Anchorage Digital Eyes $200M–$400M Raise Ahead of IPO

Kaito Pivots to Kaito Studio | China’s mBridge Crosses $55B in CBDC Transactions

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
January 19, 2026

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Good Morning,

Anchorage Digital is gearing up for the public markets. A potential $200M to $400M raise suggests this is less about growth and more about positioning. Custody is getting crowded, margins are tightening, and firms want scale and balance sheet strength before the IPO window fully opens.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: Anchorage Digital Eyes $200M–$400M Raise Ahead of IPO 💰️
Product of the Week: Kaito Pivots to Kaito Studio, Sunsets Yaps 🔎
Charts: ETH Hits Record Transactions, China’s mBridge Crosses $55B txs 📊

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Narratives: Custody consolidation

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WHAT MATTERS

Anchorage Digital Eyes $200M–$400M Raise Ahead of IPO

State of play: Anchorage Digital is reportedly exploring a funding round of $200M to $400M as it positions itself for a possible IPO as early as next year, according to Bloomberg.

The crypto bank was last valued at $3B and has long been viewed by market participants as a strong IPO candidate.
The move comes as competition intensifies across the crypto custody and infrastructure space.
Custody rival BitGo has already submitted IPO paperwork, while several exchanges and digital asset firms are also preparing to go public.

In parallel, Anchorage has been broadening its business beyond custody. Recent moves include acquisitions in wealth management and token lifecycle services, along with deeper involvement in stablecoins and venture investing.

The firm now faces growing pressure from new federally approved trust banks, as regulators open the door to more institutional crypto players.

Why it matters: This is another sign that crypto’s center of gravity is shifting from trading and hype to custody, compliance, and balance sheets. Capital is flowing to firms that regulators and institutions are already comfortable with.

Our take: With BitGo and others lining up for IPOs, custody is about to become a scale and margins game.

For builders and investors: The winners will be teams building boring but sticky products. Think custody adjacencies, compliance, reporting, and services that get embedded into institutional workflows.

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Kaito Pivots to Kaito Studio, Sunsets Yaps

Kaito is sunsetting its Yaps product and incentivized leaderboards as it pivots to a new offering called Kaito Studio. The move follows X updating its API rules to ban apps that pay users for posting, targeting spam and low quality content.

The policy change sparked a sharp drop in the KAITO token, which fell more than 10% shortly after the announcement.
Yaps had been central to Kaito’s permissionless growth model, rewarding users for amplifying crypto narratives on X.
Kaito Studio marks a shift toward a more traditional, tier based creator marketing platform.
Brands will work selectively with vetted creators, with a focus on analytics, relevance, and cross platform distribution across X, YouTube, and TikTok.
Founder Yu Hu said the change reflects both platform constraints and a broader move away from high volume, incentive driven distribution.
While Yaps is being phased out, Kaito said its core products remain intact and KAITO will continue to play a role as the new studio model rolls out.

Other cool products:

Flair, a real-time custom data indexing for EVM chains.
Sharpe Labs, an AI-powered crypto intelligence terminal.
Bloom, a decentralized credit scoring powered by Ethereum and IPFS.
Wireshape, an open enterprise blockchain Network combined with AI tools.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

China’s mBridge Crosses $55B in CBDC Transactions

State of play: China led cross border CBDC platform mBridge has processed more than $55B in cumulative transaction volume, a roughly 2,500x increase since 2022, according to data from the Atlantic Council cited by Reuters.

The digital yuan accounts for about 95% of settlement activity on the platform.
mBridge brings together central banks from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia as a dollar alternative for cross border payments.
The surge in usage comes alongside rapid growth in China’s domestic CBDC, with the People’s Bank of China reporting trillions of dollars in e CNY transaction value.
The Bank for International Settlements exited the project in late 2024 and has since shifted focus to a Western led rival, Project Agorá.
While analysts do not expect mBridge to directly dethrone the dollar, they note it could gradually reduce reliance on dollar centric payment systems over time.

Our take: mBridge is not trying to replace the dollar overnight. It is building a parallel rail that works when the dollar system is slow, expensive, or politically constrained.

Ethereum Hits Record Transactions

State of play: Ethereum is processing more transactions than ever while charging users less than at any point in its recent history. The 7 day moving average of daily transactions is nearing 2.5M, almost double levels seen a year ago.

At the same time, average gas fees have dropped to around $0.15, with some swaps costing as little as $0.04.
This marks a sharp reversal from Ethereum’s long standing reputation for high and unpredictable fees during periods of congestion.
The shift is largely driven by the December 2025 Fusaka upgrade, which introduced PeerDAS and expanded blob capacity for Layer 2 rollups.
Combined with a higher mainnet gas limit, these changes have reduced execution costs even as overall network activity continues to rise.
Stablecoins are now a major driver of usage. Standard Chartered estimates that stablecoin transfers account for 35% to 40% of all Ethereum transactions.
Staking has also reached new highs, with over 36M ETH locked, around 30% of circulating supply.

Our take: This is Ethereum doing what it was supposed to do. Fees are low, usage is real, and stablecoins are driving it. It is starting to look less like a congested app chain and more like the base layer for global settlement.

QUICK BITES

Spot BTC ETFs see $1.4B inflows in best week since October.
Anchorage Digital could raise up to $400M as IPO rumors swirl.
CBDC platform mBridge surges past $55B in transaction volume.
Bitcoin tumbles below $92,500 as US-EU tariff war fears intensify.
80% of hacked crypto projects never ‘fully recover,’ expert warns.
Ethereum validator exit queue falls to zero as staking demand soars.
Ethereum daily transactions surge to ATH as gas fees fall to record lows.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Delphi's read on What’s Next for Prediction Markets?
Zeus’s read on Onchain Finance, Explained Like You’re Five.
DeFi Warhol’s summary on Galaxy’s 26 Predictions for 2026.

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