayscale. Snyder emphasized that while initial investment in the market came primarily from retail investors, this reflects the pent-up demand from the past decade and indicates possible future consolidation in the market.

Crypto payment platform Meso announced the completion of a $9.5 million seed round of financing, co-led by Solana Ventures and Ribbit Capital, institutional investors Canonical Crypto and 6th Man Ventures, as well as angel investors Phantom co-founder Chris Kalani, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready and Archie Puri of Bodhi Labs participated in the investment.

John Fei Zeng, chief financial officer of Tiger Brokers, said in an interview that the company is currently evaluating other digital assets such as altcoins for listing after regulatory approval, and will also license them in Australia, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The market implements an international expansion strategy. He said: “Cryptocurrency is becoming an important asset class in addition to stocks and options. Therefore, adding new asset classes is a natural extension of the broker-dealer business, and the underlying Web3 technology also integrates with Tiger’s fintech background. ." It is reported that the company currently has 865,500 capital accounts and assets under management of US$18.9 billion. According to previous news, the upgrade of Tiger Brokers’ No. 1 license has been approved by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, which will allow professional investors to trade virtual assets through Tiger Brokers on a platform licensed by the Securities Regulatory Commission.

Web3 social protocol beoble has completed a seed round of financing 3 months since its pre-seed announcement, raising total funds to $7 million. Major investors include Hashkey, Samsung, DCG, DWF Ventures, Nomura Laser Digital, Cypher Capital and Blockchain Founders Fund. The funds raised will be used to launch beoble V2 next month to improve Web3 social media interaction and provide advanced features such as multi-chain integration, in-app social trading and OTC capabilities.

Wormhole Foundation announced its cooperation with Succinct to develop the Ethereum ZK light client, aiming to further decentralize message verification within the Wormhole platform. This collaboration minimizes trust in the Wormhole platform, improves cross-chain composability, and enhances network security by leveraging zero-knowledge proof technology. Succinct provides ZK engineers with tools and platforms to accelerate development timelines, reduce verification costs, and improve performance, promoting the rapid realization of the Wormhole ZK development roadmap.

Data from research firm PitchBook shows that in the fourth quarter of 2023, total venture capital investment in cryptocurrency-related companies was US$1.9 billion, an increase of 2.5% from the previous quarter. This marks the first increase in venture capital funding for crypto startups since the third quarter of 2022.

Bahamian bank Deltec Bank & Trust Ltd is accused of providing billions of dollars worth of "secret" short-term credit to SBF to purchase Tether, according to a lawsuit filed in a Florida federal court on Friday, Bloomberg reported. The documents also allege that Deltec helped SBF misappropriate client funds by transferring funds between FTX and Alameda accounts. It is reported that SBF-owned companies began opening accounts with Deltec in 2018, in part to make it easier to obtain Tether. According to the lawsuit, Alameda simply transferred funds from its Deltec account to Tether's account to purchase the tokens. Starting in 2021, Deltec gave Alameda a three-day grace period to pay for its purchases of Tethers, effectively providing the fund with a short-term credit line. The bank did not offer a grace period to other clients, and a Deltec executive told Alameda's traders to keep it confidential. This "secret line of credit" sometimes exceeds $2 billion. Alameda then sells these tokens to make a profit. Desiree Moore, a lawyer for Deltec, said the bank and its chairman, Jean Chalopin, had no knowledge of FTX's misconduct before it became public.

NFT market Magic Eden announced the launch of the "Mint to Earn" plan to support the Ethereum Launchpa project. The first quarter (Season 1) of the plan will be launched at the end of February and will provide an exclusive Diamond points pool. After the end of the first quarter, statistics and Analyze the Launchpad minter information of selected projects, including Planet Mojo, OSF, Ninja DAO, Okay Dogs, RENGA, and Chimpers, etc. The second season will be launched on Solana.