Crypto soothsayer

🚪 VanEck’s crypto outlook for 2026 — just one word VanEck has released its annual “10 Predictions for the Crypto Market in 2026,” but this time the report contains only one word: “Good luck!” 👀 In essence, the major investment manager chose not to publish any forecasts at all. 🤷 Sometimes, no forecast is the best forecast.

Binance offers up to $5M for whistleblowers 🥷💰 Binance has announced a reward of up to $5 million for information exposing fraudulent “listing agents” who falsely claim they can influence token listings. 💵 The exchange stressed that all listings must go through official Binance channels only and that it does not work with third-party brokers or intermediaries. 🧐 The move comes amid increased scrutiny of Binance’s listing practices after recent insider trading incidents. Following an internal audit, Binance has already blacklisted several individuals and firms for misrepresenting ties to the exchange and charging projects for fake listing services. 📝

👨‍🦰🥊 🤖 Humans vs AI: the trading reality check Last week, Aster launched a trading tournament where human traders competed directly against an AI. The results after just one week look brutal: collectively, humans are down 30%, while the AI is hovering around break-even. 👀 However, the picture changes when looking at individual performance. The top-ranked participant is still a human — delivering an impressive 4x return in just 7 days. The takeaway? On average, AI beats the crowd, but exceptional individuals can still outperform the machine. 🚀

⚔️ Solana withstands massive DDoS attack Solana’s network has endured a week-long DDoS attack that became the fourth-largest ever recorded against any distributed system, with peak traffic reaching 6 Tbps. 🙀 Despite the scale of the attack, on-chain data shows the blockchain handled the load without issues. 🧐 Transaction confirmations stayed under one second, and slot times remained stable throughout the incident. 💪

🍀 Another solo miner strikes lucky 🛠 A solo Bitcoin miner has successfully mined block #927474, earning a reward of 3.133 BTC — roughly $284,000. Such wins are extremely rare, as solo miners compete against massive industrial pools. But every so often, luck hits, showing that even small independent miners can still capture an entire block reward on their own. A reminder: in Bitcoin, probability sometimes smiles on the little guy. 🌈

🎬 Netflix Drops Trailer for Crypto Comedy About a Lost $35M Password Netflix is releasing a new comedy, “One Attempt Remaining,” starring Jennifer Garner. 🗝 The plot: a divorced couple discovers that the crypto they once won on a cruise is now worth $35M — but they’ve forgotten the password and have 48 hours before the SEC claim expires. The film pokes fun at real crypto nightmares, echoing cases like ex-Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas, who lost access to 7,002 BTC, and the famous UK “landfill Bitcoin” story. 🗑 Crypto has appeared in documentaries before, but this is one of the first full-scale Hollywood comedies centered on the chaos of private keys and lost fortunes. A light take on a very real problem: in crypto, a forgotten password can cost millions. 🤷💵

🔥 Fed quietly turns on the money printer Recent data on U.S. Treasury purchases shows the Fed is effectively launching stealth QE again. Over just a few weeks, the Fed is set to buy tens of billions in government bonds: • Dec 12 — $8.167B • Dec 15 — $6.801B • Dec 17 — $8.165B • Dec 19 — $8.165B • Dec 22 — $6.801B • Jan 6 — $8.165B • Jan 8 — $8.165B Such accelerated bond purchases usually signal liquidity injections — historically bullish for risk assets like BTC and equities. In short: the money printer is humming again, and markets may feel it soon. 🚀

🔎 CryptoQuant: Short-term BTC holders in deep pain Short-term Bitcoin holders are now sitting on one of the biggest unrealized losses of 2025 — their average entry price is about 10% above the current market, putting them firmly in a “real pain zone.” 👀 Historically, such deep loss phases appear late in a correction, often signaling that a market reversal may be approaching as selling pressure exhausts. 📈 In short: short-term holders are hurting, but this level of capitulation has previously marked the end of corrections rather than the beginning.

⚖️ Do Kwon Sentenced to 15 Years Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon has been sentenced to 15 years in prison over the $40B collapse of UST and LUNA in 2022. Prosecutors sought 12 years, while Kwon’s team asked for 5 — he will also forfeit $19M. Kwon expressed remorse, admitting responsibility and hoping others “don’t repeat his mistakes.” He may serve part of his sentence in South Korea. 🇰🇷

🕳 15 years since Satoshi disappeared On December 12, 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto — the anonymous creator of Bitcoin — posted on BitcoinTalk for the last time, mentioning DoS vulnerabilities and code updates. After that, he vanished from the forum. 🥷 For several months Satoshi still exchanged emails with early BTC developers. In his final messages, he asked not to turn him into a “mysterious figure” and said he had “moved on to other things,” leaving Bitcoin in “good hands.” Around the same time, Gavin Andresen announced he would present Bitcoin at a CIA tech conference — a moment many believe pushed Satoshi to withdraw completely from public life.

🔼 $1.3M per BTC by 2035? 😳 The CIO of Bitwise has unveiled a valuation model where $1.3M per Bitcoin is considered a conservative target for 2035. 🚀 📈 The forecast assumes Bitcoin’s share of gold’s market cap will rise from 9% to 25% over the next decade. Meanwhile, we’re over here still hoping BTC can break $100K — even the QE announcement on December 12 couldn’t push it there… and Bitwise is already promising seven-figure Bitcoin in 10 years 🙄

🇨🇳 China is taking over the AI market 😉 Downloads of Chinese AI models have surged to 17%, overtaking the combined U.S. giants — Google, Meta, and OpenAI — at 15.8%. While American companies focus on premium quality and paid subscriptions, China is going full “free-to-play,” giving away AI access to attract massive user bases — and more users means more training data. 👀 Humanity has officially entered the AI era… and China is once again conquering markets through good old-fashioned aggressive pricing 🧮💵

🗿 A new Satoshi Nakamoto statue has arrived — right at the New York Stock Exchange! The NYSE has become the sixth location in the world to host a statue of Bitcoin’s mysterious creator. The project is led by Jack Mallers’ company Twenty One, which plans to install 21 statues globally — a clear nod to Bitcoin’s 21M max supply. 👀 Another symbolic win for Bitcoin culture, now standing in the heart of traditional finance. 🏦

📉 Bitcoin erased all gains from the rate cut hype BTC briefly jumped to $94K, but is now back near $90K. 🔎 Analysts say this was a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” setup. According to Santiment, peak retail euphoria hit 8 hours before the Fed announcement. What should’ve been bullish turned into a short-term trap: retail bought the hype, while whales used the mini-rally to take profits. Crypto market doing crypto market things 😕

🛰 SpaceX and BlackRock Move Big Money on Bitcoin SpaceX transferred 1,021 BTC (~$100M) on-chain today, sending the funds to Coinbase Prime for custody. 🚀 Shortly after, BlackRock also deposited 2,196 BTC (~$203M) to Coinbase Prime. 💰 Both large transactions were spotted by LookOnChain and highlight ongoing institutional activity on the Bitcoin network.

🔥 Fed Cuts Rates by 25 bps — Third in a Row 📉 The Fed lowered its policy rate to 3.75%, matching expectations (prev. 4%). This marks the third consecutive rate cut. Bitcoin briefly jumped to $94,000 on the news but quickly pulled back to around $92,000. As expected, the rate cut was largely already priced in by the market. 🧐

💰 Corporate Bitcoin Treasuries Keep Growing Corporate Bitcoin holdings have reached 1.08 million BTC, marking a +448% increase since January 2023, when companies held just 197,000 BTC. 🚀 Institutions continue to accumulate, reinforcing Bitcoin’s role as a long-term treasury asset despite market volatility.

🧐 Silk Road Wallets Wake Up After 13 Years After more than a decade of inactivity, 314 wallets linked to the Silk Road darknet marketplace moved BTC to an unknown address. 👀 The total value of the transfer was around $3.5M. Despite this movement, Silk Road–related wallets still hold 415.7 BTC worth about $38.5M.

💫 Humans vs AI: Trading Tournament The Aster team has launched a new trading competition where 70 human traders and 30 AI bots each receive $10,000 to trade. 🚀 Early results favor humans by a wide margin: — Humans: +$64,000 (+9.25%) — AI bots: -$49 (-0.01%) For now, humans are clearly outperforming the machines. 🥋🤖

Polymarket gives a 95% chance that the Fed cuts rates by 25 bps today 💪 Most traders agree this move is already priced in for crypto. 🤷 But that scary 5% scenario? Yeah… if the Fed decides to surprise everyone, the market might go from “priced in” to “panic mode” in seconds. 🙀📉