Invest ideasNews
19 Jan 2026, 17:38
Ethiopia seeks partners to turn state-backed bitcoin mining into revenue
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister has announced that the government is actively seeking investment partners for Bitcoin mining. This move is part of the country’s “Digital Ethiopia 2030” plan, which seeks to develop the country’s financial sector and boost capital markets and digitalization. At the Finance Forward Ethiopia 2026 conference, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that Ethiopian Investment Holdings, a state-owned company, is seeking experienced partners who can provide capital, technology, and mining expertise. By doing this, Ethiopia aims to earn revenue directly for the country rather than relying only on private companies. Ethiopian Electric Power generates $millions from Bitcoin mining Over the past few years, the country has quietly become Africa’s leading Bitcoin mining hub. Ethiopia has leveraged its massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and other hydropower projects for Bitcoin and crypto mining. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam generates over 6,000 megawatts, but the grid cannot absorb even half that amount. By mid-2025, the country had approximately 23 mining operations. They were initially led by Asian companies, followed by the Americans, and then locals getting in on the action. All collectively pulled around 600 megawatts at 3.2 cents per kWh. The country’s government actively promotes and licenses crypto mining. For instance, the UAE-based Phoenix Group announced a partnership with Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), the nation’s state-owned utility, for a new mining data center. EEP currently operates 20 power stations with a combined capacity exceeding 7,900 megawatts. It does power exports to Kenya and Djibouti. It has seen growth as Kenya requested an additional 100 megawatts on top of the 200 megawatts it currently receives. In 2024, EEP exported nearly 7% of Ethiopia’s generated power, earning $338 million in foreign currency. It generated $55 million in Bitcoin mining revenue over 10 months that year, primarily through agreements with 25 mining companies. However, the country halted new crypto mining licenses for data mining companies last year, effectively halting the expansion of cryptocurrency mining. As reported by Cryptopolitan, the state claimed that the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) had reached its limit in meeting new demand. Foreign investors flood Africa to leverage on their power According to Cambridge, Africa accounts for approximately 3% of global BTC hash rate, nearly all hydro, geothermal, or solar with 2.5% is generated in Ethiopia. Overall, that’s expected to double by 2027, with Rwanda negotiating small modular reactors and Malawi completing new Shire River dams. In Kenya, Gridless Compute is a leader in Bitcoin mining. Established in 2022, the company has built hydro-electric mini-grids in Murang’a County, in a partnership with HydroBox, an African hydroelectric power company. These mini-grids use river water to generate electricity, powering Bitcoin mining operations. In Murang’a, Kenya, Gridless operates Bitcoin mining sites, lowering energy rates for 2,000 people in the area. The company says it has helped reduce the village’s electricity costs from $10 per month to $4. The project has garnered attention from the global crypto community. Block, the digital payments company run by former Twitter (X) CEO Jack Dorsey, and Stillmark, a Bitcoin-focused venture firm, led a $2 million startup investment into Gridless. The Democratic Republic of Congo also manages a modest program within Virunga National Park. Also, South African solar developers combine daytime solar panels with evening mining loads to secure bank financing that they would not be able to attain solely with residential consumers. Nigeria, on the other hand, conducts operations that recover waste methane from drilling platforms rather than releasing it into the atmosphere through combustion. However, African countries like Angola banned mining outright. Globally, other countries with government-sponsored Bitcoin mining include Russia, France, Bhutan, El Salvador, and the UAE. Japan became the 11th country to join the list. Japan has witnessed massive crypto adoption, with Metaplanet as the fourth-largest Bitcoin treasury. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them .
19 Jan 2026, 17:35
Bitcoin Price Crashes to Zero on Paradex Exchange as Glitch Fuels Mass Liquidations
The price of Bitcoin plunged to $0 on Paradex's perps exchange, leading to a liquidation cascade that required a chain rollback.
19 Jan 2026, 17:33
DeFi Development Corp. Is Trying To Turn Solana Exposure Into A Managed Treasury Model
Summary DeFi Development Corp. is pivoting to a Solana-centric treasury operator, emphasizing Solana per share (SPS) as its core performance metric. DFDV reported SPS growth of 6.2% in Q4 2025, with 2.22 million SOL equivalents and 29.9 million shares outstanding. Validator rewards, structured on-chain yield, and aggressive share buybacks drive SPS growth, but results remain highly sensitive to market cycles. Valuation near book and divergent multiples reflect market skepticism about the durability of DFDV’s asset accumulation and compounding model. Introduction DeFi Development Corp. ( DFDV ) has historically traded like a levered proxy for Solana price movements, and the market’s treatment of the stock has largely reflected that reality. The balance sheet is crypto-heavy, reported earnings are volatile, and conventional operating metrics provide limited insight into long-term value creation. A cluster of disclosures in early January 2026 points to a deliberate attempt to reposition the company as an active Solana-centric treasury operator. Management is emphasizing per-share crypto accumulation, validator economics, structured yield deployment, and capital discipline as the core drivers of value. The analytical question is not whether this framing is novel, but whether it represents a structural shift in capital allocation mechanics rather than a reframing of cyclical performance. Why “Solana Per Share” Has Become The Anchor Metric The most explicit signal of this shift is management’s focus on Solana per share (SPS). In its preliminary year-end update, the company reported that SPS increased by 6.2 percent during Q4 2025, reaching approximately 0.0743 SOL per share. As of January 1, 2026, DeFi Development Corp disclosed holdings of roughly 2.22 million SOL and SOL equivalents against approximately 29.9 million shares outstanding. This metric choice is unconventional for a Nasdaq-listed company. Rather than centering disclosures on GAAP earnings, EBITDA, or dollar-denominated net asset value, management is asking investors to evaluate whether crypto assets per share are increasing over time. Implicitly, the company is positioning itself less as a conventional operating business and more as a balance-sheet allocator whose success is measured by accretive asset growth rather than income. At current figures, each one percent change in SPS corresponds to roughly 22,000 additional SOL equivalents at the treasury level, assuming a stable share count. That linkage makes capital discipline, reinvestment decisions, and share issuance or repurchase activity directly relevant to the core KPI management has chosen to emphasize. The Mechanics Behind Solana Per Share Growth Breaking down how SPS grows in practice highlights both the opportunity and the fragility of the model. According to company disclosures , the primary contributors are validator rewards, ecosystem participation, structured on-chain yield, and capital actions. Validator operations generate recurring SOL inflows tied to network activity and staking economics. These returns are variable. They expand during periods of high transaction throughput and favorable reward structures, and compress when network activity slows or staking yields normalize. In isolation, validator rewards are not stable earnings; they are cyclical cash flows linked to Solana network conditions. The company has also disclosed a preliminary, unaudited management estimate for Q4, 2025 of an annualized organic yield rate of approximately 8.3 percent across its on-chain treasury activities. Applied to a SOL treasury of roughly 2.22 million tokens, that implies potential annualized inflows of approximately 185,000 SOL equivalents under current conditions. This figure is highly sensitive to funding rates, incentive programs, and liquidity conditions, and should not be treated as fixed income. Capital actions are the other critical lever. The board has authorized share repurchases of up to $100 million in total, materially larger than the buybacks executed so far. The company’s preliminary update and coverage include the executed figure: 2,049,113 shares repurchased in Q4 at an average price of $5.62, with 29,892,800 shares outstanding as of Jan. 1, 2026. The completed repurchases directly support Solana-per-share growth by shrinking the denominator, while the expanded authorization signals management’s intent to use capital returns as a balancing tool alongside treasury accumulation rather than relying on equity issuance. This distinguishes the current framework from dilution-driven crypto treasury models, though the economic impact will ultimately depend on execution timing and market conditions. YieldVault As Balance-Sheet Segmentation The January announcement that the company adopted Solstice’s YieldVault provides additional context for how management is attempting to structure the treasury. YieldVault is described as a delta-neutral yield strategy combining funding-rate arbitrage, hedged staking, and exposure to tokenized U.S. Treasury bills, with allocations adjusted dynamically. From a numbers' perspective, the key point is balance-sheet segmentation rather than disclosed yield scale. The company has not specified what portion of its roughly 2.22 million SOL treasury is allocated to delta-neutral strategies. Illustratively, if 20 percent of the treasury were deployed into non-directional yield strategies, roughly 440,000 SOL equivalents would be generating yield with reduced price sensitivity. At an annualized yield rate in the high single digits, such an allocation would imply on the order of 30,000–35,000 SOL equivalents per year in incremental treasury growth under current conditions. This example is not guidance, but it highlights that even partial deployment can be economically meaningful. What The Valuation Says About Market Confidence The valuation profile reflects this transitional state. On earnings-based metrics, the stock appears optically cheap. Trailing GAAP P/E is below 2x, forward non-GAAP P/E is approximately 2.6x, and EV to EBITDA is around 4x based on current Seeking Alpha market data . Revenue-based metrics tell a different story. EV to sales is roughly 48x trailing and above 30x forward, while price to sales ranges from the mid-teens to above 20x depending on the period. This divergence suggests that the market does not treat reported revenues as a durable valuation anchor, but as volatile outputs of balance-sheet activity rather than scalable operating income. Book value provides the clearest signal. The stock trades around 0.9–1.0x trailing book value. For a company emphasizing asset accumulation and per-share treasury growth, a valuation near book implies a meaningful haircut to perceived asset durability and liquidity. Investors are not yet capitalizing the SPS narrative as a through-cycle compounding model. Conclusion DeFi Development Corp is attempting a measurable structural shift. Management has articulated a clear KPI in Solana per share, disclosed treasury scale of roughly 2.22 million SOL equivalents, reduced share count through buybacks, and introduced yield segmentation via structured on-chain strategies. These are tangible, quantifiable steps toward operating as a managed crypto treasury rather than a passive token holder. The numbers also explain why skepticism persists. SPS growth of 6.2 percent in a favorable quarter, an 8.3 percent annualized organic yield, and buyback-supported denominator control have not yet been tested through adverse market conditions. Valuation near book and the sharp divergence between earnings and sales multiples reflect that uncertainty. The investment question is no longer whether DeFi Development Corp offers exposure to Solana. It is whether per-share crypto accumulation remains accretive when incentives normalize, yields compress, and sentiment turns. Until that durability is demonstrated, the stock is likely to continue trading as a hybrid instrument: part managed treasury experiment, part crypto-cycle barometer.
19 Jan 2026, 17:30
4 In 5 Hacked Crypto Projects Don’t Bounce Back, Expert Says
A worrying pattern has formed in the crypto sector. Reports say that about four in five projects hit by major hacks do not fully recover. Money is lost, yes. But the deeper damage is often to trust — and that can be fatal. Related Reading: Saylor Defends Bitcoin Treasury Firms Amid Rising Criticism Trust Erodes Fast When a breach is found, users pull funds quickly. Partners step back. Liquidity dries up. Industry experts, including Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador, warn that slow or unclear responses can push entire communities away. Some projects try to fix code quietly. That can fail. Silence is sometimes treated as hiding. Panic spreads. Confidence drops. “Nearly 80% of projects that suffer a hack never fully recover,” Amador pointed out. The primary reason, he said, is not the initial loss of funds, but the “breakdown of operations and trust during the response.” How Teams Respond Can Decide Fate Reports note that incident plans are rare and that the absence of a clear playbook hurts more than the bug itself. A quick, honest update can calm people. A slow, confused reaction makes things worse. In many cases, even after the technical flaw is fixed, the project stays damaged because users left and did not return. Some teams are rebuilt under new names. Others never regain attention. The human side of recovery matters a lot. Amador said many protocols freeze once an exploit comes to light. According to him, teams often underestimate how exposed they are and lack the operational readiness needed to handle a serious security breach. Security Problems Are Changing The attacks are not all the same. Smart contract bugs remain a big cause. But now simple human errors, like leaked keys or social tricks, are also common. Reports say that losses in recent years have grown into the billions, with one figure around $3.4 billion lost in a single year. That number shows the scale of the risk. Community Reaction Shapes Outcomes A project can be technically repaired. But the people who used it may have moved on. Communities are fragile. Some founders try to refund users or set up funds to cover losses. That can help. Other teams decide to close down the service and focus on other work. The decision is sometimes made for them when liquidity vanishes and partners cut ties. Recovery is often not just a technical task; it is a rebuild of trust and reputation. Data from Chainalysis shows the $1.4 billion Bybit hack accounted for almost half of crypto losses in 2025. Related Reading: What’s Driving The $1.42 Billion Comeback In Spot Bitcoin ETFs? Huge Damage Crypto hacks jumped sharply in 2025 as attackers hit both large platforms and private wallets. Based on reports, total losses reached $3.4 billion, the biggest annual figure since 2022. Just three breaches were responsible for nearly 70% of that damage by early December, with the $1.4 billion Bybit exploit standing out as the largest. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
19 Jan 2026, 17:30
Best Crypto to Buy as it Gives 2021 Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) Vibes
For investors looking to get in on the ground floor of the next big crypto move, reminiscent of the wild price action seen in the likes of Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) in 2021, Mutuum Finance (MUTM) is quickly gaining popularity as the best cryptocurrency to buy. Currently in Phase 7 of its presale, Mutuum Finance has seen its presale raise nearly $20 million with over 18,850 unique holders. Shiba Inu & Dogecoin Today The RSI is at around 52.90 for Shiba Inu (SHIB), which is indicative of stability, with price forecasts ranging from modest growth of 25% to targets of around $0.000109 in the longer term. Momentum is neutral, which means any price action is expected to be delayed as the cryptocurrency holds at current levels. Dogecoin (DOGE) is also on the upswing as it builds out of a reversal and a bull flag on the weekly charts, with the reclaim zone at $0.154-$0.157. Breaking through may lead to targets at $0.16-$0.195. While SHIB and DOGE remain in the headlines as they reach new heights in terms of price growth, it is clear that potential for bigger growth lies with Mutuum Finance (MUTM). Already, many investors have turned to MUTM as the best crypto to buy. Adoption and Community Momentum The presale of Mutuum Finance is seeing incredible levels of adoption, rewarding those who get involved in the project during its early stages. Having launched at a remarkably low $0.01, MUTM is currently at $0.04 in Phase 7, a 4x increase, and is expected to list on the market at $0.06. This means a $5,000 investment in Phase 7 will increase to $6,250 in Phase 8, earning a $1,250 return even before the token is listed on the market. At launch, it will have ballooned by $2,500 to hit $7,500. Over 18,830 people have already participated in the presale, earning the project close to $19.85 million. MUTM Liquidity Mining and Risk Management The key to Mutuum Finance’s lending and borrowing platform is its liquidity, which the platform encourages through the provision of MUTM token rewards. For example, a user depositing $5,000 USDC into a P2C lending pool earning 7% APY may earn an additional 5% APY of MUTM tokens. This increases the total APY to 12% APY. Borrowers are also rewarded. For example, a user borrowing $6,000 USDC at 9% APY may earn a rebate of 3% APY on the interest paid in the form of MUTM tokens. To make this work, the project is testing two different ways of rewarding users. One involves rewarding users on a block-by-block basis. This allows users to earn the tokens immediately. The other involves a weekly reward. This helps the project save on gas costs. In total, the project sets aside 10% of the total supply of its tokens for this purpose. Risk management is also an essential part of the design of the MUTM platform, where the Loan-to-Value ratios and liquidation levels are adjusted according to the level of asset volatility. Less volatile assets such as ETH and USDT allow an LTV of up to 75% with a liquidation level of 80%, allowing a user who has a total of 3 ETH or $10,000 to take a loan of up to $7,500 in USDC without having to part ways with his ETH. More volatile assets allow lower LTV ratios, and the automated liquidation system ensures the stability of the system and the safety of the assets of the users. Version 1 of the platform will be tested on the Sepolia Testnet before the mainnet launch of the platform, where it will allow the user to engage with liquidity pools, deposit mtTokens, manage debt tokens, and interact with the liquidator bot. With such workings in place, the MUTM platform has been given the reputation of being the best crypto to buy for an individual seeking a viable way towards the next big crypto. How MUTM Can Potentially Outperform Memecoins Although Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) demonstrate signs of recovery and potential, Mutuum Finance presents an early investor opportunity and a DeFi functionality with high community acceptance. Currently in Phase 7 at $0.04, having secured almost $19.85 million, MUTM is poised to be the next big crypto. For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below: Website: https://mutuum.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance
19 Jan 2026, 17:28
Bitcoin crashes to $0 on Paradex in sudden flash event: here’s what happened
A startling glitch on Paradex, a leading decentralized perpetuals exchange on Starknet, caused Bitcoin’s price to briefly plummet to zero, sparking widespread liquidations and prompting an urgent blockchain rollback. The team at Paradex later confirmed the platform was back online. However, the incident highlights the continued vulnerabilities facing decentralised finance infrastructure amid growing adoption of layer-2 solutions. Paradex initiates rollback On Monday, Starknet-based Paradex experienced a critical database migration error that erroneously valued Bitcoin at $0 on its platform. The anomaly led to a cascade of automated liquidations, wiping out thousands of leveraged positions. Liquidations hit as trading algorithms reacted to the impossible price feed. After an alert, the exchange announced a trading halt and a rollback, which the team initiated before the exchange came back online around 12:10 UTC on January 19, 2026. However, the glitch meant all open orders were forcibly canceled, except for take-profit and stop-loss (TPSL) orders, as the team sought to restore integrity. The team noted in an update: Recovery efforts are ongoing. We can confirm that all user funds are SAFU. Due to the complexity of the recovery process, we do not have a confirmed ETA at this time. We will provide further updates as they become available. Thank you for your patience and support. Mass liquidations rock traders The zero-price flash crash triggered massive liquidations across Paradex’s perpetual markets, exposing traders to extreme volatility risks inherent in decentralized venues. Reports indicate thousands of positions were closed involuntarily, amplifying losses during a period of already fragile market sentiment. Starknet’s native STRK token dipped 5% in the aftermath, reflecting broader ecosystem concerns. According to data on CoinMarketCap, STRK price hovered near $0.081 at the time of writing. Elsewhere, Bitcoin’s spot price remained stable globally, trading around recent lows after diving from highs above $97,000. “Since the ETF market was not open at the time, this selling pressure is coming from US whales operating outside of ETFs,” analysts at CryptoQuant wrote on X . BTC hovered below $93k, and analysts at Bitfinex note that while the market structure has improved, sell overhang remains. Macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty is a key factor for bulls. User criticism Social media users on X unleashed sharp criticism following Paradex’s Bitcoin price glitch and chain rollback, branding the platform unreliable and unprofessional. Many labeled it “a joke,” highlighting eroded trust in its DeFi operations. One trader vented: “DEX” and “rollback” can’t be in the same sentence. Another user posted: @paradex downtimes are honestly wild. Repeated outages where you cannot manage positions or touch your money. I doubt serious money will ever trust infrastructure that fails this predictably. Most reactions are skewed heavily negative, with users questioning Starknet’s L2 maturity and Paradex’s governance. Critics argued rollbacks undermine blockchain immutability, fueling demands for refunds and better audits, though some acknowledged quick communication. The post Bitcoin crashes to $0 on Paradex in sudden flash event: here’s what happened appeared first on Invezz
