Из жизни альткоинов

Соотношение открытого интереса в бессрочных фьючерсах к резервам биткоина на всех популярных криптобиржах упало до самого низкого уровня с мая 2025 года, что говорит о высокой степени неприятия инвестиционных рисков, заявили аналитики ChainCatcher.

Руководитель исследовательского отдела Bitcoin New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) Грег Чиполаро (Greg Cipolaro) заявил, что главная проблема токенизированных активов реального мира (RWA) в том, что они функционируют в закрытых системах.

Комиссия по ценным бумагам и биржам США (SEC) опубликовала руководство по использованию криптокошельков, перечислив риски различных способов хранения криптовалют.

Referral Feature to Enable Users to Earn and Track CRO Rewards Through App-Based Referrals

Crypto.com App Referral Feature December 2025 – Crypto.com, a global leader in cryptocurrency services, today announced an updated App Referral feature to expand user participation across the Crypto.com platform and enable users to earn CRO rewards through app-based referrals.

The updated App Referral feature, which aims to allow users to earn CRO by inviting friends to join the Crypto.com App, marks a significant step in broadening participation in Crypto.com’s ecosystem. The referral feature is designed to provide users with clearer visibility into referral activity and reward progression, while enabling both existing and newly referred users to track CRO rewards more effectively within the app. Additionally, the updated feature prioritizes ease of use, transparent tracking, and scalable participation, making it accessible for a broad range of users.

“We are pleased to introduce updates to the App Referral feature to help expand user participation across the Crypto.com platform through a more structured and transparent referral experience,” said a Crypto.com representative. “The updated referral feature reinforces our commitment to providing users with clear tools to track rewards and engage more actively with the Crypto.com App.”

“Providing more ways for users to engage with cryptocurrency services remains central to our vision of further mainstreaming crypto,” said Eric Anziani, President and COO of Crypto.com. “The App Referral feature update enables users to participate more directly in the growth of the Crypto.com ecosystem while earning CRO rewards tied to referral activity.”

Under the updated referral feature, users can earn up to US$100 in CRO for every friend successfully referred to the Crypto.com App. The feature includes a dedicated dashboard, which allows users to track referred friends, monitor earnings milestones, and view total CRO rewards earned through referrals, all in one place. The updated dashboard provides a consolidated view of referral activity, enabling users to monitor progress more efficiently.

The referral feature also introduces trading-based earning, under which CRO rewards increase based on the trading activity of referred users. As referred users generate trading volume within the Crypto.com App, referral rewards progress accordingly, allowing for smoother reward accumulation and structured milestone tracking.

In addition, the updated referral feature provides more personalised ways to share referral codes and links, enabling users to distribute referrals more easily across supported channels. These updates are intended to allow users to grow their referral networks while maintaining a consistent and streamlined sharing experience within the app.

The referral feature update applies to both existing Crypto.com users and newly referred users. Referred users are also eligible to earn up to US$100 in CRO, track their reward progress more easily, and begin referring additional users themselves once eligible, expanding participation across the Crypto.com ecosystem.

This referral feature update follows Crypto.com’s continued efforts to enhance user experience and expand access to cryptocurrency services across its platform.

About Crypto.com

Founded in 2016, Crypto.com is trusted by millions of users worldwide and is the industry leader in regulatory compliance, security and privacy. Our vision is simple: Cryptocurrency in Every Wallet. Crypto.com is committed to accelerating the adoption of cryptocurrency through innovation and empowering the next generation of users to participate in a more accessible digital ecosystem.

Learn more at https://crypto.com.

Мемкоины не исчезнут с криптоландшафта после спада 2025 года, а «восстанут из мертвых в новой форме», заявил президент платежной компании MoonPay Кит Гроссман (Keith  Grossman).

Четырехлетний цикл биткоина по-прежнему функционирует, но теперь им управляют другие факторы, заявил глава исследовательской компании 10x Research Маркус Тилен (Markus Thielen).

Former Terraform Labs developer Will Chen argued in a Dec. 13 X thread that the fraud case against Do Kwon was built on a “backwards” theory, days after a court sentenced Kwon to 15 years in prison on Friday, Dec. 15.

Chen framed his post as a critique of the legal mechanics, not a character defense. “I wanted Do to fail. I wanted him punished. I thought he was arrogant and reckless and I told him so to his face multiple times,” he wrote. “I’m not here to defend Do Kwon the person. But the legal case is broken.”

Do Kwon Conviction Misframed Terra’s Collapse

He described Judge Engelmayer as “sympathetic” and “extremely methodical,” but argued the guilty plea boxed Kwon into the government’s framing: “Do taking the guilty plea means admitting to the government’s charges as is. There’s no debating afterward.” Chen said he found it “incredibly ironic” that Do Kwon didn’t contest the case.

At the center of Chen’s critique is prosecutors’ theory around Terra’s May 2021 depeg. As Chen summarized it, the government argued that Kwon claimed the algorithm “self-healed” while failing to disclose that Jump Trading stepped in to buy UST and help restore the peg, making his public statements deceptive and therefore fraudulent.

Chen’s rebuttal is that this logic runs in the wrong direction. “Fraud is when you claim your system has safety mechanisms it doesn’t have, and people invest trusting that fake safety, and then they lose money when the danger you hid materializes,” he wrote, contrasting it with the allegation here: “But what the government is alleging is the inverse. Do said ‘no reserves, the algorithm alone handles it’ when he actually did have Jump as a backstop.”

In Chen’s view, that means Do Kwon was “claiming less safety than he actually had,” adding: “If he’d disclosed Jump, investors would have been more confident, not less.” He distilled his conclusion bluntly: “You don’t defraud someone by hiding additional safety mechanisms. The direction is backwards.”

Chen also disputed how prosecutors interpreted a reported private remark attributed to Do Kwon — that Terra “might’ve been fucked without Jump” — as proof Kwon knew the mechanism was broken. “Might’ve been fucked is uncertainty about an unknowable counterfactual,” Chen wrote. “Knew it would have failed is a claim of definite knowledge.”

He argued the only way to truly know the algorithm would not have recovered is to not intervene and watch it die, which he suggests is inconsistent with operating a live financial system. “The algorithm was working during that period,” Chen wrote. “Arbitrage was happening. UST was being burned for LUNA. Jump was also buying. Both things were true.”

Even the non-disclosure itself, Chen argued, could be framed as strategic rather than deceptive. “Algorithmic stablecoins operate in adversarial conditions,” he wrote, suggesting that publicizing the size and nature of defenses can make an attack easier to price. “If attackers know your exact defense capabilities, they can calculate whether an attack is profitable,” Chen said, arguing that “uncertainty about defense resources is itself a defense.”

He compared the idea to “strategic ambiguity” used by central banks and warned that public transparency around reserves can become a tactical disadvantage: “Would disclosing Jump have made Terra more or less secure? Attackers could have calculated exactly how much force was needed to overwhelm the defense.”

Chen then challenged whether the case established investor reliance and causation in a market saturated with information. “Do’s statements were one signal in an incredibly noisy channel,” he wrote, pointing to years of public debate around Terra’s risks, open-source code, and prominent critics. “The risk was described in the original white paper. The code was open source. The potential failure mode was publicly debated for years,” Chen wrote, arguing prosecutors “never established direct causation between Do’s specific statements and investor decisions.”

He also drew a sharp line between the May 2021 episode and the May 2022 collapse, arguing the information environment changed materially in between. “By May 2022, investors knew about backstops,” he wrote, pointing to Luna Foundation Guard’s public launch in January 2022 and the visibility of reserves on-chain. In Chen’s view, that breaks the causal chain: “The May 2021 non-disclosure about Jump is causally disconnected from May 2022 losses because the information environment had completely changed by then.”

One of Chen’s most forceful objections was the scope of losses attributed to Do Kwon. “One thing I can’t get over is the fact that Do signed off on pleading guilty to causing $40 billion in loss,” he wrote. “Market cap decline is not fraud loss.” He offered a simple example to illustrate what he sees as a category error: “If I buy LUNA at $1 and it goes to $100 and then back to zero, my loss is $1. The $99 was paper gains I never realized.” Treating peak-to-trough market cap evaporation as damages, he argued, “sets a terrible legal precedent for the industry.”

While disputing the overarching fraud theory, Chen did not claim Terraform Labs’ messaging was clean across the board. He said “the Chai stuff has more merit as an actual fraud claim,” while arguing the government’s portrayal was still overstated. “That’s not entirely accurate,” he wrote of claims Chai didn’t use Terra, adding that Chai “did use Terra for accounting,” that “Terra wallet was integrated into the app,” and “you could top up Chai with KRT,” while conceding Do Kwon “probably stretched the truth early on” about on-chain payment settlement.

Anchor, Chen wrote, was “harder to defend.” Promoting the roughly 20% yield as sustainable while reserves depleted was “reckless,” and he said Do Kwon knew “the 20% couldn’t last forever without a plan.” Still, Chen argued that even if yield marketing was misleading, the catastrophic losses were driven by the depeg: “If UST had held, people would’ve just earned less interest. They wouldn’t have lost their principal.”

The ex-Terra developer also contrasts Do Kwon to Sam Bankman-Fried: “SBF literally stole customer deposits and used them for other purposes. That’s why SBF victims are being repaid. The money was taken and still exists somewhere. Terra victims can’t be repaid because the value was destroyed in a crash, not stolen and moved to a different account. Treating these situations as equivalent is wrong.”

Chen closed with a broader warning about precedent and builder behavior. “If founder confidence plus project failure equals fraud, we’ve criminalized entrepreneurship,” he wrote, arguing it exposes founders who publicly express optimism about products that later fail. His final framing returned to process: whatever one thinks of Do Kwon personally, Chen argues the plea locked in prosecutors’ narrative without the kind of contested defense that might have narrowed both the theory and the scope of damages.

At press time, LUNC traded at $0.00004080.

Прокуратура округа Мэриленда предъявила новые обвинения 56-летнему промоутеру криптовалютной схемы HyperFund Родни Бёртону (Rodney Burton), известному как Bitcoin Rodney. В криптосхему было инвестировано $1,8 млрд.

Председатель Управления по регулированию виртуальных активов Пакистана (PVARA) Билал бин Сакиб (Bilal Bin Saqib) заявил, что правительство не стремится к тотальному контролю криптовалют. Наоборот, Пакистан готов выдавать лицензии криптосервисам, соблюдающим нормативные требования.

Торговая индустрия, ввиду появления новых активов, требует соответствующих аналитических инструментов. Индикаторы в трейдинге опираются на изыскания прошлого и часто новая разработка — это усовершенствованная старая. Так вышло и с KST.

According to Itaú Asset Management, Brazil’s largest private bank, investors should consider holding 1%–3% of their portfolios in Bitcoin starting in 2026. The recommendation came in a research outlook released this week and frames Bitcoin as a small, complementary holding rather than a main bet.

Itaú Backs Small Bitcoin Positions

The bank’s note points to Bitcoin’s low correlation with many traditional assets and to currency risks that hit local investors hard this year. Itaú also moved to build the infrastructure behind that view: in September 2025 it created a dedicated crypto division and named former Hashdex executive João Marco Braga da Cunha to lead the team. That new unit sits alongside the bank’s existing products and is meant to help clients access regulated crypto tools.

Access Through Local Products

Brazilian savers can already reach Bitcoin via products tied to Itaú. The bank is part of the team that launched the IT Now Bloomberg Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, known by its ticker BITI11, which began trading on November 10, 2022. The ETF gives investors a spot-like route to Bitcoin inside the local market, and it sits alongside unit trusts and pension products that offer crypto exposure.

Small But Existing Crypto Footprint

Itaú says its regulated crypto suite manages roughly R$850 million across several funds and ETFs, a modest amount compared with its wider business but still a clear signal of product readiness. The bank’s asset arm is large: it manages more than 1 trillion reais for clients, which helps explain why its guidance on allocations draws wide attention.

Market Context And Timing

Itaú’s move arrives after a year in which currency swings amplified losses for some Brazilian holders of foreign assets. That reality appears to be part of the math behind recommending a 1%–3% position — a small buffer for those worried about local-currency shocks, not a bet meant to replace stocks or bonds. The bank frames the position as a disciplined, long-term allocation, not a short-term trade.

What This Means For Investors

For ordinary investors the guidance is simple to read: keep exposure small and controlled. A 1% position will hardly change a diversified portfolio on its own, while 3% is still within what many institutions have called a “satellite” slot. Based on reports, Itaú expects to offer more choices — from low-volatility wrappers to riskier strategies — through the new unit as demand grows.

Featured image from La Nación, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin is heading into a critical window as the Bank of Japan prepares what could be its most consequential policy move in decades. The central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.75% at its December 18-19 meeting, a level not seen since 1995 and a clear signal that Japan is continuing its exit from ultra-loose monetary policy. 

This upcoming event is causing a few conversations among crypto traders because similar policy moves from Japan have repeatedly coincided with the start of Bitcoin price crashes.

Japan’s Rate Hikes And The Repeating Bitcoin Sell-Off Pattern

Crypto market observers have been quick to highlight an uncomfortable pattern relating to Bitcoin and the BOJ. Each time the bank has raised rates since 2024, Bitcoin’s price action has experienced a deep and relatively fast correction. 

For example, March 2024 saw Bitcoin fall by about 23% following Japan’s first rate hike since 2007. A similar rate spike move in July was followed by a drop of around 26%, while the January 2025 hike preceded a steeper decline of more than 30%.

Crypto analyst 0xNobler expressed concern, noting that if this historical trend repeats itself, Bitcoin could be headed below the $70,000 level shortly after the upcoming December decision. The chart he shared illustrates how each rate hike has aligned with a local market top, followed by a pronounced leg lower. The consistency of these moves has turned what might otherwise be dismissed as coincidence into a data point many traders are now taking seriously.

Japan’s interest rate

The pressure extends beyond reactions by the crypto industry alone. Japan is the largest foreign holder of US government debt, and any tightening from the Bank of Japan reverberates across global liquidity markets. Higher Japanese rates strengthen the yen, and this, in turn, reduces excess capital that might otherwise flow into risk assets.

Echoing this view, another crypto commentator known as AndrewBTC pointed to Bitcoin’s repeated 20% to 31% declines following each BOJ hike since 2024. He warned that another rate increase in December could produce a similar outcome and also identified $70,000 as the possible downside target if the pattern repeats itself.

Bitcoin/US Dollar. Source: @cryptoctlt On X

Bitcoin Above Long-Term Support: Not Everyone Is Bearish

Despite the growing anxiety towards the Bank of Japan’s rate increase, the outlook for Bitcoin is not universally negative. For instance, analyst Ted Pillows pointed out that Bitcoin is currently interacting with its monthly EMA-21, a level that has always acted as a launchpad in prior cycles.

Based on this structure, Pillows predicted that Bitcoin could still surge to between the $100,000 and $105,000 range in the near term before there’s another price dump. 

As the December meeting approaches, Bitcoin finds itself caught between a troubling pattern and a resilient technical support. Whether Japan’s next rate hike leads to another immediate sell-off or allows for a temporary upside push may define how Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market close out the year.

Bitcoin / U.S. Dollar. Source: @TedPillows on X

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

While the XRP price displays a clear bearish structure, momentum pushing the price downwards appears to be cooling. A recent analysis into underlying on-chain activity has revealed a shift in investor behavior, providing context to the recently slowed momentum seen.

XRP Holdings Decline To 2024 Low Of 2.6 Billion

In a QuickTake post on CryptoQuant, the on-chain analytics group Arab Chain explains how the XRP market is experiencing certain shifts in liquidity dynamics. The analysis revolved around data obtained from the XRP Ledger: Exchange Reserve metric, which tracks the total amount of XRP held in wallets associated with centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (in this case, Binance).

According to Arab Chain, XRP’s exchange reserves on the Binance platform have declined, reaching an approximate 2.6 billion reading, the lowest level seen since 2024. Typically, a fall in exchange reserve numbers indicates the tokens’ movement out of centralized platforms into personal wallets for long-term holding or merely transferred out for other on-chain uses.

Notably, the steady contraction of Binance’s XRP reserves points out that market participants might be more inclined towards holding, as opposed to having a growing selling appetite. Arab Chain cites historical data, explaining that increased outflows from exchanges can be interpreted as a sign of easing bearish pressure. This is because coins outside exchanges are less prone to rapid liquidation events. Also, such a decline during periods where prices remain stable could signal growing accumulation tendencies among investors. 

The analytics group further revealed a unique trait of current data. The present decline in reserves came after previous sharp growths in the XRP exchange reserves. It then becomes clear that the market may simply be “rebalancing its supply structure, with a reduced amount of XRP available for day-to-day trading.” 

It’s worth noting that the contraction in reserves puts the market in a delicately bullish position. In this scenario, the re-entry of buyers into the XRP market could translate into a faster and sharper bullish momentum. On the other hand, a sustained absence of growing reserves dampens the chances of any large-scale sell-off in the short term.

XRP Price Overview 

For most of December, XRP has traded within the $2.123–$2.000 price levels. Popular market analyst, Ali Martinez, however, recently took to X to report that $XRP has to prevail above $2.0, for any hopes of a price recovery to be realistic. In the scenario where $2.0 fails to hold, the altcoin could spiral downwards to as low as $1.20.

As of this writing, XRP trades at approximately $2.02, with CoinMarketCap data reporting a % 0.64% growth over the last 24 hours.

Venezuela’s cash is losing value quickly. People and businesses are shifting to US-dollar stablecoins, especially USDT, to protect savings and make everyday payments.

According to market data, the peso-like bolívar has quoted around 267 per US dollar on December 12, 2025, after roughly 254 on December 5, showing how fast the local currency can move.

Why The Shift Is Accelerating

Based on reports from exchanges and on-chain firms, inflation has been estimated in the 100s–200s% range year-on-year in 2025. Prices rise fast under those conditions.

Wages lose value within days, sometimes hours. To avoid that loss, workers, freelancers and small shops are turning to stablecoins tied to the US dollar, which hold value better than the local currency.

Stablecoins As Daily Money

USDT is now being used for groceries, rent and even salaries in several cities. Peer-to-peer platforms and small crypto desks help users swap between bolívars and stablecoins without relying on traditional banks.

In some neighborhoods, merchants accept stablecoins directly, cutting out currency exchange altogether. Payments that once required cash stacks or quick conversions are now handled through mobile wallets.

Rising On-Chain Flows And Regional Trends

Blockchain analytics firms tracking activity across Latin America have reported a sharp rise in stablecoin volumes during 2024 and 2025.

TRM Labs and similar groups point to higher transaction counts and more active wallets linked to dollar-backed tokens. These increases match what residents describe on the ground. Crypto is not just held. It is being spent, saved and passed along as money.

Many Venezuelans receive remittances from abroad and convert them into USDT before bringing value back home. Others sell goods or services and ask to be paid in stablecoins to avoid sudden losses.

Conversion usually happens through messaging apps, local brokers or P2P platforms. The process is simple, but it depends heavily on trust and access to liquidity.

Government Reaction And Market Risks

Authorities have responded in mixed ways. Some unofficial dollar markets have been targeted, while limited crypto-based currency conversions have been allowed in certain cases.

Reports have also linked state-owned firms to crypto use for accessing foreign funds. At the same time, sudden rule changes remain a risk. Crackdowns, new compliance demands or exchange restrictions can disrupt access overnight.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

The US government continues to advocate for cryptocurrency adoption after the Securities and Exchange Commission published a retail investor guide centered around various means of custody. In the bulletin released on Friday, the SEC provides a detailed education on the available ways investors can safeguard their cryptocurrency investments and the associated risks.

SEC Addresses Crypto Custody As Regulatory Acceptance Takes Shape

The Donald Trump-led administration has taken multiple steps in supporting the growth of the digital asset industry in line with the US President’s electoral manifesto. Under the current crypto-friendly stance, the US SEC has adopted a more accommodating regulatory approach compared to the regulation-by-enforcement strategy seen under the Biden administration.

This shift has led to several key developments, including the formation of a dedicated task force, the termination of multiple lawsuits initiated under Biden’s crackdown, and the launch of a new regulatory initiative known as “Project Crypto.” In another encouraging move towards the nascent industry, the regulator has recently released a set of guidelines on proper custody of cryptocurrency.

In this document, the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance defines a crypto asset as “an asset that is generated, issued, and/or transferred using a blockchain or similar distributed ledger technology network, including assets known as ‘tokens,’ ‘digital assets,’ ‘virtual currencies,’ and ‘coins.’” 

Meanwhile, custody is defined as how and where investors store and access their crypto assets. The Commission touches on the importance of private keys, which they define as an alphanumeric code that allows users to gain access to their digital assets using programs known as crypto wallets. The US regulators also drew comparisons between self-custody and third-party custody, highlighting their peculiarities in terms of control and security responsibility. Other aspects of crypto custody discussed by the SEC include types of crypto wallets (hot and cold), seed phrase, and public key.

Crypto Community Reacts To SEC’s Educational Efforts

Unsurprisingly, the SEC’s published bulletin on crypto custody has drawn applause from many crypto enthusiasts. For example, a market analyst with X username X Finance Bull describes the custody education post as another lever of regulatory acceptance. 

The analyst said: 

The SEC just released an official guide on crypto asset custody for retail investors. Months after dropping the $XRP case, the posture keeps shifting. from resistance to education. I’ve seen this movie before. This is what quiet acceptance looks like.

At press time, the total crypto market cap is valued at $3.04 trillion, after a minor 0.29% growth in the past day.

Standard Chartered and Coinbase announced an expanded collaboration on December 12, 2025, to develop a suite of services aimed at institutional investors.

Based on reports from both firms, the work will look at trading, prime services, custody, staking and lending for banks, funds and other large players.

Building On Existing Work

The firms said the push grows out of an existing arrangement in Singapore where Standard Chartered provides banking links that let customers move Singapore dollars in real time to and from Coinbase. That setup helped power Coinbase’s move into the island city’s business market on November 12, 2025.

What They Plan To Explore

Coinbase and Standard Chartered described five areas they will explore together: trading, prime services, custody, staking and lending. These cover order execution, financing and custody options that big clients typically demand.

Both sides framed the effort as trying to give institutional users safer, regulated ways to hold and move digital assets.

Why The Move Matters

Institutional investors have been asking for services that resemble what they get in traditional markets — custody with strong controls, credit and financing options, and execution tools tied to regulated banking rails.

Standard Chartered already rolled out spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether for its institutional clients earlier in the year, an effort that showed the bank is building its own crypto capabilities as demand grows.

Middle Ground For Banks And Crypto Firms

Coinbase brings its institutional trading platform and market access; Standard Chartered brings global payment rails, FX handling and a bank’s compliance framework.

The result, the partners say, should be a way for large investors to trade and custody digital assets while sticking to familiar banking rules and procedures.

Other banks and prime brokers are also striking ties with crypto firms or building in-house services, so this announcement is part of a broader push to give big clients regulated choices.

For institutional traders, having multiple, regulated routes to trade and settle crypto helps reduce single-point dependency and may lower operational risk.

Public Launch Date Or Pricing

Neither company provided a timetable or fee details when they announced the expansion. For now, the plan is to develop and test product ideas for institutional clients across regions where each firm operates.

The announcement underlines how more traditional finance players and crypto firms are working together to meet demand from large customers.

Featured image from Standard Chartered, chart from TradingView

Crypto promoter Rodney Burton, popularly known as “Bitcoin Rodney,” is facing new charges for his alleged role in the $1.8 billion HyperFund pyramid scheme. This development comes almost two years after the US Department of Justice brought criminal charges against two of the co-founders of the crypto Ponzi scheme.

In January 2024, the US DOJ charged Xue Lee (Sam Lee) and Brenda Chunga (Bitcoin Beautee) for their roles in HyperFund. According to the prosecutors, the founders falsely claimed that the scheme’s investors would receive substantial returns paid from non-existent crypto mining operations.

The fraudulent scheme, which also drew the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), collapsed in 2022, leaving investors unable to withdraw their money. The SEC filed a civil action against the founders, stating that HyperFund lacked any real revenue source apart from investors’ funds.

US DOJ Adds Wire Fraud Charge To HyperFund’s Promoter

On Friday, December 12, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland announced new indictment charges against 56-year-old Burton for actively promoting the fraudulent HyperFund scheme. The new charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, seven counts of money laundering, and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

The 56-year-old crypto promoter, who was initially facing two counts related to unlicensed money transmission, is now staring down at a protracted prison sentence if found guilty on all counts; a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud conspiracy and each wire fraud count, 10 years for each money laundering count, and five years for the unlicensed money transmission enterprise.

The superseding indictment also accused Burton of misappropriating investors’ funds in the purchase of luxury condo homes, sports cars, and a yacht. The crypto influencer managed to build a crypto community following while hosting various celebrities, including Akon, Jamie Fox, and Rick Ross.

According to court filings, Burton claimed that he was made to believe that he was operating a legitimate enterprise, causing him to mislead investors. The crypto influencer’s trial is expected to start by March 2026.

Crypto Market At A Glance

As of this writing, the total cryptocurrency market is valued at around $3.05 trillion, reflecting a 0.2% jump in the past 24 hours.

Ухудшение экономических условий в Венесуэле и обесценивание национальной валюты, боливара, вынуждает население страны все чаще переходить на обеспеченные американским долларом стейблкоины, заявили аналитики платформы TRM Labs.  

Крупнейшая по объему торгов криптобиржа Binance способна создавать значительные юридические и структурные угрозы для всего крипторынка, заявили аналитики платформы Kaiko.  

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) has kept its place in the Nasdaq 100 during this year’s reshuffling—its first since joining the index in a similar event last December. This comes as a piece of good news as the Bitcoin corporate buyer contends with the risk of possible exclusion from Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI)’s indexes.

MSTR Survives First Nasdaq 100 Reshuffling 

On Friday, December 12, Reuters revealed that Strategy (with the ticker MSTR), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, survived its first Nasdaq 100 rebalancing since joining the index. As its name suggests, the Nasdaq 100 tracks the performance of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

According to the report, this reshuffling saw Biogen, CDW, GlobalFoundries, Lululemon, On Semiconductor, and Trade Desk lose their places in the index. At the same time, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Ferrovial, Insmed, Monolithic Power Systems, Seagate, and Western Digital made it into the Nasdaq 100. 

These changes to the Nasdaq 100 index are expected to come into effect on Monday, December 22.

Despite the positive nature of this development, the MSTR price closed the day on a nearly 4% decline, which has been the theme for the stock as of late. According to the latest market data, the Strategy stock is down by almost 25% in the past month.

Strategy Urges MSCI To Reconsider Index Criteria 

Furthermore, this positive event comes at a time when other index providers are reevaluating their inclusion criteria. As Bitcoinist earlier reported, global index provider MSCI stated that it is considering the exclusion of companies with business models that focus heavily on holding crypto assets.

However, Strategy’s cofounder and chairman, Michael Saylor, stated that his firm is not merely a passive Bitcoin holding entity but rather a software firm with a proactive financial strategy. According to Saylor, the firm is in discussions with MSCI regarding its plans to exclude companies whose crypto holdings exceed 50% of total assets from its indices. 

In a recent letter endorsed by Saylor and CEO Phong Le, Strategy voiced its support for MSCI’s intentions to establish consistent eligibility criteria across its indices. Nevertheless, the firm urged MSCI to reconsider its plan to delist companies with over 50% digital asset holdings from its Global Investable Market Indexes. 

While Saylor has countered their evaluation, saying an exclusion “won’t make any difference,” JP Morgan analysts estimate that Strategy alone might face outflows of up to $2.8 billion as a direct consequence of MSCI’s decision.