Tech Headlines

1. AI Agent Economy Standard ERC-8004 Has Launched on Ethereum Mainnet

https://x.com/DavideCrapis/status/2016893815857066212

Davide Crapis, the Ethereum Foundation's AI lead, announced that the AI agent economy standard ERC-8004 has gone live on Ethereum mainnet. The team will deploy the singleton to all major L2s in the coming weeks. Reportedly, the standard aims to enable trusted interactions between AI agents across different organizations by activating discovery mechanisms and portable reputation, ensuring that their reputation can circulate across platforms.

2. Ethereum Foundation Elevates Quantum-Resistant Security to a Top Strategic Priority

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/01/24/ethereum-foundation-makes-post-quantum-security-a-top-priority-as-new-team-forms

The Ethereum Foundation announced the formation of a dedicated Post-Quantum (quantum-resistant) team, led by Thomas Coratger and supported by leanVM cryptographer Emile, elevating quantum-resistant security to the highest strategic priority. Researcher Justin Drake stated that Ethereum is moving from a long-term background research phase to proactive engineering implementation, including launching biweekly post-quantum transaction developer calls and running a multi-client post-quantum consensus testnet.

3. Binance Plans to Relaunch Tokenized Stock Trading

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/23/binance-plans-return-to-stock-tokens-after-2021-retreat-the-information

Binance is considering relaunching its tokenized stock trading service. Tokenized stocks are digital representations of shares in public companies, allowing investors to trade fractional shares on the blockchain without having to purchase whole shares. However, due to scrutiny from the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Germany's financial regulator, Binance shut down the service in July of the same year. A Binance spokesperson said: "Binance is committed to bridging traditional finance and crypto, expanding user choice while maintaining the highest regulatory standards. Since last year, we have begun supporting tokenized real-world assets and recently launched the first regulated TradFi perpetual contract settled in stablecoins." He added: "Exploring the potential to offer tokenized stocks is a natural next step in bringing traditional finance and crypto closer together."

4. Zero-Knowledge-Proof Bitcoin L2 Citrea Mainnet Officially Goes Live

https://www.theblock.co/post/387140/zk-powered-bitcoin-layer-2-citrea-launches-mainnet

The zero-knowledge-proof-powered Bitcoin Layer 2 network Citrea has officially launched its mainnet and the on-chain settlement asset ctUSD. Citrea uses zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) technology to batch thousands of off-chain transactions, generate proofs, and inscribe them onto Bitcoin's base layer.

Industry Dynamics

1. Hong Kong SFC and UAE Securities and Commodities Authority Sign MoU, Marking a New Milestone in Strengthening Cross-Border Digital Asset Cooperation

https://apps.sfc.hk/edistributionWeb/gateway/TC/news-and-announcements/news/doc?refNo=26PR11

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong and the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) today signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cross-border regulatory cooperation on digital-asset-related matters. This landmark MoU is the first agreement the SFC has signed with an overseas regulator on regulatory cooperation concerning regulated digital asset entities. The MoU establishes a framework for enhanced regulatory cooperation, including mutual consultation and information exchange on the supervision of cross-border regulated digital asset entities, fully reflecting the SFC's commitment to advancing international cooperation under its ASPIRe roadmap.

2. U.S. Crypto Market Structure Bill Advances Through Key Senate Procedure Despite Democratic Opposition

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/01/29/crypto-bill-clears-u-s-senate-milestone-as-effort-advanced-through-first-committee

The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, by a party-line vote of 12-11, formally advanced the legislative process for the crypto market structure bill. This is the first time the bill has made progress at the Senate committee level, marking its entry into a new stage. However, because the vote followed strict party lines and lacked Democratic support, the bill still faces major obstacles to passage in the full Senate.

3. Russia's Crypto Regulation Bill Is Expected to Be Introduced in July for Lawmakers to Vote On

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/markets/russian-crypto-regulation-set-for-july-rollout/

According to a report by the Russian parliamentary gazette, Moscow will introduce Russia's crypto regulatory policy in July. Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, said that a comprehensive legislative framework will be ready by the end of June for State Duma lawmakers to vote on, and if lawmakers approve the bill, it will take effect on July 1, 2027. Aksakov said the bill will include regulatory provisions for crypto exchanges, and operators of unregistered crypto exchanges may face penalties, similar to Russia's laws targeting illegal banking activities.

In-Depth Analysis

1. Foresight News Revisits Vitalik: Rejecting the Crypto Doomsday Narrative and Building a Technical Path to Counter the Risks of AI Centralization

https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/94357

In a January 2026 interview in Chiang Mai, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin shared his latest reflections on the state of the industry. He believes that although Ethereum has made tremendous progress on the technical front, such as scalability, application-layer development has lost its way—lacking socially meaningful innovation, overly reliant on financial speculation, and neglecting broader visions such as governance.

Vitalik noted that SocialFi faces the dilemma of financial incentives undermining social quality, and that prediction markets have issues such as fragile oracle data sources. In the AI era, Ethereum, as a "permissionless" world computer, can provide AI with programmable payment and settlement capabilities, but it is necessary to be wary of combining the two just for the sake of it. His personal motivation comes from preventing the industry from devolving into pure speculation, improving Ethereum's technology, and countering the risks of centralized AI monopolies. He called on developers to explore directions such as decentralized social networks, smarter DAOs, and more diverse stable-mechanism assets.