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Plus, ⚖️ Coinbase in the crosshairs, 🛡️ A new contender for the CFTC’s top job, 🌐 Circle throws its lot in with Trump, and more!

January 10, 2025

Fab Friday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

  • 🔻 Bitcoin goes backwards

  • ⚖️ New bidder for CFTC’s crypto oversight

  • 📂 Coinbase faces Polymarket user info order

  • 🏦 Hawkish Fed comments hit BTC

  • 💵 Circle donates to Trumpworld

  • 🪙 Avalon unveils governance token

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What’s Poppin’?

By Sage D. Young, Veronica Irwin and Tikta

The crypto market has erased this year’s gains after a three-day selloff fueled by strength in the U.S. dollar and a judge’s decision to let the federal government sell some of its own bitcoin holdings.

The OG crypto dipped below $92,000 on Binance on Thursday, setting a new low for the year and distancing its price from December’s record high of around $108,000.

The retreat contributed to a pullback in digital assets that had jumped in price in recent weeks, including memecoins and other tokens associated with artificial intelligence-powered chatbots and platforms.

A yellow plastic slide, from a side view. (Shutterstock)

Sitting Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Summer Mersinger is now the leading contender to chair the regulator, according to five sources close to the deliberations.

In the new year, Mersinger has gained an edge over the former favorite, a16z crypto Head of Policy Brian Quintenz as she is seen as a choice that could help Trump win favor with a Senate led by South Dakota Republican John Thune.

Although the CFTC, which oversees commodities markets, typically receives less attention than the Securities and Exchange Commission, it could become the primary agency overseeing crypto within its next chair’s tenure.

Previous iterations of a crypto market structure bill have made the CFTC crypto’s primary regulator, and policy advocates speculate that a similar bill could be passed before the midterm elections in two years.

Coinbase Subpoenaed for Polymarket-Related Customer Data

The U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has served Coinbase with a subpoena requiring it to hand over “general customer information” related to its investigation of decentralized betting market Polymarket.

Eric Conner, founder of open-source Ethereum research platform ETHHub, posted a screenshot of an email Coinbase sent to its customers notifying them of the subpoena.

The U.S. exchange said it “may be required to send information” about users’ accounts to the CFTC.

The CFTC launched enforcement action against Polymarket in 2022 over the platform’s failure to register its services with the regulator. Following a $1.4 million settlement, Polymarket closed its doors to U.S. citizens.

a laptop on a table

Bitcoin Dives After Hawkish Fed Comment

Bitcoin dropped to an intraday low of $91,220 on Thursday after the markets digested a more hawkish tone from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting minutes released the previous day.

The Fed noted that the risks of higher inflation are on the rise, suggesting there will be fewer rate cuts this year.

ISM data released earlier in the week told the same story — ISM, which is a lead indicator for the consumer price index, showed that prices paid by purchasing managers were at a 22-month high.

News on Wednesday that a federal judge had granted the U.S. Department of Justice the right to sell 69,000 BTC also likely had an impact on the bitcoin’s price amid fears that the government was looking to sell that cache, worth around $6.5 billion.

However, federal asset forfeiture typically requires additional administrative steps, and onchain data show that no sale of that kind has yet been made.

Federal Reserve Bank, San Francisco

Circle Gives $1M to Donald Trump’s Inauguration Committee

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of stablecoin issuer Circle, says the firm has contributed $1 million of its stablecoin, USDC, to Donald Trump's inaugural committee.

“We are excited to be building a great American company, and the fact that the Committee took payment in USDC is an indicator of how far we have come, and the potential and power of digital dollars,” Allaire said in a statement posted on X.

Circle is one of the many businesses looking to curry favor with the incoming president before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

USDC accounts for $41 billion of the $203 billion in global stablecoin market cap. Rival issuer Tether’s USDT accounts for $136 billion.

Avalon Labs Plans AVL Token Launch

Avalon Labs, the entity behind bitcoin-backed stablecoin USDa, says it plans to launch its own native governance token, AVL.

Avalon will airdrop 20% of the AVL token supply to reward its early users, who will also be able to participate in governance and stake their tokens in different pools.

Those who stake tokens will also be eligible for fee rebates on Avalon’s USDa and CeDeFi lending platform.

AVL will have a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with 30% earmarked for community incentives, 18% for investors and 10% for the project team.

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  • ⚠️ Usual Money’s staked USD0++ dropped to $0.915, 8.5% below its $1 peg, after a protocol update introduced a dual-exit mechanism with a $0.87 floor price, sparking community backlash and causing liquidity imbalances in Curve pools.

  • 🏛️ Sen. Cynthia Lummis is set to lead the Senate's new digital assets subcommittee, focusing on faster crypto regulatory advances.

  • 📜 Rep. Bryan Steil will chair the House’s digital assets subcommittee, prioritizing clearer crypto rules and innovation-friendly policies.

  • 📊 BlackRock’s BUIDL fund earned 18% APY through its first collateralized derivatives trade, showcasing new use cases for tokenized treasuries in crypto markets.

  • 🌍 Gemini appointed Mark Jennings and Daniel Slutzkin to lead European and UK operations, signaling significant regional expansion in 2025.

  • 🔐 Arbitrum DAO opened voting on the BoLD protocol to implement a more secure and permissionless system across its chains.

  • 🤖 Eliza Labs and Origin Trail launched a Decentralized Knowledge Graph plugin on Arbitrum, enabling artificial intelligence agents to enhance memory and share knowledge for improved collective intelligence.

  • 📈 Raydium Protocol launched beta perpetual futures trading on Solana, offering gas-free transactions, 40x leverage, and access to more than 90 markets.

The $$$ Corner…

  • ⚡ Decentralized energy network Starpower raised $2.5 million led by Framework Ventures, totaling $4 million to expand scalable and efficient energy solutions.

  • 🪙 Sol Strategies is raising $20 million via convertible debt to boost its Solana staking infrastructure and expand its presence in the ecosystem.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 1.3%, trading at $94,813

  • ETH is dow 0.1%, trading at $3,297

  • BTC dominance: 54.39%

  • Crypto market cap: $3.45T

*All data as of today, 07:35 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

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