Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Asian markets rose on Thursday after US inflation data cleared the way for another Federal Reserve rate cut next week.
November inflation in the world’s largest economy came in at 2.7 per cent, higher than the previous month but in line with market expectations, solidifying expectations for a quarter-point rate cut in December.
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Equity markets in Asia led by Japan and China were buoyed by gains in US stocks, and Asian currencies strengthened against the dollar as investors positioned for lower rates.
The exporter-heavy Nikkei 225 index in Japan was up 1.3 per cent by midday, while China’s blue-chip CSI 300 index rose 0.8 per cent past 4,000 points. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 1.5 per cent.
Yields on China’s benchmark 10-year government bonds fell almost two basis points to 1.809 per cent, widening the spread against 10-year US yields to nearly 250 basis points. Bond yields move inversely to prices. The offshore renminbi was hovering at Rmb7.27 a dollar.
“The moves in Asian markets have been fairly solid and risk on,” said Mitul Kotecha, head of emerging markets and macro strategy at Barclays. “The strong reaction in the US especially in tech stocks — Asian markets are reacting to that. The inflation numbers play to more continued easing — it’s a not-too-hot, not-too-cold scenario and that’s good for markets.”
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The Nasdaq 100 closed up 1.9 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed above 20,000 points for the first time as US tech stocks gained.
“On Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the rise of US big tech is providing a lift in the semiconductor industry,” said Jason Lui, head of Asia-Pacific equities and derivatives strategy at BNP Paribas.
The dollar weakened 0.15 per cent against a basket of currencies including the pound and Japanese yen. It has surged since Donald Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election, propelled by bets he will introduce more trade tariffs and loosen fiscal policy.
Analysts added that other factors were driving some of the Chinese gains.
“For Hong Kong and China equities, investors are turning more positive on the rising expectation of the Central Economic Work Conference outcome after the pro-growth politburo statement,” said Lui.
The Communist party’s politburo, which is led by Xi Jinping, changed its monetary policy stance on Monday to “moderately loose” from “prudent” for the first time in 14 years.
Taiwan’s benchmark stock index rose 0.6 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.1 per cent.
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis.
Ethereum is once again making headlines as co-founder Vitalik Buterin states that going forward, he will unilaterally head the Ethereum Foundation (EF) and will choose its leadership until sufficient measures are put in place. Some members of the community argue that there is no sufficient activity in the EF, but Buterin does not accept any movement in the direction of lobbying or centralization. Aside from these institutional changes, fresh ERC-20 projects like Yeti Ouro (YETIO) are poised to leverage the renewed enthusiasm of Ethereum.
Ethereum Overhaul Gains Traction: Focus Shifts To Creating Value
The restructuring of Ethereum leadership is proceeding at full pace with, Vitalik Buterin stating in an X post that the Foundation’s aims include increasing internal technical capabilities, supporting innovation in a decentralized way, and refraining from active political lobbying. Buterin’s stance is strongly supported by Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, who claims that, although Ethereum may be under heavy pressure in the short term, the focus of the network should be on building real value instead of shallow financial captures.
This is also what is driving the plan to create a “proper board” for the Foundation, which Buterin hopes will improve cooperation with wallet providers, L2s, and application developers. On the other hand, the promised additional Pectra upgrade that is claimed to introduce major speed and efficiency improvements points to the fact that Ethereum’s roadmap is still very much innovation focused.
Ethereum News: ETH Technical Outlook
Ethereum price continues to be above $3,100 on Coinmarketcap, having defended the support at $3,216 several times, all of which is happening despite the leadership tussles within the organization. Analysts observe a new emerging inverted head-and-shoulders pattern, which could push Ethereum price above $3,550, with the next critical area of concern around $4,100.
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Yeti Ouro: Meme Appeal Meets Real Utility
Ever since Ethereum has changed its direction, the users of Ethereum ecosystem have focused on Yeti Ouro’s ability to infuse meme coin culture with actual P2E offerings. This “Hot New Utility Meme Coin” is employing a 5% burn of tokens out of the total supply of 1 billion while setting aside some tokens for the community, which helps in making the tokens scarce over time.
One thing that has investors attracted to Yeti Ouro presale is its successful audit by SolidProof. This extensive auditing has built trust among the investors as it confirms its smart contracts, and general infrastructure of the project.
Possible Growth Of 1,000 Times
Some analysts suggest that Yeti Ouro could rise as high as $20 in 2025. This bold projection hinges on the continued growth of presales selling more than 131 million tokens. Such presale momentum shows its ability to attract significant inflows. Early investors have already experienced a rise in price. With the impending reveal of Yeti Go; a mindless racing game on unreal engine which incorporates PvP alongside in-game tokens, the project is gaining more traction.
The end product aims to deliver high end gameplay features:
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Destructive PvP Racing: Users can shove people off of platforms, use power-ups, and even immerse themselves fully with advanced audio such as Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos.
Staking and Marketplace: Players can stake YETIO and buy powerful assets.
It’s AAA: The environment has gone through a polished, ever evolving design. The game is processed through an iterative design that just finished its second revision.
The dev recently released a video showcasing glimpses of the level 1 map of Yeti Go game.
A report from Research and Markets indicates that the P2E gaming market currently standing at $8.5 billion is predicted to grow over $300 billion by 2030 which represents a Yeti Ouro phenomenon which empowers its P2E projects with disclosure.
Conclusion
If ETH begins to surge and the blockchain gaming market continues inflating, Yeti Ouro will make a $20 price claim which will remain unrestricted on how fast strong crypto projects can grow in a shifting market.
Yeti Ouro’s presale success will lead to bigger price rallies in the upcoming weeks, making it a prime investment. Early investors in YETIO, especially during its presale phase will see significant returns, as it will likely top presale charts.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored article and is for informational purposes only. It does not reflect the views of Crypto Daily, nor is it intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, or financial advice.
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UK ministers are exploring scrapping promised stricter audit rules for private companies as the government seeks to dial back regulation in a bid to boost economic growth.
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and employment minister Justin Madders have met large audit firms and big investors in recent months to discuss watering down or axing reforms that would designate about 600 companies “public interest entities”, according to people familiar with the talks.
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The previous Conservative government pledged to reform the UK’s audit regimes after multiple high-profile corporate failures, such as outsourcer Carillion, retailer BHS and café chain Patisserie Valerie.
In 2021, ministers proposed classifying the largest private companies and Aim-listed companies as public interest entities (PIEs). They acted after BHS’s collapse sparked questions about whether audits of non-listed companies should be scrutinised in greater depth to prevent similar failures.
The designation would place the audits of roughly 600 non-listed companies with 750 employees and more than £750mn in annual turnover under a tighter regulatory system overseen by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).
Reynolds told the Financial Times in 2023 that, if Labour won power, it would push through the long-delayed reforms. But one person familiar with the government’s thinking said the reforms were now “ancient history” because tighter auditing requirements were viewed as “another barrier, a ceiling to growth”.
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With Reynolds worried that the proposals would incentivise companies to duck below the 750-employee mark or move overseas, the government might instead compile a list of firms selected for qualitative “importance” or abandon the proposals altogether, the person added.
Ministers have in recent weeks vowed to pursue growth, and last month ordered 17 of the biggest watchdogs to set out measures to boost the economy.
On Tuesday, the government forced out the chair of the competition regulator after taking the view that the agency was not sufficiently focused on growth.
The FRC was first tasked in 2018 with improving audit quality after a rash of high-profile failures. The previous Tory government drew up a package of reforms, which included replacing the current regulator with the more powerful Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority.
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But it watered down the proposals in 2022, reducing the number of new PIEs from as many as 2,000 to 600.
Auditors had complained about the tighter scrutiny applied by the regulator in relation to PIEs, with top 10 firm Grant Thornton saying it had sworn off 70 per cent of its PIE work in the five years to 2022.
Labour used its first King’s Speech last year to promise a draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance bill. The draft legislation might still include the current PIE proposals, one of the people said, and ministers could opt to hash out the details in parliament.
One ally of Reynolds said the minister was still open-minded about the “specific thresholds” to apply to PIE, adding that the business secretary was listening carefully to views on the subject and considering the wider economic impact of the audit reforms.
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The Department for Business and Trade said it would welcome the thoughts of interested parties before publishing the draft bill later this year.
“Our top priority is boosting the economy and raising living standards for working people and that’s why our audit reform is focused on growth and supporting business to invest,” the department added.
President Donald Trump isn’t happy with how European Union regulators have treated U.S.-based tech companies, including Google, Meta, and Apple.
Onstage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump put EU regulators on blast. He said that the EU’s cases against these U.S. tech companies are “a form of taxation,” according to Bloomberg reporting.
Trump specifically pointed out a court case that Apple lost last year regarding a €13 billion tax bill in Ireland. In 2024, the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg found that Apple had benefited from illegal tax breaks in Ireland between 1999 and 2014 and was forced to pay back taxes.
Bloomberg predicted that this is just the start of a fiery back-and-forth between the Trump administration and the EU that could span the entirety of his second term.
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Google, Meta, and Apple are all currently being investigated for potential violations of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
Semler Scientific is planning to raise $75 million through a private offering of convertible senior notes, which will help fund further Bitcoin purchases.
Inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. remained sluggish on Jan. 23 as President Donald Trump’s efforts to form a working group on digital assets under an executive order failed to meet market expectations.
According to data from SoSoValue, the 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $188.65 million in net inflows on Thursday, marking their fourth consecutive day of declining inflows since the beginning of the week, when they recorded over $1 billion in inflows.
BlackRock’s IBIT attracted the lion’s share of inflows, totaling $154.6 million, leading Bitcoin ETFs in inflows for the fifth consecutive day while Bitwise’s BITB followed with inflows of $42.15 million.
More modest inflows that contributed to the positive momentum came from Invesco Galaxy’s BTCO, Grayscale’s mini Bitcoin Trust, Fidelity’s FBTC and ARK 21Shares’ ARKB which logged inflows of $12.38 million, $11.9 million, $9.16 million and $8.35 million respectively.
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Grayscale’s GBTC, which stood out as the only outlier on the day, recorded $49.94 million in outflows, offsetting some of the inflows from the other ETFs. The remaining five BTC ETFs saw zero inflows.
The total daily trading volume for Bitcoin investment vehicles reached $9.59 billion on Jan. 23, marking the second-highest level ever recorded, just behind the $10.39 billion peak seen on March 5.
Notably, the dip in inflows to Bitcoin ETFs coincided with a shift in Bitcoin’s price momentum after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that is aimed at establishing a working group focused on digital assets that fell short of expectations.
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While the order set out to advise the White House on digital asset policy and evaluate the creation of a government-held digital asset stockpile—comprising cryptocurrencies seized during investigations—it stopped short of establishing a dedicated strategic Bitcoin reserve, a move many crypto advocates had been hoping for.
Initially, Bitcoin responded positively to the announcement, climbing as much as 2.7% to reach $106,732. However, after the full details of the executive order were released, sentiment shifted, and the largest cryptocurrency by market value dropped nearly 4%, hitting $102,517. Since then, Bitcoin (BTC) has shown signs of recovery, gaining 2.1% to trade at $104,991 per coin.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) chairs the US Senate panel on crypto assets. She has promised some big changes in government policy for the sector.
A Bitcoin sovereign wealth fund Republicans are calling a “strategic national reserve” is only one of Lummis’ promises for blockchain. But markets are thrilling with bullish activity on that prospect alone.
Over the weekend, Bitcoin whales were insatiable in their accumulation.
After Republicans retook control of Congress following November’s election, the US Senate Banking Committee opened its first subcommittee panel on cryptocurrencies Thursday.
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Binance Founder: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Alert!
US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, pretty much confirmed.
The idea of a national Bitcoin reserve is so popular at the moment among US policymakers that several states are considering establishing state reserves.
Congress Convenes First Subcommittee on Crypto
The Senate Banking digital asset subcommittee will: ✔️ Pass legislation promoting responsible innovation and consumer protection ✔️ Eradicate Operation Chokepoint 2.0 ✔️ Make America the bitcoin and digital asset capital of the world
The new Senate subcommittee on digital assets has a host of issues to tackle with normalizing US government policy over blockchain. In an X post on Thursday afternoon, Sen. Lummis promised a three-point crypto agenda in 2025:
Pass legislation promoting responsible innovation and consumer protection
Eradicate Operation Chokepoint 2.0
Make America the bitcoin and digital asset capital of the world
Popular crypto markets analyst Crypto Beast replied, “we’re going much higher.” The strategic Bitcoin reserve has backing from President Trump, according to recent reports and the fact that he signed the documents.
In addition, it has a strong group of pro-crypto delegates to Congress in the new subcommittee. That includes Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who received strong backing from the pro-crypto Fairshake PAC.
Plus, there’s Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), a freshman senator who prevailed in the ballot count over the Banking Committee’s previous chair, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
Bitcoin’s price had a somewhat unexpected reaction to the aforementioned news. The asset started to lose value after the document’s signing and dropped to $102,400 before it recovered some ground to nearly $105,000 now.
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I found it interesting to check Steam’s Hardware Survey and see that of all participating players in December 2024, 19.56% game at 1440p on their main monitor.
2K is the sweet spot between visual fidelity and performance strain, so it makes sense that a sizable chunk of Steam players hang out at this resolution. The 5090 absolutely crushes most titles at 1440p and high settings, though it does underperform compared to some of its predecessors in certain situations.
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If you haven’t already checked out Newegg’s RTX 5090 stock, do give it a look. It’s running an interesting deal on GPU trade-ins right now, meaning you can clean out your old GPU and upgrade to the 5090 in one go.
Just for fun to see how much I’d get, I plugged my GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Gaming X Trio 12G in and found Newegg would pay me $419 towards a new graphics card. That’s a 20% discount on the 5090’x $1,999 price tag – not bad at all.
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(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
The RTX 5090 is the first graphics card on the market to feature GDDR7 video memory (32GB of it at that), and when combined with the improvements to DLSS, as well as Tensor and Ray Tracing Cores, it’s positioned as the first GPU viable of capably running games at 8K resolution.
Our Managing Editor, Core Tech Matt Hanson took the 5090 for a spin in graphically-demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, and Star Wars: Outlaws to test exactly this, and the results are pretty amazing. The 5090 was able to handle Cyberpunk 2077 at 8K (7,680 x 4,320) resolution, with graphics set to RT Over Drive (essentially the highest they can go), at 148.89 frames per second.
With our Nvidia RTX 5090 review live and its benches marked, we finally have some numbers to share with the more quantitatively inclined. The graphs below show how the new RTX 5090 stacks up against cards like the RTX 4090 and 4080, as well as the RX 7900 XTX and 7900XT on AMD’s side.
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Yes, there’s a boost where DLSS is considered; but there’s also a markable upgrade over the previous generation without upscaling in the frame. As per our 5090 review, “With ray tracing and no upscaling, the difference is even more pronounced with the RTX 5090 getting just over 34% faster average framerates compared to the RTX 4090 (with a more modest 7% faster average minimum/1% fps).”
These are some exciting performance bumps, and I have a feeling the 5000 series will fly off the shelves particularly quickly.
When it comes to availability, I’ve done my best to provide a breakdown of the key retailers to watch out for higher up in this article, but be aware that stock is extremely likely to all but evaporate on launch day. Some sites, including Best Buy, Scan, and Nvidia’s own site are offering a ‘Notify Me’ feature which can alert you via email or text message when stock drops on January 30.
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It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that Nvidia’s own site will often redirect shoppers to other retailers, especially if you’re looking to buy a third-party version of the RTX 5090, so it’s a good idea to keep tabs on actual seller sites instead.
The real question for any shoppers out there is whether or not they should spring for the RTX 5090, or its little sibling the RTX 5080 – after all, the 5080 is quite literally half the price of the 5090 at $999 / £979 compared to the 5090’s $1,999 / £1,939 price tag.
Although we haven’t quite finished our testing with the cheaper (imagine me doing air quotes around that particular word) GPU, it’s fair to say that the 5080 won’t offer a pure half of the performance available on the 5090, especially once DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation are factored in. Of course, the RTX 5090 will likely be the more future-proofed choice, and it does carry with it certain bragging rights…
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If you’re currently rocking an RTX 3000 GPU in your rig and have been contemplating an upgrade once the next-gen cards drop (well, why else would you be here?) – you might want to know that Nvidia is potentially planning some retroactive upgrades to your GPU.
Nvidia VP Bryan Catanzaro recently suggested that it might be possible to bring Frame Generation to RTX 3000 cards, as the new version of Team Green’s frame-gen tech doesn’t rely on the Optical Flow hardware accelerator that enabled the tool in the RTX 4000 generation. Instead, it uses an AI-based solution, something that RTX 3000 cards – with their AI-capable Tensor Cores – could potentially utilize. In order words, that cutting-edge technology might soon be available for users with older GPUs, potentially nixing the need for an immediate upgrade.
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Some of you might be sitting there wondering about DLSS 4 and its fancy new Multi Frame Generation tech (the latter of which will be exclusive to RTX 5000 GPUs). The viability of DLSS and other upscaling tools of its ilk has been hotly contested by some sectors of the PC gaming community, some of whom claim that it’s become a crutch – an excuse for Nvidia to dial back generational hardware improvements and for game developers to cheap out on PC optimization.
But if recently released usage data is accurate (and there’s frankly no reason to believe it’s not), it looks like DLSS is here to stay. Thankfully, the new DLSS 4 will be backward compatible with all RTX GPUs back to the 2000 generation – unlike DLSS 3, which was locked to RTX 4000 cards exclusively.
(Image credit: Future)
Our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review is now live! Our components editor, John Loeffler, gave it 4.5 stars, calling it “the supercar of graphics cards”. He did knock it a bit for its “obscene” power consumption, which exceeded 550W in his testing, but praised its redesigned cooling and slimmer form factor.
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Overall, it’s a major step up from the RTX 4090 in terms of performance, even without factoring in DLSS 4, so once that upscaling tech rolls out on launch day, you can expect even better performance.
The new, sleeker RTX 5000 design reportedly almost didn’t happen: earlier this week, we spotted a mysterious possible RTX 5090 prototype that was a seriously beefy boy, packing specs beyond the real 5090 and a truly absurd 800W power requirement.
While that prototype remains shrouded in uncertainty, it’s possible that it might rear its head further down the line if Nvidia chooses to resurrect its long-dormant Titan RTX series for professional users.
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If you’ve somehow stumbled onto the wrong page and were actually looking for Nvidia’s more affordable (but still definitively high-end) new GPU, you can check out our where to buy the RTX 5080 guide instead. I’ll be making sure both pages stay updated regularly up to launch day and beyond to help you track down stock, and it’s worth bearing in mind that the RTX 5080 might be a little easy to get hold of than the flagship 5090 – so if you’re desperate for shiny new graphics card, that could be a better bet.
Fun fact: the RTX 5090 is going to be quite a bit smaller than its predecessor the RTX 4090, despite ostensibly being a more powerful card. Yes, I have to say ‘ostensibly’ because we’re not past the review embargo yet, but come on, we all know it’s going to perform better.
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I’m personally over the moon that Nvidia has opted to slim things down for this new high-end GPU, because quite frankly the RTX 4090 was a comically oversized beast of a card regardless of which model you bought. All of the Founders Edition models of every upcoming RTX 5000 card will be certified for Nvidia’s own Small Form Factor Ready scheme, meaning lovers of compact PCs and living-room builds can rejoice.
There have been rumors about RTX 5000 stock shortages circling for the past few days, but even if they prove to be untrue, I strongly suspect that we’re going to see an absolute sell-out almost immediately on launch day. With no pre-orders in sight to secure you a unit in advance, your best bet is likely going to be camping on multiple retailer sites (which I’ve handily organized for you above).
The scalpers are likely to be out in force again for this launch, even now that crypto-mining isn’t as widespread and prevalent as it was during previous GPU releases. The RTX 4090 never really got over its stock issues, with units still selling above MSRP on sites like Amazon. However, that was arguably down to how much of a letdown the RTX 4080 was – hopefully this time around, Nvidia will get things right with its new not-quite-flagship GPU.
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Although you’ll still have to wait a few hours until we’re allowed to publish our review – we really don’t want to hear from Nvidia’s legal team today! – you can check out our RTX 5090 unboxing right now to get an early sneak peek at the contents of the package.
A new type of power adapter is now included in the box, making it easier to install the GPU inside smaller PC cases and hopefully putting to bed any previous thorny issues with melting power connectors…
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(Image credit: Nvidia / Future)
Here we go again, folks… Nvidia is about to drop its new next-gen flagship graphics card, the RTX 5090 (as well as its little brother the RTX 5080), and you can bet that hordes of gamers – and scalpers – will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on one.
As someone who’s currently got an RTX 4080 sitting inside my home PC, I’m feeling rather comfortable this time around – not beset with the urgent need to upgrade that I felt during the last big Nvidia launch. But that doesn’t mean I’m not here to help you out: with the January 30 release date closing in and the review embargo lifting today, January 23, I’ll be here for the next few weeks to keep tabs on stock and (hopefully!) point you in the right direction.
You’ll be able to check out our review later today, but right here I’ve compiled all the retailers you’ll want to keep an eye on when it comes to tracking down one of these highly-coveted GPUs. Some storefronts, such as Newegg, already have dedicated landing pages for the RTX 5090, but nowhere seems to be offering any sort of pre-orders yet – it’s possible they won’t at all. However, some retailers – including Nvidia itself – are allowing shoppers to sign up for email notifications.
Be sure to bookmark this page and check back for more updates – I’ll be keeping a close watch on retailers for any updates as stock shifts, so you can be the first to know.
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