Virtuals Protocol VIRTUAL has maintained its early January breakout above $0.73 and $1.05 despite a 15.71% weekly slide amid broader AI-token losses. Price sits below the 20- and 50-day moving averages and CMF is under -0.05, with the $0.758 78.6% retracement and the $0.73–$0.76 demand zone pivotal. Upside reference levels include $1.19 and $1.33.

Updated January 24, 2026, the report details that Intel acknowledged on its earnings call it could not meet surging demand, and the shares fell 17%, erasing over $46 billion in value. This followed nearly $9 billion in backing and a 120% five‑month rally, but earlier capacity cuts left it short of needed CPUs.

Ahead of Nepal's snap election scheduled for March 5, AI-generated deepfakes and fabricated audio targeting leading political figures are spreading online. A fully synthetic video showing Balendra Shah, Kulman Ghising, and Rabi Lamichhane together, along with fake audio of Swarnim Wagle, has fueled confusion among voters. Authorities and experts are urging stricter rules, coordinated fact-checking, and public caution as the Nepal Police Cyber Bureau prepares for more sophisticated AI-driven threats.

OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, is under intense pressure in 2026 after burning through about $9 billion last year and projections pointing to a possible $17 billion cash burn this year. Despite reporting more than $20 billion in 2025 revenue and claiming around 800 million weekly users, only a small fraction pay, while the firm is tied to $1.4 trillion in data center commitments. Investors are increasingly focused on costs, monetization and a potential IPO targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, amid growing competition from rivals like Anthropic and shifting market sentiment on AI funding.

Sentient Labs has opened SENT token airdrop claims starting January 22, 2026, rewarding early contributors to its open-source AGI coordination network. The SENT token powers governance, incentives, and collaboration across Sentient’s GRID intelligence network, with eligible users able to claim tokens via the official portal and trade SENT on BingX after claiming.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos that, within three to five years, billions of autonomous AI agents could use crypto and stablecoins to handle routine payments. He argued that stablecoins are the only practical foundation for AI-native economic systems, a view echoed by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, while new protocols from Coinbase and Google aim to support this emerging form of AI-driven commerce.

On January 23, 2026 (UTC), Changpeng Zhao argued that as AI automates more work, crypto, tokenization and DeFi will become core to digital economic activity. He predicted AI agents will pay with crypto rather than cards, and warned that 99.99% of current AI tokens lack real utility.

On January 22 2026, Orlando Bravo of Thoma Bravo described how venture capital firms are aggressively funding AI startups at soaring valuations driven by fear of missing out. Anthropic’s valuation climbed from $183 billion in September 2025 to $350 billion in a $10 billion round, while OpenAI reached $500 billion and global venture funding hit $425 billion in 2025 with AI firms capturing nearly half of that capital. Bravo expects AI to disrupt less than half of software companies but still sees it as transformational for business software, even as investors struggle to separate sustainable projects from hype.