CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3809.52, down 4.3% (-172.06) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

One of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: ETC (+2.1%) and ETH (-1.4%).

Laggards: SOL (-8.8%) and AVAX (-5.7%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

The latest batch of new Pokémon TCG Pocket cards finally has a concrete release date, but it seems like you won’t be able to trade them right off the bat.

The Pokémon Company announced today that Space-Time Smackdown, Pokémon TCG Pocket’s latest expansion, is set to debut at the end of the month right after the game’s trading feature launches on January 29th. While cards from the last set could all be obtained from a single type of pack, Space-Time Smackdown — which includes a number of monsters from Pokémon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum — will come from packs featuring the legendary Pokémon Dialga and Palkia.

Along with Space-Time Smackdown’s announcement, TCPi also revealed a bit more about how the trading mechanic will involve two new types of in-game currencies — trade houseglasses and trade tokens. It seems as if there will be cooldown periods as well as a cost if you want to swap cards from Pocket’s Genetic Apex and Mythical Island sets with other players. But there will definitely be some waiting involved for people hoping to trade Space-Time Smackdown, which will not be tradeable until a later date after it drops on January 30th.

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Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner in the race to become Germany’s chancellor, has warned German companies about the “great risk” of investing in China.

“I say to all representatives of the German economy that the decision to invest in China is a decision involving great risk,” the Christian Democratic party chief said in Berlin on Thursday. He issued his warning during questions and answers after a far-ranging foreign policy speech that highlighted a pro-EU, Atlanticist vision of Berlin’s role on the global stage.

“My heartfelt request to all companies . . . limit the risk you take in order to avoid endangering your own company if it triggers an immediate write-off,” said Merz.

China was not abiding by western rule of law standards, he added.

“You must expect major disruptions if you take this risk. I’ve talked to a whole range of small and medium-sized and also very large companies . . . If you take this risk and if you have to write off these investments from one year to the next, then please do not, under any circumstances, come to the state . . . for help.”

This is a developing story 

Back in 2023, Ashi Dissanayake, cofounder of in-space fueling startup Spacium, was so bootstrapped she used the surface of her clothes dryer as a desk, sticking her legs inside the drying machine. Her computer was perched beside Tide Pods and she was surrounded by disembodied robotic arms, working late into the night with her cofounder, Reza Fetanat. Back then, the pair worked out of a tiny Ottawa apartment. 

Since then, they’ve moved to an office with real desks, gone through Y Combinator, and, today, announced an oversubscribed $6.3 million seed round led by Initialized Capital. The company is planning a demo mission of their product capabilities later this year, and Dissanayake said they have a “strong pipeline of customers.” 

The two cofounders bonded at University of Ottawa over their mutual space obsession and teamed up for research projects. “We were building the rockets, rocket structures, propulsion system, as well as the parachutes that would bring the rocket back,” she said, adding they would put samples in the rockets, shoot them up as high as 30,000 feet, and then send the data back to Canadian labs. 

As they worked on research, Dissanayake and Fetanat realized that “the biggest bottleneck” in the industry was the lack of refueling options in space. Right now, a spacecraft has to be equipped with all the fuel it needs for a mission. “And after the mission ends, the spacecraft basically becomes space debris,” she said.  

For longer missions or deep space missions — like, say, colonizing Mars — companies will need to have access to fuel in space. “Our big mission would be to build the space super highway, where we have multiple refueling stations where a spacecraft can come dock, refill, and go about their way,” she said. 

Spacium is not the only company with this dream: Orbit Fab is also working on in-space refueling, and has a several year head start. Additionally, Japanese aerospace company Astroscale won a $25.5 million U.S. Space Force contract to build a refueling vehicle. 

But Dissanayake feels confident they have a competitive advantage. “We have actually developed a very unique system where we can store the fuel for longer periods of time, which was actually not done before,” she said, declining to give further details. 

Dissanayake has a long way to go, but she hopes one day she can take a trip up to space, look out into the abyss, “and then actually see our stations from where we are.”

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is set to hire 5,000 additional tax inspectors as part of a major clampdown on small businesses and their owners.

The expansion, revealed in the HMRC Customer Service & Accounts report published yesterday, aims to secure £6.5billion in additional revenue by 2029/30.

HMRC is hiring thousands of new officers to target tax dodgers

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According to HMRC’s June tax gap report, small businesses now account for 60 per cent of the overall tax gap, up from 44 per cent in 2018-19.

The current tax gap attributed to small businesses stands at £24.1billion. Price Bailey’s data shows HMRC’s customer compliance staff has increased by 26 per cent over the past three years, rising from 25,442 in 2021/22 to 32,017 in 2023/24.

As the firm reports, HMRC is increasingly conducting parallel investigations, examining both businesses and their directors simultaneously.

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Tax inspectors are now more likely to review multiple years of accounts in a single investigation. This enhanced scrutiny comes despite HMRC’s reported struggles with tackling serious tax evasion, including electronic sales suppression in retail and directors avoiding tax debts through company wind-ups.

HMRC is looking to see where business owners are failing to pay tax

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Andrew Park, an investigations partner at Price Bailey, criticised the Government’s previous focus on offshore tax compliance.

“It was clear to anyone looking closely at the numbers that the Government’s plan to slash the tax gap by targeting wealthy individuals with offshore assets was fanciful. It was simply a politically expedient thing to say,” he states.

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Park warns that HMRC will need to target ordinary business owners to achieve its goals.

“To make a serious dent in the tax gap HMRC will need to go after a vast swathe of working people on ordinary incomes,” he explains.

The shift comes as HMRC faces pressure to increase revenue amid rising Government borrowing costs.

“With Government borrowing costs rising and the Chancellor desperate to avoid more tax rises, there is growing pressure on HMRC to save the day by bringing in billions more in revenue,” Park adds.

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Britons could be targeted in HMRC’s efforts to clampdown on tax evasion

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According to Price Bailey, HMRC will be placing particular scrutiny on the costs businesses are trying to claim back as an expense from the tax authority.

“Business expenses account for a large portion of the small business tax gap,” said Park.

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He reveals some striking examples of questionable expense claims: “I have seen owner-managers claiming tax relief for expensive suits, leisure travel, family birthday parties and in one case even a hovercraft.”

Small business owners are being advised to consider protection against the growing risk of investigations.