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PANews, January 15—According to Decrypt, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has urged New York state lawmakers to criminalize unlicensed crypto businesses and called for enhanced enforcement tools to combat crypto-related crime. Bragg warned that a $51 billion criminal economy is thriving by exploiting regulatory loopholes, enabling criminals to launder proceeds from guns, drugs, and fraud with impunity. He specifically pointed out that unlicensed crypto ATMs, which charge fees as high as 20% to convert cash into digital assets, are one of the main issues. He advocated that all crypto businesses must be subject to mandatory licensing and comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, with violators facing criminal liability. If the proposal passes, New York would become the 19th state in the US to criminalize unlicensed crypto operations.

BlockBeats News, January 15th, Market analysis firm Santiment posted on social media that despite the Bitcoin price rebound this week, social media data shows an interesting change in sentiment — bearish volume continues to strengthen. As market trends often go against retail sentiment, the most intense fear sentiment in the past 10 days may ironically propel BTC back to the $100,000 mark.

According to Odaily, blockchain infrastructure company Global Settlement Network has announced the launch of a water asset tokenization pilot project, with plans to expand the project across Southeast Asia over the next 12 months, targeting a scale of $200 million. The pilot will first tokenize eight government-contracted water treatment facilities in Jakarta, aiming to raise up to approximately $35 million for facility upgrades and the expansion of the local water supply network. During the project’s advancement, relevant parties will also test the Indonesian Rupiah stablecoin settlement channel and gradually expand to more foreign exchange settlement scenarios in a controlled environment. Mas Witjaksono, Chairman of the Indonesian Globalasia Infrastructure Fund, stated that Indonesia possesses a large number of tokenizable assets in the infrastructure and natural resources sectors, and the related model has growth potential. The report points out that the financing gap for water infrastructure in Southeast Asia continues to widen, with the required long-term investment expected to exceed $4 trillion by 2040. Some industry insiders predict that as adoption accelerates in emerging markets, the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market is expected to see significant growth by 2026. Currently, the on-chain RWA scale has exceeded $21 billion. (Cointelegraph)