Interactive Brokers Integrates USDC, US Bank Questions Stablecoin, What's the Overseas Buzz?

Publication Date: January 16, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has witnessed a variety of dynamics ranging from macroeconomic discussions to ecosystem-specific developments. Mainstream topics have mainly focused on X Platform shutting down InfoFi project API access, on-chain fund movements related to Kaito, the intersection of crypto and the entertainment industry, and the impact of stablecoin yields on the traditional banking model. In terms of ecosystem development, Solana continues to demonstrate strong cross-chain funding capabilities, while Ethereum has made progress on institutionalization, staking infrastructure, and privacy narratives. In the Perp DEX track, a new round of competition has emerged around CEX listings, equity perps, and the productization of spot stock.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. X Shuts Down InfoFi Project API Access, Kaito Team Suspected of Token Dumping

X Platform revised its developer API policy, explicitly banning InfoFi-type applications that "reward users for posting" (such as Kaito Yaps, Cookie, etc.) from continuing to call the interface, as these products were deemed to foster a large amount of AI-generated junk content and reply spam. API access has been revoked, and the market widely expects an overall improvement in platform user experience soon.

As a result, Kaito-related tokens and NFTs have come under significant pressure: their NFT floor price has dropped by over 60%. Furthermore, on-chain data shows that the Kaito team wallet transferred 5 million $KAITO to Binance 7 days before the token unlock, which some users interpreted as a potential dumping signal. Nevertheless, $KAITO has seen an overall increase in value this week.

The community reaction has been intense. Most users support X's decision, believing it will put an end to the long-standing "AI reply epidemic" and engagement farming issue plaguing Crypto Twitter, thereby improving information quality. Some have taken the opportunity to mock the InfoFi "farming ecosystem" and questioned whether the Kaito team was aware of the policy change in advance and sold off tokens during the unlocking window. Overall, sentiment has not turned to panic, with many seeing it as a positive step towards "fixing Crypto Twitter."

2. Bitmine Invests in MrBeast's Crypto Startup

Bitmine ($BMNR) has announced a $200 million investment in MrBeast's holding company, Beast Industries, seen as a significant signal of further integration between the crypto industry and mainstream entertainment. Additionally, the Ethereum Key Opinion Leader (KOL) group has been likened to the "Avengers," further strengthening the market's imagination of the ecosystem impact that this collaboration may bring.

Many users are excited about this, believing that such cross-industry cooperation is expected to expand the Ethereum ecosystem's viral spread and increase user outreach. Some are more cautious, believing that this may be more of a "branding collaboration" or narrative boost, and may not directly translate into on-chain fees and real business growth. The overall discussion is still leaning towards the positive, with more focus on the ETH narrative momentum and the cross-layer impact.

3. U.S. Bank CEO's Stablecoin Comments Spark Controversy

The CEO of Bank of America stated during an earnings call that the yield provided by stablecoins could lead to deposit outflows, thus weakening the bank's ability to lend to small businesses. However, critics argue that the banking system does not primarily rely on small business lending for profits; instead, a significant portion of its profit comes from "dark patterns," maintaining the interest rate spread by making it difficult for retail users to access close to T-bill risk-free returns.

The community as a whole strongly criticized the bank's stance, believing that its core demand is still to protect vested interests, and stablecoins have precisely exposed the structural "income suppression" of traditional finance on ordinary depositors. Some also pointed out that small business loans are highly reliant on policy subsidies or government mechanisms, rather than banks actively taking risks. The controversy ultimately returns to regulation and incentive mechanisms: stablecoins are forcing the traditional financial system to face the long-overlooked issue of "income attribution."

4. Interactive Brokers to Accept USDC Deposits

Interactive Brokers announced the launch of 24/7 USDC funding support to provide retail traders with a more flexible deposit and transfer experience. There are also reports in the market that Ripple and PayPal's stablecoin products may follow suit next week. Overall, this move is seen as an important step in the accelerated integration of stablecoins with the traditional financial system and is expected to further drive mainstream adoption of stablecoins.

The community sentiment is generally optimistic, with many users seeing this as significant for the crypto industry and using it to mock the slow response of traditional finance to the 24-hour trading demand. Some are concerned about the actual capacity of the infrastructure and discuss whether it will expand to more on-chain assets (such as $ETH, $SOL, etc.) in the future. Overall, the market expectation is positive, believing that this will significantly improve retail users' fund efficiency and trading experience.

5. Bridge Releases Guide: How Credit Card Projects Transform Stablecoins into Real-world Consumption

Bridge has released a new guide, systematically explaining how credit card projects can convert stablecoins into daily payment capabilities, addressing the stablecoin's landing issues in the "last mile" consumer scenario. This mechanism is believed to open up new revenue streams for platforms, fintech companies, and crypto businesses, and drive the migration of stablecoins from an "investment tool" to a "payment tool."

Although the discussion is not very heated, the overall feedback is mostly positive. Some users have referred to it as a "match made in heaven," emphasizing the scalability potential in the payment scenario. The discussion mostly focuses on risk structure design and long-term sustainability. However, the mainstream view acknowledges its value in driving the utility of stablecoins.

6. On-Chain Lending Institution Figure Launches OPEN Platform, Issues Native On-Chain Equity

On-chain lending institution Figure Technology has launched the OPEN (On-Chain Public Equity Network) platform, aiming to become the first company to issue public equity native to the blockchain. The platform supports limit order book trading, DeFi integration, and allows for swaps with traditional NMS securities (cost-free, no tax event). In contrast to attempts to "package" DTCC securities on-chain or tokenize through SPV structures, OPEN emphasizes the native on-chain public equity, seeking to provide a new issuance path for more public companies.

The community discussion is quite active, with an overall optimistic sentiment. Most users consider this a "major breakthrough" and believe its potential value may far exceed the current market understanding. Some are more focused on technical details like the swapping mechanism or see it as a progressive revolution in asset on-chainization "progressing by asset class." The general view is that this attempt holds potential significance for shareholder liquidity and DeFi expansion.

7. Sam Altman Teams Up with World Founders to Bet on Brain-Machine Interfaces

Alex Blania and Sam Altman, among others, co-founded Merge Labs, a research and development lab focusing on Brain-Machine Interfaces (BCI), with the aim of bridging biological and artificial intelligence to enhance human capabilities, autonomy, and experience. The lab was officially announced on January 15, 2026, and completed a $252 million seed round, with investors including OpenAI, Bain Capital, Gabe Newell, among others, valuing the company at around $850 million post-investment.

Unlike Neuralink's invasive implantation approach, Merge has opted for a non-invasive technological path, such as combining ultrasound and engineered proteins to achieve high-bandwidth brain signal reading, avoiding brain implant surgery. The founding team also includes experts like Tyson Aflalo, Sandro Herbig, Sumner Norman, Mikhail Shapiro, among others. The disclosed roadmap is to first enter the medical application field, with a long-term goal aimed at a broader "human augmentation." Blania will continue to serve as the CEO of Tools for Humanity and views Merge as a key mission under the same era proposition as World. The announcement blog emphasizes ongoing sharing of progress and tools, as well as open recruitment.

After the message was released, community discussion quickly heated up. Many users saw it as a significant signal of AI-human integration, interpreting it even as a "Sam Altman's response to Elon Musk's Neuralink." The non-invasive route was widely seen as significantly lowering the barrier to entry, with "no surgery required" being the most commonly emphasized highlight; and the $252 million seed round scale further amplified the event's impact. Some views further suggested that BCI could become a "direct interface" for future interaction with AI.

At the same time, Wired, TechCrunch, and other media outlets and opinion leaders quickly followed up with reports, emphasizing that OpenAI's involvement could mean stronger strategic coordination. However, controversies also arose: first, concerns about privacy and ethics, questioning whether companies should have access to "brain data"; second, discussions of potential conflicts of interest regarding Altman's dual role; third, negative associations brought by Worldcoin's historical controversies. Overall, the discussion still remains mostly positive, but critics remain vigilant about long-term risks and feasibility.

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Dynamics

1. Solana

STRK and LIT Tokens Listed on Solana Exchange

The STRK token from Starknet has been officially integrated into Solana via NEAR Intents and is now available for trading on applications like Meteora and Jupiter. As a ZK Rollup, Starknet focuses on a low-cost, high-throughput execution environment and uses the Cairo language as a differentiated tool stack. Meanwhile, Lighter's LIT token has also been listed on Solana through Sunrise DeFi. Many users describe Solana as a "supermassive black hole" attracting cross-chain assets, believing that this round of asset imports further strengthens Solana's compatibility and liquidity depth.

Community discussions are lively, with an overall mood leaning towards excitement. Many users praise Solana's narrative rhythm and marketing tactics, seeing these cross-chain fundraises as a clever "5D chess" strategy. Some also joke about Starknet's lack of native ecosystem attractiveness, but the mainstream view still emphasizes Solana's fund suction power and community activity, believing that "assets will continue to flock here."

Solana Core Development Team Anza Releases 2026 Roadmap

The Solana core development team Anza has released the 2026 roadmap, covering multiple plans from Alpenglow to MCP, with a focus on the continuous optimization of the client Agave, improvement of developer tools, and overall performance enhancement. The roadmap was further interpreted by CEO bw_solana, pointing to Solana's long-term investment in infrastructure and developer experience.

The related discussion volume is not high, but the feedback is generally positive. Some users expressed their expectations in a relaxed tone, while others believed "we didn't need a roadmap ten years ago." However, the majority agreed on its necessity and began to pay attention to subsequent implementation details (such as community collaboration, Discord integration, etc.).

2. Ethereum

0xundefined_ Teams Up with Ethereum Foundation Enterprise Team to Drive Korean Institutional Adoption

0xundefined_ announced a collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation's enterprise team, focusing on driving institutional adoption in the Korean market, including technical education, financial asset infrastructure development, and real-world use case implementation. This collaboration is seen as a key step in connecting Korean asset management institutions and securities firms, potentially further institutionalizing Ethereum in Korea.

The community's response has been positive, with many users seeing it as a "significant milestone," and local Korean users showing visible excitement. The overall tone of the discussion is centered around "just build on Ethereum," with expectations for the collaboration to bring more concrete institutional progress.

Lido Releases V3 stVaults, Paving the Way for Institutional Staking Access

Lido launches V3 stVaults and further reduces the operational barriers for institutional participation in Ethereum staking through Northstake's Staking Vault Manager. The solution supports multiple vaults, multi-node management, while retaining the liquidity advantages of stETH, focusing on addressing institutional structural pain points between compliance, reporting, and liquidity.

The market broadly acknowledges its positioning, believing "institutional staking will usher in the next wave of ETH adoption." There are also a few users inquiring about LDO's buyback and governance issues, but the overall feedback remains positive.

Vitalik Discusses Privacy Alongside Science Fiction Writer and Hacker

Vitalik Buterin, along with science fiction writer Ada Palmer and hacker Sherri Davidoff, participated in "The Apparatus" live stream, hosted by ml_sudo, discussing the role of privacy in the blockchain and technology ecosystem.

However, despite the high level of interaction, a large number of replies gradually drifted off-topic, turning to memes and token promotion (such as the flooding interaction around $MANYU), reflecting that the crypto community, in serious topic discussions, is still often diluted by entertaining content and marketing noise.

Vitalik Comments on MegaETH Stateless Validator Open Source, Discusses Quantum Risk and Structural Optimization

MegaETH has open-sourced its stateless validator code, marking the project's third open-source contribution, covering components such as the SALT database and MegaEVM. Vitalik acknowledged its tree structure optimization while also noting the need to consider potential quantum computing risks in design. MegaETH CTO Yang Lei further explained how SALT improves space efficiency by replacing sparse subtree and discussed the impact of radix tree structure.

Community feedback leaned more towards the technical side, with many users praising the depth of the discussion. Vitalik's self-deprecating remarks also resonated with the audience. The discussion focused on efficiency improvements and long-term security assumptions.

3. Perp DEX

Lighter Launches on Coinbase

Lighter's LIGHTER token has officially launched on Coinbase, supporting buying, selling, converting, and storing, further increasing its exposure within the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. Lighter emphasizes low-latency, low-cost transactions and adopts custom ZK circuitry to validate matching and clearing logic.

Community sentiment was relatively mixed: some viewed this as a significant development, while others complained about wallet transaction experience, insufficient buying pressure, and some even joked that "every time there's good news, the price drops." Overall, the community is still in a phase of observation and anticipation, with some users continuing to call for more exchanges to list the token.

Pendle's Boros Launches Equity Perp Funding Rate Market

Pendle's Boros has launched the NVDAUSDC-Hyperliquid funding rate market and supports USDT collateral, seen as another advancement in the "equity perp" narrative. Boros positions itself as a funding rate infrastructure, emphasizing chain-agnosticism, asset-agnosticism, and plans to expand to RWA assets such as SOL, XRP, and AAPL. Users are generally optimistic, believing the market still has significant room for expansion. Some have speculated on growth potential from a valuation elasticity perspective. A few voices expressed concerns about early-stage market manipulation, but overall, they still approve of its direction.

Felix to Partner with Ondo Finance to Offer Users Spot Stocks

Felix announced a partnership with Ondo Finance to provide users with spot stock services, initially covering 100+ US stock targets, expandable to 1000+ in the future, and supporting 24/5 trading and lending. Ondo emphasizes that its structure includes auditing, bankruptcy isolation, and insurance mechanisms to reduce risk exposure and avoid AMM liquidity constraints. The community response has been overwhelmingly positive, with many seeing this as a significant advancement in the Hyperliquid ecosystem and giving high praise to the team's execution.

New HIP-3 Exchange Dreamcash Partners with Tether, Selini

The new HIP-3 exchange Dreamcash has announced a partnership with Tether and Selini to support providing a mobile trading experience for Tether on Hyperliquid, emphasizing a "more native trading product form." Discussions are heated, with emotional positive feedback and promotional rhetoric coexisting.

stKNTQ Launched, Provides KNTQ Liquidity Staking

stKNTQ has officially launched, offering a liquidity solution for KNTQ staking, along with protocol incentives (such as KIP-1/2, fee burning, buyback mechanisms, Markets discounts, etc.). The official documentation provides a comprehensive explanation of each incentive. The community feedback has been positive, with discussions focusing more on staking participation and price expectations.

4. Others

MegaETH Ecosystem Project Supernova: Why On-Chain Needs Fixed-Rate Lending

Supernova, a MegaETH ecosystem project invested by YziLabs, released a statement emphasizing the importance of on-chain fixed-rate lending, aiming to cover rate products, crypto cross-rates, forex, and other millisecond trading scenarios. The project is currently open for a waiting list, positioning itself as a hedging and trading tool.

While the discussion volume is not high, the overall feedback is predominantly positive. Some users believe that such products will help advance on-chain finance towards a more complete market structure and increase external interest in the MegaETH ecosystem direction.

Harvard Researchers Release Prediction Market Design Paper

A Harvard research team has released a new paper discussing prediction market design issues, including market scoring rules and automated trader mechanisms. The goal is to support "belief trading" even in the absence of counterparties, and to make "telling the truth" the dominant strategy through structural design, while also limiting the platform's maximum loss risk.

Community feedback is somewhat academically oriented, primarily focusing on expressions of gratitude, sharing, and bookmarking for later reading. Some have also inquired whether its mechanism is similar to classic frameworks like LMSR. The overall discussion is more rational, emphasizing its reference value for market design and financial mechanism understanding.