Gemini Plots European Expansion Under New Leadership

James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, Wales, lost his legal battle to recover 8,000 Bitcoin from a hard drive discarded in a landfill in 2013. Despite offering a recovery plan and compensation, the council denied access due to environmental concerns.

Ira Auerbach, former Nasdaq digital assets head, has joined Offchain Labs to lead Tandem, the Ethereum scaling project's venture capital division. Auerbach's background includes roles at Nasdaq, Gemini, Palantir, and BGC Partners, showcasing a trend of traditional finance professionals moving into the crypto space.

American crypto-related firms are donating millions to Donald Trump's inauguration committee, seeking to curry favor with the incoming president and his administration. Ripple, Robinhood, Coinbase, Circle, Kraken, Moonpay, and Ondo Finance are among the companies contributing substantial sums to support the event.

The Machines Arena will be available on Steam and PlayStation 5, but due to restrictive crypto policies, these versions will lack crypto features present in the Epic Games Store and Android versions. The game offers play-to-airdrop campaigns and NFT trading on the Ethereum sidechain Ronin.

Dogecoin, one of the top cryptocurrencies, experienced a significant drop from its recent high of $0.40 to $0.314 in just two days. Bitcoin also fell from over $100,000 to $91,250, with Solana being the biggest loser this week.

The CFTC subpoenaed Coinbase for customer information related to Polymarket, a blockchain prediction platform. The request was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter and shared by Eric Conner on social media.

Polymarket is facing criticism for hosting prediction markets on the ongoing California wildfires, with users creating bets on fire spread, containment, and potential political resignations. The platform has seen nearly $100,000 in volume on these markets, sparking outrage online.

XRP has surged 4% in the last 24 hours, reaching $2.32, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ripple's President and CEO's optimism about XRP ETFs and a meeting with Donald Trump have fueled this rise. Speculation over XRP ETFs has been driving the token's price surge.

Bitcoin, after reaching an all-time high last month, dropped to its lowest level in weeks as investors withdrew from crypto ETFs. Ethereum also saw a decline, hitting its lowest price of 2025 before recovering slightly.

Grayscale Investments has adjusted its crypto-focused funds, removing Avalanche from the Digital Large Cap Fund to make room for Cardano. The GSCPxE Fund now includes Sui alongside Solana, Cardano, and Avalanche. The AI Fund has added Livepeer while swapping out Synthetix for Curve in the Decentralized Finance Fund.