Market Overview 📉
*Data as of 06:45 UTC on December 19, 2025.
Bitcoin (BTC) finished the week down 5.90%, while Ethereum (ETH) underperformed, falling 10.1% over the same period. The total crypto market cap fell 6.69% to close the week at $2.93T, compared to $3.14T the previous week.
As in the weeks following the October 10 crash, liquidations remained muted, mostly with less than $300 million in liquidations. Likewise, financing rates remained below 10%, reflecting a generally bearish orientation of the market.
📌 Michael Saylor’s strategy acquires 10,645 BTC for a total of $980.3 million, bringing his total holding to 671,268 BTC. – Link
📌 Visa launches its Stablecoin Advisory Practice, seeking to assist businesses and financial institutions with Stablecoin integration and implementation. – Link
📌 Coinbase announces plans to roll out stock trading on its platform, starting with US customers, alongside prediction markets, powered by Kalshi-Link
Why is this important?
Crypto markets fell during the week, amid a weakening stock market. Although a positive CPI result helped reverse some of the damage in stocks later in the week, the crypto failed to catch up with strong supply, and many weak altcoins continued to fall. The S&P 500 closed down 1.63% for the week, while the Nasdaq lagged 2.01%.
See the CMC winners and losers table
Story of the week 📰
DTCC receives SEC approval for tokenized assets, paving the way for an increasingly tokenized world, bridging the gap between TradFi and DeFi.
📌 DTCC receives no-action letter from SEC, greenlighting clearing and settlement of tokenized assets including stocks, bonds, treasury bills, etc.
📌 JP Morgan launches its first tokenized money market fund, My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY) on Ethereum. – Link
📌 Securitize introduces shares, tokenized shares natively on-chain, as opposed to the majority of implementations that trade the actual shares off-chain, allowing for proper ownership of the actual underlying. – Link
Why is this important?
Tokenization continues to be a key area of focus for traditional financial institutions in the crypto space, with developments continuing to thrive despite widespread pessimism in the market.
Major project updates 🗓️
📌 The Hyperliquid Foundation is proposing a validator vote to officially recognize HYPE tokens held at the Assistance Fund address as burned, removing them from circulating supply. – Link
📌 MetaMask expands support to include Bitcoin, enabling transfers, swaps, and scaling directly to the Bitcoin network. – Link
📌 Phantom begins rolling out its Phantom Cash debit cards, starting with U.S. customers. – Link
📌 Interop Labs, the original developers of Axelar Network, have been acquired by stablecoin issuer, Circle. The AXL token and the foundation remain independent. – Link
📌 Stripe L1, Tempo, introduces Tempo Transactions, enabling a range of features including paying network fees in any stablecoin, batch and simultaneous transactions, among others. – Link
Why is this important?
Although the recent Hyperliquid proposal is considered largely bullish by HYPE bulls, skeptics question the rationale for the move considering better uses of the funds, such as a secondary insurance fund.
Brief DeFi 🏦
Source:
*Data as of 06:45 UTC on December 19, 2025.
📌 Uniswap is initiating the final governance vote for the fee change, which will officially close on December 25 and take effect after a 2-day delay if successful. – Link
📌 Mantle’s mETH protocol introduces the Buffer Pool upgrade, increasing the efficiency of mETH-to-ETH redemptions by providing a portion of the staked ETH to Aave to generate a blended yield. – Link
📌 Aave unveils its 2026 roadmap, including a focus on Aave Horizon, Aave V4, the Aave App and alignment with AAVE token holders. – Link
📌 Perptual DEX, Variational, officially launches its points program, retroactively awarding points to early adopters of the platform. – Link
Why is this important?
Uniswap’s fee change has been highly anticipated for years, with Uniswap being one of the leading DEXs among chains. Successful adoption of the fee change will mark a historic moment for DeFi and signal alignment between protocol and token holders.
Fundraisers 💰
📌 Lightning Network-powered wallet Speed Wallet raises $8 million in a strategic funding round led by Tether alongside Ego Death Capital. – Link
📌 Crypto payments network RedotPay raises $107 million in a Series B funding round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Pantera Capital, Circle Ventures and Blockchain Capital, among others. – Link
📌 Ethereum blockchain marketplaces ETHGas raises $12M in funding round led by Polychain Capital, with other investors including Amber Group, BlueYard Capital, Tokka Labs, Stake Capital, and more. – Link
📌 Solana’s native prediction marketplace Worm.wtf raises $4.5M in pre-seed round, with investors including 6th Man Ventures, Solana Ventures, Alliance, Borderless, and more. – Link
Airdrops abound 🎁
📌 Fogo is canceling its token presale amid backlash regarding the valuation of its tokens, announcing its airdrop, which will take place with the token launch on January 13. – Link
📌 Berachain liquidity protocol, Infrared Finance, is airdropping 2% of the total token supply to eligible users, with claims closing on January 1, 2026. – Link
📌 HyperLend publishes its terms and conditions for its next airdrop. Users must sign the terms before January 18 to receive their airdrop. – Link
Source: @0xlaiyuen
Are there any bulls left?
