crypto

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy2/14/25

Strategy returns to its bitcoin buying, GameStop may be next

It was a somewhat uneventful week for bitcoin. The asset took a quick tumble after inflation data was released, but quickly recovered. As for corporate bitcoin reserve stashers, they continued their stockpiling mission, but Michael Saylor’s Strategy is still leading the pack by far.

After a short break and for the first time since its rebranding, Strategy resumed its bitcoin accumulation. This week, it added 7,633 to its stash, bringing its total to 478,740. Saylor noted in an X post that this represents “~76% of all bitcoin held by public companies.”

Meanwhile, after a mere photo of Saylor with GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen sent the gaming company’s stock soaring on hopes that it would adopt Saylor’s strategy, this week holders of the meme stock got more fuel for the bitcoin fire when a report came out saying that it is, indeed, considering investing in bitcoin.

Other companies also added more bitcoin to their piles. Energy management platform KULR Technology increased its bitcoin purchases “by an additional $10 million to reach a total of approximately $60 million in bitcoin acquisitions.” It now holds 610 bitcoin.

Japanese publicly listed Metaplanet, “Asia’s leading bitcoin treasury company,” announced it raised $226 million in “unsecured, ordinary bonds” to buy more bitcoin. The goal is to hold 10,000 bitcoin by the end of 2025 and 21,000 bitcoin by the end of 2026.

Finally, Gumi, a Japanese publicly traded gaming company, announced it would buy $6.5 million worth of bitcoin.

More Crypto

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Bitcoin miners hit with downgrades, winter storm

While the bitcoin hashrate has crashed, experts say this is a temporary reaction to the weather.

US-CRYPTOCURRENCY-CLIMATE-EMPLOYMENT-CHINA

Sage D. Young9h

Crypto money laundering activity totaled more than $82 billion in 2025, more than 8x higher than 2020’s figure of $10 billion, according to a Tuesday report published by crypto analytics firm Chainalysis. Chinese-language networks dominated the ecosystem, accounting for roughly 20% of the illicit activity, or $16.1 billion, last year:

“Compared to other laundering endpoints, since 2020, inflows to identified CMLNs [Chinese-langugage money laundering networks] grew 7,325 times faster than those to centralized exchanges, 1,810 times faster than those to decentralized finance (DeFi), and 2,190 times faster than intra-illicit on-chain flows.”

Tom Keatinge, director at the Centre for Finance & Security at security think tank Royal United Services Institute, told Chainalysis that the rapid development of Chinese-language networks is an “an unforeseen consequence” of China’s imposition of capital controls.

“Wealthy individuals seeking to move money out of China and evade these controls provide the impetus and liquidity pool needed to service organized crime groups based in the West,” he noted.

Keatinge told Chainalysis, “The professional enablers of this capital flight provide the services necessary to match these two independent yet mutually beneficial needs.”

Chinese-language networks offer six primary money movement techniques to clean dirty money, which include recruiting individuals to rent out their financial identities, selling illicit cryptocurrency at a discounted rate, and obscuring fund origins through multiple transactions.

Overall, this Chinese ecosystem processed nearly $44 million per day last year.

crypto

Sage D. Young1/26/26

Avalanche joins class of cryptocurrencies with at least one ETF

Investment management company VanEck on Monday introduced the first exchange-traded fund offering spot exposure to AVAX, the native token for the Avalanche blockchain and the latest cryptocurrency with an ETF.

The new investment vehicle also aims to provide staking rewards for holders, according to the press release. AVAX, which has seen over $354 million in trading volume in the last 24 hours, is up slightly today. The token is trading at $11.70 as of 1:20 p.m. ET, a far cry from its all-time high of $144.96 in 2021.

The nascent VanEck fund joins a group of its crypto-specific ETFs, including the firm’s bitcoin ETF, with $1.4 billion in total assets; its ethereum ETF, which holds $147.5 million; and its solana ETF, with assets totaling $27.9 million.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Fears grow that bitcoin is entering a bear market

“While a new all-time high this year still isn’t out of the question, the next 30 days will be crucial in determining whether a bear market is already here.”

Bitcoin balloon deflated

crypto

Sage D. Young1/23/26

Ethereum treasury firm ETHZilla acquires two aircraft engines (!?!?) in tokenization push

ETHZilla, known for its ethereum treasury, formed a new subsidiary and purchased aerospace equipment in a bid to boost the company’s tokenization efforts.

The treasury firm, through its nascent subsidiary ETHZilla Aerospace LLC, “acquired two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines, together with all parts, engine records and engine stands” for $12.2 million from Avean Engine Solutions, according to an 8K filing on Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The two aircraft engines are subject to lease agreements with a major airline, which were assigned to ETHZilla as part of the acquisition, the filing stated.

The firm’s top priority in 2026 is growing its real-world asset tokenization business and is keen on rolling out RWA tokens in the first quarter, an ETHZilla representative told Sherwood News at the beginning of the year.

ETHZilla’s acquisition of two aircraft engines is part of this tokenization road map, which aims to bring real-world assets from high-value vertical markets, such as aerospace, maritime, and heavy equipment, on-chain.

“In the heavy equipment market, we will initially focus on aerospace assets such as aircraft engines and airframes to tokenize,” ETHZilla Chairman and CEO McAndrew Rudisill said in his shareholder letter from December. “This represents a large, growing market with quality high-yielding assets, and we believe it is a very attractive space for tokenization.”

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