16th anniversary of Bitcoin's inception
As of January 3, 2025, Bitcoin has been around for 16 years. The Bitcoin genesis block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on a small server in Helsinki, Finland, on January 3, 2009 (Beijing time January 4, 2009, 02:15:05), with a block reward of 50 BTC.
Satoshi Nakamoto recorded the headline of the day’s front page from The Times in the CoinBase data of the genesis block: 'The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks'. There was only one transaction in the block, with a block reward of 50 bitcoins.
Related reading: (16 years of Bitcoin: from zero to $100,000, reviewing the evolutionary history of BTC)
A man in Xiamen was prosecuted for stealing others' virtual currency under theft charges.
On January 3, according to Xiamen Evening News, a man stole virtual currency from others and cashed out over 1.6 million yuan after losing money helping a friend invest in futures. Recently, the Huli District People's Procuratorate in Xiamen, China, has reviewed and prosecuted this theft case.
The Huli District People's Procuratorate has brought Chen to trial for theft. According to Article 264 of the Criminal Law, theft of public or private property, especially large amounts or with other particularly serious circumstances, is punishable by more than ten years of fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment, and a fine or confiscation of property.
Hong Kong Legislative Council member Wu Jietzhuang: Bitcoin can be tried first before being fully implemented as part of Hong Kong's foreign exchange fund assets
According to a report by Hong Kong Wen Wei Po on December 30, Wu Jietzhuang, a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and chairman of the Web3 Virtual Assets Development Committee, stated in an interview that Hong Kong needs to study how to maintain national financial security in an environment where the U.S. is meddling with Bitcoin and affecting traditional asset markets. He suggested that Hong Kong should leverage the advantages of 'one country, two systems' to try first before fully implementing Bitcoin into foreign exchange fund assets, exploring ways to activate the Bitcoin held.
The total market value of AI sector tokens exceeded $48.7 billion; the total market value of AI Agent exceeded $16.9 billion
On January 2, according to CoinGecko data, the total market value of AI sector tokens surpassed $48.7 billion, with a 24-hour increase of 13.3%, and a 24-hour trading volume of $3.93 billion. The total market value of AI Agent sector tokens surpassed $16.9 billion, with a 24-hour increase of 22.7%. Currently, 21 types of AI Agent tokens have market values exceeding $100 million, with the leading tokens being: VIRTUAL with a market value of $4.99 billion, a 24-hour increase of 22.4%, and a 7-day increase of 60.4%; ai16Z with a market value of $2.58 billion, a 24-hour increase of 22.5%, and a 7-day increase of 179.1%; AIXBT with a market value of $636 million, a 24-hour increase of 1.3%, and a 7-day increase of 78.1%; FAI with a market value of $37 million, a 24-hour increase of 22.9%, and a 7-day increase of 107.5%.
Related reading: (AI Agent newcomer Swarms increased 7 times in a week, what other ecological potential projects are there?)
Security company: Beware of new types of scams where scammers pretend to be newcomers sharing mnemonic phrases and use multi-signature wallets to defraud gas fees.
On December 30, according to CoinDesk, a new type of scam targeting cryptocurrency thieves has become popular on YouTube, according to a report from security company Kaspersky. Scammers disguise themselves as newcomers and intentionally 'accidentally' share wallet mnemonic phrases in the comments section, luring others to attempt to steal USDT worth $8,000 from the wallet.
However, these wallets are actually multi-signature wallets, and when thieves pay TRX as gas fees to attempt a transfer, these TRX are automatically transferred to another wallet controlled by the scammer. Since the gas fees on most blockchains are less than $10, this scam mainly targets small-time thieves rather than large-scale operations.
