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Polish lawmakers have reportedly halted discussions on crypto legislations until January after the parliament’s lower house, the Sejm, voted to pass a nearly identical version of a bill that was vetoed by Poland’s president earlier this month without changes.

Poland’s Sejm Passes Controversial Crypto Bill

On Friday, local news media outlets informed that the Polish Senate hit the brakes on the controversial Crypto-Asset Market Act, following the Sejm’s recent vote to pass “version 2.0” of the legislation.

According to the reports, more than half of the members of the lower chamber voted to pass the revived version of the bill on Thursday, leaving its fate in the hands of the Senate and then the President, who has strongly opposed to the legislation.

As reported by Bitcoinist, Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki vetoed the Crypto-Asset Market Act at the start of the month due to concerns of a potential exodus of startups and overregulating the sector with the “legal mess” proposed by the Polish government.

On December 1, President Nawrocki refused to sign the bill, first introduced in June, which aimed to establish strict rules on the crypto assets market. He argued that the legislation it could pose a real threat to the freedoms of Poles, the stability of the state, and market innovation.

The local crypto community had raised concerns about the bill in September, affirming that it exceeded the European Union (EU)’s minimum regulatory requirements and could drive small businesses and startups abroad.

The parliament attempted to override the President’s veto, but ultimately failed after being unable to secure the required three-fifths majority vote to overturn the presidential decision.

Nonetheless, the part of the ruling coalition in the Sejm reintroduced the bill a week later without allegedly amending any of the controversial policies, raising more concerns among crypto industry players and community members.

Senate Delays Decision Until January

According to the reports, the Senate had initially planned to pass the bill “at an express pace” before the end of the year. However, the Deputy Finance Minister Jurand Drop raised concerns about the intention to pass the legislation with no further revisions.

Deputy Minister Drop pointed out that the Sejm had introduced only one change to the proposal, a lower fee for entities intermediating in crypto trading, despite the government’s disapproval of the current text.

“This amendment, which was introduced during the Sejm vote and which the government disagrees with, concerns the level of fees paid to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) by entities in the crypto-asset market. The fee has been reduced from 0.4% to 0.1%,” Drop explained.

“Other market segments have fees of a maximum of 0.5%; for this market, the government has proposed 0.4%. Although the KNF’s projections indicate that these fees will not exceed 0.1%, and in the first year, they will not be collected at all, the question remains what will happen if this market grows and, as a result, the fees are forced to exceed 0.1%,” he added.

On Friday morning, the Senate Budget and Public Finance Committee discussed the recently passed bill and the Ministry of Finance’s concerns. The committee chairman, Senator Kazimierz Kleina, suggested that the committee review this modification calmly.

Therefore, he withdrew the motion to pass the bill without new changes and suspended the discussions on the bill, affirming that the Sejm’s amendments “will have to be carefully considered.” Ultimately, Chairman Kleina scheduled to resume work on the legislation during the January Senate session.

The legal troubles surrounding the collapsed Terraform Labs persist despite the recent sentencing of its founder, Do Kwon, to 15 years in prison by US authorities. Following Kwon’s conviction, the company’s bankruptcy administrator has initiated a lawsuit against Jump Trading.

Terraform Labs Files $4 Billion Lawsuit

On social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the Office of the Terraform Labs Plan Administrator announced that it is pursuing a $4 billion lawsuit against Jump Trading. 

The lawsuit accuses the firm of engaging in “illicit market manipulation, self-dealing, and misuse of assets,” all of which allegedly enriched the company at the expense of unsuspecting investors. 

The administrator emphasized that this legal action aims to recover lost value for creditors and hold Jump accountable for exploiting the Terraform ecosystem.

The demise of Terraform Labs in 2022 began when its stablecoin, TerraUSD, lost its dollar peg, triggering a catastrophic sequence of events that devalued its sister token, Luna. 

This collapse wiped out approximately $40 billion in value, affecting investors globally and initiating a ripple effect throughout the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Terraform Labs’ turmoil also contributed to the eventual failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.

In response, a Jump Trading spokesperson stated that the lawsuit is a “desperate attempt by Terraform Labs” to deflect blame and financial liability for Kwon’s actions. The spokesperson asserted their intention to vigorously contest what they described as baseless claims.

Kwon’s Potential Second Trial In South Korea

Last week, it was reported that Do Kwon had pleaded guilty to charges involving conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud. Kwon admitted to misleading investors about the stability of TerraUSD.

During his sentencing, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer pointed out that Kwon had repeatedly deceived investors who had placed their trust in him, describing the fraud as one of “epic, generational scale.” 

Kwon expressed remorse in court, mentioning that he had spent considerable time reflecting on his actions and contemplating how to make amends. Prosecutors alleged that when TerraUSD fell below its $1 target in May 2021, Kwon misled investors into believing that a computer algorithm would restore its value. 

Meanwhile, court documents revealed that he had arranged for a trading firm to secretly purchase millions of dollars’ worth of the coin to artificially inflate its price. Yet, the legal issues for Kwon are far from over. 

South Korean officials indicated that he could face a second trial and additional sentences should he be extradited after serving part of his US sentence. There are expectations that the Terraform Labs co-founder may apply for the International Prisoner Transfer Program once he completes half of his 15-year term.

This potential extradition poses a significant threat, as Kwon faces multiple charges related to violations of the Capital Markets Act in South Korea, where there are over 200,000 reported victims and estimated losses exceeding $204 million. 

With ten alleged accomplices already on trial in South Korea, authorities believe that prosecuting Kwon domestically would be essential in compensating local victims. A guilty verdict in his home country could lead to a sentence exceeding 30 years, according to a senior prosecutor’s statement.

At the time of writing, Luna Classic (LUNC) is trading at $0.00004010, having recorded losses of 17% over the past week. However, the token has increased in value by 28% over the past month, following Kwon’s sentencing hearing which boosted the price of the cryptocurrency. 

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com 

US President Donald Trump’s public crypto moves have sharply changed how lawmakers and industry leaders view digital assets, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.

He says a memecoin launch tied to the president, coming just days before his return to the White House, helped turn a once-bipartisan push for basic crypto rules into a political hot potato.

Political Optics Shift Quickly

According to Hoskinson, crypto had been building bipartisan momentum and a bill known as the Clarity Act looked likely to win broad support — with around 70 senators expected to vote in favor at one point.

That momentum faded when the market saw the president enter the arena with his own token, Hoskinson said, making it politically risky for many Democrats to back crypto measures.

CHARLES HOSKINSON: TRUMP’S MEMECOIN DERAILED CRYPTO REGULATION

Charles Hoskinson says crypto was on track for a bipartisan regulatory win, until TrumpCoin changed the optics.

According to Hoskinson, the CLARITY Act was expected to pass with broad support in late 2024. Around 70… pic.twitter.com/zpA7TRilqV

— CryptosRus (@CryptosR_Us) December 19, 2025

Strong Language

Hoskinson called the subject a “third rail,” meaning politicians and many industry figures avoid it because it brings big political risk.

He told reporters that, in his view, the launch of the memecoin changed how the public and lawmakers linked crypto to one political figure, a shift that made clean rule-making harder.

Silence Inside The Industry

Reports have disclosed that many crypto executives kept their distance from public criticism. Hoskinson said industry leaders feared losing access to policy talks or being shut out of private meetings if they spoke out.

That worry, he argued, led to a quiet industry response even as the rules debate grew more urgent.

Timing And Rule Order Raise Concerns

Hoskinson also criticized earlier projects connected to the president, including World Liberty Financial, and questioned the timing of launching a commercial crypto product while influence over policy was possible.

“You shouldn’t launch a product first and then make the rules,” he said, arguing that regulations should come before big political actors push private ventures into the market.

What This Means For Lawmakers

Based on reports, the fallout has made committee work and markups more fraught. Lawmakers who once saw an opportunity to write clear rules now face greater political cost from appearing to side with one high-profile figure. That dynamic could push the timetable for formal votes and hearings further out, officials and analysts say.

Hoskinson framed his critique as a warning about mixing personal ventures and political power at a moment when the industry needs steady rules.

Whether his view will change the debate is uncertain. What is clear is that linking crypto to a single political brand has complicated efforts to secure broad legal ground rules, and that may slow a process many in the market had hoped would be straightforward.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin is navigating heightened volatility as it trades around a critical support zone, with market participants increasingly questioning whether the price is aligned with underlying network fundamentals. While short-term price action remains choppy, on-chain indicators suggest that the deeper story may lie beneath the surface.

A recent CryptoQuant chart highlights Bitcoin’s NVT Golden Cross, smoothed with a 100-day moving average, offering a clearer lens through which to evaluate the relationship between market valuation and on-chain activity.

The Network Value to Transactions (NVT) ratio is often described as Bitcoin’s equivalent of a Price-to-Earnings multiple. Instead of corporate earnings, transaction volume serves as the proxy for economic output. In simple terms, the metric seeks to answer a fundamental question: Is Bitcoin’s market capitalization justified by the amount of real economic activity taking place on the network?

When valuation expands faster than transaction volume, the market may be overheating. Conversely, when price lags behind network usage, it can signal undervaluation or excessive risk aversion. The NVT Golden Cross refines this framework by comparing short- and long-term trends in the ratio, helping identify periods when price diverges meaningfully from fundamentals.

NVT Golden Cross Signals a Structural Valuation Reset

CryptoQuant analyst Moreno emphasizes that the most valuable signals from the NVT Golden Cross tend to appear during deep negative deviations, when market psychology and fundamentals diverge sharply. In the current cycle, the indicator fell to a historically depressed level near -0.58, a zone that goes beyond simple bearish sentiment.

According to the analysis, this level reflects a structural undervaluation of the Bitcoin network, where price compression outpaced any meaningful decline in on-chain economic activity.

Such conditions are typically observed during phases of forced deleveraging and elevated risk aversion. In these environments, liquidity exits speculative positions aggressively, pushing prices lower even as the underlying network continues to process transactions at relatively stable levels. This imbalance creates valuation gaps that have, in past cycles, marked important inflection points rather than definitive market tops.

The key development now is the recovery of the NVT Golden Cross from -0.58 toward approximately -0.32. This move suggests that price is beginning to realign with transaction-driven fundamentals following a sharp valuation reset. However, the indicator remains in negative territory, implying that Bitcoin is still priced conservatively relative to its on-chain utility.

Moreno notes that this setup is consistent with a transition phase, where the market moves from deep undervaluation toward equilibrium. Historically, such periods have aligned with accumulation and more disciplined capital allocation, laying the groundwork for healthier, structurally supported price discovery.

Bitcoin Consolidates Above Long-Term Support as Trend Weakens

The weekly chart shows Bitcoin trading near the $88,000 level after a sharp corrective phase from the cycle highs above $120,000. Price is currently consolidating just above the rising 200-day moving average (green), which sits around the mid-$80,000s and represents a critical long-term trend support. This zone has historically acted as a pivot between sustained bull markets and deeper corrective phases, making the current structure especially important.

Momentum, however, has clearly weakened. Bitcoin has lost the 50-day moving average (blue) and failed to reclaim it on recent attempts, signaling that short- to medium-term control remains with sellers. The slope of the 50-day MA has started to flatten, reinforcing the idea of a transition from expansion to consolidation. At the same time, the 100-day moving average is curling lower, adding overhead resistance in the $95,000–$100,000 range.

Selling pressure increased during the breakdown from the $100,000 area, while the recent bounce toward $88,000 has occurred on comparatively lighter volume. This suggests that buyers are defending support but lack conviction for a sustained reversal.

As long as Bitcoin holds above the 200-day MA, the broader uptrend remains technically intact. However, failure to defend the $85,000–$88,000 zone would open the door to a deeper retracement, while bullish confirmation requires a decisive reclaim of the 50-day moving average with expanding volume.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com

Coinbase Global Inc. has sued the states of Michigan, Illinois, and Connecticut in federal court, asking judges to stop state regulators from treating prediction markets as illegal gambling. The exchange says those matters should be regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not by state gaming authorities.

According to Coinbase, prediction market contracts are derivatives that fall under the Commodity Exchange Act, and Congress gave the CFTC the power to police those markets.

The company is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent what it calls a patchwork of state rules that could bar federally approved products from reaching consumers. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, has pushed that argument publicly.

Today @coinbase filed lawsuits in CT, MI, and IL to confirm what is clear: prediction markets fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the @CFTC, not any individual state gaming regulator (let alone 50). State efforts to control or outright block these markets stifle innovation…

— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) December 19, 2025

Why States Stepped In

Reports have disclosed that some states have already acted. Connecticut’s regulators issued cease-and-desist orders to platforms such as Kalshi, Robinhood, and Crypto.com, saying certain event contracts look like unlicensed sports betting under state law. Those actions helped trigger the wider legal fight as firms say they operate under federal rules.

Coinbase is not only arguing in court. The exchange plans to offer event-contract trading to US users through a partnership with Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated platform, with a rollout targeted for January 2026. That timetable is one reason Coinbase says it needs a clear federal ruling now, to avoid being blocked in some states after launching.

Market Reaction And Context

The move comes amid a broader tug-of-war over whether prediction markets are financial products or gambling. Kalshi has faced similar fights in several states, and courts have issued mixed rulings so far. Market watchers say the outcome here could decide whether federally approved event contracts are available nationwide or must be treated state-by-state.

The litigation also landed in investors’ view. Coinbase’s shares fell more than 10% at one point on the same day the suits were filed, though trading moves were also tied to wider swings in crypto prices. Reports link the stock change to both the news and underlying market trends.

If federal judges back Coinbase, the ruling could reinforce CFTC authority and make it easier for platforms regulated at the federal level to operate across state lines. If judges side with the states, companies may face licensing needs in multiple places or be forced to restrict certain contracts in some jurisdictions.

Featured image from Coinbase, chart from TradingView

The crypto market is entering a phase marked by rising uncertainty and persistent selling pressure, as major assets struggle to regain bullish momentum. Bitcoin remains capped below the $90,000 level, repeatedly failing to attract enough demand to flip resistance into support.

At the same time, Ethereum is experiencing heightened volatility and renewed selling pressure, reflecting broader risk aversion across the market. Sentiment has weakened, and price action suggests that investors are becoming increasingly selective rather than aggressively positioning for upside.

However, according to an analysis by XWIN Research Japan, the most important shift currently unfolding in crypto is not visible directly in price charts but in how and where capital is being positioned. On-chain data shows that global liquidity within the crypto ecosystem has not exited the market. Instead, it has changed form.

The total supply of ERC20-based stablecoins has expanded to approximately $160 billion, hovering near all-time highs. While this supply briefly contracted during the risk-off environment of 2022, it has since resumed a clear and sustained upward trend.

This behavior does not signal capital fleeing crypto. Rather, it reflects funds temporarily de-risking while remaining fully inside the ecosystem. Capital is accumulating in stablecoins as “waiting liquidity,” positioned on the sidelines and ready to be deployed once clearer directional signals emerge. Liquidity has not disappeared; it is simply paused, patient, and awaiting conviction.

Japan’s Strategic Position in the Global Capital Shift

The analysis also highlights that this shift in global capital behavior carries meaningful implications for Japan’s crypto market. As regulatory clarity improves and tax frameworks gradually become more accommodating, Japan is positioned to benefit from a return of domestic capital that has remained cautious in recent years.

Combined with renewed interest from individual investors, this re-entry of sidelined capital could deepen local liquidity, improve price discovery, and strengthen Japan’s role within the broader global crypto landscape.

A key element in this transition is the growing relevance of JPYC, Japan’s yen-denominated stablecoin. While US dollar–based stablecoins continue to dominate global crypto flows, a yen-native digital currency offers Japan a strategic differentiator.

JPYC is not limited to speculative trading use cases; it is increasingly viewed as an infrastructure layer capable of supporting real economic activity. This includes integration with Web3 services, as well as domestic and cross-border payment applications that align more closely with Japan’s existing financial systems.

Looking ahead, the report suggests Japan’s crypto market may gradually shift away from a narrow focus on short-term price speculation. Instead, it could evolve into an ecosystem where capital actively circulates and is deployed for practical use cases. Ultimately, how effectively Japan absorbs and channels this globally mobile liquidity will play a central role in defining the market’s next phase of growth.

Crypto Market Tests Structural Support Amid Broad Risk-Off Sentiment

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is showing clear signs of structural stress after failing to sustain momentum above recent highs. As the weekly chart highlights, total market cap has retraced toward the $2.9–$3.0 trillion zone, an area that now acts as a critical inflection point for the broader market. This level coincides with the rising 100-week and 200-week moving averages, reinforcing its importance as medium- to long-term support.

The rejection from the $4 trillion region marks a decisive shift in market structure. After an extended expansion phase through 2024 and early 2025, the market has entered a corrective regime characterized by lower highs and weakening upside follow-through. Volume behavior supports this interpretation: selling pressure has increased during down weeks, while rebound attempts have been met with comparatively muted participation.

Despite the pullback, the long-term trend has not fully broken. The market remains well above the 2022–2023 base, suggesting this move resembles a consolidation or valuation reset rather than a full structural collapse. However, continued trading below the short-term moving averages indicates that risk appetite remains subdued.

For the bullish structure to reassert itself, the total market cap must stabilize above the $3 trillion threshold and reclaim the mid-range resistance near $3.3–$3.5 trillion. Failure to hold current support would expose the market to a deeper retracement toward the $2.4–$2.6 trillion region, where stronger historical demand previously emerged.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com

Quantum computing has become a durable risk narrative for Bitcoin. This week, Galaxy Digital head of research Alex Thorn sat down with Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor addressing the issue, shortly after Saylor posted his own “Bitcoin Quantum Leap” thesis on X.

“The Bitcoin Quantum Leap: Quantum computing won’t break Bitcoin—it will harden it. The network upgrades, active coins migrate, lost coins stay frozen. Security goes up. Supply comes down. Bitcoin grows stronger,” Saylor wrote on Dec. 16, 2025.

Saylor Doubles Down On Freezing Dormant Bitcoin

In Thorn’s interview, Saylor’s argument is less a cryptography lesson than a coordination claim: when a quantum threat is broadly recognized, the response will not be optional, and Bitcoin will follow the same upgrade logic as the rest of the digital economy.

“There’s going to be a point when the world will form a consensus that there’s a quantum threat. We’re not there now, but you won’t miss it because the United States government will direct all of the defense contractors to upgrade their encryption algorithms to be quantum resistant,” Saylor said.

He described a cascade in which major platforms ship standardized quantum-resistant libraries across consumer devices and core financial systems, with enforced timelines and re-authentication requirements. In that scenario, Saylor suggested, Bitcoin’s transition would be a software upgrade problem, not an existential crisis.

“They will ship an upgrade and they will say […] please install the new client software and reauthenticate yourself. And you’ve got X days, 90 days, 30 days… And if you don’t, we’re going to freeze your funds. For your own good,” Saylor said.

Saylor repeatedly returned to incentives as the decisive factor. In his view, owners of meaningful balances will not rationally opt out of an upgrade that preserves access to their holdings, and the same logic extends to the broader ecosystem’s ability to reach rough consensus.

“The Bitcoin network just runs on software. There’s going to be a quantum upgrade. It’s going to have quantum resistant encryption libraries,” he said, adding that he would expect those to align with widely adopted standards shipped across operating systems and enterprise infrastructure.

Where his answer becomes more explicitly market-relevant is in the downstream implication: coins that can be migrated will be migrated, and coins that cannot be migrated — because the holders are deceased or keys are irretrievable — would remain stranded. Saylor framed that as a security hardening event that also forces a clearer accounting of lost supply.

“We’re going to re-encrypt all the Bitcoin and all the wallets […] It’s going to get re-encrypted if the holders of the private keys are alive and if they like money,” he said. “If they’re dead, they’re not going to re-encrypt. And if they’ve lost the keys, they’re not going to re-encrypt.”

Bitcoin Supply Shock Imminent

That is where the “deflationary event” language enters: the upgrade, in his view, would effectively separate recoverable BTC from unrecoverable BTC in a way the market would have to price. “This is going to be a massive upgrade to network security and it’s going to be a massive deflationary event,” Saylor said. “And we’re going to get the answer to the age old question, how much BTC has been lost?”

Saylor also addressed the common objection that decentralization makes coordinated upgrades impractical. He argued the opposite: decentralized networks still converge when sufficiently motivated, and global supply chains and defense ecosystems coordinate under pressure despite being fragmented across thousands of entities.

“You think you’re not going to get consensus? All the smart people with money in the world that thought it was smart to put their money on the crypto network, you think they’re the people too stupid to want to upgrade?” he said.

In his framing, the practical difference versus a bank-driven migration is timing. A centralized institution can enforce a short deadline; Bitcoin, because it is global and permissionless, would likely take longer, on the order of months to years, but would still converge. “We’re probably going to do this over the course of 30 days or 90 days. It’ll probably take two years or one year,” Saylor said.

At press time, BTC traded at $88,000.

The Cardano network is showing signs of activity as on-chain data reveals a sharp increase in transactions tied to the movement of $NIGHT tokens. 

Transaction data surrounding $NIGHT tokens has now grown into new milestones in just a few weeks after launch. Although the entire market conditions are far from bullish, the surge in transaction count points to a structural increase in real activity on the Cardano blockchain.

NIGHT Token Activity Sparks A Transaction Surge On Cardano

The momentum traces back to data highlighted by blockchain explorer Cexplorer.io on the social media platform X. On Wednesday, the platform flagged that Cardano had processed over 122,000 transactions that contained the $NIGHT token, the native asset of the Midnight network. That figure has since adjusted, and transaction activity has been increasing since then. 

At the time of writing, the number of recorded transactions containing $NIGHT stands at 141,363, which indicates continued movement across wallets since their launch. This pattern shows that users are actively interacting with the token following its launch and that Cardano’s base layer is handling meaningful throughput tied directly to user engagement.

What The Data Says About The Network’s Health

The recent transaction data paints a more encouraging picture for Cardano, particularly in light of the long-standing narrative that the network lacks organic on-chain activity. For years, the network has often been dismissed as a so-called ghost chain, with critics arguing about its organic usage. 

This perception has also carried over into Cardano’s DeFi metrics, where co-founder Charles Hoskinson has previously pointed to a gap between on-chain application usage and the roughly 1.3 million users actively participating in Cardano’s staking system.

Furthermore, the creation of Midnight and its native token NIGHT is positive for Cardano as a deliberate expansion of its ecosystem. Midnight was designed as a privacy-focused blockchain that works alongside the network to address long-standing concerns around confidential computation and data protection while still aligning with regulatory and compliance expectations. 

The Midnight sidechain uses zero-knowledge cryptography, and developers can build applications where sensitive information can still be private while allowing selective disclosure when needed. This approach positions Midnight as a practical privacy layer that fits into real-world use cases.

The design and launch mechanics for Midnight and NIGHT make it so that community members needed to claim their token allocations through an official redemption portal and wait for them to thaw or unlock according to a predetermined schedule before they could be moved or fully utilized. 

On-chain activity tied to $NIGHT is one positive to look at amidst the current state of the Cardano network and its price action, which has been under persistent bearish pressure. ADA is trading at a 2025 low around the mid-$0.30s, which is indicative of the selling pressure across the entire crypto market.

The US Senate voted to confirm Mike Selig as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a package of nominations that passed 53–43.

Based on reports, the vote took place on December 18, 2025, and the crypto-friendly lawyer Selig is set to take over leadership of the agency as it prepares to play a larger role in digital asset oversight.

Official Choice And What It Means

According to coverage from legal and industry outlets, Selig’s new term will run through April 2029, giving him multi-year authority to shape policy at the CFTC.

Selig arrives at the agency after serving as chief counsel to the SEC’s crypto task force and following earlier experience at the CFTC, which sources say includes time as a law clerk.

Congratulations to @MichaelSelig and Travis Hill. The @CFTC and @FDICgov are in great hands. America’s future just got a little brighter. https://t.co/oUGpr40Rnw

— Kyle Hauptman (@kylehauptman) December 19, 2025

A Shift In Regulatory Tone

Reports have disclosed that the confirmation was part of a broader set of approvals that also elevated Travis Hill to lead the FDIC.

The nominations were advanced under US President Donald Trump administration’s picks and were bundled with many other candidates in the same roll call.

Industry groups responded quickly, with crypto firms noting the move could bring clearer rules for markets that many say need more regulatory certainty.

Staffing Pressure At The Agency

Mike Selig will initially be the sole commissioner at the normally five-member commission after a string of departures left the agency short-staffed, a fact that lawmakers flagged during hearings as a risk for any new rulemaking push.

Some analysts say the staffing gap could slow action, while others expect expedited hiring and appointments to follow.

Outgoing Acting Chair’s Next Step

Based on reports from major outlets, Acting Chair Caroline Pham plans to leave the CFTC to join crypto payments firm MoonPay once Selig is sworn in.

That transition marks another sign of closer ties forming between regulators and private crypto firms, a trend that has drawn attention on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Travis Hill has been confirmed as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He has been serving as the agency’s acting chair and has signaled a supportive approach toward crypto.

Lawmakers and industry watchers will pay attention to how Selig and Hill handle rulemaking for tokenized products and spot market oversight — areas where Congress has discussed granting clearer authority to the CFTC.

Selig will also face questions about enforcement priorities and the agency’s capacity to supervise a market that some estimates place in the trillions of dollars of tradable value.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Ripple’s U.S. dollar–backed stablecoin RLUSD has reached a $1 billion market capitalization just one year after launch, marking another milestone for XRP and the broader Ripple ecosystem. The milestone was highlighted by Ripple executive Jack McDonald, who pointed to a combination of regulatory compliance, institutional infrastructure, practical usage, global expansion, and multichain interoperability as the key factors driving RLUSD’s growth. Together, these developments justify the stablecoin’s rapid ascent.

Building RLUSD Into A $1 Billion Trusted Asset With Ripple And XRP

RLUSD’s rise to a $1 billion valuation on its first anniversary was shaped by deliberate structural decisions before launch. Ripple designed the stablecoin to operate within U.S. regulatory frameworks, combining state-level licensing with federal oversight via the OCC’s conditional approval of its national trust bank charter. This dual-layer compliance gave financial institutions immediate clarity on governance, reserve management, and operational standards, paving the way for quick adoption.

As institutional demand grew, RLUSD issuance expanded in line with actual usage, helping it surpass the $1 billion market cap in November 2025 and secure a position among the top five USD-backed stablecoins globally. Confidence in the stablecoin was reinforced through robust infrastructure choices: Ripple selected BNY Mellon to custody RLUSD reserves, while Deloitte’s independent attestations provided transparency into its backing and operational controls. These measures strengthened institutional trust and enabled RLUSD’s steady expansion into professional financial environments.

Moreover, within Ripple’s ecosystem, RLUSD complements XRP by providing a regulated dollar instrument for settlement, liquidity management, and institutional treasury functions, while XRP continues to support cross-border transfers and on-chain liquidity. Together, two assets form an integrated framework that has underpinned RLUSD’s expansion and milestone achievement.

Institutional Adoption And Global Market Integration

Beyond compliance, RLUSD’s growth has been driven by practical adoption and real-world financial usage. The stablecoin serves as a 24/7 off-ramp for tokenized products, including funds issued by BlackRock and VanEck, allowing smooth movement between tokenized assets and traditional cash positions. Its role extends into capital markets activity, with repo trades and money market fund operations enabled through partnerships with global banks and asset managers, embedding RLUSD directly into institutional workflows rather than peripheral use cases.

RLUSD’s international footprint has expanded alongside its domestic adoption. Recognition in financial hubs such as Dubai (DFSA) and Abu Dhabi (FSRA) enables cross-border operations while maintaining regulatory consistency. Ripple has also extended RLUSD across multiple layer-two blockchain networks, including Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain via Wormhole’s NTT standard, increasing interoperability and access to liquidity throughout the ecosystem.

By its one-year anniversary, RLUSD has established itself as a core component of Ripple’s financial infrastructure, demonstrating that trust, compliance, structural design, institutional adoption, and cross-chain expansion can drive rapid, sustainable market growth while achieving a top-five USD stablecoin status.

New reports have revealed that a billionaire Shiba Inu investor has transferred billions of SHIB tokens to a crypto exchange, setting the stage for possible market shifts. Typically, large exchange inflows of this size precede heightened market volatility as traders assess whether the move signals a distribution or a strategic repositioning. The outcome of this large-scale transfer could also influence Shiba Inu’s near-term price, which has been trending down for months.

Billionaire Shiba Inu Whale Moves 469 Billion SHIB

Blockchain analyst EmberCN was the first to report the large-scale movement on X this Thursday, highlighting that a top whale had transferred a significant amount of SHIB tokens to a centralized exchange. Fresh on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence shows that more than 48 hours ago, the anonymous whale had moved 469 billion SHIB, worth approximately $3.64 million, to OKX.

The transfer was reportedly split into two transactions: one for 468.982 billion SHIB and the other for just 5 million tokens. Following this, Arkham Intelligence revealed that the whale had executed another substantial transfer of 464.308 billion SHIB and 550,066 SHIB to OKX the next day. At the time, the value of these coins was about $3.48 million and $4.12 million, respectively. 

In his post, EmberCN referenced a 2023 disclosure revisiting an initial 2020 transaction by the same whale, which resulted in massive unrealized gains at the top. The blockchain analyst revealed that the whale had initially acquired 1.03 trillion SHIB in 2020 using just 37.8 ETH valued at around $13,700 at the time. This purchase represented roughly 17.4% of the total SHIB supply, making it one of the most profitable Shiba Inu trades ever recorded. 

At the peak of the 2021 bull market, the whale’s 1.03 trillion SHIB was valued at roughly $9.1 billion. Despite the explosive price rally, the investor largely maintained the position and avoided selling most of the holdings in the years that followed. Even after the SHIB price crash earlier this year, there were no official reports of whales moving funds to take profits. 

Current data indicates that despite its most recent 469 billion SHIB transfer, the whale still controls up to 96.22 trillion SHIB, accounting for about 16.4% of the total supply. At present market prices, these holdings are valued at roughly $707.3 million, underscoring the sheer magnitude of this whale’s holdings. EmberCN notes that the anonymous whale’s address history is fully visible on Arkham Intelligence, offering detailed insights into past transactions. 

Is The Whale Selling Or Repositioning?

Currently, it’s unclear whether the anonymous 469 billion- and 464.3 billion SHIB transfers were sold or simply repositioned. In most cases, transfers from a private wallet to exchanges are viewed as early signs of potential selling activity, especially when the volume is large. For transactions of this size, liquidating the tokens could influence Shiba Inu’s price dynamics.

The meme coin is already trading at $0.0000073, down 13.04% over the past week. So far, the market has yet to show a clear reaction to the whale’s transfer. Nevertheless, a potential market sell-off could have drastic effects on SHIB’s already weak market.

Given the heightened volatility in the broader cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin has fallen below the pivotal $90,000 level, while Ethereum has dropped below the $3,000 price mark. Following the recent pullback, a key divergence has been spotted between the two leading cryptocurrency assets, which could shape the market dynamics.

A Growing Divide Between Bitcoin And Ethereum

As volatility in the cryptocurrency market grows, a crucial divergence between Bitcoin and Ethereum is gaining strength, attracting attention in the sector. The report states that the long-running comparison between Bitcoin and Ethereum is about to reach a new stage.

On-chain data indicates a growing supply disparity between the two biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap. This divergence is a sign that Ethereum’s supply dynamics are changing more dramatically as a result of things like network activity, staking, and fee burning, whereas Bitcoin’s issuance and holder behavior remain consistent.

It is worth noting that this marks the second time in this current cycle that the development is taking place. In the coming months, investors may be compelled to reassess their positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum due to this growing disparity, which is beginning to alter market narratives.

Mignolet noted that buying liquidity is currently drying up. Meanwhile, the remaining liquidity is just moving around the market instead of growing. What this simply implies is that liquidity is slowing down, and in the absence of fresh inflows of new capital, the supply imbalance between Bitcoin and Ethereum cannot be fixed.

During past scenarios, this BTC and ETH supply imbalance has been corrected only through declines in the price of both assets. Interestingly, this is precisely what transpired when BTC was trading above the $100,000 mark. As seen on the chart, the same pattern is currently resurfacing, hinting at a potential shift in market dynamics and direction.

Mignolet claims that if fresh liquidity does not enter the crypto market, it may experience an extended period of consolidation or brief bounces. However, such moves would be pointless bounces, likely followed by further downward moves in the end.

BTC And ETH Set TO See Massive Rotation

Recent supply dynamics and capital flows are starting to align in a way that signals an impending massive rotation between Bitcoin and Ethereum. After examining the ETH/BTC chart, Melijn The Trader revealed that the pair is poised to experience its largest rotation in 8 years.

This rotation has the potential to completely change how capital flows between the two largest assets in the market over the next few months. According to the expert, the last time this rotation occurred, Ethereum saw a notable 50x upward move.

With the same trend resurfacing in addition to deeper liquidity and institutional firepower, a similar price explosion could repeat itself, which Merlijn believes will catch most crypto investors off guard. At the time of writing, CoinMarketCap’s data shows that BTC’s price was trading at $87,920 while ETH’s price was trading dangerously close to the $2,968 support level.

Charles Hoskinson says Cardano is entering a new phase centered on what he described as a “ChatGPT for privacy,” positioning the Midnight project as a cross-ecosystem application layer designed to make advanced cryptography usable at scale.

Cardano Is Entering A New Phase

Speaking in a Dec. 18 livestream titled “Rays of Sunshine in 2026,” the Cardano founder argued that Midnight marks a shift away from incremental performance battles toward privacy-first, hybrid applications that can plug into Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and beyond.

“I wanted to make a video to talk about the good stuff and talk about the fact that we’re leading the market for the first time in a long time,” Hoskinson said. “And it feels right. This time really does.”

The heart of the pitch was that Midnight’s early traction is not just a hype spike, but a sign the market is tired of the usual crypto incentive loop and looking for a new “paradigm.” “People deep down inside, they know that a new generation is starting,” he said. “We need a new paradigm and we have to have a reset and we have to launch things and do things differently. And they’re just tired of the way things have happened before. They’re tired of it.”

Hoskinson spent time distinguishing Midnight from the category it will inevitably be filed under. “When you looked at Midnight, Midnight is not a privacy coin,” he said. “Midnight is what will enable rational privacy and selective disclosure, but it’s so much more. It’s the platform for intents. It’s the platform for hybrid applications. It’s the platform for capacity exchange, for dual tokenomics. It’s the platform for multi-resource consensus.”

He acknowledged the underlying toolkit—“snarks,” “roll-ups,” “recursion and folding”—but argued those buzzwords miss the point. “It’s never been about roll-ups, recursion, folding, snarks from a scalability perspective,” he said. “It’s about real world applications.” The claim, in his telling, is that Midnight is one of the few projects positioned to handle “trillions of dollars worth of transactions,” precisely because it targets applications where selective disclosure and privacy are features, not trade-offs.

To make the case that Midnight is already outperforming comparable narratives, Hoskinson cited market-cap and volume figures for other ZK and privacy-adjacent projects and contrasted them with Midnight’s reported activity. He cited Starkware at $410 million market cap with $72 million volume, zkSync at $279 million market cap with $29 million volume, and Mina at $97 million market cap—before highlighting his own project: “Midnight, $1 billion market cap, $1.8 billion trading. It doesn’t even have Binance Spot yet.”

A major reason he believes the market has leaned in, Hoskinson argued, is launch structure—specifically, avoiding the standard fear that insiders will overwhelm liquidity. “And they said, well, can I believe in it? Is there an ICO? Is there an insider? Who the f*** is going to dump on me?” he said. “They just gave it away. Eight different ecosystems, seven chains. All the VCs wanted in, they got nothing. They didn’t get in. We gave it to the people.”

He later tied distribution directly to observed trading intensity. “We have about 1.5 million people that got night tokens,” he said. “That’s why the volume is so f***ing high.”

Midnight Is The ‘ChatGPT For Privacy’

For Cardano itself, Hoskinson’s most pointed strategic claim was that “better, faster, cheaper” is not a durable wedge—even if upcoming upgrades land. “Let’s say Leios ships and Hydra ships and we’re better, faster, and cheaper. Great,” he said. “What reason does someone have to leave Solana? And what reason does someone have to leave Ethereum? Because the transaction fee is 3% less. Okay.”

Instead, he argued Cardano can win by being first to build hybrid applications that route through Midnight and unlock privacy-first financial primitives. “They could go through midnight to Cardano and they get privacy,” he said. “They do something new and different […] private prediction markets, private DEXs, private stablecoins.”

He extended that thinking to Bitcoin-adjacent flows: “Maybe just maybe all those Bitcoin people are going to want to trade on a private DEX instead of a public DEX,” he said. “And maybe we’ll have volumes in the billions of dollars of turnaround every single day.”

Hoskinson repeatedly returned to a simplifying metaphor: Midnight as an abstraction layer that makes heavy cryptography usable. “Everybody else gets jealous. So they’ll go use Midnight too because it’s the ChatGPT of privacy,” he said. “Just send stuff and stuff comes out.” He later described a product-like cadence of improvement: “You basically just have this API. You send something in, you get something back. And every six months it gets better.”

He also framed 2026 as an execution year, sketching an outward-facing expansion plan where Midnight is integrated across major ecosystems in tight succession: “We’re going to do Cardano Midnight. Show them how it’s done. Then we’re gonna do Midnight Ethereum. Two months later, three months later, Midnight Solana… Midnight Avalanche… Midnight Bitcoin.”

The broader ambition, he said, is to move crypto past siloed tribal finance toward one interoperable market. “This is the last generation,” Hoskinson said. “It’s gonna unify the marketplaces and it’s gonna get rid of DeFi and TradFi. And there’s just going to be Fi.”

At press time, Cardano traded at $0.36.

Crypto pundit Finance Bull has advised XRP investors against selling their holdings now despite the market downturn. This came as the pundit explained that the CLARITY Act could pass next year, which he predicts will positively impact the altcoin’s adoption. 

Why XRP Investors Should Think Again About Selling Their Coins

In an X post, Finance Bull told XRP investors to think again if they are considering selling their coins right now. He reminded them that Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse confirmed that the CLARITY Act is expected in early 2026, which the pundit indicated will benefit the token when that happens. 

Finance Bull explained that when the CLARITY Act passes, Ripple will be forced to declare the fate of its XRP in escrow, and that when that happens, the company won’t sell its holdings. Instead, he predicts that they will pre-allocate it to bank corridors, sovereign rails, liquidity hubs powering cross-border settlement, institutional infrastructure, and countries integrating next-generation payment rails. 

Finance Bull further remarked that this flips the entire conversation, as what looks like overhead supply is already reserved, meaning that XRP won’t face a sell-off as some investors may fear. He added that the real move is locked liquidity flowing into banks, FX routes, and custody frameworks, which would boost the altcoin’s adoption. 

The pundit stated that this isn’t about market-making but about monetary wiring and that once Ripple releases its official escrow roadmap, the re-pricing will be instant, irreversible, and demand-driven. 

Interestingly, Finance Bull claimed that BlackRock will be one of the institutions that will adopt the altcoin when there is regulatory clarity through the CLARITY Act. Notably, BlackRock is one of the crypto ETF issuers that has yet to file for a spot XRP ETF, but the pundit has suggested that could change soon. 

Ripple Secures Another Institutional Partnership

In a press release, Ripple announced a strategic partnership with TJM Investments, providing a boost for XRP’s adoption. The crypto firm stated that under the terms of the partnership, it has invested in THM and will continue to provide best-in-class infrastructure to support TJM’s execution and clearing services. 

This builds on the existing relationship between Ripple’s multi-asset prime brokerage platform, Ripple Prime, and TJM. Ripple stated that the expanded partnership will enable TJM offer its clients improved capital and collateral efficiency as well as enhanced clearing stability and balance-sheet support. 

This development comes as Ripple continues to explore ways to enhance the utility of RLUSD and XRP. The firm recently announced plans. The firm recently announced plans to begin testing RLUSD on Base, Optimism, Unichain, and Ink. 

At the time of writing, the altcoin price is trading at around $1.80, down almost 4% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Large on-chain movements involving Bitcoin whales have a way of putting the market on edge, especially when they involve transfers to centralized exchanges. A new transaction involving 5,152 BTC moving into Binance has now raised questions around potential sell pressure at a time when Bitcoin’s price action is fragile, highly reactive, and struggling to get a hold of bullish momentum.

Bitcoin Whale Moves 5,152 BTC Worth $445 Million To Binance

On-chain data identified by whale transaction tracker Lookonchain has revealed that a long-term Bitcoin holder deposited 5,152 BTC, valued at approximately $444.73 million, into Binance. The data, sourced from Arkham Intelligence, shows the wallet belongs to an entity tagged as Bitcoin OG (1011short), a trader known to hold a massive combined long position estimated at around $695 million across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

The size and destination of the transfer immediately drew attention, as coins sent to exchanges are typically interpreted as becoming available for trading activity. Moving such a large amount of BTC onto Binance increases immediate sell-side liquidity and shows that the whale address is in preparation for selling. This follows the recent trend of whale addresses selling their Bitcoin holdings and a general lack of buying pressure for the cryptocurrency.

Interestingly, Lookonchain data shows that the same Bitcoin OG (1011short) wallet recently added another 12,406 ETH to its long exposure, pushing its current holdings to 203,341 ETH worth about $577.5 million, alongside 1,000 BTC valued near $87 million and 250,000 SOL worth roughly $30.7 million. Despite increasing exposure, the wallet is now down more than $70 million, having seen profits fall from over $120 million to less than $30 million at the time of writing.

Bearish Whale Behavior Is Not Isolated

This Binance deposit is not occurring in isolation. Lookonchain also noted activity from another whale address, 0x94d3, which has taken explicitly bearish action over the past several hours. According to the data, the whale sold 255 BTC worth approximately $21.77 million at an average price of $85,378 before opening a 10x leveraged short position on 876.27 BTC, valued at about $76.3 million. The same wallet also initiated a leveraged short on 372.78 ETH worth roughly $1.1 million.

Bitcoin’s recent price action makes these whale moves especially impactful. The leading cryptocurrency has failed to hold above $90,000 again and recently fell to a 24-hour low of $84,581. This movement has seen Bitcoin trading in a volatile range, repeatedly revisiting support zones around the mid-$80,000 region. Upside follow-through above $90,000 has been limited, and this has left the cryptocurrency vulnerable.

Interestingly, a careful look at on-chain data shows that any movement that looks like accumulation in recent days is not organic buying but only reshuffling among wallets.

Новая вредоносная программа Stealka крадет пароли криптовалютных кошельков и данные банковских карт с компьютеров под управлением Windows, сообщили специалисты российской компании «Лаборатория Касперского».

Ethereum’s price may be hampered by selling pressure, but the leading network continues to experience heavy utilization from developers and users. After robust interaction from the participants,  the blockchain giant emerged once again as the leader in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending.

DeFi Lending Still Pays Best On The Ethereum Network

A recent report has underscored Ethereum’s growing dominance within the blockchain sector. The network is solidifying its position as the financial foundation for decentralized finance lending, and the data is starting to present a convincing picture.

A look at the data shared by Leon Waidmann, a market expert and the head of research at On-Chain Foundation, shows that ETH is now the revenue center of DeFi lending. This implies that most of the revenue flowed through the ETH ecosystem, outpacing other major chains like Base, Plasma, and Arbitrum. 

From borrowing fees to interest paid by active users, the ETH network continues to be the key settlement layer where value is persistently created. ETH is at the center of the revenue outlines the network’s usage in addition to its ongoing dominance as the fundamental infrastructure driving DeFi’s most lucrative lending activity.

As seen on the chart, Ethereum mainnet steadily secured over 80% to 90% of all DeFi lending revenue and activity, reinforcing its increasing role in the financial landscape. Interestingly, this share has remained a dominant force even with the vigorous expansion of the Layer 2 and alt-Layer 1 chains.

Data shows that usage may be fragmented, but fees do not. Meanwhile, at the protocol layer, Waidmann highlighted that concentration is quite stronger. Amid this rising DeFi revenue lending, Aave is the core revenue engine on the Ethereum mainnet, attracting more than 50% of the total lending funds. 

This part of the network was also responsible for over 60% of all active loans on ETH. In the end, the project generated approximately $885 million in fees in 2025 alone, reflecting the significant usage of the network.

While Ethereum mainnet secures balance sheets and profits, layer 2s are optimizing execution and User Experience (UX). Waidmann noted that where confidence and liquidity are greatest, DeFi credit markets converge. “Ethereum Mainnet is not being disrupted, but is being reinforced,” the expert added.

Active ETH Addresses Targeting Its Peak

Another instance of robust engagement across the Ethereum network is a spike in active wallet addresses. Joseph Young, a crypto enthusiast, previously highlighted that the active users on the network are drawing close to its all-time high. Such a rise in active addresses suggests a resurgence of interest and conviction among larger and retail investors.

At the time of the post, about 2.4 million wallet addresses were actively interacting with the network every week. This is an indication that tokenization, stablecoins, and privacy infrastructure are all converging on Ethereum. Currently, Young stated ETH is dominating the big three metas, while expressing his conviction in the network’s prospects.

Комиссия по ценным бумагам и биржам США (SEC) обвинила 37-летнего основателя майнинговой компании VBit Technologies Дана Си Во (Danh C. Vo) в мошенничестве, а также присвоении и растрате клиентских $48,5 млн.

Предпоследняя полная неделя 2025 года прошла для криптовалют почти полностью в минусе. Несмотря на достаточно много позитивных новостей, инвесторы предпочитают не рисковать, обходя цифровые активы стороной. Что будет дальше?

According to David Sacks, the White House’s artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto Czar, the long-awaited crypto market structure bill, the CLARITY Act, which aims to define how regulatory bodies will oversee cryptocurrency markets, is reportedly closer to passing. 

Markups For Crypto Market Structure Bill Set For January

In a recent post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Sacks shared insights from a fresh meeting with Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, indicating that a markup for the CLARITY Act is slated for January. 

The CLARITY Act is designed with a core framework that classifies digital assets into three categories: digital commodities, overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); investment contract assets, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and permitted stablecoins. 

This structure aims to establish distinct regulatory roles for the CFTC and SEC, require registration for cryptocurrency exchanges, define Qualified Digital Asset Custodians (QDACs) with strict key management protocols, and introduce anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules.

However, the bill has faced delays over recent months, primarily due to an extended US government shutdown and ongoing negotiations between Democratic and Republican lawmakers. 

As recent reports by Bitcoinist have indicated, Democrats are advocating for additional time to discuss various crucial issues, including market integrity, financial stability, and ethical considerations surrounding President Trump’s family’s business dealings in the crypto space.

Despite these hurdles, a spokesperson for Chair Scott emphasized the significant progress made by the Senate Banking Committee in creating a robust regulatory framework. 

Meanwhile, the crypto industry is also striving to address concerns regarding the recently passed GENIUS Act, which includes provisions that could exert further limits on stablecoins. 

Contention Grows Over GENIUS Act 

A letter led by the Blockchain Association, signed by over 125 industry players, criticized attempts to reinterpret and expand the existing prohibition on interest linked to stablecoins within the GENIUS Act.

Signed into law by President Trump in July, the GENIUS Act aims to establish a regulatory framework for dollar-backed digital tokens, which are widely known as stablecoins. The act contains a provision that prevents stablecoin issuers from offering “any form of interest or yield.” 

This aspect has ignited a contentious debate between the crypto and banking sectors regarding the extent of the interest prohibition and whether adjustments are necessary.

Banking representatives argue that the prohibition on interest should extend to other entities that provide rewards to stablecoin holders, labeling any attempt to exclude them a “loophole” that contradicts the law’s original intent. They also lobbying Congress to revise the GENIUS provisions as part of the crypto market structure bill.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com