• A new Xbox Wireless Controller has been official revealed
• The new Pulse Cipher colorway is a dazzling red
• It comes after the Ghost Cipher and Sky Cipher controllers

Microsoft has officially revealed its latest special edition Xbox Wireless Controller – the Pulse Cipher – which was only recently leaked by French outlet Dealabs.

An Xbox Wire post has all the details on this new gamepad, with keeps the general look of the Cipher line-up we’ve seen so far. A translucent frame, solid underside with textured grips and triggers that stand out brightly with an almost metallic sheen – it’s all there, just in a pretty dazzling red this time.

VeThor token is witnessing a surge of over 80,300% after the token was listed on South Korea’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Upbit.  

On Jan. 21, Upbit launched trading support for VeThor Token (VTHO) in both the Korean Won (KRW) and Tether (USDT) markets. As of Jan. 22, VTHO’s trading volume has surged by over 88,000% in the past 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, Upbit accounts for more than 66% of VTHO’s trading volume, with over $2.1 billion traded in just 24 hours. 

As of this writing, VTHO is priced at $0.008981, reflecting over 300% increase in its value over the last 24 hours. However, it remains roughly 80% below its all-time high of $0.042, which was reached in August 2018.

VTHO was launched in July 2018 as part of the first phase of the VeChainThor blockchain, following its initial release as an ERC-20 token in 2015. 

VeChainThor uses VTHO to power transactions and smart contract executions on the network. VTHO is generated by holding VeChain Tokens (VET) and is consumed during blockchain operations, ensuring efficiency and scalability within the ecosystem.

The number of unique addresses interacting with the VTHO on the VeChainThor blockchain continued to rise and in early January 2025 crossed the threshold of 2.9 million addresses as of this writing, as per VeChain Stats. 

How far can VeThor rise this bull run? 

The MACD is a technical indicator of bullish or bearish momentum, as well as trend direction. It includes MACD line, signal line, and histogram. The MACD analysis notes the recent crossover into bullish territory, which indicates an increase in bullish pressure. 

As the histogram widens between the MACD and signal lines, bullish momentum continues to grow. This indicates an increased interest in VTHO which could continue driving performance in the near future. While it cannot predict specific prices, it does give insight into market directions.

Should momentum hold and the market remain bullish, the token may retest resistances in the $0.01–$0.015 range. These psychological barriers are common for tokens with prices below $0.01. However, nothing is certain. Do your own due diligence.

After the recent enhanced volatility across the entire crypto market, bitcoin’s price has finally calmed and stands still at around $105,000.

Many altcoins have recovered some ground following yesterday’s declines, and the total market cap is close to $3.8 trillion.

BTC Calms at $105K

The primary cryptocurrency jumped past $100,000 at the end of the previous business week and went to a high of $105,000 on Friday. While the weekend was less eventful on the BTC front, despite the two Trump-related meme coins, the asset maintained its level and even surged to $106,000 on Monday morning.

Then came the volatile ride that pushed the asset to under $100,000. In minutes, it had recovered all losses and skyrocketed even further to just over $109,000 to register a new all-time high. All of these movements transpired in the span of just a few hours.

Once Trump’s inauguration began on Monday afternoon, BTC’s price started to tumble again and plunged to $100,000 once again as he failed to mention crypto even once. Nevertheless, the bulls intervened at this point and drove the cryptocurrency to $107,000 yesterday.

It has lost some ground since then and now trades a lot more calmly around $105,000. Its market capitalization has risen to $2.080 trillion on CG, and its dominance over the alts is still above 55%.

Alts in Recovery Mode

Most alternative coins have turned green today after yesterday’s retracements. Solana and Dogecoin have popped up as the top performers, with both gaining around 6%. As a result, SOL has risen to over $250, while DOGE, which exploded yesterday at one point, is now above $0.36.

ETH, XRP, BNB, and ADA have posted minor gains, while TRX, LINK, and AVAX have added around 3-4% of value.

Other notable price gainers since yesterday include HYPE and CRO, as the exchange behind the latter launched in the US.

The total crypto market cap has increased by over $100 billion on a daily scale and is close to $3.8 trillion on CG.

Dogecoin has emerged as a focal point of conversation, even amid a sudden wave of meme coins linked to Donald Trump’s return to the spotlight. On-chain analysis firm Santiment, which recently shared a sentiment dashboard on X, notes that “the top trending tokens” are all about meme coins following the “historic US inauguration of Donald Trump.”

In their latest post, Santiment emphasizes that “TRUMP is being discussed following its controversial listing on Coinbase, and the risks involved in investing during a volatile market,” while there is also “significant interest in airdrops of ‘TRUMP’ tokens, with a notable event securing $1M worth of tokens.”

MELANIA, another meme coin tied to the Trump brand, has caused a stir by briefly surpassing a $9 billion valuation, although it has endured “substantial fluctuations amid broader market uncertainty.”

Related Reading

Meanwhile, Dogecoin’s surge in social media mentions is attributed by Santiment to the newly established US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk, as the project uses Dogecoin as its avatar. On January 21, the US Government officially launched the Department of Government efficiency (DOGE) website which has the official Dogecoin logo on it.

“This initiative has sparked discussion as it intertwines cryptocurrency with government operations, generating buzz on social media. Additionally, discussions around the potential for new meme coins linked to public figures like Trump and Musk contribute to the speculation about Dogecoin’s future performance and relevance in the crypto space,” Santiment writes.

Despite the sudden attention on TRUMP and MELANIA, Santiment’s sentiment breakdown underscores mixed feelings for both tokens. Regarding TRUMP, the post states: “The word ‘trump’ is trending due to discussions about the Trump Coin. Its price fluctuations, and the speculative nature of meme coins, users are debating the risks of investing in Trump Coin.”

Santiment’s “positive” analysis points to “political influence and executive actions” as reasons for optimism, highlighting that “the anticipation of a crypto executive order from Trump has generated excitement among investors.”

Related Reading: Will Dogecoin Skyrocket Soon? Chart Pattern Suggests Yes

MELANIA’s sentiment likewise splits along bullish and bearish lines, with the negative view referencing a more than 70% drop from its initial peak price, and the bullish narrative noting “celebrity endorsement” from Donald and Melania Trump as a potential driver of renewed interest.

Technical Analysis: DOGE Confirms Breakout

At press time, Dogecoin (DOGE) was trading at around $0.367 after rebounding from a descending trendline dating back to early December. The breakout above the diagonal resistance occurred earlier this week, followed by a successful retest of the trendline yesterday, confirming it as new support.

Following the retest, DOGE is now contending with the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level at $0.3943, which marks the next major overhead barrier. A clear break of this resistance could open the door to the higher 0.618 Fib level at $0.4759 and the 0.786 Fib at $0.5920.

On the downside, if DOGE fails to break the 0.5 Fib, the 0.382 Fib at $0.3129 may act as the most reliable support. Meanwhile, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) at around 51 remains neutral, reflecting balanced momentum and leaving room for a potential continuation to either side.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Jupiter, a Solana-based decentralized exchange, will airdrop 700 million JUP tokens to its community on Wednesday in what it is calling the “largest airdrop in history.”

The airdrop is a part of the project’s annual “Jupuary” event, which was voted into existence alongside another event in 2026 in a governance vote in December. It is scheduled to start at 15:30 UTC.

Initial concerns were raised about the sustainability of supply increase, prompting the proposal to be amended to include a token audit and burn schedule over the next month.

At the time of writing JUP is trading at $0.87 after sliding by 2% over the past 24 hours. The total value of the airdrop is set to be $612 million.

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! 

This week, we’re looking at just how much fintech startups raised in 2024, a slew of fundraising deals, Plaid’s reported revenue growth last year, and more!

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here.

The big story

Global funding to fintech startups continues to decline. According to CB Insights’ State of Fintech 2024 Report, fintech startups globally raised a combined $33.7 billion in funding last year — down 20% from the year before. Deal volume also dropped — by 17% to 3,580. But there are at least a couple of bright spots: The annual decline in funding was fintech’s smallest in three years. Plus, funding rebounded to close the year strong, reaching $8.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024 — up 11% compared to the 2024 third quarter. CB Insights also reported a 33% annual increase in median fintech deal size  — to $4 million.

Dollars and cents

LemFi, a London-based financial services platform designed for immigrants, raised $53 million in new funding, which it will use to fuel efforts to acquire more customers and further expand into more countries.

Recharge, a key European player in online prepaid payments, has secured a €45 million debt facility with ABN AMRO to look at rolling up the market with a round of M&A, as well as moving into fintech-style services.

French startup Hyperline wants to build the next-generation Chargebee. It raised an initial €4 million funding round from Index Ventures back in 2023 ($4.1 million at today’s exchange rate). And Index Ventures is doubling down on this investment as it is investing another $10 million in the startup.

Bench, the accounting startup that imploded over the holidays, filed for bankruptcy in Canada on January 7 revealing massive debts, documents seen by TechCrunch show. The filings — one for Bench and another for 10Sheet, Bench’s original name — show that Bench had $2.8 million in cash on hand by the end of its life but $65.4 million in liabilities. Charles Rollet does a deep dive here.

More fintech IPOs?! Trading platform eToro has reportedly filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO that could value the company at over $5 billion. Israel-based eToro, which competes with the likes of Robinhood, told TechCrunch it is “not commenting on IPO rumors.”

Amazon has agreed to acquire Indian buy now, pay later startup Axio, deepening its push into financial services in one of its fastest-growing markets.

Ex-SoftBank veteran Akshay Naheta’s Switzerland-based startup, Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), is attempting to bridge the gap between traditional banking and blockchain technology, joining an army of companies trying to modernize the global payments infrastructure.

Barclays’ Rise is shutting down in 2025.

People moves

Synctera has hired its first CFO, Matias Pino. 

Mark Fiorentino announced he’s left Index Ventures to join Bain Capital as “the newest partner charged with helping to guide the next generation of growth-stage AI-native, vertical SaaS and fintech startups.”

High-interest headlines

Last year was a good year for Plaid. Bloomberg reports that revenue at Plaid Inc., which provides infrastructure to connect fintechs and banks, spiked by over 25% last year.

Cryptocurrency-wallet provider Phantom Technologies raised $150 million in a funding round at a $3 billion valuation. Sequoia Capital and Paradigm co-led the round. 

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you again next week!

Stargate is expected to involve major players, including OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle. It remains unclear how much funding will come from the federal government versus private sector contributions.

According to CBS, the Trump administration might allocate $100 billion to the project in its first year. The total investment could reach $500 billion if approved by regulatory authorities. The initiative signals a potential shift in priorities, as some had speculated Trump might downplay AI and crypto sectors early in his term.

Stargate’s focus contrasts with Trump’s recent push for D.O.G.E. as a cost-cutting tool. Critics question whether such a significant AI investment aligns with Trump’s fiscal goals. Despite skepticism, the announcement has stirred excitement in tech circles.

AI-focused companies like OpenAI, valued at $150 billion, might struggle to match such large investments on their own. Still, industry watchers view Stargate as a positive move for AI innovation.

If the deal proceeds, it could reshape the AI and crypto markets. Early reactions show a shift in investor interest from meme coins to AI-driven projects, highlighting the potential impact of this initiative.