Today's top news highlights:

Macro

Bank of Japan Governor: A decision on whether to raise interest rates will be made after assessing the impact of raising rates to 0.75% on the economy and prices.

According to Jinshi News, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda stated that the Bank of Japan will decide whether to raise interest rates after assessing the impact of raising rates to 0.75% on the economy and prices.

The Bank of Japan raised interest rates by 25 basis points as expected.

According to Jinshi News, the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate from 0.5% to 0.75%, in line with market expectations. This is the highest interest rate in 30 years, and the first rate hike by the Bank of Japan in 11 months since January 2025.

The US Senate confirmed Trump's nominees for heads of the CFTC and FDIC.

According to CoinDesk, on Thursday, the US Senate proceeded to confirm a large number of nominees for President Trump, including two officials who will assume key regulatory roles in the cryptocurrency space. The Senate approved Mike Selig as head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Travis Hill as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Selig will play a leading role in cryptocurrency regulation, succeeding Acting Chair Caroline Pham, who has been pushing an aggressive cryptocurrency policy agenda in the absence of the agency's permanent chair.

The CLARITY Act, a bill to structure the crypto market, is expected to be submitted to the Senate for consideration in January.

According to Cointelegraph, David Sacks, the White House's head of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency affairs, stated that the CLARITY Act, a bill to structure the crypto market, is closer to formal legislation and is expected to undergo Senate review and revisions in January. Sacks posted on the X platform on Thursday that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman have confirmed that the bipartisan cryptocurrency bill will be finalized in the Senate next month. The CLARITY Act will clarify the definitions of crypto securities and crypto commodities and define the responsibilities of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and other financial regulatory agencies. Supporters of the bill argue that it will reduce regulatory uncertainty for crypto companies by establishing a clearer compliance path, while strengthening investor protection and encouraging innovation. The House of Representatives passed the bill in July, and the Senate will next review, revise, and debate it before sending it to the full Senate for a vote. Tim Scott needs to secure an absolute majority to prevent the bill from being indefinitely delayed. If the Senate passes the revised bill, it will return to the House for final approval and then be sent to Trump's desk.

Opinion

Arthur Hayes: Maelstrom is aggressively buying up high-quality altcoins.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes posted on the X platform that his family investment office, Maelstrom, is aggressively buying high-quality altcoins. Previously, Hayes stated that the Bank of Japan's overt policy of negative real interest rates could propel Bitcoin to millions of dollars.

Garrett Jin, a whale: Bitcoin and Ethereum are about to surge, with first targets of $106,000 and $4,500 respectively.

Garrett Jin, the whale who famously sold over $4.23 billion worth of BTC in October to buy ETH, posted on the X platform that Bitcoin and Ethereum are poised for a surge, with first targets of $106,000 for Bitcoin and $4,500 for Ethereum. The logic for shorting the Japanese yen is increasingly untenable. The yen's interest rate hike will have minimal impact on the market, and the market has already priced in this factor.

Grayscale: Stablecoins will experience explosive growth in 2025, with a supply reaching $300 billion.

Grayscale stated in an article on its X platform that stablecoins will experience explosive growth in 2025, with a supply reaching $300 billion and monthly trading volume reaching $1.1 trillion. With the passage of the GENIUS Act and the increased adoption of stablecoins, blockchain projects such as ETH, TRX, BNB, and SOL will benefit from the growing transaction flow, as will infrastructure like Chainlink (LINK) and emerging networks like XPL.

Hanuka: Japan's interest rate hike has been fully priced in; $112,500 is a strong resistance level for Bitcoin.

Crypto analyst Hanuka Natsumi released a video stating that the market has fully priced in Japan's interest rate hike, and the future path of rate increases remains to be seen. Hanuka reiterated that two key prerequisites for being bullish on Bitcoin are: the Federal Reserve's balance sheet expansion and Bitcoin's technical pattern being in a sideways consolidation phase. Through technical analysis, Hanuka believes that Bitcoin's key resistance level is in the $98,600 to $107,000 range, with $112,500 being a strong resistance level, but the market situation is highly complex.

Arthur Hayes: The Bank of Japan's overt policy is negative real interest rates; Bitcoin could potentially reach millions of dollars.

Arthur Hayes commented on Japan's interest rate policy, saying, "Don't go against the Bank of Japan: negative real interest rates are their open secret. The yen will fall to 200 against the dollar, and Bitcoin will rise to a million dollars."

Tom Lee: I don't believe this wave of Bitcoin has peaked; it may reach a new all-time high before the end of January next year.

According to a video shared by crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong, Fundstrat co-founder and BitMine chairman Tom Lee recently stated in an interview with CNBC: "I don't think this wave of Bitcoin has peaked. We were too optimistic about reaching a new high in December, but I'm confident that Bitcoin should reach a new all-time high by the end of January. Therefore, not only Bitcoin, but also Ethereum and the entire crypto market."

CF Benchmarks considers Bitcoin a core asset in its portfolio and predicts its price will reach $1.4 million by 2035.

According to CoinDesk, CF Benchmarks, a wholly owned subsidiary of crypto exchange Kraken, stated on Thursday that institutional investors are increasingly analyzing Bitcoin from a portfolio construction perspective, rather than focusing on short-term price cycles. The company predicts that Bitcoin's base case price will reach $1.4 million by 2035. Bitcoin can be evaluated using the same capital market assumptions as traditional assets, including metrics such as expected returns, volatility, and correlation. Based on different adoption paths, CF Benchmarks derived a series of long-term valuations for Bitcoin up to 2035. In the most conservative scenario, the company simulates Bitcoin continuing to expand its market share at its historical rate, meaning Bitcoin will account for approximately 16% to 33% of gold's market capitalization. Under this scenario, CF Benchmarks projects a Bitcoin price of approximately $637,000 by 2035. The base case scenario assumes broader institutional adoption and faster growth, with its market capitalization reaching approximately one-third of gold's; the report states that this probability-weighted scenario implies a Bitcoin price of approximately $1.42 million by 2035. In a more optimistic bullish scenario, CF Benchmarks simulates Bitcoin becoming the dominant global store of value, surpassing the market capitalization of gold; this scenario predicts that with accelerated adoption by institutions and sovereign nations, Bitcoin's valuation will approach $2.95 million by 2035. In addition to price predictions, CF Benchmarks states that its simulations show allocating approximately 2% to 5% of strategic allocations to Bitcoin can significantly improve portfolio efficiency.

Project Updates

Binance Alpha will remove tokens such as BUZZ, DARK, and FROG.

Binance has announced that the following tokens will be removed from its recommendation list on December 19, 2025 at 15:00 (Beijing time) due to non-compliance with Binance Alpha standards: BUZZ, DARK, FROG, GORK, MIRAI, PERRY, RFC, SNAI, and TERMINUS. Binance reminds users to conduct their own research (DYOR) before trading these tokens outside of their Binance wallet to ensure the safety of their funds.

Ontology has completed its mainnet upgrade, and the ONG token supply has decreased from 1 billion to 800 million.

The Ontology mainnet upgrade has been completed, reducing the maximum and total supply of ONG tokens from 1 billion to 800 million. This adjustment has been approved by the community vote and is now officially in effect on the mainnet. The vote took place from October 28th to October 31st, 2025, with the Triones nodes unanimously approving the proposal with 117 million votes. This adjustment not only involves technical updates but also reflects the community's cultural consensus on long-term sustainability, enhanced liquidity, and support for developers. The adjustments include permanently burning 200 million ONG, fixing the maximum and total supply at 800 million ONG, and permanently locking up the equivalent of 100 million ONG in ONT and ONG assets through a new liquidity mechanism. Furthermore, the ONG release period has been extended to approximately 19 years, maintaining a stable release rate of 1 ONG per second. Previously, Binance announced it would support the Ontology (ONT) network upgrade and hard fork, with the Ontology community approving the ONG token economic adjustment proposal, reducing the total supply to 800 million and permanently locking up 100 million in value assets.

Solana's ecosystem DEX, Lifinity, has decided to shut down gradually, and $43.4 million in assets will be distributed to token holders.

According to SolanaFloor, Solana ecosystem DEX Lifinity has decided to gradually cease operations, with the related proposal passing almost unanimously, and the protocol will enter the shutdown process. On December 10th, facing increasingly fierce competition from prop AMMs, Lifinity submitted a governance proposal to its community regarding the protocol's continued existence. According to the proposal, approximately $42 million worth of treasury assets in the Lifinity DAO will be consolidated into USDC and distributed proportionally to LFNTY token holders. In addition, the team's remaining $1.4 million in development funds will also be allocated. The community estimates that, based on the treasury's book value, holders are expected to receive between $0.90 and $1.10 per token. It is recommended that LFNTY and veLFNTY holders convert their tokens to xLNFTY before redemption. The xLNFTY to USDC redemption function is expected to launch in approximately nine days, provided it passes a Sec3 security audit. Since its launch in February 2022, Lifinity has processed over $149 billion in trading volume, becoming the fifth largest DEX in Solana's history.

RateX Announces RTX Token Economics: 44.18% to be Allocated to the Ecosystem and Community

PANews reported on December 19th that RateX, the Solana ecosystem revenue-sharing trading protocol, announced the economics of its RTX token. The total supply is 100 million tokens, with 44.18% allocated to the ecosystem and community, 20% to the team, 20% to the treasury, and 15.82% to investors. Of the 44.18% allocated to the ecosystem and community, 6.66% of the total supply will be allocated in a Q1 airdrop, with the remainder distributed in phases after TGE. Previously, in November, RateX completed a $7 million funding round, with participation from Animoca Ventures and others.

Base has undergone a capacity upgrade, and the current gas limit has been increased to 375 million gas/block.

Base Build announced on the X platform that Base Chain has undergone a capacity upgrade, with the block gas limit now increased to 375 million gas/block. With increased activity, this translates to a burst capacity increase of approximately 25% and an average throughput increase of approximately 4% to 5%. Furthermore, Base has increased the minimum base fee from 0.0002 gwei to 0.0005 gwei to enhance chain functionality. At the minimum base fee, the cost of a typical transaction is less than one-tenth of a cent ($0.01).

Lido's new proposal suggests allocating $60 million by 2026 to implement the GOOSE-3 program.

The three foundations of the Lido DAO ecosystem (Lido Labs Foundation, Lido Ecosystem Foundation, and Lido Alliance BORG) have jointly submitted a 2026 Ecosystem Grant Request (EGG) to implement the 2026 strategic plan GOOSE-3. The total grant request is $60 million, with $43.8 million allocated to basic expenditures ($26.9 million for protocol core maintenance and operations, and $16.9 million for growth initiatives), and a discretionary spending cap of $16.2 million for growth. Growth initiative funds will support four strategic goals: expanding the staking ecosystem, ensuring protocol resilience (Lido Core upgrades), expanding new DAO revenue streams (Lido Earn), and exploring vertical scaling and real-world commercial applications. Previously, Lido's new proposal, "GOOSE-3," suggested expanding its business to a broader DeFi product portfolio and outlined four strategic goals for 2026.

Terraform Labs' bankruptcy administrators have filed a $4 billion claim against Jump, alleging that Jump was responsible for Terraform's collapse.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the bankruptcy administrators handling the remaining assets of Terraform Labs, which is liquidating Do Kwon, have filed a lawsuit against Jump Trading, accusing the high-frequency trading giant of illegally profiting and contributing to the collapse of the "crypto empire." Todd Snyder, the bankruptcy court-appointed administrator, is seeking $4 billion in damages from Jump, co-founder William DiSomma, and Kanav Kariya, who rose through the ranks from intern to president of Jump's cryptocurrency trading business.

Bitwise has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its Bitwise SUI ETF.

According to The Block, crypto index fund manager Bitwise is seeking to launch an ETF tracking the SUI token. On Thursday, the company filed a registration statement for the Bitwise SUI ETF with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The filing states, "The investment objective of this trust is to reflect the value of the SUI assets held by the trust, after deducting trust operating expenses and other liabilities." Coinbase Custody will serve as the custodian of the fund. The ticker symbol and sponsor fees have not yet been listed.

Near Protocol's NEAR token has now been cross-chained to the Solana network.

Near Protocol has announced that its native token, $NEAR, is now officially listed on the Solana network, enabling seamless cross-chain support through NEAR Intents and Orb Markets. Users can now deposit and withdraw $NEAR directly on Solana without needing to configure multiple wallets or switch gas fee networks.

Important data

Ethena TVL has fallen more than 55% from its peak on October 3, dropping to $6.63 billion.

According to data shared by unfolded., Ethena's total value locked (TVL) has fallen by more than 55% from its peak of $14.98 billion on October 3, 2025, to $6.63 billion.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $161 million yesterday, with only BlackRock's IBIT experiencing a net inflow.

According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $161 million yesterday (December 18th, Eastern Time). The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net inflow was BlackRock ETF IBIT, with a net inflow of $32.7631 million. IBIT's historical total net inflow has reached $62.665 billion. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net outflow was Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a net outflow of $170 million. FBTC's historical total net inflow has reached $12.193 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $111.041 billion, with an ETF net asset value ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Bitcoin's total market capitalization) of 6.58%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $57.565 billion.

An independent miner successfully mined block 928,351, receiving a block reward of 3.15 BTC.

According to Cointelegraph, an independent miner who rented less than $100 worth of computing power on NiceHash successfully mined Bitcoin block 928,351, earning a reward of 3,152 BTC, worth approximately $271,000.

Two whale addresses collectively bought 4,664 ETH during the overnight downtrend.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, two major whales accumulated ETH during the overnight price drop. Specifically, a new address, 0x779…13703, withdrew 2656 ETH from Binance for the first time, worth $7.55 million, at a price of $2842.39. Additionally, address 0xbE3…9A42a withdrew 2008 ETH from Binance four hours ago, worth approximately $5.65 million; over the past four months, it has accumulated 6411.4 ETH, worth a total of $24.83 million, with an average withdrawal price of $3873, most of which has been staked in Everstake.

The "1011 Insider Whale" has a total unrealized loss of $77.22 million on its $695 million long positions.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the long positions held by the "whale that opened short positions after the flash crash on October 11" are currently showing a floating loss of $77.22 million, with ETH showing a floating loss of $65.88 million, BTC showing a floating loss of $6.17 million, and SOL showing a floating loss of $5.16 million.

A Bitcoin OG whale has deposited 5,152 BTC, worth approximately $445 million, into Binance.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a Bitcoin OG whale has deposited 5,152 BTC, worth $444.73 million, into Binance.

Analysis: Approximately $23 billion worth of Bitcoin options will expire next Friday, potentially exacerbating already high volatility.

According to Bloomberg, the options market shows that Bitcoin is under significant pressure heading into the final weeks of 2025, with approximately $23 billion worth of contracts expiring next Friday, potentially exacerbating already high volatility. This amount represents more than half of all open interest on the Deribit platform. Nick Forster, founder of Derive.xyz, stated, “Bitcoin positioning remains significantly bearish. 30-day volatility has rebounded to around 45%, while skewness hovers around -5%. Longer-term skewness is also anchored around -5%, indicating that traders are pricing in continued downside risk for the first and second quarters due to persistent selling pressure from previously inactive wallets weighing on spot prices.” Positioning around the December 26th contract expiry date reflects this divergence. Call options are concentrated at strike prices of $100,000 and $120,000, suggesting continued optimism about a year-end rally. However, put options have dominated recently, accumulating significant put option exposure at a strike price of $85,000. In addition, traders expect the market to reposition itself around two catalysts: first, hedging ahead of MSCI's decision on January 15, which may remove companies with more than 50% of their assets in crypto assets from its index; and second, a resurgence of call-overwriting funds.

Investment and Financing/Acquisition

DePIN project DAWN completes $13 million Series B funding round, led by Polychain.

PANews reported on December 18th that DAWN, a decentralized broadband network project, announced the completion of a $13 million Series B funding round, led by Polychain Capital. The new funds will be used to accelerate DAWN's global expansion, infrastructure deployment, and the development of ecosystem partnerships. Developed by the Andrena WiFi team, DAWN aims to provide scalable decentralized internet access services through blockchain technology, offering a more democratic and efficient network connectivity solution for users worldwide.

Fuse Energy raises $70 million in Series B funding, valuing the company at $5 billion.

PANews reported on December 18 that Fuse Energy, a Solana-based DePIN project, announced the completion of a $70 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $5 billion. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital and Balderton Capital.

AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to raise €500 million for his new AI startup, targeting a valuation of €3 billion.

PANews reported on December 18th, citing the Financial Times, that Yann LeCun, former chief AI scientist at Meta and Turing Award winner, is planning to launch a new company, Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs), scheduled for January 2026. Preliminary negotiations are underway for a €500 million funding round with a target valuation of €3 billion. Nabla founder Alex LeBrun will serve as CEO, and a strategic research partnership has been established with AMI. The company will focus on building AI systems that can understand the physical world for applications in robotics, transportation, and other fields. Meta will establish a technical collaboration with AMI but will not participate as an investor.

ICE, the parent company of the NYSE, is in talks to invest in crypto payments company MoonPay, targeting a valuation of approximately $5 billion.

According to Bloomberg, sources familiar with the matter revealed that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is in talks to participate in a funding round for cryptocurrency payments company MoonPay Inc., which is nearing completion and targets a valuation of approximately $5 billion. ICE did not immediately comment on the talks, and MoonPay declined to comment. Founded in 2019, MoonPay provides software that helps users more easily convert between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. In late 2021, near the peak of the crypto bull market, the company was valued at $3.4 billion in its last funding round.

Institutional holdings

Taiwan's Ministry of Justice announced the seizure of 210.45 Bitcoins.

According to documents presented by Taiwanese science and technology legislator Ko Ju-Chun, as of October 31, 2025, Taiwanese prosecutors had seized 210.45 bitcoins (BTC), worth approximately NT$576 million at the time. The list also includes other virtual assets such as ETH, BNB, and TRX. Last month, it was reported that Taiwan planned to investigate its Bitcoin holdings and assess its BTC reserves by the end of the year.

Japanese video game developer Gumi spent about $6.99 million to buy 80,352 bitcoins

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