Harvest Hong Kong, one of the largest funds in China, has applied for a spot BTC-ETF.

The request to launch a bitcoin ETF to the regulator came from Harvest Hong Kong, the Hong Kong arm of Harvest, one of China's largest asset managers focused on the ETF market. The company has client assets under management totaling $3.8 billion, according to information on the Harvest website.

 

The SFC is "actively working to speed up the process" of approving bitcoin ETFs in the country to launch the first Hong Kong fund after Chinese New Year (February 10).

 

The SFC may follow an approach similar to the US SEC and approve several spot ETFs to ensure a level playing field, the publication said.

 

Several regional financial institutions have expressed interest in launching a spot BTC ETF in 2024.

 

FTX will provide full refunds to customers, but there will be no relaunch.

The bankrupt FTX exchange plans to fully repay its obligations to clients, but restarting the platform is not being considered. The company's liquidators stated this in court.

Lawyers intend to present a detailed compensation plan in February.

The exchange filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in November 2022. A year later, a jury found FTX founder and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven charges, including fraud and conspiracy.

Diedderich also said that after a “comprehensive effort” as part of the restructuring, the team abandoned its plan to relaunch the platform under the code name FTX 2.0.

There were no investors to resume the exchange’s activities, and no buyers for the platform itself.

 

Vitalik Buterin accidentally pumped up BITCOIN by 70%.

Meme cryptocurrency HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu (BITCOIN) rose 70% after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin corrected an inaccuracy regarding the token in his essay.

On January 31, user X under the nickname digital artchick wrote that Buterin mistakenly called the meme-cryptocurrency a scam.

On February 2, Buterin responded to the post and announced that the inaccuracy had been corrected. In a comment to the note, he apologized “for the confusion” and added that BITCOIN is not a scam.

According to CoinGecko, after the answer was published, the token rate immediately increased from $0.042 to $0.0075—almost 70%. However, quotes quickly corrected to the level of $0.051.
 

Apple CEO confirmed the imminent launch of AI products.

During the company's quarterly earnings presentation, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at artificial intelligence coming to the company's products "later this year." Bloomberg correspondent Mark Gurman was the first to report this.

According to the head of the corporation, Apple has “huge opportunities” to implement generative AI. However, omitting the details, Cook suggested “not getting ahead of ourselves.”

The CEO did not answer other questions from journalists about artificial intelligence. However, he recalled the launch of the Apple Vision Pro augmented reality headset.

 

Net inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs approach $1.5 billion.

On January 31, net inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs amounted to $197 million. The positive trend continued for the fourth day in a row.

$187.7 million was withdrawn from GBTC from Grayscale, a new low since January 12.

Its competitors raised $384 million, of which FBTC from Fidelity was $232 million. In terms of assets under management ($2.54 billion), this exchange-traded fund is close to IBIT from BlackRock ($2.79 billion).

 

Visa is launching direct withdrawal of cryptocurrencies to its debit cards for 145 countries.

The American payment giant Visa has added direct withdrawal of funds from cryptocurrency wallets to its cards. In this case, there will be an automatic conversion of crypto assets into national currencies.

Residents of 145 countries will have access to the new function, and to withdraw funds they will need to use the Visa Direct service. The opportunity came about through a partnership with Web3 infrastructure service provider Transak.

Users of cryptocurrency wallets, such as MetaMask, will be able to withdraw funds directly to their Visa cards, as well as pay for goods and services at points that support plastic cards.

Previously, to withdraw funds to Visa cards, users had to resort to the services of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges or third-party applications.