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Metaplanet to buy 21K Bitcoin, Korean exchange users up 450%: Asia Express

Japan’s Metaplanet set to become third largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, as new Korean exchange accounts surge 450%. Asia Express

Metaplanet, a publicly traded Japanese firm often called “Asias MicroStrategy,” is raising more than 116 billion yen ($745 million) to expand its Bitcoin holdings.

On Jan. 28, the company announced it had issued 21 million shares through moving strike warrants, which grant investors stock acquisition rights with adjustable exercise prices. While such warrants are typically issued at a discount, Metaplanet’s offering does not as it sets the share price at the full closing value on the pricing date.

The company claims this is the largest capital raise in Asian equity markets dedicated to Bitcoin purchases.

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9 curious things about DeepSeek R1: AI Eye

Curious facts about DeepSeek: It’s not AI’s ‘Sputnik Moment,’ it has erotic dreams about censorship, you can run it at home for $6K. AI Eye.

Youve no doubt heard about the major AI story dominating global news coverage this week DeepSeek R1.

From all accounts, it seems theres a new Chinese AI model built for a total cost of $16.95 thats as good as OpenAIs trillion-dollar models even though it was put together by teenagers who tied six Intel Pentium processors together, powered them with a potato battery, and told it to refuse to answer questions about Tiananmen Square.

As a result of this tall tale which relates to a genuinely impressive achievement despite the exaggerations investors rushed to sell overvalued US AI stocks along with every token in my entire portfolio of unrelated cryptocurrencies.

Youve probably read a million articles about it already, so heres a collection of the more interesting tidbits about DeepSeek weve come across:

Whatever DeepSeek cost, its widely agreed it was a lot more than the $5.6 million training cost for v3 that the media keeps highlighting. (R1 refers to the reasoning version that was built atop v3).

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

You should ‘go and build’ your own AI agent: Jesse Pollak, X Hall of Flame

Base creator Jesse Pollak says AI + Crypto is “just getting started” and users can easily build an AI agent to make money: X Hall of Flame


While crypto traders scramble to find the perfect AI agent crypto token to strike it rich, Base creator Jesse Pollak suggests a more straightforward approach: Go and build something.

There are all of these tool kits that let you start experimenting with building your own AI agent out of the box, Pollak tells Hall of Flame.

He says Virtuals on Base is really cool, but theres another platform called Me.fun where you dont have to launch a token with your AI agent. It lets you customize an agent, tweak its guidance, and plug in different data sources.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Azuki founder airdrops ANIME for a ‘billion global fans’: Zagabond, NFT Creator

PEPE, MOG and Azuki’s just launched ANIME token all transcend “memecoins” to become “culture coins” says Azuki founder Zagabond: NFT Creator.

Having cut his teeth in DeFi before discovering NFTs, Zagabond created one of the top-tier NFT projects and anime-based brands in Azuki.

Originally minting in January 2022, the founder and project have had their trials and tribulations but have come through the other side. This week, they launch a culture coin called ANIME that aims to create a community-owned network.

And the way I look at Anime coin is that its a culture coin that represents the anime industry, so the industry becomes a digital economy where a billion global fans can shape and own the future of the anime together, he says. More on ANIME later.

The original collection Azuki currently sits at a 10.5 ETH floor price with a massive 810,000 ETH in volume in three years. The Azuki ecosystem is also home to Beanz, Elementals and Elemental Beans. Beanz was originally airdropped to Azuki holders just minutes after Zagabonds Check your wallets announcement at NFT LA in 2022, which became part of NFT folklore.

Zagabond heard about Bitcoin around 2014, but his true introduction to crypto was via Ethereum around 2017, which ultimately led him to become a founding member of 0x.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

GOAT’s AI agents play to win crypto for you, Flappy Bird reboot: Web3 Gamer

Goat Gaming is set to launch AI agents to play games for you in February, Flappy Bird game review and more: Web3 Gamer

Gamers could soon be making money without barely lifting a finger when AI-powered Telegram gaming network GOAT Gaming drops its AI agents next month.

The AlphaGOATs will play games for you, bet on prediction markets, and potentially earn crypto for you but hey, maybe dont quit your day job just yet.

Launching Feb. 6, AlphaGOATs will be able to compete in tournaments across mini-games in the GOAT Gaming ecosystem, which has over 5 million active players.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Sex robots, agent contracts a hitman, artificial vaginas: AI Eye goes wild

AI agent plans assassination on dark web, are social robots just sex robots, artificial vagina prize, Brad Pitt deepfakes and more: AI Eye

Pliny the Prompter last year released a jailbroken version of GPT-4o that bypassed safety guardrails to give advice on cooking meth, hotwiring cars, sourcing material for a nuclear weapon, and making napalm with household items.

Now, going by the name Pliny The Liberator, he claims to have jailbroken an AI agent called Agent 47 after the protagonist in the Hitman games, and instructed it to find a hitman service on the dark web.

With minimal further prompting, the agent was able to download the Tor browser, browse the dark web for hitman services, negotiate a contract killing and think through details about escrowing the funds and ensuring payment.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Trump’s Bitcoin policy lashed in China, deepfake scammers busted: Asia Express

China banker says Trump’s Bitcoin plan contradicts his US dollar dreams as Hong Kong busts deepfake AI pig butcher scammers. Asia Express.

Wang Yongli, former vice president of the Bank of China, has criticized US President-elect Donald Trumps Bitcoin reserve proposal, arguing it conflicts with Trumps goal of maintaining the dollars global dominance.

Bitcoins decentralized nature offers no advantage to bolstering the dollars global status. On the contrary, excessive deregulation and hindering the development of a digital dollar could harm the dollar’s international position, Wang wrote in an opinion piece for Chinas state-backed financial magazine.

The former banker questioned the feasibility of establishing a national Bitcoin strategic reserve, warning that both a government or central bank Bitcoin reserve would pose significant risks and uncertainties.

He highlighted the limitations of the US Treasury Departments Foreign Exchange Stability Fund, valued at $206 billion as of the end of November, noting it would be insufficient to establish a meaningful reserve without incurring additional debt. He also said that seized Bitcoin Trump’s original proposal was to turn Bitcoin seized from Silk Road and other criminal enterprises into a stockpile should be returned to their rightful owners.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Earn crypto for 2025 gaming predictions, 50M monthly gamers incoming: Web3 Gamer

Web3 gaming execs are bullish on the next 12 months, Yellow Panther launches an AI Agent, and more: Web3 Gamer

With 2025 kicking off, everyone in the Web3 gaming industry from execs to devs is sharing their predictions for the year. The consensus? Theyve stopped rambling on about how Web3 games are gonna be more fun in the future, and theyre betting on a massive spike in actual user numbers, with traditional gaming publishers and platforms jumping on the bandwagon.

Ava Labs gaming lead Park, said in a Dec. 29 X post that Web3 gaming will hit 50 million monthly active users (MAU) this year, and a top western gaming publisher will move into Web3 gaming, or a Web3 game will get acquired by a major publisher.

Yield Guild Games Corporate Development and Finance Manager Serge-Raymond Nzabandora also believes big user numbers are incoming. He tells Web3 Gamer that several games will hit 1 million Daily Active Users (DAU), and a select few will break 5 to 10 million DAUs.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Down to $200 one day, Pixels founder had $2.4M the next: Luke Barwikowski, X Hall of Flame

Pixels founder Luke Barwikowski had just $200 left in his account when Animoca invested $2.4M. The Web3 game’s FDV later hit $2.65B.

The original concept for Pixels, one of the most popular Web3 games on the planet, came to its founder after he ditched his comfy tech job in his early 20s to travel and work in New Zealand.

I wanted to mess my life up a little bit, so I moved to New Zealand, Luke Barwikowski tells Hall of Flame.

Barwikowski, who holds a double degree in computer science and Economics, worked as a software engineer in San Francisco and felt like he had too much figured out for a 23-year-old.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins

Women more bullish about blockchain games than men: Web3 Gamer

Women are more optimistic than men about blockchain adoption in the gaming industry, plus Beam Foundation’s Node sale campaign: Web3 Gamer.

Women in the Web3 gaming industry are more hopeful about blockchain gaming taking off in the next year compared to men, according to the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA).

Female respondents expressed more optimism, with 38.9% expecting over 40% adoption within the next year, compared to 25.1% of men, the BGA 2024 annual report says. The survey pulled in 623 responses from participants in the Web3 gaming industry worldwide from those working in infrastructure and marketing, to design, content, investment, media and AI.

Almost half of the male survey respondents believe that less than 20% of the gaming industry would adopt blockchain in the next 12 months, while only a quarter of female respondents shared that same bearish outlook.

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Grayscale’s XRP ETF Under SEC Review—The Countdown Begins