5Money

NO TAXATION, the US and NATO are about to reach an agreement on Greenland

After a very productive meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, we have built a framework for a future agreement on Greenland and the entire Arctic region. If successful, it will be fantastic!

Therefore, I WILL NOT TAX as planned on the upcoming February 1st.

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff along with stakeholders will be responsible for negotiations and report directly to me.
$BTC #TrumpTariffsOnEurope

Last week's strategy spent $2.13B to acquire an additional 22,305 $BTC at an average price of ~$95,284 / BTC.

For the 4th consecutive week, the company has added more Bitcoin to its reserves, bringing the total holdings to 709,715 BTC at an average purchase price of $75,979 / BTC.

This accumulation set a record of 22,048 $BTC on 31/03/2025, making it one of the TOP 5 biggest deals of the strategy. This is also the strongest buying move since the beginning of 2025.

HOT: The Ministry of Finance 🇻🇳 opens the portal for receiving cryptocurrency exchange license applications

To implement NQ05, the Ministry of Finance has just issued Decision 96/QĐ-BTC announcing 3 new administrative procedures: licensing, adjusting, and revoking the cryptocurrency exchange license. Enterprises wishing to participate in the pilot program can submit applications starting today (20/1).

1️⃣ Participation conditions:
- Minimum charter capital of 10,000 billion VND (contributed in VND)
- Must be a Vietnamese company (LLC or joint stock)
- At least 65% of the capital must be contributed by organizations, of which >35% must come from at least 2 entities such as banks, securities companies, fund management, insurance, or technology companies
- Foreign investors cannot own more than 49%
- Each organization/individual can only contribute to 1 exchange

2️⃣ Personnel requirements:
- CEO: at least 2 years of experience in finance/securities/banking/insurance
- CTO: at least 5 years of IT experience in the above fields
- At least 10 personnel with network information security certificates
- At least 10 personnel with securities practice certificates

FIRST TIME IN HISTORY: Ethereum gas fees hit a record low despite transaction volume reaching a new peak

$ETH is processing nearly 2.5 million transactions per day, but the average gas fee has dropped to just $0.15. Swap fees are even only ~$0.04 over the weekend.

This rare combination marks a turning point for Ethereum, which has been criticized for high and unpredictable fees. Even those farming airdrops have to exclaim that they have lived long enough to see this scene!

These achievements are thanks to:
- The Fusaka upgrade and the Blob Parameters fork have helped reduce data costs for L2s.
- Over 36 million $ETH are staked (~30% of the supply), with staking queues exceeding 2.5 million $ETH - the highest since August 2023.
- Standard Chartered estimates that Stablecoin transactions account for 35-40% of total Ethereum transactions.

Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, also stated: "2026 will be the year of Ethereum."

The EU holds an emergency meeting on Greenland, considering a response to the U.S.

The European Union (EU) just held an extraordinary meeting after President Trump imposed tariffs on 8 countries related to Greenland.

The options the EU is considering:
🔹 Imposing retaliatory tariffs on 93 billion euros ~ 107 billion USD of U.S. goods (This measure was announced last year in response to tariff actions from Washington but was postponed because both sides reached an agreement in July 2025).

🔹 Activating ACI: This is the strongest move by the EU to limit investment, banking, services, and access to U.S. public tenders (less supported than the tariff option).

EU leaders are expected to continue discussions on the response measures at the emergency summit in Belgium on January 22.
As usual, Gold and Silver continue to reach new heights while $BTC dropped sharply to $92K.

VIX Securities will invest an additional 1,000 billion into the VIXEX cryptocurrency exchange

On January 16, the Board of Directors of VIX Securities approved the plan to disburse funds from the upcoming offering of nearly 919 million shares, expected to raise over 11,000 billion at a price of 12,000 VND/share.

The offering is scheduled for Q1-Q2/2026 and the funds will be used as follows:
- 5,013 billion for proprietary trading
- 5,013 billion for margin
- 1,000 billion poured into the VIXEX exchange

VIXEX has a charter capital of 1,000 billion with three founding shareholders: FTG Vietnam (64.5%), 3C (20.5%) and VIX (15%). At the General Meeting of Shareholders in November 2025, VIX selected its technology partner and confirmed participation in the pilot race for the cryptocurrency exchange in Vietnam.
$BTC

🚨 The White House dispels rumors that recently seized Bitcoin has been sold

Earlier this month, rumors circulated that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had released $6M $BTC that two developers from Samourai Wallet submitted when pleading guilty. White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt confirmed today that the DOJ has not and will not liquidate the $BTC .

All of it will be held in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as per the decree of President Trump.

The U.S. government currently holds 328,372 $BTC ($31.3B). This includes 127,271 BTC seized last October from the Cambodian fraudster Chen Zhi.

Iranians rush to withdraw $BTC to wallets amid turmoil

According to Chainalysis, from the time the protests erupted (12/28 last year) until Iran cut off the internet (1/8), the volume of BTC withdrawals from Iranian exchanges to personal wallets surged dramatically.

The accumulation of $BTC is seen as a reasonable reaction to the rapid depreciation of the Iranian currency. The national currency Rial of this country has fallen to 1.4 million Rial for 1 USD - losing value by about 20,000 times after 4 decades.

Liquidity $ETH staking exceeds historical high

Currently, over 36 million $ETH (~118 billion USD) are staked on the Beacon Chain. This figure is close to 30% of the total supply, surpassing the previous peak of 29.54% from July 2025.

Ethereum currently has around 900,000 active validators, with over 2.3 million $ETH still waiting in line to stake, indicating continued growing demand to participate in securing the network.

Strong inflow returning to US ETF funds

🪙 On January 13, ETF fund $BTC Spot recorded an inflow of +$753.7M. Marking the largest positive inflow since October 7.

🪙 ETF $ETH Spot also improved with +$130M in inflows.

According to CoinDesk, after a period of year-end selling pressure due to tax settlement and risk avoidance, institutional investor inflows are showing signs of returning.

Proposing additional criminal penalties for crypto transactions on unlicensed exchanges

This is a suggestion from many experts regarding the draft decree on penalties for violations in the digital asset sector currently being consulted by the Ministry of Finance.

Specifically, criminal liability should be considered for individuals who intentionally organize or participate in large-scale transactions on unregulated markets (OTC, black markets) for purposes such as tax evasion or money laundering.

"In addition to fines, deliberate violations and repeated illegal digital asset transactions may be considered criminal acts and subject to criminal prosecution," proposed LS Vo Trung Tin - Deputy Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Blockchain Association.

The implementation of strong sanctions is expected to help guide funds back to legal trading platforms. This will create conditions for the State to manage, collect taxes, and fully monitor information about participants, transaction subjects, and transaction volumes.

CPI Inflation 🇺🇸 December

- CPI Y/Y 2.7% (Forecast = 2.7%, previous = 2.7%)
- CPI M/M 0.3% (Forecast = 0.3%, previous month = 0.3%)

- Core CPI Y/Y 2.6% (Forecast = 2.7%, previous = 2.6%)
- Core CPI M/M 0.2% (Forecast = 0.3%, previous month = 0.2%)
$BTC

Drop concerns over FBI investigation into Fed Chair, U.S. stocks still hit new highs with S&P 500 and Dow Jones reaching all-time highs. Crypto stagnates, $BTC fluctuating around $91K, $ETH $3.1K.

Optimism returns after a series of former Fed Chairs and former Treasury Secretaries publicly defended Powell and the independence of the Fed. Many believe Chair Powell will smoothly get through this issue, as criminal prosecution of the Fed Chair over office renovation appears unreasonable.

On the geopolitical front, President Trump unleashed another strong move, threatening to impose 25% tariffs on any country doing business with Iran. Major partners of Iran currently include China, Turkey, UAE, and Iraq.

Regarding economic data, this week's focus will be the U.S. December CPI inflation report, scheduled for release at 8:30 PM tonight. Following conflicting signals from the jobs report, this data is expected to clarify the Fed's upcoming interest rate trajectory.

Strategy continues to spend $1.25B to accumulate another 13.627 $BTC , with an average price of ~$91.519 / BTC.

This is the third consecutive week the company has added Bitcoin to its reserves, increasing the total holdings to 687.410 $BTC , with a weighted average purchase price of $75.353 / BTC.

🚨 BULLISH: South Korea will allow businesses to invest in crypto after 9 years of ban

According to Sedaily, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has developed guidelines permitting listed companies to trade crypto:

- Up to 5% of equity capital per year.
- Only the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap on 5 major domestic exchanges.
- Whether stablecoins pegged to USD like USDT will be included is still under discussion.

From 2017 to now, the South Korean crypto market has been nearly 100% retail investors. The new regulations are estimated to open the door for ~3,500 institutions to participate.

Although welcome, many voices are concerned that the 5% limit is still overly cautious, potentially preventing South Korea from having Bitcoin reserve companies like Japan's Metaplanet.

The FSC expects to release the final guidelines in February, with trading possibly starting by the end of this year.
$BTC

Token $LISA on Binance Alpha suddenly plunged

This token, familiar to AE users farming alpha points due to its stable price, unexpectedly split four times in a short period.

Many users reported being affected while trading this pair. The project has not yet provided an explanation.

Conflict with the management, Zcash developers collectively quit to start a new company

CEO Josh Swihart announced that he and the entire Zcash development team have resigned.

The reason is that working conditions have changed in a direction contrary to the project's mission. The development team is now establishing a new company to continue developing Zcash independently.

Although Swihart reassured that the Zcash protocol will not be affected, this drama has caused the price to plummet nearly 20% from $ZEC .

The truth behind Telegram's sale of $TON

The FT recently revealed that Telegram has sold over $450M worth of Toncoin (equivalent to 10% of market cap) in 2025.

TON Foundation chairman Manuel Stotz had to reassure AE holders:
- All TON sold by Telegram have a 4-year vesting schedule.
- These tokens were collected by TON Strategy Co., the company led by him, for staking purposes.
- The amount of TON held by Telegram in 2025 did not decrease, and in fact increased when counting the number of tokens.

Manuel concluded with a firm statement: Anyone still doubting Durov or Telegram's commitment to $TON will soon come to their senses by early 2026.👀