Today in crypto, Tether has disclosed plans to move its operations from the British Virgin Islands to El Salvador after being granted a digital asset service provider license in the country. Meanwhile, the post-US election honeymoon looks to be over as crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) recorded a relatively minor $47 million of inflows last week.
Finally, SlowMist said a list of seven million OpenSea user emails leaked in 2022 has now become public and available for scammers.
Tether will relocate HQ to El Salvador after securing license
Stablecoin issuer Tether announced that it would move the company and its subsidiaries to El Salvador after it had secured an operating license in the Latin American nation.
In a Jan. 13 notice, the company said it planned to relocate its headquarters and subsidiaries to El Salvador due to its “forward-thinking policies, favorable regulatory environment, and […] growing Bitcoin-savvy community.”
“This decision is a natural progression for Tether as it allows us to build a new home, foster collaboration, and strengthen our focus on emerging markets,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
The move followed reports that Ardoino and Tether’s chief operating officer, Claudia Lagorio, acquired real estate and became naturalized citizens in the Latin American nation in 2024.
Crypto ETPs record $47 million inflows last week amid Bitcoin sell-off
Investors poured about $1 billion into crypto ETPs in the second trading week of 2025, which was largely offset by $940 million in outflows, crypto investment firm CoinShares reported on Jan. 13.
The massive outflows were triggered by the release of new macroeconomic data and minutes from the US Federal Reserve, which pointed to a stronger US economy and a more hawkish Fed, CoinShares research lead James Butterfill said.
“This suggests that the post-US election honeymoon is over, and macroeconomic data is once again a key driver of asset prices,” he stated.
Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw inflows totaling $213 million for the week of Jan. 6-10, despite having the biggest outflows relative to other digital assets later in the week.
So far in 2025, Bitcoin remains the best-performing asset with year-to-date inflows of $799 million, the report noted.
Following the sell-off, the total assets under management (AUM) in Bitcoin ETPs dropped 3.5%, from $130 billion the previous week to $125.4 billion.
Crypto ETP flows by assets in the week of Jan. 6–10 (in millions of dollars). Source: CoinShares
Millions of leaked OpenSea user emails now public: SlowMist
Over seven million email addresses compromised in an OpenSea email vendor leak in 2022 have recently been “fully publicized” online — giving scammers a new treasure trove of information to work with, warns a SlowMist executive.
“Remember the attack on the OpenSea mail service provider in [2022] that led to the leakage of emails? The leaked email addresses have now been fully publicized after multiple disseminations,” SlowMist’s chief information security officer, “23pds,” wrote in a Jan. 13 post on X.
Screenshot of a Dec. 26 Telegram post containing the leaked email addresses as an attachment. Source: 23pds/SlowMist
Speaking to Cointelegraph, 23pds explained that while the attack occurred in June 2022, the data had not been made public until recently, meaning “all groups of attackers can use this information to go phishing and scamming.”
“Previously, it was not made public. Now all the leaked data has been made public in its entirety and is available to anyone who wants it.”
OpenSea, one of the world’s largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, first warned customers of a data leak on June 29, 2022, after discovering that an employee of Customer.io — its email automation platform — leaked the list of OpenSea customer emails to an outside party.
