BitGo: Crypto Water Cooler — Jan 15
GM. It’s Wednesday, January 15.?
Newsmakers
Crypto Proponents Secure Key Congressional Chairs
The pro-crypto 119th U.S. Congress is seated and committee chairs are in place. The committees to watch are the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Together, they oversee the SEC and will be instrumental in crafting and passing legislation. Both are now well-stocked with crypto proponents.
In the Senate, Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a ranking Banking Committee member, has replaced outgoing crypto-cautious chairman Sherrod Brown. Scott has said that advancing pro-crypto legislation is "the one thing I will absolutely guarantee will be done.” He has advocated creating a new digital assets subcommittee; if approved, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who has authored several crypto bills, is poised to lead it.?
French Hill (R-AR-02) will chair the House Financial Services Committee. Hill previously served as chair of the Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion subcommittee. Rep. Bryan Steil will lead the Financial Service Committee’s digital asset panel. Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY-06) was re-appointed as the chairman of the Financial Institutions Subcommittee.?
Hill promised to stablecoin and market structure legislation in the first hundred days. Most policy experts anticipate stablecoin legislation first since the last House Financial Services Committee almost reached a bipartisan agreement on a stablecoin bill.?
?The House’s more comprehensive Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), which received bipartisan support but was not taken up by the Senate, may take longer. For one, it requires deciding whether the SEC or CFTC will be the regulator. Some lawmakers also say the bill needs to contain stronger cybersecurity measures.
?The timeline is likely to be measured in months or years. As Unchained Crypto notes, “though that’s fast for government, it’s likely a pace the crypto markets will need some adjusting to.”
?Read more →Unchained Crypto
?
Optimism Reigns as U.S. Changing of the Guard Draws Near
?With the inauguration of Donald Trump now just days away, the vibe in the digital asset industry has shifted from embattled to optimistic, as it appears that the incoming administration will be peppered with pro-crypto personnel.
?Last week, Rostin Behnam, the current chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced he will join SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler in resigning on inauguration day. Behnam was initially set to helm the CFTC until June 2026.
?Summer Mersinger, a current pro-crypto CFTC commissioner actions, is now the leading contender to become its chair. As previously reported, Paul Atkins, an SEC commissioner during the Bush administration, is the pick to head the SEC. Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent revealed in his financial disclosures he holds between a quarter and half million dollars worth of Bitcoin ETFs, which he will divest to reduce conflicts of interest.??
?Trump also promised to create a Crypto Council of industry leaders to collaborate with the SEC, CFTC, and Treasury. He has tapped political newcomer Bo Hines to lead it. Executives at Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and Circle are among those said to be jockeying for council seats. All these companies have donated to Trump’s inauguration committee, and Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong are known to have met privately with the incoming President.?
David Sacks, the White House's first AI and Crypto Czar has holdings in Solana, Bitwise, and BitGo and has been one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in Silicon Valley.?
?Read more →Cointelegraph
?
Why AI is the New Hotness for 2025
?The convergence between blockchain and AI heated up in 2024. BTC miners expanded into hosting AI applications in their data centers. AI-based crypto trading bots proliferated, and toward the end of the year, we saw the rise of intelligent AI agents, including Truth Terminal, a piece of AI performance art that got an X account, equipped itself with a wallet and used its command of memes to build a large following. When it bought and started posting about the Goastseus Maximus (GOAT) meme coin, its GOAT portfolio rocketed to $1.5MM as of December, making the agent the first AI crypto millionaire.
?The convergence will likely expand this year as investment flows into AI projects. In Q3 2024, funding for AI startups reached $11.8B, 30% of all venture capital raised. Investors pumped nearly $53 billion into AI in the first three quarters of 2024, 35% more than in the first three quarters of 2023. In January, OG Foundation raised $30MM by selling nodes needed to operate its decentralized AI platform, and SoSo Value raised $15MM for their application that consolidates data from numerous sources into an intuitive crypto dashboard.?
?Other previously funded examples of blockchain AI startups: Bittensor, where developers can create and share AI models for producing, marketing, and selling digital commodities and earn rewards for their contributions, and Redacted, which is creating an “entertainment datasphere” where users play, trade, and watch content while earning rewards. Skeptics note that despite all the investment, most projects have a long path to generating significant revenue.??
?Read more →Cointelegraph
News In Brief
Business of Crypto
Regulation and Security
DeFi and Web3
Midweek Market Pulse
Total Market Cap: $3.36T – 7-day change as of Tuesday 1/14/25 1 PM EST: +0.03%?
Crypto’s total market cap rose a meager 0.03% in a wild week where digital assets saw over $500MM in liquidations.?
Optimism over the incoming crypto-friendly U.S. government competed with worrisome macro factors, including an “upbeat” jobs report on Friday and fears that Tuesday’s Consumer Price Index print would confirm an inflationary trend. Should high inflation persist, the Fed may slow or stop its planned trajectory of rate cuts.?
Bitcoin (BTC, -1.14%) slid under $90,000 for a few minutes on Monday, but recovered by Tuesday. Part of the buildup to this selloff was the news of a U.S. Court last Wednesday approving the Department of Justice sale of $6.5B of BTC seized from Silk Road. Bitcoin ETFs saw $312.8MM of net inflows last week. While still positive, inflows have fallen off their record pace of the last few months. In other ETF news, BlackRock’s IBIT will soon be available in Canada.?
Ethereum (ETH, -7.06%) fell below $3000 on Monday’s open along with the rest of the market but managed to bounce back over $3000 on Tuesday. ETH ETFs saw $186MM in outflows last week. Altcoins also fell and rebounded along with the majors, with the total altcoin market cap falling ~8.17% on the week. Solana (SOL, -9.93%), Dogecoin (DOGE, -2.19%) and Cardano (ADA, -4.06%) all lost their footing. Ripple’s XRP (+15.77%) was an outlier, rising on CEO Brad Garlinghouse's meeting with Trump, and the first disclosure of XRP ownership by a sitting member of Congress, Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14).
The Last Word
Consumer Price Index (CPI)?
: A measure of price change for a representative basket of consumer goods and services over time.
/ Published monthly, the CPI is a widely used and closely followed measure of inflation.
About BitGo
BitGo provides the most secure and scalable solutions for the digital asset economy, offering regulated custody, borrowing and lending, and core infrastructure to investors and builders alike.
Founded in 2013 — the early days of crypto — BitGo pioneered the multi-signature wallet and later built TSS to improve upon other companies’ MPC offerings. Between multi-sig and TSS, BitGo offers the safest technology on the market and safeguards over 600 tokens across a wide variety of blockchains.
Over the years, BitGo has expanded from offering wallets into providing a full-suite solution that lets clients hold assets safely and then put them to work.
BitGo launched BitGo Trust Company in 2018, providing fully regulated, qualified cold storage to complement BitGo Inc’s original hot wallet solution. In 2020, BitGo launched BitGo Prime, which allows its clients to trade, borrow, and lend. Moreover, BitGo also provides access to DeFi, staking, NFT wallets, and beyond, and serves as the world’s sole custodian for WBTC, or wrapped Bitcoin.
Today, BitGo is the leader in digital asset security, custody, and liquidity, providing the operational backbone for more than 700 institutional clients in over 50 countries — a list that includes many regulated entities and the world’s top cryptocurrency exchanges and platforms. BitGo also processes approximately 20% of all global Bitcoin transactions by value.
For more information, please visit www.bitgo.com.
?2024 BitGo Inc. (collectively with its affiliates and subsidiaries, “BitGo”). All rights reserved. BitGo Trust Company, Inc., BitGo Inc., and BitGo Prime LLC are separately operated, wholly-owned subsidiaries of BitGo Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. No legal, tax, investment, or other advice is provided by any BitGo entity. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professional for questions about your specific circumstances. Digital asset holdings involve a high degree of risk, and can fluctuate greatly on any given day. Accordingly, your digital asset holdings may be subject to large swings in value and may even become worthless. The information provided herein is not intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity in any jurisdiction or country where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation. BitGo is not directing this information to any person in any jurisdiction where the publication or availability of the information is prohibited, by reason of that person’s citizenship, residence or otherwise.