Bitcoin Dips To $60k, TRM Labs Reaches Crypto Unicorn Status
Cryptocurrency markets experienced a brutal sell-off this week as investor concerns grew following US President Donald Trump's appointment of Kevin Warsh to head the Federal Reserve.
Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs) have recorded three consecutive days of outflows, according to data from Farside Investors. Bitcoin (BTC) prices fell to $60,074 on Friday before recovering above $64,930 as of 7:49 am UTC.
Warsh – who previously served as the Fed's governor from 2006 to 2011 – is expected to continue cutting interest rates. His appointment may indicate that broad market liquidity “will stabilize rather than expand by definition,” Thomas Perfumo, economist at crypto exchange Kraken, told Cointelegraph.
The industry recorded the 10th largest liquidity event on Jan. 31, with more than $2.56 billion in leveraged positions lost.
TRM Labs completes $70M investment round at $1B, becomes crypto unicorn.
Blockchain intelligence platform TRM Labs has completed a $70 million Series C funding round, valuing it at $1 billion, becoming the latest crypto company to reach unicorn status.
The investment round was led by seed investor Blockchain Capital, with participation from Goldman Sachs, Bessemer Venture Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Thomas Bravo, Citi Ventures and Galaxy Ventures, according to a Wednesday news release.
TRM Labs seeks to equip public and private institutions with AI solutions to fight cybercrime. The company protects against illegal activities based on automation from time to time.
“At TRM, we're building AI for problems that have real consequences for public safety, financial integrity and national security,” said Esteban Castano, co-founder and CEO of TRM Labs.
“This funding will enable our world-class team – and the people who join us – to expand the capabilities of AI to create front-line solutions to the most pressing threats alongside institutions and to meaningfully improve how our critical systems are protected.”
A $70 million round of capital is pouring into blockchain analytics platforms to tackle AI-fueled fraud and cyber attacks, including large traditional institutions.
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Avalanche token surges Q4 as BlackRock BUIDL expands on-chain
Blockchain network Avalanche increased institutional adoption of tokenized money market funds, loans and indices in the fourth quarter, driving the value of real-world assets (RWAs) in Layer 1 to a new high.
Launched in November, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) increased by $500 with RWAs locked in at 68.6% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 950% annually.
Fortune 500 fintech FIS partnered with Avalanche-based marketplace Intain to launch token loans in November, further boosting Avalanche's TVL, Hyder said. Intain allows 2,000 US banks to hold more than $6 billion in loans against Avalanche.
S&P Dow Jones also partnered with Denary, the Avalanche-powered blockchain, to launch the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, which tracks 35 crypto-related stocks and 15 crypto tokens on Avalanche.
Traditional financial firms have become more confident about experimenting with tokenization over the past year as the Securities and Exchange Commission has become more open to crypto products.
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ParaFi Capital has invested $35 million in Solana-based Jupiter
Jupiter said it received a $35 million strategic investment from Parafi Capital, the first time the Solana-based onchain trading and crowdfunding protocol has taken outside capital after years of rapid growth.
The transaction included token purchases without discount and an extended lock-up period, and was completed entirely in Jupiter's GBPUSD stablecoin, the companies said. Financial terms beyond the $35 million investment were not disclosed.
The investment comes as Jupiter handled more than $1 trillion in trading last year and expanded beyond becoming a perpetual, negotiable and stablecoin, the company said.
The agreement includes a warrant allowing Parafi Capital to acquire additional tokens at a higher price, and the companies said it is intended to reflect a long-term alignment.
The investment follows a recent expansion of Jupiter's product offerings. In October, Jupiter released a beta version of its onchain prediction market built with Kalshi, and in January, JupUSD, a Solana native and dollar-peg stable coin developed in collaboration with Etena Labs, was launched.
Jupiter's Native Token (JUP) is up nearly 9% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
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Ave Avara goes down, completes the family wallet with a DeFi refocus
Aave Labs said the company is sunsetting its “umbrella brand” Avara in the latest move to focus on decentralized finance and simplify its branding.
Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulekov said in a post on X on Tuesday that Avara, a company that includes projects including a family-owned crypto wallet and previously social media platform Lens, “is no longer needed when we're all pitching in to bring Ave to the masses.”
According to Kulekov, Apple's iOS-based family crypto wallet was created because the team “realized that onboarding millions of users is not just generic and open wallet experiences, but more purpose-driven experiences like savings.”
The move marks Ave's latest effort to refocus on products like its flagship lending protocol, with the project last month handing over coordination of Lens to Mask Network.
As Kulekov said in his latest post, Ave “is now a world-class team of designers, engineers and smart contract professionals united around one mission: bringing DeFi to everyone.
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STEP Finance's Treasury Purses Breached, STEP 90% Collapsing, $27m SOL Leaked
Solana-based decentralized finance portfolio tracker StepFinance has revealed a security breach that led to the compromise of several treasury wallets, leading to a massive sell-off in its native token.
“Earlier today, several of our treasury wallets were compromised by a sophisticated actor during APAC hours. This was a coordinated attack using a known attack vector,” the platform said in a post on X, adding that they had taken “corrective” steps.
Onchain data reviewed by blockchain security firm CertiK shows that approximately 261,854 Solana (SOL) (approximately $27.2 million) were unclaimed and transferred from a wallet controlled by Step Finance.
Level Finance has not yet confirmed the total amount of the loss. The team did not say how the attacker was able to gain access, or whether the incident resulted from a smart contract flaw, corrupted keys, or a hacking problem. It is also unclear whether any user funds beyond the assets owned by the protocol were affected.
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Overview of the DeFi market
Most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
Privacy Protection Zcash (ZEC) token fell by 35% to record the top 100 biggest decline of the week, followed by the history (IP) token which fell by 34% last week.
Thanks for reading this week's roundup of the most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and lessons about this dynamic and evolving space.
