The TRUMP coin has shown wild price swings, jumping from under $10 to $75 before dropping to $32.44. The MELANIA coin has followed a similar pattern. Warren emphasized the dangers these volatile coins pose to investors, highlighting their speculative and trend-driven nature.

A key issue raised is the possibility of foreign influence. Warren cautioned that foreign governments or individuals could purchase these coins, potentially funneling money to the Trump family. This, she argued, could threaten U.S. national security and spark ethical concerns.

Warren also criticized the lack of consumer protections, noting that the coin issuers include disclaimers that absolve them of fraud responsibility. She pointed out that the Trump family’s large ownership stake could lead to disproportionate profits, leaving regular investors at risk of financial losses.

The senator urged agencies like the SEC and CFTC to investigate potential violations of federal securities and commodities laws. She also questioned how regulators plan to monitor these coins moving forward.

Separately, Warren wrote to DOGE Chair Elon Musk, suggesting ways to reduce government spending. This broader effort underscores her push for transparency and accountability across financial and governmental sectors.

Video game giant Atari has unveiled 500 limited-edition physically redeemable NFTs through DYLI, a blockchain-powered collectibles marketplace.

Through a Jan. 23 announcement, the New York-headquartered gaming firm announced the launch of limited edition collectible patches themed around its gaming legacy.

Each of the packs will be priced at $15 and will contain one of seven new patch designs or a vintage patch from the 1980s, along with a chance to score bonus items like gift cards or a special item signed by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.

The packs will be sold on DYLI, a blockchain-powered marketplace built on Abstract chain, an upcoming Ethereum layer 2 developed by Pudgy Penguins creator Igloo Inc. Each patch pack is tied to a redeemable NFT, which will allow buyers to unlock their items digitally before claiming the physical versions, according to a blog post from Atari.

However, the NFT packs would only reveal the specific patch design upon purchase, while any bonus items will remain undisclosed until the physical pack is redeemed.

All NFTs will be stored and managed on DYLI’s integrated wallet, which supports gas-free transactions with fees covered via Abstract Chain’s native paymasters. Buyers can hold their NFT packs indefinitely or trade them on DYLI’s secondary marketplace, where users can buy, sell, or relist the packs before choosing to redeem the physical versions.

The packs are slated for launch next week. According to DYLI founder Alex Needelman, these “partner drops” will help onboard the “next million users to DYLI and Abstract Chain.”

For Atari, it’s far from its first foray into blockchain. The gaming pioneer has been exploring Web3 initiatives since as early as 2018, with the launch of its own cryptocurrency ATRI.

Over the years, it has continued to expand its presence in the sector by partnering with industry heavyweights like Enjin and LiteCoin. 

Last year, it partnered with Coinbase to launch Onchain Arcade on Ethereum L2 base to bring its classic games like Asteroids and Breakout to the blockchain.

Other major names in the gaming industry, like Sega and Ubisoft, have also ventured into blockchain gaming. 

Sega has partnered with Oasys, a gaming-optimized blockchain platform, to bring its popular title Sangokushi Taisen, into the Web3 space. Similarly, Ubisoft announced its first blockchain-based game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, which will launch on the Oasys blockchain.

According to recent data from the International Energy Agency, industrial sectors, such as chemical manufacturing and mining, currently contribute 25% of all global CO2 emissions and 37% of all global energy consumption.

Industries face increasing pressure to develop net-zero roadmaps. As sustainability rises on the corporate agenda, digitalization contributes to a clear, strategic path to achieving commercial, operational, and sustainability goals for today’s industrial enterprises.

Industry 4.0: Accelerating Sustainability in Industrial Enterprises

In an analysis provided by crypto analyst Kevin (@Kev_Capital_TA), Dogecoin (DOGE) emerges as an altcoin defying current market skepticism, with technical indicators suggesting a bullish continuation rather than a peak.

Dogecoin Is Still Bullish

Kevin’s latest post on X highlights Dogecoin’s performance against its 50 and 200-day simple moving averages (SMA). “Dogecoin is still seeing fast expansion on the 50 and 200 simple moving averages after its weekly golden cross occurred,” he noted. This golden cross, a bullish indicator where the 50-day SMA crosses above the 200-day SMA, suggests sustained upward momentum.

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Further examining the Fibonacci retracement levels, Kevin pointed out that Dogecoin is “above the macro golden pocket at .26 cents and is battling the macro .786.” The ‘golden pocket’—typically located between the 0.618 and 0.65 Fibonacci levels—is often considered a crucial support zone. Kevin argues that maintaining a price above this level is bullish.

“If you think this chart is bearish in its current spot then you need some help. Not gonna focus on individual altcoins very much because BTC will determine the next move in the market no matter what your altcoin chart looks like but needed to remind people who are bad mouthing how crazy they look when we’re at the same price we were at in November when the market was rallying hard. Nothing has changed and cycle tops don’t occur when everyone is bearish,” Kevin expounded.

Kevin further illustrated the erratic nature of crypto market sentiment, contrasting reactions from November and January. “When Dogecoin was hitting .35 cents in November, everyone was screaming to the hills that they were so bullish. DOGE at .35 cents in January, everyone is screaming that Doge sucks, I should have sold this thing a long time ago. Do you see how market psychology works? Pretty interesting,” he detailed.

Bitcoin Needs To Move First

Kevin also discussed Bitcoin’s influence on the broader crypto market, emphasizing its role as a leading indicator for altcoins like Dogecoin. He labeled yesterday’s market reaction to the crypto executive order by US President Donald Trump as a non-impactful in the long run.

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“BTC time and time again has failed to break the 1.703 FIB at 106.8K. Even though we broke out of this bullish falling channel on the daily time frame, we have failed to see any real money flow come into the asset if anything it has been decreasing over the last 48 hours. The Trump executive order was an obvious buy the rumor, sell the news event like all events are, so to me, that was always a nothing burger,” he elaborated.

Despite these challenges, Kevin remains optimistic about Bitcoin’s potential for recovery. “I still think we’re experiencing seasonality in BTC as January’s are always really bad months, especially in the post halving year. I believe the goal should be to demoralize and anger as many investors as possible before starting the next leg higher, which should come within the next 1-3 weeks. Stay tuned!” he predicts.

At press time, DOGE traded at $0.35.

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

Ethereum scaling plans and network applications should start supporting the network’s native ether (ETH) to further bump value for the asset, co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote in a post on Friday.

“We should pursue a multi-pronged strategy, to cover all major possible sources of the value of ETH as a triple-point asset,” Buterin said as part of a longer post on layer-2 scaling, security and interoperability. “Agree broadly to cement ETH as the primary asset of the greater (L1 + L2) Ethereum economy, support applications using ETH as the primary collateral.”

Buterin called for implementing incentives for layer 2 networks to allocate a portion of their fees to ETH using mechanisms like burning fees, staking them permanently, or directing proceeds towards public goods in the Ethereum ecosystem.

His comments come amid rising criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, the grant-giving nonprofit that helps support Ethereum, as the asset loses market cap and mindshare to competitors.

The widely watched ether-bitcoin ratio is down to 2021 levels. Bitcoin touched a record high above $109,000 earlier Monday and has returned 160% to investors over the past year. Ether, in the meantime, has gained just 40% in the period and is hovering some 30% below its 2021 peak, as a CoinDesk analysis showed.

Another call-out was to increase Ethereum’s blob count while setting a minimum price for blobs, viewing them as “another possible revenue generator.”

“If you take the average blob fee of the last 30 days, and suppose it stays the same (due to induced demand) while blob count increases to 128, Ethereum would burn 713,000 ETH per year,” Buterin noted, adding that such a favorable demand curve was “not guaranteed” and hence not an isolated strategy to bump ETH’s value.

Blobs are like regular transactions with an extra piece of transaction data attached. However, unlike traditional transactions, blob-carrying transactions do not permanently occupy the mainnet space and are only available for 18 days.

Since November, the daily tally of blobs averaged a record 21,000, with just two Layer 2s – Coinbase’s BASE and World Chain – accounting for 55% of the daily activity. Sustained demand for Layer 2s could quickly deplete available capacity, as a CoinDesk analysis noted earlier in the week.

OpenAI’s board is locked in complex negotiations to become a for-profit company, struggling to determine the price of Microsoft’s stake in the start-up while holding talks to value its newly formed charitable arm at $30bn.

The ChatGPT-maker, which is overseen by its not-for-profit board, has been discussing a restructuring since September that would split the start-up in two. Its charitable arm, tasked with OpenAI’s original mission of “benefiting humanity”, would be given a stake in the newly formed public benefit corporation (PBC). 

One obstacle to the conversion has been determining how much equity the start-up’s biggest backer, Microsoft, would hold in the PBC, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Other considerations, such as how much equity chief executive Sam Altman will be granted in the new company, must also be ironed out.

According to three people familiar with the negotiations, the charitable arm could be valued at about $30bn, but a final price is yet to be determined. The majority of that value would be realised in the form of equity in the PBC, one person added, with the remainder paid in cash.

“That is a new phenomenon where non-profits have stakes in the for-profit,” said Karla Dennis, chief executive of tax advisory KDA, who added that such transactions were more typically paid in cash.

A restructuring will create “one of the best resourced non-profits in history”, according to OpenAI. But some, including Elon Musk, argue that the true value of the non-profit is far higher, given its current control over OpenAI, which has been valued at $157bn.

The switch is designed to allow OpenAI to raise tens of billions of dollars more from investors, which the start-up views as essential to develop cutting-edge AI models ahead of rivals. But it is also a major break from OpenAI’s foundation as a non-profit and a highly complex move for which there is little legal precedent.

OpenAI agreed a two-year time limit to complete the conversion with investors as part of its latest funding round in September. If the change is not complete by the deadline, investors can claw back some of the $6.6bn they put into the company.

Of its current stakeholders, Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI is the most sensitive.

Figuring out how much equity Microsoft can have without attracting antitrust attention is another crucial part of the hold-up to converting into a PBC, said one person close to OpenAI.

OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment.

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced it would change the structure of its deal with OpenAI to enable the start-up to use rivals’ cloud-computing services.

The move means that Microsoft will relinquish its position as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud service provider but retain the right of first refusal. Microsoft said several “key elements” of its partnership with OpenAI would remain in place until the end of 2030, when their current deal, including revenue-sharing arrangements, concludes.

That move came as OpenAI announced this week it was joining a joint venture with Japan’s SoftBank dubbed Stargate, with plans to build at least $100bn on AI infrastructure in the US.

The move to become a for-profit company has proved controversial in Silicon Valley as the battle over OpenAI’s future is set to influence the global race to develop and commercialise generative AI.

The proposed transaction has led to vociferous lawsuits from Musk, an OpenAI co-founder who has since set up a rival group, xAI. Musk has sought an injunction against the conversion, claiming OpenAI has duped early donors, including himself, who thought they were backing a research group.

OpenAI was founded as a non-profit organisation in 2015. In 2019, it developed a for-profit subsidiary, which capped returns for investors and gave the non-profit board full control over the for-profit arm.

Currently, its financial future is tied to developments such as reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI), a point where the technology has similar levels of intelligence to humans. Clauses relating to AGI are being written out of the new structure, the Financial Times has previously reported.

The company’s complex corporate governance came under scrutiny in November 2023, when its non-profit board ousted Altman, only for him to be reinstated soon after.

People close to the negotiations are hopeful the transaction can be completed this year, but added that the conversations are subject to change and likely to carry on for some months.

The complexities of pricing such a nascent and powerful technology is another issue.

That decision falls on OpenAI’s board, which includes Altman, former Salesforce chief Bret Taylor and former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers. They owe their principal duty to “humanity, not OpenAI investors”, according to the start-up’s charter.

“There’s an obvious conflict of interest for the board when it is negotiating [the value of the non-profit]. Of course, the board wants to pay as little cash as it can possibly justify,” said a former OpenAI employee. “I’m not even sure a true arms-length process could resolve this conflict.” 

Kathleen Jennings, attorney-general in Delaware where OpenAI is incorporated, has asked for more information on the deal.

Jennings has said it is her responsibility to ensure the conversion is at a fair price and for the public benefit. However, OpenAI has not yet provided such details as they are still being settled internally and with stakeholders.

“There’s no real precedent for this,” said a person with knowledge of the deliberations. “A research company that became worth $157bn.”

Additional reporting by Tabby Kinder and Stephen Morris in San Francisco