Crypto Daily — DeFi, NFT, Web3

🎲 The volume of margin trading for BTC over the past four months has set an all-time record. More and more people are diving into futures, dreaming of getting rich in just a couple of successful trades — the excitement is at its peak right now.

🏦 The Bank for International Settlements reported that the volume of tokenized money market funds has grown to $9 billion — almost tenfold since 2023. At the same time, it warns that such tokenized treasury portfolios, becoming an important source of collateral in the crypto ecosystem, create new operational and liquidity risks.

🕵️‍♂️ Vitalik Buterin stated that privacy protection on the internet is impossible without reliably encrypted messages — important steps forward will be accounts open to everyone and metadata protection. Buterin noted the successes of the Session and SimpleX projects, donated 128 ETH to each, and called on developers to more actively create private messengers.

💻 The Upbit exchange was hacked and assets worth $36,000,000 were withdrawn. They promise to compensate users for all losses.

💎 Tether has become the largest independent holder of gold in the world — only central banks of economically developed countries hold more. Against this backdrop, S&P Global downgraded the stability rating of the USDT stablecoin to the lowest level, citing an increase in the share of volatile assets in the company's reserves, including bitcoin and gold 🤣 Tether sharply criticized the assessment, calling it outdated and noting that the stablecoin has never failed to redeem, processes billions daily, and generates multi-billion dollar profits. The company also emphasizes that its assets include a huge package of US Treasury bonds and that USDT has long become an important financial infrastructure for emerging markets — far from just a speculative token.

🎲 In China and South Korea, trading has been turned into esports.

😂 Analysts have found that more than 73% of AI startups actually DO NOT create their own models, but simply use ready-made solutions — like ChatGPT, Claude, or open models with minimal modifications — presenting them as their own product. In essence, behind loud claims of "proprietary AI" there are often just calls to third-party APIs and slightly modified models from open repositories.

🇪🇸 In Spain, they are promoting an initiative to tighten rules for crypto: it is proposed to raise the tax on income from digital assets to 47%, and to equate cryptocurrencies with property that the state will be able to seize. They also want to implement a visual "traffic light" system to assess risks in the crypto market.

🏴‍☠️ The company Grayscale has filed an application with the SEC to launch a spot Zcash ETF. Zcash is a phenomenal growth of anonymous cryptocurrency in 2025.

💎 JPMorgan is taking active steps to push crypto companies out of the market: the giant closed corporate and personal accounts of Houston Morgan, head of ShapeShift's crypto division. A similar fate befell Jack Mallers, founder of the payment system Strike — he even framed the account closure notice, turning it into a kind of monument to the bank's actions. Also, JPMorgan opened a short position on Strategy's shares and, according to some observers, is preparing a coordinated attack against the company. The bank shows a clear contradiction: it refuses service to crypto firms but at the same time calls Bitcoin a "macro asset" in its reports, forecasting its rise to $240,000. This is a classic move — to discredit the asset, eliminate competitors, and take a more advantageous position in the market.

💰 Since the launch of trading the spot Solana ETF, there has never been a recorded outflow of funds.

💰 A smart whale who had been inactive for three months bought 1,110 ETH at a price of $2,933 — previously he sold 15,575 ETH for $66.52 million at a price of $4,270. He still has 67.8 million DAI, which he can use for further ETH purchases.

💰 Strategy stated that even if the Bitcoin price drops to $74,000, the ratio of its assets to convertible debt will remain at 5.9× — this metric is called the BTC debt rating by the company. Even if the price falls to $25,000 per coin, the BTC rating will remain at 2.0×.

🇺🇸 Texas became the first state in the USA to start buying spot Bitcoin ETFs for reserves.

🇦🇪 The UAE is introducing new rules according to which DEX exchanges, cross-chain bridges, stablecoin protocols, and DeFi projects will be regulated by the country's central bank. Thus, the UAE aims to organize the development of this rapidly growing sector.

🇫🇮 In Finland, they have started using heat from data centers to warm homes and saunas — previously, the heated water was simply discarded, but now it is directed into the city heating system. This reduces heating bills, lessens the load on power plants, and cuts CO₂ emissions. Earlier, we wrote that Finnish mining companies provide heat to homes of about 140,000 people, which is approximately 2.5% of the country's population.

🎲 On Deribit, a whale opened a huge bet on Bitcoin's rise, assembling a “call condor” with a volume of 20,000 BTC expiring on December 26. This structure will yield maximum profit if by the end of the year the price is in the range of $100,000 – 118,000 and does not go significantly higher.

📊 Analysts note a strong surge in capitulation of short-term BTC holders, such surges have usually been precursors to the formation of a short-term bottom in the market, — CryptoQuant.

😂 DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) stated that the news about the department's closure is FAKE.