PA Daily News | Tether will increase its gold reserves by approximately 27 tons in Q4 2025; BlackRock submits registration statement for a Bitcoin "Premium Yield ETF".

Today's top news highlights:

Trump: Raise retaliatory tariffs on South Korea from 15% to 25%

Japan plans to classify XRP tokens as regulated financial products by Q2 2026.

Binance Alpha launches the second round of airdrop rewards for the XPIN Network.

Ethereum network fees have fallen to their lowest level since May 2017.

Vitalik: The extended hierarchical structure of blockchain consists of computation, data, and state.

Tom Lee: The surge in gold and silver prices has masked the strengthening fundamentals of cryptocurrencies.

Bitmine has staked a total of $6.52 billion worth of ETH, exceeding 52% of its total holdings.

Base Co-founder: The core team will not secretly pump and dump Base ecosystem tokens behind the scenes.

Regulatory news

Bank of Korea Governor: Authorities plan to allow domestic institutions to issue virtual assets; stablecoins remain controversial.

Speaking at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, Bank of Korea Governor Lee Chang-yong stated that, due to market pressure, the authorities have allowed South Korean residents to invest in overseas-issued virtual assets. Meanwhile, financial regulators are studying a new registration system to permit domestic institutions to issue virtual assets. He pointed out that the won-denominated stablecoin is expected to be primarily used for cross-border transactions, while tokenized deposits will be used more for domestic payments. However, he emphasized that stablecoins remain highly controversial. He expressed concern that the won-denominated stablecoin could be used to circumvent capital flow control measures, especially when combined with widely used and easily accessible US dollar stablecoins, where the risk would be even greater.

Lee Chang-yong noted that the transaction costs of USD stablecoins are far lower than those of directly using USD, and exchange rate fluctuations can easily trigger a large influx of funds. Furthermore, most USD stablecoins are issued by non-bank institutions, significantly increasing the difficulty of regulation. In addition, South Korea's fast payment system is well-developed, making the advantages of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) less obvious. The central bank is currently advancing several pilot programs, deploying tokenized deposits and wholesale CBDCs to maintain a two-tier financial system.

Japan plans to classify XRP tokens as regulated financial products by Q2 2026.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) plans to formally reclassify Ripple's XRP as a "regulated financial product" by the second quarter of 2026, removing it from the "crypto asset" category under the Payment Services Act and placing it under the stricter regulatory framework of the Financial Instruments and Exchanges Act. This move aims to align XRP's legal status with its widespread institutional adoption in Japan, where it has become a pillar of the country's banking and remittance infrastructure.

Following its reclassification, XRP will acquire "investment-grade" status, equivalent to traditional stocks and bonds, which is expected to attract more institutional capital and provide a regulatory model for other major digital assets. The new rules will require exchanges and liquidity providers to make full disclosures regarding asset volatility, technical characteristics, and issuer relationships, and will explicitly prohibit insider trading and market manipulation to enhance investor protection.

The U.S. Marshals Service is investigating a case involving the son of a government contractor suspected of stealing $40 million in seized cryptocurrency.

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Marshals Service is investigating a theft of over $40 million in seized cryptocurrency. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT alleges that John “Lick” Daghita, son of the president of CMDSS, a service provider for the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, stole these assets from a government crypto wallet managed by his father's company. ZachXBT stated that he has confirmed at least $23 million in funds related to approximately $90 million in cryptocurrency seized by the government in 2024 and 2025, and reported the matter to authorities last week. The suspect inadvertently revealed the wallet address he controlled by recording a video in a Telegram group chat to flaunt his wealth, and ZachXBT confirmed the connection of the funds through on-chain tracing.

Senate Agriculture Committee talks on encrypted legislation have taken a turn for the better, with Democrats expressing their willingness to return to negotiations.

Trump: Raise retaliatory tariffs on South Korea from 15% to 25%

Project Updates

BlackRock plans to generate returns on Bitcoin investments through the "iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF".

According to The Block, BlackRock has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the iShares BTC Premium Income ETF, which aims to provide yield generation capabilities for Bitcoin investments.

The fund will directly hold Bitcoin to track the spot price, while generating returns through an actively managed covered call option strategy. Its investment advisors will actively sell call options—primarily against BlackRock's own IBIT shares, and sometimes against other ETP indices that track Bitcoin—and receive the option premiums as income. If approved, this product will provide Bitcoin ETF investors with a return mechanism similar to Ethereum or SOL funds, where returns are generated through staking.

Binance Alpha launches the second round of airdrop rewards for the XPIN Network.

Binance Alpha has launched the second airdrop for XPIN Network (XPIN). Users holding at least 233 Binance Alpha Points can claim 14,600 XPIN tokens on a first-come, first-served basis . If the airdrop rewards are not fully distributed, the claim threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every 5 minutes. Successful claiming will consume 15 Alpha Points, and users must confirm on the Alpha Events page within 24 hours, otherwise they will be considered to have forfeited their airdrop eligibility.

Sentient announced that Franklin Templeton has become a strategic investor.

Open-source AI platform Sentient announced on its X platform that Franklin Templeton has become a strategic investor. In the coming months, Sentient will collaborate with Franklin Templeton to advance high-risk AI use cases in the financial sector—bringing open-source inference into real-world, production-grade business processes.

Mezo: Phase 1 MEZO token allocations are now available.

Mezo, the Bitcoin scaling network, announced on the X platform that the allocation of MEZO tokens for the first phase is now available. Users can check the official data panel for allocation details. Note: This phase is only for viewing allocation information.

Ethereum network fees have fallen to their lowest level since May 2017.

According to Glassnode's monitoring this morning, Ethereum network fees have fallen to their lowest level since May 2017.

Solar's official X account appears to have been hacked. Please do not click on suspicious links.

The official Solana Chinese-speaking community account, @Solana_zh, is currently suspected of being hacked and is temporarily inaccessible. The official team is urgently contacting the platform to resolve the issue, and the recovery time is currently uncertain. Please note the following in the meantime:

• Any requests for information, funds, or content involving sensitive operations posted on X under the name of Solar are fraudulent.

• All official announcements and updates will still be released through Telegram groups and other official channels (such as Solana's official X), and we will not contact you via private message through X to perform any operations.

• Do not click on any suspicious links or disclose personal information.

Base Co-founder: The core team will not secretly pump and dump Base ecosystem tokens behind the scenes.

Base co-founder Jesse Pollak stated on the X platform that the Base core team will not "secretly pump and dump" Base ecosystem tokens, privately coordinate and deploy funds to actively drive up asset prices to achieve specific goals. This would actively harm other assets, be unrepeatable or unsustainable, violate Base's values ​​of a free and open market, and could potentially be illegal. Base can and will drive the distribution and promotion of high-quality assets and applications. Base—and all markets—should be free, open, and fair, and my responsibility is to ensure this remains unchanged.

Clawdbot founder: We will not issue tokens and have never been involved in any cryptocurrency projects.

Clawdbot founder Peter Steinberger stated on the X platform that he has never been involved in any cryptocurrency project, nor does he issue tokens, and any project claiming to be a token owner is a scam. He emphasized that he will not accept any fees related to the project and stated that the ongoing harassment is damaging the project itself.

Coinbase Derivatives launched copper and platinum futures trading in the early hours of this morning.

According to an official announcement, Coinbase Derivatives, a regulated derivatives trading platform under Coinbase, launched copper and platinum contract trading in the early hours of the morning.

SlowMist: Clawdbot gateway exposed to risks; hundreds of API keys and private chat logs vulnerable to attack.

Vitalik: The extended hierarchical structure of blockchain consists of computation, data, and state.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined the scalability hierarchy in blockchain, namely computation, data, and state. He stated that computation is relatively the easiest to scale, achievable through parallel processing, requiring block builders to provide "hints," or directly replacing large amounts of computation with proofs. Data resides in the middle layer; if availability guarantees are required, this requirement cannot be bypassed, but it can be split using techniques such as sharding and erasure coding (e.g., a node can still produce blocks of 1/10th the size even with only 1/10th the data capacity).

State is the most difficult element to extend. To ensure the verifiability of a single transaction, the complete state must be obtained. If the state is replaced with a tree and only the root hash is retained, updating the root still requires the complete state. Although there are methods for splitting the state, these methods usually involve architectural changes and lack generality. Therefore, he concludes that if a solution can replace the state with data or replace data with computation without introducing new centralized risks, it should be seriously considered in principle.

Santiment: The decline in stablecoin market capitalization indicates that funds are flowing into gold and silver, rather than Bitcoin.

Crypto analytics platform Santiment points out that the total market capitalization of stablecoins has decreased by $2.24 billion in the past 10 days, potentially indicating that funds are flowing out of the crypto ecosystem or delaying market recovery. The firm analyzes that these funds appear to have shifted to traditional safe-haven assets such as gold and silver, driving their prices to new highs, while Bitcoin, the overall crypto market, and the market capitalization of stablecoins have seen a correction.

Santiment stated that the decline in stablecoin market capitalization reflects investors converting to fiat currency rather than preparing to buy on dips, while increased demand for precious metals indicates a market preference for safe-haven assets. Historical data shows that strong recovery in the crypto market often begins with a rebound in stablecoin market capitalization, signifying new capital inflows and restored confidence. Prior to this, altcoins and other risky assets may continue to face pressure. While Bitcoin has been relatively resilient, the shrinking supply of stablecoins will still limit overall upside potential.

Tom Lee: The surge in gold and silver prices has masked the strengthening fundamentals of cryptocurrencies.

Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee posted on the X platform: "The parabolic surge in gold and silver is masking the continued strengthening of the intrinsic fundamentals of cryptocurrencies (especially Ethereum and Bitcoin). As emphasized at the Davos 2026 forum, financial institutions have clearly identified Ethereum and smart blockchain platforms as the foundation for building their future financial infrastructure. When the fundamentals show an upward trend, it's only a matter of time before prices rise accordingly."

Important data

Bitmine has staked a total of $6.52 billion worth of ETH, exceeding 52% of its total holdings.

Bitmine staked another 209,504 ETH (worth $610 million) today. To date, Bitmine has staked a total of 2,218,771 ETH (worth $6.52 billion), exceeding 52% of its total holdings.

A certain "smart money" player added another 5,000 ETH to their position, bringing their total holding of 15,870 ETH to a current unrealized loss of $15.825 million.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the previous version of smart money trading failed in this round of market activity. The smart money trading strategy 0xDE8…ab9E2 has the following track record: from April to June 2023, it withdrew 32,416.5 ETH at an average price of $1,865.68, and from March 2024 to September 2025, it allegedly sold 30,878 ETH at $2,944.71, making a profit of $33.318 million.

However, in the long-awaited new round of position building, he bought 10,870 ETH at the peak ($4,388.93) four months ago, and withdrew 5,000 ETH from Binance an hour ago to add to his position. Currently, the average cost of these 15,870 ETH is $3,930.27, and he is still in a floating loss of $15.825 million.

Ethereum spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $117 million yesterday, reversing four consecutive days of net outflows.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $6.8427 million yesterday, marking the first net inflow after five days of net outflows.

Tether increased its gold reserves by approximately 27 tons in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Stablecoin issuer Tether disclosed that it increased its gold reserves by approximately 27 tons in the fourth quarter of 2025, roughly in line with analysts' estimates of 26 tons purchased in the third quarter. Tether stated that its gold reserves are now comparable to those held by some sovereign central banks. For comparison, the Central Bank of Poland increased its gold holdings by 35 tons during the same period, bringing its total reserves to 550 tons.

Tether's USDT stablecoin currently has a circulating supply of $187 billion, while its gold token XAUT has a circulating value of $2.7 billion. As of the end of December last year, XAUT was backed by 16.2 tons of gold, accounting for 60% of the global supply of gold-backed stablecoins. The most recent audit, up to the end of September last year, showed that USDT's reserves included $12.9 billion worth of gold, equivalent to approximately 104 tons at the then-current gold price.

The "whale that held ETH for 4 years and then switched to WBTC" has once again switched WETH back to WBTC, earning 9.26 WBTC.

The "$230 million long whale" partially closed its positions on Hyperliquid and instead used leverage on Aave to go long on ETH.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, the "whale that opened a $230 million long position" has shifted its focus: it closed some of its long positions on Hyperliquid and then used leveraged lending on Aave to go long on ETH.

• On Hyperliquid, we closed out long positions of 30,600 ETH and 427 BTC, leaving us with a remaining long position worth $680 million. The remaining position is mainly ETH, with a liquidation price of $2,158.

• He borrowed 240 million USDT from Aave through a revolving loan and transferred it to Binance, then withdrew 148,000 ETH ($431 million) from Binance. The liquidation price of ETH for this borrowed position is currently around $1,953.

The third investor/team address that unlocked 1.8 million PENDLE tokens three years ago has transferred all tokens to Binance.

A dormant ETH whale, after nine years of holdings, has completed its liquidation, transferring its remaining 85,000 ETH to Gemini.