<h2>Growing Industry Tension as Citadel’s SEC Letter Challenges the Core Premise of Decentralized Finance</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Citadel urged the SEC to treat certain DeFi protocols like traditional exchanges, triggering strong industry outrage.</li><li>Uniswap founder Hayden Adams accused Ken Griffin’s firm of steering regulators toward rules that could redefine developer liability.</li><li>The controversy raises fears of sweeping compliance burdens that could reshape DeFi’s structure, governance, and long-term viability.</li></ul>Citadel’s move to challenge the autonomy of decentralized finance landed with a heavy thud across the crypto sector on December 4, 2025, after the firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/citadel-securities-120225.pdf">submitted</a> a formal letter to U.S. regulators arguing that several&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralised-finance">DeFi</a> systems operate similarly to centralized exchanges or broker-dealers and should therefore face comparable regulatory scrutiny. Coverage of the letter emphasized that Citadel wasn’t merely asking the SEC to monitor isolated misconduct — it was urging the agency to treat entire categories of decentralized protocols as regulated financial venues, opening the door to broad rulemaking that could fundamentally alter how DeFi is built, deployed, and maintained.Hayden Adams, the founder of&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/uniswap-uni">Uniswap</a>, publicly blasted the development,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/haydenzadams/status/1996423513251459417">asserting</a> that Citadel’s founder Ken Griffin is influencing U.S. policymakers in ways that would reclassify DeFi developers as de facto operators of financial infrastructure. His remarks framed the letter as a targeted campaign capable of redefining the legal exposure of smart-contract authors by shifting the regulatory lens from protocol usage toward software creation itself. The portrayal suggests that if regulators embrace this narrative, developers who never custody user assets and do not control day-to-day operations could nonetheless be treated like centralized exchange administrators, with all accompanying licensing, reporting, and compliance obligations.<figure class="image"><img alt="twittershots-haydenzadams-1996423513251459417_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/twittershots_haydenzadams_1996423513251459417_11zon_7ef3093d68.jpg"></figure>Industry reaction turned sharply critical, as analysts noted that the implications stretch far beyond Uniswap or Citadel. The tension reflects a broader existential clash: whether decentralized software should be governed like traditional financial institutions simply because its outcomes resemble market functions. A regulatory pivot toward Citadel’s framing would force major protocols to contend with operational burdens they were never architected to handle, potentially requiring compliance-ready entities, legally managed front-ends, or more conservative protocol design choices. The risk of consolidation looms large, with only the most well-capitalized or institutionally aligned projects able to absorb the requirements, leaving smaller teams unable to operate under the expanded obligations.Adams’ argument taps into a deep anxiety within the DeFi ecosystem: once code authorship becomes equated with operational control, the permissionless and open-source culture that drove the sector’s growth could face unprecedented constraints. Observers warned that such a shift may discourage new developers, push innovation offshore, or bifurcate DeFi into compliance-forward hybrids and fringe, fully decentralized enclaves. Citadel’s position also highlights a long-brewing divide between traditional market makers seeking regulatory clarity and crypto builders determined to preserve decentralization as a functional, not symbolic, principle.Coverage of the story underscored the symbolic weight of the moment, noting how Citadel’s request arrives during a period of heightened scrutiny around financial market infrastructure and the role automated protocols play in liquidity, trading, and asset routing. The framing of DeFi as structurally comparable to an exchange challenges long-held assumptions about on-chain autonomy, code permanence, and distributed governance. As policymakers weigh the arguments, the sector braces for potential regulatory interpretations that could redefine who bears responsibility when decentralized systems perform market-like functions at global scale.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot straining to hold back a monolithic regulatory scrutiny wall from crushing a DeFi protocol.

Citadel’s Push for SEC Oversight Sparks Fierce DeFi Backlash as Uniswap Founder Calls Out Regulatory Influence

<h2>Regulators move on stablecoin law as issuance plan moves forward</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Taiwan’s regulators have formally committed to issuing the country’s first domestic stablecoin by the second half of 2026, potentially as early as mid-year.</li><li>The stablecoin may be pegged to either the New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) or the U.S. dollar (USD), will be issued exclusively by licensed financial institutions, and would follow strict compliance rules including full-reserve backing, segregated custody, local custody of reserves, and regular audits.</li><li>The launch depends on passage of the Virtual Assets Service Provider (VASP) Act, followed by a six-month buffer period for regulatory implementation.</li></ul>Taiwan’s financial watchdog&nbsp;<a href="https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202512030008">confirmed</a> on December 4, 2025 plans are moving forward for the island’s first regulated stablecoin, with a target launch in late 2026 — though officials say a debut as early as June or July of that year remains on the table if all steps go smoothly. The project enters the final stretch as the draft Virtual Assets Service Provider (VASP) Act heads for a cabinet review and then a third reading during the next legislative session, triggering a six-month lead time before issuance.Officials from the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) and the central bank clarified that only regulated financial institutions — such as licensed banks — will be eligible to issue the token at the outset, reflecting a deliberately conservative, risk-aware rollout strategy. The stablecoin’s final peg (whether to NTD or USD) has yet to be finalized, leaving open the possibility of a domestic-currency solution or a more internationally accessible dollar-pegged instrument.Regulatory guardrails under discussion would require full-reserve backing, segregation of customer funds from issuer capital, local custody of reserves, and routine auditing — a framework loosely inspired by the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Officials argue these safeguards are critical to embedding tokenized assets within a robust digital-finance architecture while preserving financial stability.From the government’s perspective, the stablecoin could serve multiple strategic purposes: enabling efficient domestic payments, powering programmable payments, and potentially supporting cross-border transfers once compliance measures are fully operational. FSC Chairman Peng Jin-long emphasized the significance of the initiative, stating, “The introduction of a domestic stablecoin would mark an important milestone in bringing virtual-asset activities into a fully regulated environment.”Beyond technology or hype, the stablecoin initiative reflects a broader regulatory ambition: to transition Taiwan’s crypto landscape from a fragmented gray zone into a structured, compliance-oriented ecosystem. Stakeholders note that the VASP draft has already undergone multiple cabinet-level reviews and reportedly achieved consensus among key parties, setting the stage for what could become a landmark development in Asia’s digital-asset regulation.Yet success hinges on multiple moving parts: timely passage of legislation, regulatory readiness, issuer compliance, and — ultimately — user adoption. If Taiwan navigates those with discipline, the country could emerge as one of the region’s early pioneers in issuing a fully regulated, domestically backed stablecoin.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot on a Taiwan Stablecoin train holding a dual-currency coin under a VASP Act arch

Taiwan Targets Launch of First Domestic Stablecoin by Mid-2026 Under New Crypto Regulations

<h2>Major U.S. Brokerage Prepares Full-Scale Crypto Integration for Millions of Clients</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Schwab targets early–to–mid 2026 for launching spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading across its platforms.</li><li>Leadership cites rising investor demand, a 400% spike in crypto-education traffic, and confidence that BTC and ETH meet internal compliance standards.</li><li>The move positions a multi-trillion-dollar brokerage to reshape access to digital assets amid shifting market conditions and growing interest in crypto price index trends.</li></ul>Charles Schwab is preparing a sweeping entry into digital assets as CEO Rick Wurster&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/charles-schwab-ceo-says-will-eye-more-ma-deals-2025-12-03/">confirms</a> that spot trading for&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> (<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a>) and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a> (<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a>) will debut in the first half of 2026, marking one of the most significant expansions by a U.S. brokerage into the crypto market. Wurster signaled that the firm feels “confident” about offering only BTC and ETH at launch, emphasizing that these are the cryptocurrencies Schwab can currently support with full compliance while steering clear of memecoin speculation. The announcement aligns with a noticeable shift among Schwab’s client base, where crypto-education portal traffic has surged roughly 400%, a jump that senior leadership describes as a clear indicator of rising investor readiness to trade major assets tied to broader&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index movements.Schwab’s digital-asset strategy reflects a phased, infrastructure-heavy rollout rather than a quick market grab. Executives outlined a sequential onboarding plan beginning with Thinkorswim, followed by availability on Schwab.com and the firm’s mobile apps, supported by a controlled pilot that first introduces the feature to employees before reaching select customer groups. The company’s public remarks repeatedly highlight a “thoughtful, compliance-first” build, including establishing internal books and records for crypto transactions rather than leaning on third-party providers. This method underscores the scale and regulatory scrutiny that accompany a platform handling somewhere between $7 trillion and as high as $11–12 trillion in client assets across its ecosystem. With an estimated 37 million customers, Schwab’s crypto offering is positioned to instantly become one of the largest access points for BTC and ETH trading worldwide, particularly as mainstream investors continue tracking market conditions through metrics like coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> and crypto price volatility.Momentum behind the plan forms part of a broader strategic push inside Schwab to meet long-term client demand rather than short-term hype cycles, especially as digital asset markets cool after rebound periods. Leadership framed the expansion as the next logical step for investors who already manage equities, bonds, and retirement products on Schwab’s platform, enabling them to add BTC and ETH without shifting funds to external exchanges that operate outside traditional financial infrastructure. The brokerage is also quietly evaluating future services beyond core trading, such as stablecoin support and potential tokenization initiatives, though executives note these remain exploratory and depend heavily on evolving oversight from agencies including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Even so, Schwab’s measured tone contrasts with the aggressive growth strategies of crypto-native exchanges, positioning the firm to compete on trust, regulatory clarity, and scale rather than marketing flash.Statements from Wurster and internal updates reveal a company trying to balance demand with risk controls. Schwab reiterated that it will not facilitate high-volatility fringe assets, choosing instead to anchor its crypto operations around BTC and ETH, which management views as sufficiently established for institutional-grade custody and investor protection requirements. That stance mirrors broader market behavior in late 2025 and early 2026, where traders increasingly prioritize stability and fundamentals while watching key indicators such as the crypto price index and shifts in coin market cap rankings. As Schwab accelerates its internal buildout and approaches the 2026 launch window, the move signals a definitional moment for traditional brokerage participation in digital assets, one that could reshape how everyday investors access crypto through regulated U.S. financial institutions.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot on Schwab bridge with key, opening 2026 gate to crypto

Charles Schwab Sets Sights on 2026 for Bitcoin and Ethereum Trading Rollout

<h2>Stronger Legal Standing for Digital Ownership Across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>UK’s Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 formally classifies crypto as a new, legally recognized category of personal property.</li><li>Holders gain clearer rights over ownership, inheritance, recovery, and dispute resolution, closing long-standing legal gaps.</li><li>Courts retain authority to determine which digital assets qualify, shaping future case law and industry standards.</li></ul>Royal assent granted on December 2, 2025, marked a decisive shift in the UK’s treatment of cryptocurrencies and other digital holdings, as the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 officially&nbsp;<a href="https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/b8778a6a-0e87-4435-abb2-aaaa47d47944">established</a> a third category of personal property that expressly includes crypto,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/non-fungible-tokens">NFTs</a>. The legislation brings statutory clarity to a legal landscape long muddled by ad-hoc court rulings, elevating digital assets to the same protected status as physical possessions and legal rights. This change affects England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, giving nearly seven million UK residents—roughly 12% of adults who hold some form of crypto—firmer standing in matters of ownership, recovery, and estate handling.The Act answers years of uncertainty that stemmed from a binary property framework unable to accommodate assets that exist purely as electronic records. Digital holdings now fall under a distinct category defined as “things that are digital or electronic in nature,” a structure that supports their treatment as transferrable, inheritable, and recoverable items. Legal analysts note that the new framework solidifies the courts’ ability to apply familiar tools—such as freezing orders, tracing procedures, and enforcement mechanisms—to cases involving stolen or disputed tokens, removing the need for judges to stretch old doctrines to cover modern assets. A crucial nuance remains: not every digital asset automatically qualifies. Courts will continue determining on a case-by-case basis whether a token meets criteria such as definability, identifiability, transferability, and sufficient permanence.Momentum for the reform traces back to the Law Commission of England and Wales, whose recommendations in 2023 called for a statutory overhaul to replace piecemeal judicial interpretations. Draft clauses entered public consultation in early 2024, and by September that year the bill reached Parliament, eventually passing both houses without amendment. Legal firms welcomed the clarity, describing it as timely recognition of digital ownership’s role in modern finance, while industry associations framed it as a confidence boost for individuals and institutions navigating theft, fraud, insolvency, and inheritance scenarios.&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> Policy UK went further, calling the Act “a massive step forward for Bitcoin in the United Kingdom and for everyone who holds and uses it here,” a sentiment echoed across the broader crypto sector.Economic and regulatory implications now extend to builders, exchanges, and custodians that have hesitated to scale operations under ambiguous ownership rules. With statutory recognition in place, businesses can structure services—ranging from custody to tokenized financial products—around clearer legal assumptions, reducing operational risk. Investors, meanwhile, gain stronger protections when dealing with custodial disputes or&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> compromises, and estate planners can incorporate digital holdings without relying on legal grey zones. The Act also sets up years of future jurisprudence as courts interpret how emerging asset types fit the new property category, a process that will likely shape litigation strategies, product design, and consumer protections throughout the UK’s digital economy.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot signing the UK Digital Assets Act transforming crypto into legal property

UK’s Landmark Digital Assets Act Redefines Crypto as Recognized Personal Property

<h2>Ledger Researchers Detail Unfixable Hardware Weakness Enabling Full Device Takeover</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Ledger’s Donjon lab confirmed an unpatchable boot-ROM flaw in the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 (MT6878) chip, allowing full device takeover via electromagnetic fault injection.</li><li>Smartphones built on this SoC — including the crypto-focused Solana Seeker — are permanently vulnerable, exposing private keys stored in mobile wallets.</li><li>The flaw sits in immutable silicon, meaning no update, patch, or vendor fix can secure affected devices.</li></ul>A fresh disclosure from Ledger’s Donjon research unit has placed a spotlight on a hardware-level security failure inside the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 (MT6878) smartphone chipset, a component used in several mainstream Android devices — including the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a> Seeker, a&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/web3-companies-projects">Web3</a>-focused smartphone marketed directly to crypto users.&nbsp;The report,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ledger.com/blog-is-your-smartphones-hardware-safe">released</a> on December 4, 2025, details how the chip’s boot ROM, the immutable first stage of its startup sequence, can be destabilized using precisely timed electromagnetic fault-injection pulses. Ledger’s engineers describe the issue as hard-coded into the chip’s silicon, a flaw no firmware patch or vendor update can ever repair. Once the fault window is calibrated, pulses can be fired once per second, and although the per-attempt success rate ranges from just 0.1% to 1%, repeated execution enables a full compromise in minutes. The attack elevates privileges all the way to EL3, ARM’s highest authority level, effectively handing an attacker complete control of the smartphone.The inclusion of the MT6878 in the Solana Seeker significantly raises the stakes. That device was built as a Web3-native smartphone, positioned as a convenient self-custody tool for Solana users, yet the Donjon findings show its core chipset can be forced to bypass all security boundaries at boot, exposing anything stored on the device — including private keys.&nbsp;Ledger security engineers Charles Christen and Léo Benito said the compromise covers everything from unsuspecting users installing malicious apps to well-resourced actors deploying remote zero-click attacks. Their assessment leaves little room for interpretation: “There is simply no way to safely store and use one’s private keys on those devices,” a line that hits directly at the promise of mobile-first crypto custody. Because a boot-ROM takeover precedes and defeats secure boot, sandboxing, encrypted storage, and OS-level protections, no application-layer mitigation can shield a&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> running on this silicon.Ledger’s internal timeline shows researchers began probing the chipset in February 2025 and identified the vulnerability in the first days of May before privately disclosing it to MediaTek. Vendors using the SoC were notified shortly after.&nbsp;MediaTek responded by stating that EMFI-based attacks fall outside the intended threat model for the MT6878, describing the Dimensity 7300 as a consumer-grade smartphone chip rather than a security-hardened module built for financial operations or hardware-security-module-level protection. That stance underscores an increasingly sharp divide between general-purpose mobile silicon and the rising security expectations of crypto users, especially as digital asset theft continues climbing — more than $2.17 billion stolen across the ecosystem in 2025 alone, already surpassing the prior year’s total.The hardware nature of the flaw makes the risk unavoidable. Any phone already shipped with the Dimensity 7300 carries the vulnerability permanently, meaning Solana Seeker owners and users of other affected models cannot rely on updates, patches, or factory resets to restore security.&nbsp;A compromised boot ROM turns a smartphone into an unreliable environment for non-custodial wallets, regardless of the presence of encrypted storage or secure-boot chains. Specialists in crypto security point out that only dedicated secure elements — chips specifically engineered to resist physical and side-channel attacks — offer meaningful protection against adversaries capable of manipulating timing, voltage, or electromagnetic fields. Software wallets operating solely on consumer-grade SoCs were never built to withstand that tier of threat.The implications ripple outward. Developers behind mobile wallets may need to implement warnings or usage restrictions for devices running the MT6878, while crypto users treating smartphones as primary custody devices face a reevaluation of their assumptions around threat exposure. For Web3-centric hardware, the disclosure cuts particularly deep: a device promoted for its crypto utility now faces a structural, permanent vulnerability rooted at the boot-ROM level.&nbsp;As hardware attacks become more accessible and the incentives to breach mobile wallets continue to rise, the Donjon findings draw a hard line between consumer smartphones and the specialized chip architectures required to protect financial assets from adversaries willing to attack a device all the way down to the electromagnetic behavior of its silicon.The news came as Solana Mobile announced that its native token, <a href="https://solanamobile.com/skr">SKR</a>, will launch in January 2026, with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. At launch, 30% will be allocated for airdrop, targeting active users and builders in the ecosystem. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko emphasized the decade-long effort to build this ecosystem. The SKR token is integral to governance and incentives within the Solana Mobile ecosystem, which includes the recently launched Solana Seeker smartphone. This Android-based device features blockchain capabilities like Seed Vault key storage and a Solana dApp Store, enhancing user experience and engagement with decentralized applications.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot attacks smartphone, showcasing a severe security breach.

MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Boot-ROM Flaw Raises Red Flags for Crypto Security

<h2>MSCI Scrutiny, Passive Outflow Risk, and Strategy’s Pushback</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>MSCI is weighing whether to exclude Strategy and other digital-asset-heavy firms from major equity indexes, potentially triggering billions in passive outflows.</li><li>Strategy is lobbying MSCI while stabilizing its balance sheet with a $1.4B cash reserve and recalibrated guidance as the crypto price index cools and coin market cap dynamics shift.</li><li>Bitcoin accumulation continues but at a sharply reduced pace, signaling a turn toward risk management rather than aggressive expansion.</li></ul>MSCI’s consultation on whether to remove companies classified as “digital asset treasuries” from its global equity benchmarks has placed Strategy at the center of one of the most consequential index governance debates of the year. MSCI announced its review on Oct. 10, 2025, opening a comment period through the end of December and scheduling final conclusions for Jan. 15, 2026. Strategy’s inclusion in MSCI USA and MSCI World gives the ruling outsized importance, because passive funds tracking these indexes represent a major structural demand source for MSTR shares. JPMorgan’s modeling—circulated widely and cited across market desks—projects that Strategy could face roughly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-20/michael-saylor-s-strategy-risks-losing-billions-in-index-flows">$2.8 billion</a> in forced selling if MSCI removes it, and as much as $8.8 billion if other index providers adopt similar standards.&nbsp;MSCI World covers more than 1,300 large- and mid-cap companies across 23 developed markets, making Strategy’s heavy reliance on&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a>, rather than software fundamentals, a stark contrast to peers like Nvidia and Apple. Strategy was only added to MSCI World in May 2024 after its market value surged through the explosive early phase of its Bitcoin strategy, when it held around 214,000&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a> and was treated as a high-beta proxy for broad&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> dynamics.Saylor has recently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/saylors-strategy-engaging-with-msci-potential-index-exclusion-2025-12-03/">confirmed</a> that Strategy is directly “engaging in that process,” signaling that the firm is preparing a detailed defense of its model as MSCI evaluates whether digital-asset-heavy treasuries distort index composition.&nbsp;His commentary at a&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/binance">Binance</a> event in Dubai captured the dilemma: the company’s equity behaves like “amplified Bitcoin,” a structural truth that makes MSTR prone to wider swings whenever the crypto price index retraces or liquidity tightens. He pushed back on JPMorgan’s outflow estimates, saying he was “not sure” their numbers were correct, but stopped short of dismissing the risk outright.&nbsp;The company has also worked to emphasize that it is an operating enterprise, not a passive Bitcoin trust, pointing to roughly $500 million in software revenue and a roster of capital-markets products including more than $7.7 billion in digital credit securities issued in 2025, along with a new Bitcoin-backed treasury instrument branded Stretch.&nbsp;Online, some investors have accused JPMorgan of orchestrating a broader campaign against Strategy, pointing to the bank’s margin tightening on MSTR-backed loans in July as an inflection point in the stock’s downturn, though these claims remain speculative. Market data shows Strategy’s shares down about 60% from their July peak and 37% year-to-date, with the equity at times trading as much as $10 billion below the market value of its Bitcoin holdings—an inversion that challenges the long-standing belief that Strategy deserves a premium to coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> value due to its leverage and software arm.A broader macro reset has intensified the pressure. Bitcoin retreated from approximately $126,000 in October to roughly $85,000 by early December, a drawdown mirrored across components of the crypto price index as ETF outflows approached $3.5 billion for November. Liquidity thinned, with market depth slipping from around $766 million to $568 million. Analysts described the move as cycle-level exhaustion, and warned that reclaiming the $95,000–$98,000 band is essential before bullish structure can reassert itself.&nbsp;Traders simultaneously navigated volatility sparked by concerns around a potential yen carry unwind tied to Bank of Japan policy signals. Digital-asset treasury stocks as a category—Strategy and Japan-based Metaplanet being the highest-profile—first boomed in mid-year enthusiasm before swinging violently lower, with Metaplanet’s enterprise value even falling below the value of its Bitcoin holdings. Strategy’s collapse in its long-established NAV premium underscores how much the market has repriced balance-sheet leverage in a risk-off climate.Strategy’s response to the downturn has been defined by its shift toward liquidity preservation. The company built a dollar reserve of approximately $1.4–$1.44 billion during late November and early December, enough to cover 12 months of preferred dividends and debt service with an internal goal to extend the cushion to 24 months. That reserve was assembled using equity proceeds and non-core asset sales, marking a pivot from raising capital solely to buy more Bitcoin toward protecting cash flow in case markets remain unstable.&nbsp;Revised guidance reflects the new mood: earlier internal projections reportedly assumed year-end Bitcoin levels near $150,000 and potential 2025 income around $24 billion. Updated expectations anticipate Bitcoin finishing the year between $85,000 and $110,000, alongside a warning that Strategy could face losses of roughly $5.5 billion for 2025 if prices stay range-bound. Both Saylor and CEO Phong Le have&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/strategy-bitcoin-reserve-mnav-risk-650k-btc-pressure">acknowledged</a> that Bitcoin sales could occur if mNAV drops below parity and access to financing dries up, with Saylor describing that outcome as “the absolutely right thing to do” from a mathematical standpoint while reiterating it remains a last-resort scenario.Bitcoin accumulation continues, but the pace has slowed dramatically from the program’s peak. Data cited in recent analysis shows Strategy’s monthly Bitcoin purchases plunging from roughly 134,000 BTC at the height of its 2024 expansion to about 9,100 BTC in November 2025, with the most recent partial month showing only around 135 BTC added. Even so, opportunistic buying still occurs: the company acquired 8,178 BTC on Nov. 17 for about $835.5 million at an average price near $102,000 including fees, bringing holdings to 650,000 BTC valued around $60.85 billion.&nbsp;&nbsp;Strategy’s largest accumulation cycles once fed a feedback loop where rising BTC strengthened MSTR’s valuation and opened new capital-raising windows. The current mode looks different: slower deployment, a protective cash buffer, active engagement with index overseers, and a willingness to challenge narratives that cast the company as little more than a Bitcoin tracker wrapped in equity form. These adjustments reflect a company navigating both the volatility inherent to crypto price movements and the structural questions now facing digital-asset-heavy corporate treasuries.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Sequential image showing robot shifting from aggressive Bitcoin shoveling to cautious single-coin analysis

Michael Saylor in Talks with MSCI Over Potential Index Exclusion

<h2>Developers Push PeerDAS Into Mainnet to Cut Node Costs, Expand Blob Throughput, and Speed Up Layer-2 Settlement</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Ethereum activated the Fusaka upgrade on Dec. 3, 2025, introducing PeerDAS to slash node load and expand data capacity for rollups.</li><li>Layer-2 teams expect 40–60% fee reductions as blob throughput scales through phased BPO forks.</li><li>The upgrade raises block gas limits and positions Ethereum for larger long-term throughput, boosting activity tied to crypto price index trends and coin market cap shifts.</li></ul><a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a>’s December 3, 2025 rollout of the Fusaka upgrade&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/381285/fusaka-rollout-ethereum-twice-year-hard-fork-schedule">landed</a> as a structural reset rather than another routine hard fork, reshaping bandwidth demands, blob handling, and validator behavior at a moment when rollups dominate on-chain activity. Developers executed the upgrade at slot 13,164,544 after months of coordinated testnet drills across Holesky, Sepolia, and Hoodi, completing the network’s second major code change of the year following Pectra.&nbsp;Fusaka combines two layers of improvements — “Fulu” on the consensus side and “Osaka” on the execution side — and developers framed the release as a foundational step in Ethereum’s transition toward a more modular, data-efficient architecture. The shift arrives as analysts monitor&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index movements and overall coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> distribution to gauge whether cheaper rollup settlements could influence user flow across Layer-2 ecosystems.PeerDAS, short for Peer Data Availability Sampling, anchors the entire upgrade. The mechanism, introduced through EIP-7594, replaces Ethereum’s traditional requirement for nodes to fetch full blob data with a probabilistic sampling model that dramatically lowers storage and bandwidth needs. Validators now retrieve small, random slices of blob data rather than the entire payload, reducing requirements by up to roughly 85% while preserving the integrity guarantees that allow the network to reconstruct full data as long as at least half the blobs remain available.&nbsp;The model carries a failure probability so low — cited as between one in 10^20 and 10^24 — that developers described it as an acceptable statistical baseline for a global settlement layer. Cutting those hardware burdens is expected to expand the number of operators able to run full nodes, strengthening decentralization while supporting surging rollup traffic during periods of rising crypto price volatility.The upgrade’s additional throughput enhancements are already drawing attention from Layer-2 teams that handle large transaction batches. Fusaka pushes Ethereum’s block gas limit from roughly 36 million to around 60 million units, a material jump that broadens the execution layer’s capacity to embed more complex transactions or handle bursts of contract activity without immediate congestion pressure.&nbsp;Combined with PeerDAS, the expanded throughput serves as the technical backbone for reducing rollup fees, with teams publicly estimating 40–60% lower user-side costs once blob supply ramps through Fusaka’s dual-phase expansion plan. Analysts tracking crypto price index fluctuations note that cheaper settlement costs often correlate with higher user migration to rollups, prompting speculation around how sustained throughput gains might influence market behavior across different Layer-2 ecosystems.Fusaka’s deployment sets off a series of Blob-Parameter-Only (BPO) forks designed to gradually raise blob throughput rather than flood the network with an immediate surge in data load. The schedule places the first upgrade window around December 17, 2025, with blob target and maximum counts shifting upward from the initial 6/9 parameters to roughly 10/15.&nbsp;A second expansion is penciled in for January 7, 2026, pushing capacity further toward 14/21. Developers outlined up to five BPO stages in total, aiming to scale data availability smoothly while observing validator performance and network stability in real time. A note circulated by researcher Christine D. Kim during devnet testing observed that blob capacity more than doubled within two weeks under controlled conditions, a signal of how fast Ethereum could scale if mainnet behavior tracks similar patterns.Market participants follow these changes closely because lower settlement friction has historically nudged both speculative and practical activity upward across Layer-2s, feeding into sector rotation patterns visible in broader crypto price and coin market cap data. Yet developers cautioned that Fusaka does not deliver instant sharding-level throughput; rather, it positions the network for the planned evolution toward danksharding and long-term targets in the 100,000-transactions-per-second range.&nbsp;The shift is still consequential for node runners, who now face lighter hardware loads and more predictable data obligations thanks to sampling-based bandwidth demands. Supporters frame this as a step toward a more inclusive validator base capable of sustaining Ethereum’s expanding role as a settlement layer for rollups, while skeptics note that real-world performance will depend on adoption and user behavior once lower fees materialize.The broader narrative around Fusaka situates the upgrade within Ethereum’s multi-year march toward scaling rollup throughput without compromising decentralization. The combination of PeerDAS, broader blockspace, and staged blob growth nudges the network into a more efficient data regime just as competition among Layer-2 ecosystems intensifies. Whether these structural changes reshape activity levels — and how those shifts manifest in crypto price index patterns or sector-level coin market cap movements — will become clearer as the network progresses through its early BPO phases and rollups adjust to the new operating conditions.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot using a precise sampler to take a small slice of a large data blob payload

Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade Resets the Network’s Scalability Baseline With Data-Sampling Architecture and Higher Block Capacity

<h2>Leadership Shift Signals Strategic Reset at the World’s Largest Crypto Exchange</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Yi He steps in as Binance’s new co-CEO alongside Richard Teng on Dec. 3, 2025, marking a major leadership reset.</li><li>The move follows years of regulatory pressure and internal restructuring after CZ’s legal fallout and subsequent presidential pardon.</li><li>Binance launches “Binance Junior,” a savings-only crypto account for ages 6–17, along with a children’s book to build early financial literacy.</li></ul><a href="https://coin360.com/review/binance">Binance</a> introduced a sweeping leadership realignment on December 3, 2025,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/binance/status/1996101031508488248">appointing</a> co-founder Yi He as co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, a decision that reshapes the exchange’s executive structure after a turbulent regulatory stretch. Yi He, long regarded as one of the most influential figures inside the company, shifts from her role overseeing customer service and growth operations to formally sharing command of the exchange’s direction.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img alt="twittershots-binance-1996101031508488248_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/twittershots_binance_1996101031508488248_11zon_2e91c1eb03.jpg"></figure>Richard Teng framed the decision as an effort to reinforce stability and transparency, emphasizing that Yi “has been a core part of Binance since the very beginning” and is central to building a digital-asset ecosystem engineered for longevity. The timing underscores a strategic recalibration as the company continues navigating the consequences of earlier compliance failures tied to Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to inadequate anti-money-laundering controls, paid substantial fines, served jail time, and was later pardoned by the U.S. president.The leadership reset arrives alongside a new product initiative that pushes Binance deeper into long-term user-lifecycle planning: the launch of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/binance-launches-binance-junior-crypto-savings-account-for-kids-and-teens-302631296.html">Binance Junior</a>, a crypto savings sub-account for children aged 6–17. The product restricts trading entirely and allows only flexible-earn savings features, positioning it as a controlled, education-oriented entry point into digital finance.&nbsp;Parents retain full oversight, funding the account directly from their main&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> or through on-chain transfers, while receiving instant notifications on all activity and the ability to shut down the junior account at any moment. Teenagers aged 13 and up gain access to limited transfers under daily caps, though transfers to unrelated adults remain blocked to reduce misuse risks and regulatory exposure. Binance pairs the launch with a self-published educational book,&nbsp;ABC’s of Crypto, a simplified introduction to blockchain concepts targeting families adopting the platform’s youth-focused savings model.The dual announcement reflects a broader repositioning inside Binance: stabilizing governance with a veteran insider at the helm while expanding into family-oriented financial products designed to cultivate long-term platform loyalty. Yi He’s elevation signals continuity with the company’s founding DNA but also a readiness to operate under heightened regulatory scrutiny, while Binance Junior illustrates a push to embed crypto into everyday financial habits from an early age. Together, the moves show an exchange attempting to rebuild resilience, credibility, and growth momentum after one of the most consequential legal chapters in its history.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Dual robot CEOs shaking hands on a podium symbolizing leadership stability

Binance Elevates Yi He to Co-CEO as Exchange Pushes New Youth-Focused Product Strategy

<h2>ZK Protocol Targets Anonymity, Fair Randomness, and Sybil Resistance</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Ethereum engineers are advancing a zero-knowledge Secret Santa-style protocol that enables private sender-receiver matching on-chain.</li><li>The system addresses transparency, randomness limitations, and duplicate-entry risks using ZK proofs, relayers, and cryptographic enforcement.</li><li>Developers frame it as a year-end testbed for broader privacy tools such as confidential voting, airdrops, and coordination mechanisms.</li></ul>Coverage emerging on Dec. 2, 2025 outlines a fresh attempt by&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a> developers to challenge the network’s long-standing transparency constraints by&nbsp;<a href="https://ethresear.ch/t/zk-secret-santa-protocol/23582">pushing</a> a zero-knowledge&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/secret-scrt">Secret</a> Santa protocol toward deployment. The effort, driven by engineer Artem Chystiakov and collaborators, focuses on creating a verifiable yet private on-chain pairing mechanism that assigns each participant a single “match” without disclosing who is linked to whom. Developers describe Ethereum’s default state bluntly — “everything on Ethereum is visible to everyone” — and frame that visibility as the chief obstacle the new protocol intends to solve. The proposed design uses&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/zero-knowledge-proof">zero-knowledge proofs</a> to preserve pairing integrity while shielding sender-receiver mappings from the rest of the network.Sources describe three technical problems the team identified: unavoidable transparency, unreliable randomness, and vulnerability to duplicate registrations. Ethereum’s transparent data model exposes all&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/address">address</a> interactions, making traditional Secret Santa matching impossible without privacy tools. The randomness issue poses an equally serious hurdle, because blockchains struggle to produce unbiased, unpredictable randomness suitable for fair assignment. To avoid gaming the matchmaker, participants must also be prevented from registering multiple times. The protocol addresses this through requirements that each entry be tied to a unique digital signature, ensuring equal participation while denying Sybil-style multi-entry manipulation.Developers outline a structured workflow that begins when users register an address and commit to a signature inside a&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/smart-contracts">smart contract</a>. After registration, participants submit individual randomness inputs not directly through their wallets, but through a transaction relayer designed to sever the visible link between sender and action. Once all randomness submissions are gathered, the protocol computes the final pairings using cryptographic primitives — signature recovery, hash commitments, and Merkle proofs — wrapped in zero-knowledge verification to guarantee correctness without revealing relationships. Recipients then encrypt their “delivery details” using shared randomness so only their assigned sender can decrypt them, making the entire process trustless yet confidential.Chystiakov’s explanation highlights the relayer’s importance for breaking deterministic traces that would otherwise leak identities. Without this intermediary, every randomness submission would map directly to a known address on-chain, defeating the privacy purpose. Although the relayer design remains in development, its neutrality and decentralization will determine how robust the anonymity layer becomes. The team and community commentators note that the system remains in a proof-of-concept stage, with media reports describing it as “pushed toward deployment” but not yet implemented on mainnet. That timing, aligned with early December, gives the holiday-themed metaphor extra visibility while anchoring the effort as a practical demonstration of Ethereum’s next privacy frontier.Broader implications extend beyond a festive experiment. The Secret Santa testbed is framed as a stepping stone toward more consequential use cases, including anonymous&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/dao-maker-dao">DAO</a> voting where voter eligibility is verifiable but identities and choices remain concealed, private token allocations that hide eligibility lists and distribution amounts, and confidential coordination mechanisms where participants need to match or collaborate without public exposure. Ethereum’s shift toward optional privacy could reshape its competitive stance, especially as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/zksync-zk">ZK</a>-native chains push advanced privacy capabilities. Observers also note that the rise of stronger anonymity tools may eventually intersect with regulatory debates, as privacy-preserving cryptography often faces heightened scrutiny in jurisdictions focused on financial monitoring and compliance.The December disclosure signals a growing movement inside Ethereum’s developer ecosystem to build privacy that complements verifiability rather than undermining it. The Secret Santa workflow illustrates how ZK proofs, relayers, and cryptographic enforcement can coexist with Ethereum’s permissionless architecture. Future testing, audits, and UX improvements will determine how quickly the system progresses beyond an experiment into a deployable privacy layer capable of supporting institutional applications, governance processes, and new classes of on-chain interactions that require confidentiality without sacrificing trust.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot turns Ethereum gift-wheel assigning private matches through secure randomness

Ethereum Developers Test Zero-Knowledge ‘Secret Santa’ System for On-Chain Privacy

<h2>Hybrid Prediction Model Targets On-Chain Liquidity During a Market Restructure</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Kalshi launched tokenized versions of its regulated event-contract markets on Solana on Dec. 1, 2025.</li><li>The rollout connects Kalshi’s off-chain liquidity with Solana DeFi venues like Jupiter and DFlow.</li><li>The move lands as CoinGlass data shows derivatives liquidity tightening around BTC while altcoins face a prolonged drawdown.</li></ul>Kalshi’s entry into on-chain trading landed on Dec. 1, 2025, with the exchange&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/01/kalshi-makes-move-to-court-crypto-traders-with-tokenized-betting-contracts.html">opening</a> thousands of its regulated event-contract markets as tokenized assets on the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a> blockchain, marking a structural shift from a closed, centrally hosted product suite to an interoperable model built for crypto liquidity. The company, already known as a U.S. CFTC-regulated prediction-market exchange, effectively turned its event contracts—traditionally accessed through Kalshi’s own interface—into transferable Solana-based tokens. Users will now be able to buy, sell, and move these positions directly on-chain.&nbsp;The rationale, according to the exchange’s Head of Crypto, centers on accessing “billions of dollars of liquidity that crypto has” while enabling developers to build “third-party front ends” that rely on Kalshi’s underlying liquidity. The rollout creates a hybrid system where the exchange’s off-chain book meets Solana’s permissionless rails, effectively offering a gateway for both traders and developers to interact with regulated event markets without relying solely on Kalshi’s own platform.Solana-native protocols are moving into the picture as core infrastructure partners, with&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/jupiter-space-station-jup">Jupiter</a> and DFlow linking Kalshi’s liquidity to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralised-finance">DeFi</a> trading environments. The integration is designed to convert Kalshi’s markets into freely transferable positions that can circulate across Solana’s broader ecosystem, reducing friction for crypto-native users accustomed to on-chain order flow. This architecture echoes the design of decentralized front-end layers common across DeFi, creating scenarios where third-party developers can build optimized interfaces or market aggregators while still clearing trades through Kalshi’s liquidity pools. The expansion also places the exchange in competition with other crypto-based prediction platforms such as Polymarket, but with the distinguishing factor of regulated event-contract settlement backing its markets.The timing intersects with the strongest month the prediction-market sector has ever recorded. Data from The Block shows Kalshi’s monthly spot volume jumping from $4.4 billion in October to $5.8 billion in November, a 32% month-over-month increase and the single largest absolute monthly gain in the platform’s history. Polymarket followed the same trajectory with its own all-time high: monthly trading volume rose from $3.02 billion in October to more than $3.7 billion in November, a 23.8% jump that extended a months-long run of record activity. Combined, the two platforms approached $10 billion in November volume — a level that cements their status as dominant flows in the global prediction-market ecosystem.<figure class="image"><img alt="Screenshot_4.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_4_628ca32541.png"></figure>Sector data shows Kalshi and Polymarket have effectively formed an emerging duopoly, capturing the overwhelming majority of monthly global prediction-market activity as their liquidity funnels, integrations, and user bases scale at the same time. Capital formation has accelerated alongside trading volume. Kalshi doubled its valuation last month after securing $1 billion in fresh funding that pushed its market value to $11 billion, reflecting investor confidence in its regulated U.S. footprint. Polymarket, meanwhile, secured a pivotal regulatory green light from the CFTC in mid-November, unlocking its return to the U.S. market after years of enforced limitations.Distribution partnerships have amplified that momentum, boosting visibility and funneling liquidity into both platforms at a pace previously unseen in the sector. Polymarket secured an exclusive integration with Yahoo Finance, a multi-year partnership with UFC, and newly expanded data embeds via Google Finance, which recently began surfacing Polymarket and Kalshi prediction-market prices directly in search results. Bloomberg reporting also highlighted Galaxy Digital’s early-stage exploration of liquidity-provision deals with both platforms, signaling the rapid institutionalization of a category once dismissed as a retail experiment.Kalshi’s decision to roll out tokenized markets on Solana fits directly into this broader surge. The exchange is positioning itself for deeper integration with crypto-native liquidity at a moment when prediction markets are experiencing their fastest-ever acceleration in volume, visibility, and institutional adoption. The question now becomes whether on-chain portability amplifies that growth further — or reshapes the competitive balance as both Kalshi and Polymarket navigate their strongest phase in the sector’s history.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot opens Solana gate revealing expanding tokenized prediction market landscape

Kalshi Brings Tokenized Event Markets to Solana as Derivatives Landscape Shifts

<h2>ETF Listing Reshapes Market Access for Oracle Tokens Amid Shifting Institutional Demand</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Grayscale’s spot Chainlink ETF (GLNK) launched on NYSE Arca on Dec. 2, converting its long-running private trust into a fully tradable product.</li><li>LINK jumped roughly 13% on launch day, with trading data showing GLNK posting more than 860,000 shares in volume.</li><li>Analysts highlighted structural risks, including NAV divergence and weak altcoin sentiment, even as the ETF boosts Chainlink’s institutional visibility.</li></ul>Grayscale’s launch of the Grayscale&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/chainlink-link">Chainlink</a> Trust ETF (ticker: GLNK) on December 2, 2025, immediately reconfigured how traditional investors can gain exposure to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/chainlink-link">LINK</a>, shifting the asset from a private trust format into a publicly traded product on NYSE Arca. The fund opened with $15.58 million in assets under management, backed by 1,306,802.9306 LINK, and each share represented 0.88776770 LINK. GLNK functions as an exchange-traded product rather than a standard 40-Act ETF, allowing holders to access Chainlink price exposure without direct token custody. The sponsor waived fees for its first three months or until the vehicle reaches $1 billion in assets, after which a 0.35% expense ratio applies.Trading during the launch session reflected a strong initial reception. GLNK shares changed hands more than 860,000 times, with&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GLNK/">pricing</a> around $11.90, marking a 6.2% gain from the start of trading. The fund’s net assets were reported near $27.87 million, and its NAV per share sat at approximately $16.79, highlighting a premium that mirrors the early imbalance between supply and demand.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img alt="Screenshot_2.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_2_e2f565ac35.png"></figure>The underlying token reacted with similar momentum, rising about 13% to $13.38, lifting Chainlink’s estimated coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> to roughly $9.2 billion on the day. This bounce contrasted sharply with the token’s deeper backdrop, as LINK had spent much of 2025 under pressure and down roughly 47% year-over-year prior to the ETF debut, according to the latest&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index readings.<figure class="image"><img alt="Screenshot_3.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_3_c976334417.png"></figure>Grayscale positioned Chainlink as essential infrastructure for bridging real-world data into blockchains, describing the oracle network as the “connective tissue” enabling everything from&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralised-finance">DeFi</a> settlement automation to broader tokenization flows across financial markets. That framing comes as the industry prepares for what analysts expect to be more than 100 new crypto-linked ETFs entering the market over the next six months, a wave accelerated by this year’s approvals for&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/xrp-xrp">XRP</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/dogecoin-doge">Dogecoin</a> products. The Chainlink listing pushes this trend toward alt-coin infrastructure assets rather than simply tokens viewed as store-of-value plays. Reporting agencies emphasized how the ETF aligns with growing institutional interest in oracle-layer utilities, especially as traditional firms attempt to integrate on-chain settlement and data feeds.Others voiced caution on the launch-day surge, arguing that a sell-the-news pattern remained possible given overall weak sentiment in non-<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a> assets and the structural risks inherent in ETPs. GLNK shares can only be created and redeemed in institutional-sized units, leaving retail holders exposed to premium divergence and volatility relative to the underlying crypto price. Analysts noted that wide spreads are more likely during early trading sessions as liquidity builds, particularly with Chainlink’s historically sharp intraday swings. Several market commentators warned that the fund’s debut does not resolve structural headwinds for&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/altcoin">altcoins</a>, even if it meaningfully expands access for institutions that previously avoided direct custody.The listing ultimately marks a significant moment for Chainlink’s market evolution, shifting one of&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/web3-companies-projects">Web3</a>’s oldest infrastructure tokens squarely into regulated investment rails. Whether this becomes a durable base for capital rotation into LINK or a short-lived boost inside a soft altcoin cycle now depends on broader market liquidity, regulatory comfort with crypto ETPs, and Chainlink’s ability to maintain relevance as tokenization accelerates across traditional finance.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot opens ETF gateway as LINK climbs in coin market cap

Grayscale’s Chainlink ETF Sparks Double-Digit LINK Rally as Fund Debuts on NYSE Arca

<h2>Consortium Expands to Ten Banks and Prepares MiCAR-Regulated Euro Token</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>BNP Paribas joined Qivalis, a 10-bank consortium building a regulated euro-pegged stablecoin.</li><li>Launch planned for H2 2026 pending MiCAR licensing as a Dutch Electronic Money Institution.</li><li>Executives from Coinbase Germany, ING, and NatWest anchor leadership as banks target institutional-grade digital payments and tokenized-asset settlement.</li></ul>BNP Paribas has&nbsp;<a href="https://group.bnpparibas/en/press-release/bnp-paribas-joins-european-consortium-to-launch-euro-backed-stablecoin">joined</a> a growing coalition of major European banks backing Qivalis, a newly formed venture aiming to issue a euro-denominated stablecoin under full EU regulatory oversight. The initiative, announced on December 2, 2025, expands the founding roster—ING, UniCredit, Banca Sella, KBC, DekaBank, Danske Bank, SEB, CaixaBank, and Raiffeisen Bank International—to a ten-bank consortium with ambitions to create a compliant digital payment asset built for cross-border speed, institutional settlement, and programmable finance. Qivalis plans to operate from Amsterdam as it pursues authorization under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, filing for classification as a Dutch Electronic Money Institution, with approval expected to take six to nine months.Leadership has become a central part of the venture’s credibility push. Former&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> Germany head Jan-Oliver Sell now leads Qivalis as CEO, joined by CFO Floris Lugt, who previously oversaw digital assets at ING, while former UK banking regulator and NatWest chair Howard Davies heads the supervisory board. Lugt framed the business case for a bank-issued stablecoin by arguing that digital payments “offer significant efficiency and transparency” due to blockchain’s programmability and around-the-clock settlement features. The group positions Qivalis as both a payment instrument and a settlement layer for tokenized assets, aiming to serve retail customers, corporate treasuries, and financial institutions that increasingly handle blockchain-based assets.Development remains at an early operational stage but is moving quickly. Qivalis expects to hire 45 to 50 employees over the next 18 to 24 months, with roughly one-third of that headcount already filled. The launch window is currently set for the second half of 2026, assuming regulatory approval arrives on schedule. The banks backing the venture argue that Europe needs a domestically issued, fully regulated euro stablecoin to reduce dependence on U.S. dollar-based tokens and preserve what they describe as the region’s financial sovereignty. Market data underscores the scale of the opportunity: global stablecoin transaction volume reached roughly $5.7 trillion last year and may approach $8 trillion by the end of 2025, while earlier European attempts at euro-pegged tokens struggled to gain traction, with one prior offering capped around €56.2 million to €64 million in circulation.Regulatory scrutiny remains a factor. The European Central Bank continues to warn that privately issued&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a> carry potential risks to monetary policy and is simultaneously advancing work on the digital euro as a central-bank alternative. Even so, the consortium has left the door open for additional banks to join, signaling an intent to turn Qivalis into a pan-European standard rather than a single-issuer experiment. The project marks one of the most coordinated attempts by traditional financial institutions to enter a market long dominated by U.S. players, and its progress will determine whether a regulated euro stablecoin can achieve institutional-level adoption after years of false starts.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot firmly places a Euro stablecoin token on the map of Europe.

BNP Paribas Steps Into European Bank-Led Stablecoin Push as Qivalis Targets 2026 Launch

<h2>Major U.S. Bank Pushes Cautious but Concrete Digital-Asset Exposure for Wealth Clients</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Bank of America urges wealth clients to allocate 1–4% of portfolios to crypto assets.</li><li>The bank now grants access to spot Bitcoin ETFs approved by the SEC in early 2024.</li><li>Move highlights growing institutional acceptance as crypto price trends and coin market cap metrics gain mainstream relevance.</li></ul>Bank of America’s latest guidance to its wealth-management clients lands as one of the clearest signals yet that traditional finance is no longer treating digital assets as a fringe curiosity. The institution, described in separate reporting as the world’s second-largest bank, is now openly advising portfolio exposure of 1% to 4% in digital assets—an allocation range that reframes crypto as a legitimate satellite investment rather than a speculative outlier. This shift comes as the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index and broader market indicators demonstrate strengthened investor participation, amplified by the growing coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> of major assets and the availability of regulated investment vehicles.Wealth-management clients at Bank of America and Wells Fargo have begun receiving access to spot&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> ETFs following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s January 2024 approval of multiple products tracking Bitcoin’s price directly. Sources familiar with the matter describe the rollout as demand-driven: clients who ask for the ETFs can receive them through brokerage platforms or advisor engagement, rather than being steered toward them. That cautious distribution model underscores how the banks are managing regulatory scrutiny while recognizing that customer interest has surged alongside Bitcoin’s climb from roughly $40,000 at the time of SEC approval to above the $60,000 zone later in the year. Reports covering the transition highlight the view within banking circles that the newly approved funds—designed to hold physical Bitcoin rather than derivatives—strip away the custody complexity that once deterred traditional investors.The timing of Bank of America’s 1–4% allocation recommendation adds a layer of strategic intent. Bitcoin’s rally, the influx of regulated ETF products, and a noticeable broadening of crypto price engagement among mainstream investors have formed a reinforcing cycle. Advisors now operate in an environment where digital assets can be slotted into conventional portfolio models without invoking the operational hurdles of wallets, private keys, or off-platform exchanges. The bank’s positioning also mirrors a broader trend playing out across wealth management as institutions begin interpreting crypto performance more like other alternative assets—sensitive to macro shifts, market structure, liquidity conditions, and long-term adoption patterns reflected in coin market cap rankings.Financial analysts note that even a modest allocation recommendation from an institution of Bank of America’s scale carries outsized influence across high-net-worth and mass-affluent client segments. The optics of legacy banks offering Bitcoin ETFs—alongside explicit reference points tied to the crypto price index and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market capitalization</a> trends—may nudge competitors to follow suit or refine their digital-asset strategies. With ETFs reducing friction and regulatory uncertainty leveling out, the move represents a bridge between the speculative origins of crypto and its emerging role as a measurable, allocatable asset class inside diversified portfolios.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Bank of America Signals a Structural Shift as It Opens Bitcoin ETF Access and Recommends 1–4% Crypto Allocation

Bank of America Signals a Structural Shift as It Opens Bitcoin ETF Access and Recommends 1–4% Crypto Allocation.jpg

<h2>Shift Marks Major Break from Vanguard’s Longstanding Anti-Crypto Stance</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Vanguard now allows its 50M clients to trade SEC-regulated crypto ETFs holding BTC, ETH, XRP, and SOL.</li><li>The shift applies to third-party funds only, with no plans for Vanguard-issued crypto products.</li><li>Even modest allocations could translate into billions in new inflows due to Vanguard’s ~$11T AUM footprint.</li></ul>Vanguard’s latest policy change lands as one of the firm’s most consequential reversals in years,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1995608691039404125">opening</a> its brokerage platform to third-party ETFs containing&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/xrp-xrp">XRP</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a> after consistently resisting digital-asset exposure. The decision, confirmed on December 2, 2025, grants more than 50 million clients the ability to buy and sell SEC-approved crypto-linked ETFs, while maintaining the company’s conservative posture by refusing to launch its own crypto funds or support high-volatility products tied to speculative tokens.<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_1995608691039404125_20251202_193514_via_10015_io_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_1995608691039404125_20251202_193514_via_10015_io_11zon_66ed328ca4.jpg"></figure>The firm framed the shift as a response to maturing market structure, improved regulatory clarity, and a noticeable evolution in investor preference. A spokesperson underscored the change by noting that cryptocurrency ETFs and mutual funds had “been tested through periods of market volatility, performing as designed while maintaining liquidity,” signaling that operational reliability and compliance infrastructure now meet Vanguard’s internal thresholds. The move follows months of internal evaluation that began around September 2025 under updated leadership, contrasting sharply with the explicit rejection of crypto ETFs by prior executives who argued digital assets lacked long-term investment merit.Allowing Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana ETFs onto the platform opens a channel with potentially significant market implications—given Vanguard’s roughly $11 trillion in assets under management, even minimal client participation could funnel billions of dollars into regulated crypto markets. Analysts note that this access shift is likely to normalize crypto exposure inside traditional portfolios, moving it from a fringe, speculative segment into a more standardized allocation category among long-term retail investors.While the policy change increases investor access, Vanguard made clear that it is not embracing the broader digital-asset ecosystem. The firm will not handle direct crypto custody, will stay away from meme-coin-linked financial products, and has no intention of developing proprietary crypto ETF offerings. The brokerage addition signals a strictly defined pathway: investors may access blue-chip crypto assets only through vetted, regulated ETFs that meet Vanguard’s risk and compliance criteria. Industry observers view that boundary-setting as a blueprint for how other conservative institutions may integrate crypto exposure without engaging in the higher-risk, decentralized segments of the market.This development marks a milestone for mainstream visibility of crypto within traditional finance, reflecting both competitive pressure across the asset-management landscape and the broadening acceptance of regulated digital-asset vehicles among retail investors. Vanguard’s measured, compliance-first entry reinforces the ETF model as the gateway through which most conservative investors will encounter crypto—an approach signaling that digital assets have reached a level of market and regulatory stability significant enough for inclusion on one of the most risk-averse retail platforms in the world.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot opens Vanguard gate to reveal four glowing crypto asset cubes

Vanguard Opens Trading Access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana ETFs for 50M Clients

<h2>Mounting Stress Around mNAV Thresholds and Investor Concerns</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Strategy’s $1.44 billion cash reserve aims to cover dividend obligations but raises questions about long-term sustainability.</li><li>The company’s 650,000-BTC treasury — roughly 3.1% of global supply — is now tied to mNAV risk thresholds that could force selling.</li><li>Analysts warn that a sharp drop in mNAV could trigger a “death-spiral” scenario, stressing both the company and broader crypto markets.</li></ul>Strategy’s newly built&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001050446/000119312525303157/d69948d8k.htm">$1.44 billion</a> U.S. dollar reserve has become the centerpiece of a precarious balancing act as the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a>-heavy firm battles a declining share price, widening financial obligations, and a capital structure increasingly dependent on market confidence. The reserve, financed through share issuance, was designed to guarantee at least 12 months of dividend payouts and eventually two years of coverage. That buffer sits alongside the company’s estimated 650,000&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a> holdings—roughly 3.1% of global supply—which continue to dwarf the core software business but now expose the entire enterprise to extreme volatility across every major&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index, crypto price, and aggregate coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> trend.<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_1995479071518577116_20251202_063317_via_10015_io_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_1995479071518577116_20251202_063317_via_10015_io_11zon_a113ba87bb.jpg"></figure>Strategy’s internal metric, known as mNAV, has emerged as the critical fault line. Management has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSyfxI2wWC0">acknowledged</a> that a fall toward 0.9—a level now uncomfortably close as the stock extends its multi-month slide—could mathematically force the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/understanding-liquidation-crypto-trading-guide">liquidation</a> of part of its Bitcoin treasury to stabilize cash reserves. That possibility directly contradicts years of public messaging about never selling BTC. Market analysts warn that unloading even a fraction of the company’s 650,000-coin stack would unleash one of the largest supply shocks the crypto market has ever seen, with the potential to destabilize leveraged positions, spot liquidity, and sentiment far beyond Strategy’s own balance sheet.<figure class="image"><img alt="019ada2b-76ac-7fad-a867-2b1beb923dd5.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/019ada2b_76ac_7fad_a867_2b1beb923dd5_3680d5fd69.webp"><figcaption>Strategy’s funding of the USD Reserve. Source: Strategy</figcaption></figure>The company’s obligations deepen the pressure. Annual financing burdens tied to preferred dividends, interest payments, and convertible debt hover near $689 million, creating a structure critics compare to an over-levered algorithmic asset—one that functions smoothly only while Bitcoin trades high and equity markets stay open for fundraising. With the share price down more than 60% year-over-year, Strategy’s equity-financed safety net has become harder to maintain. The firm’s scenario modeling shows how fragile the outlook has become: Bitcoin finishing the year between $85,000 and $110,000 could swing net results between a $5.5 billion loss and $6.3 billion profit, a range that underscores how aggressive the firm’s risk profile has become.Public critics have seized on the moment. Veteran gold advocate Peter Schiff&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/PeterSchiff/status/1995488341844959356">labeled</a> the structure “a fraud” and predicted eventual collapse as institutional investors reassess the sustainability of the preferred-share payouts that underpin Strategy’s balance sheet. Others point to the growing resemblance between the company’s leverage loop and the feedback dynamics that drove high-profile failures in previous crypto market cycles.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_1995488341844959356_20251202_062610_via_10015_io_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_1995488341844959356_20251202_062610_via_10015_io_11zon_af8094c569.jpg"></figure>Strategy continues to buy Bitcoin during market dips, sticking to its long-held treasury thesis, yet the firm now faces a tightening corridor where falling equity valuations, heavier debt obligations, and mNAV thresholds converge. Each leg of this structure relies on stable markets—and a sustained bull cycle in Bitcoin—to avoid a scenario analysts describe bluntly as a potential “death spiral.”This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot trapped in spinning cylindrical death-spiral of debt and equity

Strategy’s $1.44B Cash Buffer Sparks New Scrutiny as 650,000-BTC Treasury Faces Pressure

Coin360 weekly crypto news, cryptocurrency updates, market movement

Coin360 weekly crypto news

Coin360 Weekly Dispatch | Crypto Market Updates & Highlights | November 23 - November 29, 2025

<h2>Nasdaq Proposes Increasing Options Limit for BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF to 1 Million Contracts</h2>Nasdaq has proposed increasing the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/nasdaq-1m-ibit-options-blackrock-btc-etf-expansion">position limits</a> for options on BlackRock’s iShares&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> Trust (IBIT) from 250,000 to 1 million contracts, reflecting rising demand and signaling Bitcoin markets' maturation. This adjustment aims to enhance trading flexibility, facilitating hedging strategies and liquidity. Experts predict SEC approval, which could lead to tighter spreads and improved market efficiency. Adam Livingston notes this move positions Bitcoin alongside major equities like Apple and Microsoft, marking its evolution into an institutional-grade asset class. BlackRock’s in-house income fund raised its IBIT holdings to 2.39 million shares, marking a 14% increase from the previous quarter. Institutional demand for IBIT is robust, with total holdings surpassing 400 million shares, a record high. BlackRock’s Strategic Income Opportunities Portfolio also expanded its investment in the iShares Bitcoin Trust, reporting 2,397,423 IBIT shares valued at $155.8 million as of September 30.&nbsp;<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>JPMorgan Launches Leveraged Bitcoin Note Linked to BlackRock’s IBIT, Targeting 1.5x Gains into 2028</h2>JPMorgan has filed a new Bitcoin structured note linked to BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, capitalizing on Bitcoin's halving cycle from 2026-2028. This product offers a guaranteed minimum return of 16% in 2026 or 1.5x uncapped gains if extended to 2028, depending on IBIT's performance. Investors have partial downside protection; they can recover principal if IBIT doesn’t fall over 30%. However, significant risks remain, with potential losses exceeding 40%. This shift in JPMorgan’s stance reflects a growing view of crypto as a “tradable macro asset class,” indicating Wall Street's readiness for Bitcoin's next significant cycle.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Grayscale and Franklin Templeton Launch Competing Spot XRP and Dogecoin ETFs on NYSE Arca</h2>On November 24, 2025, Grayscale and Franklin Templeton launched competing spot XRP (GXRP and XRPZ) and Dogecoin (GDOG) ETFs on NYSE Arca, signaling significant expansion in the U.S. regulated <a href="https://coin360.com/news/grayscale-franklin-templeton-launch-xrp-dogecoin-etfs-nyse-arca">altcoin ETF</a> market. Grayscale's DOGE ETF started with only $1.41 million in trading volume, failing to meet expectations. In contrast, XRP saw an 8.94% price increase and a 63% surge in volume to over $6.3 billion. Both firms implemented promotional fee waivers, aiming to attract institutional flows as competition intensifies. This launch marks a pivotal moment for regulated alt-coin investments, bolstered by lower fees and institutional interest.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Solana ETFs Face First Outflows as 21Shares' TSOL Sees $34M Withdrawn</h2>The&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a> ETFs experienced their first outflow day, with a total of $8.1 million in net outflows driven primarily by the 21Shares Solana ETF (TSOL), which saw $34 million withdrawn, leading to cumulative net outflows of $26 million. Despite this, other Solana ETFs performed well; the Bitwise Solana&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/DeFi-Staking">Staking</a> ETF (BSOL) attracted $13.33 million, while the Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL) and Fidelity Solana Fund (FSOL) saw inflows of $10.42 million and $2.51 million, respectively. Meanwhile,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/xrp-xrp">XRP</a> ETFs continued their inflow streak with a cumulative total of $643 million, while&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/dogecoin-doge">Dogecoin</a> ETFs underperformed post-launch.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Franklin Templeton’s Solana ETF Clears Final SEC Hurdle, Ticker SOEZ to Debut After XRP Success</h2>On November 27, 2025, Franklin Templeton filed its final SEC Form 8-A for a Solana ETF, signaling imminent trading under the ticker SOEZ on NYSE Arca. The fund passively tracks Solana via CF Benchmarks Index with a 0.19% fee, waived for the first $5B in assets until May 31, 2026. The move follows its XRP ETF's strong debut, which pulled in nearly $70M in two days. This filing marks the final regulatory step after multiple SEC delays since April. The Solana ETF market is heating up, with 21Shares, VanEck, and Fidelity also launching products amid growing investor demand.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>CoinShares Withdraws Staked Solana ETF Filing Amid Price Decline to Five-Month Low</h2>CoinShares recently withdrew its SEC application for a staked Solana ETF due to incomplete structuring and asset purchases. This follows the launch of the first staked Solana ETF by REX-Osprey in June and Bitwise's launch in October, which saw significant initial capital, with Bitwise's ETF garnering nearly $223 million on its debut. Despite attracting over $369 million in capital flows during November, Solana’s price remains depressed, hitting a five-month low of around $120, down 60% from its January peak of approximately $295, attributed to a prior surge linked to the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/official-trump-trump">Official Trump</a> memecoin launch on its network.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Dogecoin ETF Inflows Plunge 80% in One Day, Price Stabilizes Around $0.152</h2>Dogecoin's ETF inflows plummeted 80%, dropping from $1.8 million to $365,420 in just one day, signaling a rapid decline in market sentiment. Despite an initial surge, the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/grayscale-franklin-templeton-launch-xrp-dogecoin-etfs-nyse-arca">Grayscale GDOG</a> ETF saw minimal interest on its second day, with total inflows only reaching $2.16 million. Trading activity also weakened, with net assets increasing primarily due to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/dogecoin-doge">DOGE</a>'s slight price recovery, currently around $0.152. The market reaction indicates that the ETF's debut failed to generate sustained interest, highlighting the fragility of Dogecoin's popularity amid its ongoing autumn slump.&nbsp;<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>NYSE Approves Bitwise Dogecoin ETF (BWOW) Launching Soon</h2>The New York Stock Exchange has approved the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF, expected to launch on Wednesday under the ticker BWOW. This ETF will provide regulated exposure to Dogecoin, which has a&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market capitalization</a> of $23 billion, making it the 10th largest cryptocurrency. The fund is backed by&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> Custody Trust Company and follows recent launches of similar ETFs, including those from Grayscale and REX-Osprey. Notably, the Bitwise ETF is registered under the Exchange Act of 1934, while REX-Osprey operates under the Investment Company Act of 1940, allowing for active management of assets.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Grayscale Expands Crypto ETFs, Files to Convert Zcash Trust into First U.S. Zcash ETF</h2>Grayscale is expanding its crypto ETF offerings by filing to convert its&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/zcash-zec">Zcash</a> Trust into the first dedicated&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/grayscale-zcash-spot-etf-filing-2025-rally-premium-discount-data">Zcash ETF</a> in the U.S. The SEC filing aims to create a product that mirrors Zcash's price, accounting for trust expenses, with the current trust managing approximately $196 million in assets. Zcash, established in 2016 by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, is a prominent privacy-focused cryptocurrency. This move aligns with Grayscale’s recent transition of other trusts into ETFs, reflecting the growing acceptance of digital assets, particularly as privacy features gain importance in the crypto landscape.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>XRP ETFs Shine with Over $60 Million in Day One Inflows, Outperforming BTC, ETH, and SOL</h2>Grayscale and Franklin Templeton's new spot XRP ETFs debuted strongly, generating net inflows of $67.4 million and $62.6 million, respectively, on their first day. The broader XRP ETF category saw total inflows of $164.1 million, significantly outperforming Bitcoin,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a>, and Solana ETFs. Since launching on November 13, pure spot XRP ETFs have recorded $586.8 million in cumulative inflows with no outflows to date. In contrast, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced net outflows of $151.1 million, while Ethereum ETFs attracted $96.6 million, and Solana ETFs garnered $58 million during the same period.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>VanEck Amends BNB ETF Filing, Removes Staking Amid Regulatory Uncertainty</h2>VanEck has&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/vaneck-bnb-etf-filing-staking-removal-regulatory-shift">amended</a> its spot&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/binance-coin-bnb">BNB</a> ETF filing, removing all staking features amid growing regulatory scrutiny regarding BNB's status. The updated S-1 emphasizes the potential for the ETF's dissolution if BNB is classified as a security, despite a previous court ruling favoring secondary sales. Unlike its Solana ETF, the BNB ETF, positioned for Nasdaq listing as “VBNB,” will not earn staking rewards, highlighting a cautious approach. Regulatory uncertainties could affect the ETF's performance, as non-participation in staking may hinder value relative to direct BNB holdings. VanEck remains open to adjusting its strategy as regulatory clarity develops.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Avalanche ETFs Race Heats Up: Bitwise Waives Fees, VanEck Reveals VAVX Ticker</h2>Both Bitwise and VanEck advanced their&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/avalanche-avax">Avalanche</a> ETF filings. Bitwise finalized the structure for its BAVA ETF on NYSE Arca, featuring staking rewards and a waived 0.34% fee until $500M AUM. It includes custody via Coinbase and BNY Mellon, with launch capital of $2.5M. Meanwhile, VanEck’s ETF, set to trade as VAVX on Nasdaq, also includes staking rewards, using Anchorage and Coinbase for custody.&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/avalanche-avax">AVAX</a> surged over 7% daily and 18% weekly amid rising ETF competition and broader crypto gains.&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/derivatives">Derivatives</a> trading hit $616M, with open interest rising across&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/binance">Binance</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/okx">OKX</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/bybit">Bybit</a>.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot looks disappointed at deflating Dogecoin balloon after plunge

This Week in Crypto ETFs Recap: BTC, SOL, XRP, DOGE Moves Big

<h2>First Major European Asset Manager Moves Into Live On-Chain Fund Shares</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Amundi has tokenized a share class of its euro money-market fund — “AMUNDI FUNDS CASH EUR – J28 EUR DLT (C)” — creating an on-chain version of a €5 billion fund.</li><li>The first blockchain transaction executed on November 4, 2025, enabling subscriptions and redemptions via a hybrid model combining traditional and Ethereum-based delivery rails.</li><li>Through a partnership with CACEIS, investors gain 24/7 access, transparent ownership records on public Ethereum, and potential future integration with stablecoins or central-bank digital currencies.</li></ul>European asset manager Amundi has unveiled a landmark move in financial markets by launching a&nbsp;<a href="https://int.media.amundi.com/news/amundi-launches-the-first-tokenized-share-of-one-of-its-money-market-funds-in-collaboration-with-caceis-434ab-b6afb.html">tokenized version</a> of its euro money-market fund on the public&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a> blockchain. The newly minted share class, dubbed “AMUNDI FUNDS CASH EUR – J28 EUR DLT (C),” represents approximately €5 billion in assets, establishing one of the largest-ever traditional funds to transition — at least partially — onto on-chain infrastructure. This step signals a decisive shift from experimentation to real-world deployment of blockchain-based retail fund access.Transaction records show the first on-chain trade occurred on November 4, 2025, marking the official go-live date of the offering. The tokenized shares do not replace the existing fund structure; rather, they sit alongside conventional shares in a hybrid distribution framework, allowing investors to choose between standard redemption pipelines and blockchain-native ones. This dual-track setup lowers friction for traditional clients while opening access to digital-native investors comfortable with crypto rails.The technological bridge was built in partnership with CACEIS, a European depositary and transfer-agent firm. Under this arrangement, CACEIS provides digital wallets for investors, operates distributed-ledger infrastructure to manage fund unit ownership, and delivers a web-based order platform that supports subscriptions and redemptions. On-chain transparency is a central selling point: ownership and transaction history become publicly visible in real time, enabling instantaneous verification without reliance on intermediaries. Amundi and CACEIS highlight benefits such as instant order execution, 24/7 operability, and a broadened distribution footprint aimed at digitally oriented participants.Beyond operational efficiency, the firms underscore strategic ambition. Jean-Jacques Barbéris, Amundi’s Head of Institutional and Corporate Clients &amp; ESG, characterized the move as a harbinger of a broader wave of asset tokenization, stating “the tokenization of assets is a transformation set to accelerate in the coming years around the world.” From CACEIS, CEO Jean-Pierre Michalowski emphasized the launch of a “hybrid Transfer Agent service,” positioning the new offering as a credible blockchain-based distribution channel. He added that this path is “decisive” toward enabling truly digital subscription and redemption workflows — potentially settled in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a> or central-bank digital currencies once regulatory and market conditions allow.Market watchers have noted the broader context: tokenized money-market funds have seen cumulative assets rise sharply, from roughly US$770 million at the end of 2023 to nearly US$9 billion by October 2025. Major players such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton already operate on-chain money-market funds with billions under management, but none has yet matched the scale and legacy asset-management pedigree of Amundi. With roughly €2.3 trillion in total assets under management and serving over 100 million retail clients worldwide, Amundi adds serious ballast to the nascent real-world-asset (RWA) tokenization movement.The hybrid model stands out as a pragmatic payoff to adoption challenges faced by earlier tokenization experiments. Traditional investors can stick with familiar redemption mechanics, while digitally savvy investors get blockchain-native access — avoiding a forced transition that could deter conservative institutions. This layered approach may reduce the adoption friction and help bridge traditional finance and crypto-native audiences.Despite the enthusiasm, limitations remain. On-chain money-market funds still represent a tiny fraction of total global money-market fund assets, which run into the multi-trillion-euro range. The approximately €5 billion shift by Amundi is ambitious but barely a drop compared to the estimated over €7 trillion in global money-market AUM. Furthermore, tokenization does not eliminate inherent fund-level risks: credit risk, liquidity risk, and reliance on the fund’s underlying short-term debt remain unchanged. On-chain transparency and speed do not magically insulate investors from the traditional risks of money-market instruments.Regulatory and custody concerns could also present friction down the road, especially if Amundi and CACEIS move toward stablecoin or CBDC-based settlement. Even though CACEIS became licensed as a digital-asset custodian in France in 2023, regulatory frameworks for stablecoins and CBDCs vary widely across jurisdictions — potentially complicating global distribution or settlement.Nevertheless, the symbolic weight of this move is substantial. This is not a small-scale pilot or a closed-door institutional trial. This is a widely used, large-scale European money-market fund opening its doors to blockchain-based share classes under a live production system. The era of “tokenized RWA as marketing fluff” may be receding; the age of “tokenized RWA as real trad-fi infrastructure” might already be here.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot places a glowing Euro coin onto the Ethereum blockchain, marking the first major European tokenized fund

Amundi Launches €5 Billion Euro-Denominated Money-Market Fund on Ethereum

<h2>Regulators Move to Close Small-Transfer Loopholes, Freeze Suspect Accounts Faster</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>FSC expands crypto Travel Rule to apply to transfers under 1M won (~$680-700) to prevent users from bypassing AML checks through small splits.</li><li>VASPs face tougher reserve/compliance reviews, while FIU gains power to freeze accounts pre-emptively.</li><li>Rules expected to be formalized in 1H26, signaling one of the country’s strongest pushes yet against illicit cross-border crypto flows.</li></ul>South Korean regulators escalated their anti-money-laundering stance on November 28, 2025, unveiling plans to impose the Travel Rule on crypto transfers below&nbsp;<a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20251128069200002?input=1195m">1 million won</a> — roughly a $680-700 threshold previously considered exempt from mandatory identity checks. Authorities flagged long-running abuse of this blind spot, stating that users have been able to break down large transfers into small-value increments to dodge verification requirements and quietly move funds across borders. Officials framing the change described it as a direct strike on structured remittance patterns that helped tax-evaders and criminal networks exploit digital asset rails while remaining under reporting thresholds.Regulatory updates outline mandatory sender-receiver data collection for all sub-threshold transactions, forcing virtual asset service providers to build systems capable of identifying participants on even the smallest transfers. The Financial Services Commission has linked the policy shift to a broader reinforcement of exchange oversight, confirming that entities will undergo stricter financial reserve inspections and internal security assessments before licensing, with individuals convicted of crimes such as drug offenses or tax fraud banned from holding meaningful ownership stakes in licensed platforms. These amendments reflect what officials cast as a need to protect market integrity rather than stifle innovation, but the compliance cost air-pocket for smaller businesses is becoming harder to ignore, with technology, reporting, and staffing overhead expected to rise.The reach of the crackdown extends beyond domestic compliance, as South Korea signals readiness to blacklist foreign platforms deemed high-risk and restrict local access entirely, reflecting concerns about overseas remittance paths being used to bypass scrutiny. The Financial Intelligence Unit has been cleared to freeze suspicious accounts pre-emptively when AML red flags emerge, removing the need to wait until funds exit the ecosystem. Public briefings cited rising misuse as momentum for the new framework: the FIU flagged more than 36,000 suspicious crypto transactions between January and August 2025 alone, surpassing totals recorded in both 2023 and 2024 combined. Across 2021 through August 2025, illicit crypto-linked forex crime volumes tied to underground “hwanchigi” circuits reportedly reached 9.56 trillion won — about $7.1 billion.Timelines point toward legislative submission in the first half of 2026, placing implementation behind a formal approval cycle but marking one of the country's most aggressive structural overhauls of digital-asset compliance controls. Policymakers expect the expanded Travel Rule to eliminate the anonymity of low-value transfers and remove an evasion technique that has persisted despite previous AML reforms. The industry now faces a future where seamless micro-transactions — once considered too small to matter — are monitored, logged, and linked to identity. South Korea’s digital economy enters a new phase where even tiny transfers carry regulatory weight, reshaping the balance between user freedom, exchange operation, and state oversight as crypto finance blends deeper into formal financial governance.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot seals a small loophole in the Travel Rule wall, preventing micro-transfer evasion

South Korea Lowers Crypto Travel Rule to Sub-1M Won Transfers as AML Scrutiny Tightens

<h2>Bitcoin ETF Liquidity Threshold Tested as Position Limits Seek 4× Increase</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Nasdaq seeks SEC approval to raise IBIT option limits from 250K to 1M contracts due to demand and institutional positioning.</li><li>BlackRock’s Strategic Income Opportunities Portfolio increases IBIT holdings to 2.39M shares valued at $155.8M.</li><li>Analysts cite shift toward large-scale liquidity, tighter spreads, and a Bitcoin market behaving like mega-cap equities such as Apple and Microsoft.</li></ul>Nasdaq International Securities Exchange is now pushing to super-size the trading bandwidth for BlackRock’s iShares&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> Trust,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/11/26/2025-21123/self-regulatory-organizations-nasdaq-ise-llc-notice-of-filing-of-proposed-rule-change-to-amend-the">filing</a> a formal request with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on November 13 to lift the current 250,000-contract ceiling and replace it with a 1,000,000-contract allowance. That request follows a previous expansion in January, when Nasdaq moved the limit from just 25,000 to 250,000 after IBIT surpassed the 100 million share-traded threshold required to qualify for higher derivatives capacity. The exchange argues that a lower ceiling risks bottlenecking market participation for traders deploying income strategies and large hedges, signaling that option depth is no longer a luxury asset class feature but a liquidity necessity as institutional flows grow.Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Kronos Research, expects approval to move smoothly through regulators, describing these adjustments as routine when an asset standardizes volume strong enough to support scaled derivatives. “These adjustments are routine once an asset proves it can handle real volume. If approved, expect thicker order books, tighter spreads, and a more efficient options market,” Liu said, framing the proposal as Bitcoin stepping past its early-market guardrails. He notes that super-sizing IBIT contracts offers “a straight win for liquidity” and projects a short period of volatility as larger positions recalibrate, followed by calmer trading books and cleaner fills when the market gains room to warehouse risk.Market watchers point to the psychological and structural shift this expansion represents. Bitcoin analyst Adam Livingston said on Wednesday that IBIT now sits alongside equities historically reserved for the largest liquidity pools on the planet, referencing Apple and Microsoft as the closest peers by trading behavior. “The market has already decided Bitcoin is a mega-cap asset, whether Washington likes it or not. This is the moment every banker secretly feared,” he wrote, adding that no exchange would propose scaling options by forty times without confidence that demand is ready to detonate. Livingston views the move as a break from Bitcoin’s experimental reputation toward a regulated, full-scale derivatives asset class with institutional depth instead of speculative novelty.BlackRock’s internal capital machinery is reinforcing that shift. A fresh SEC filing shows the firm’s Strategic Income Opportunities Portfolio boosted its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/11/28/blackrock-s-own-income-fund-boosts-bitcoin-etf-holdings-14">IBIT holdings</a> to 2,397,423 shares worth $155.8 million as of September 30, a 14% increase from the 2,096,447 shares recorded at the end of June. The portfolio functions as an unconstrained bond strategy blending government debt, corporate credit, mortgage exposure, emerging-market instruments and cash-like reserves, with the mandate flexibility to rotate into nontraditional ETF positions when warranted. Its decision to add more IBIT underscores how Bitcoin is being slotted into return-driven allocation structures rather than speculative side bets, widening the investor base beyond crypto-native capital.Institutional participation has reached its highest point since launch, with Fintel data showing over 400 million shares held across institutional desks. This level of accumulation mirrors a maturing market now trading with characteristics of scale-driven equity instruments, pulling Bitcoin toward a category where liquidity depth influences execution quality and derivatives availability builds confidence. BlackRock’s ETF traded around $52 in premarket action Friday, roughly 2% higher on the session, while Bitcoin itself hovered around $91,234.82, reflecting a market atmosphere where&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> and coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> discussions increasingly resemble capital-market language rather than alternative-asset speculation. The steady rise in institutional exposure, paired with Nasdaq’s bid to expand option limits, places IBIT and Bitcoin into a structural phase defined less by narrative volatility and more by capacity, volume, and the architecture of liquidity that surrounds assets treated as long-term holdings rather than experimental instruments.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot smashes through a 250K options limit, aiming for 1M IBIT contracts

Nasdaq Moves Toward 1 Million IBIT Options Amid Institutional Surge and BlackRock Fund Expansion

<h2>European Compliance Milestone Positions KuCoin for Regulated Expansion Across the Continent</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH received MiCA authorization from Austria with passporting rights across 29 EEA markets.</li><li>Licensed services include trading, custody, transfer, asset placement, and broader crypto-asset operations under MiCA oversight.</li><li>Leadership shifts, Vienna headquarters, and global compliance signaling indicate a structural regulatory pivot for KuCoin.</li></ul>Austria’s financial authority granted&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/kucoin">KuCoin</a> EU Exchange GmbH a full Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA/MiCAR) license on November 28, 2025, a decision that allows the exchange to operate across 29 countries in the European Economic Area under one regulatory framework. The&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/kucoincom/status/1994387385350504597">approval</a> hands KuCoin a complete regulatory passport for the bloc, enabling it to offer crypto-crypto and crypto-fiat trading, custody, asset transfers, and placement services throughout the region without filing separate national applications. Vienna now serves as KuCoin’s European operational base, selected both for its early MiCA alignment and a regulatory landscape viewed internally as transparent and scalable. The authorization arrives shortly after the platform secured national registration with AUSTRAC in Australia, reinforcing a clear shift toward regulated infrastructure rather than jurisdictional arbitrage.<figure class="image"><img alt="twittershots-kucoincom-1994387385350504597_11zon.jpg" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/twittershots_kucoincom_1994387385350504597_11zon_8393278d7c.jpg"></figure>MiCA’s enforcement across the European Union since December 2024 has forced offshore platforms to either reform or withdraw, turning compliance into a structural advantage for operators able to align early. KuCoin leaned heavily into that narrative, describing the license as a “defining milestone” that embeds trust, legal clarity, and unified market reach into its product strategy. The European branch is led by CEO Oliver Stauber and COO Christian Niedermüller, both regarded for their regulatory and exchange-operations background, a leadership composition that signals the exchange’s intent to scale EU operations without repeating the compliance-neutral model used historically by global trading venues. As part of what KuCoin calls its Trust Program, the firm highlights SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, ISO 27701, CCSS certification, and independent Proof-of-Reserves validation as the foundation expected to underpin European growth.MiCA licensing fundamentally changes user routes for customers inside the bloc. Existing EU accounts will migrate gradually to KuCoin EU, shifting platform onboarding from the global service to the regulated European entity. The approach reflects internal expectations that formal oversight, investor protection requirements, and asset-service transparency will evolve from regulatory burden to market moat as unlicensed competitors retreat or restructure. KuCoin describes the approval as a structural step toward long-duration compliance, although regulatory passporting does not entirely eliminate local supervisory oversight, and operational success will likely depend on execution, liquidity depth, on-ramp integration, and whether European users adopt the regulated venue at scale.Market share remains an open contest. Other exchanges have already secured MiCA authorization, and compliance alone does not guarantee dominance in an environment where liquidity, UX, and security determine retention. KuCoin’s move positions it among the first global exchanges to publicly align its architecture with MiCA rather than route European users through unlicensed entities, a pivot consistent with maturing digital-asset markets. The approval offers regulated access, legal certainty, and operational legitimacy across nearly the entire European market, framing the next twelve months as a test of whether early compliance converts into measurable penetration, institutional onboarding, and sustainable user migration under Europe’s new crypto-regulatory order.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot holds up a glowing MiCA passport, opening regulated access to the European market

KuCoin Secures Full MiCA Authorization in Austria, Opening Regulated Access to 29 EU/EEA States

<h2>Liquidity Providers Face Partial Compensation as Governance Proposal Seeks to Resolve Fallout From V2 Exploit</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Balancer DAO proposes an $8 million reimbursement for users hit by a $128 million exploit.</li><li>Funds will be distributed in-kind, pro-rata, based on pre-hack pool holdings — with a 180-day claim window.</li><li>Roughly $19.7 million in osETH/osGNO is being handled separately by StakeWise governance.</li></ul>A sweeping compensation plan has surfaced as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/balancer-bal">Balancer</a> moves to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/address">address</a> the aftermath of its November 3, 2025 V2 exploit, a security breach that siphoned roughly&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/balancer-128m-cross-chain-exploit-berachain-fork">$128 million</a> in liquidity across&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/arbitrum-arb">Arbitrum</a>, Base,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/polygon-ecosystem-token-pol">Polygon</a>, and other networks despite the protocol having undergone multiple audits. The hack exploited a rounding-error bug inside the Composable Stable Pool invariant logic, triggering a drain that cut total value locked by around two-thirds and forced the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/dao-maker-dao">DAO</a> into emergency response mode. Whitehats and internal security teams intervened quickly, staging asset rescues across chains and piecing together an eventual recovery of nearly $28 million — a sum now underpinning Balancer’s reimbursement roadmap.A formal governance&nbsp;<a href="https://forum.balancer.fi/t/rfc-distribution-of-rescued-funds-from-balancer-v2-november-3rd-2025-attacks/6883">proposal</a> published November 27 outlines $8 million of those recovered funds allocated to affected LPs, distributed directly in the tokens originally deposited. Compensation will follow a non-socialized structure, meaning liquidity providers receive value only from the pools where their funds were lost rather than a protocol-wide redistribution. Calculations rely on BPT balance snapshots taken immediately before the attack, and payouts scale proportionally to each participant’s exposure. Claiming requires consent to updated terms releasing Balancer Labs, the DAO, and associated entities from liability, with a 180-day window set before unclaimed balances may be redirected by future governance decisions. Reimbursements do not cover the entirety of user losses, and the gap between stolen value and recovered capital has fueled scrutiny over the limited recovery percentage.Whitehat contributors play a central role in the reimbursement framework. The DAO approved a 10% bounty for external rescue participants, capped at $1 million per operation and paid only after identity verification, sanctions screening, and compliance approvals are completed. Rescue disclosures identify six independent actors returning approximately $3.9 million across networks, including Polygon recoveries worth around $2.681 million attributed to one anonymous participant who secured assets such as WPOL, MaticX, TruMATIC, and stMatic. A separate Ethereum rescue retrieved roughly $963,832, while Base and Arbitrum recoveries added about $161,274 and $50,000 respectively, though one whitehat refused bounty eligibility after declining KYC. Internal audit-aligned efforts contributed an additional $4.1 million, though these operations fall outside bounty terms due to contractual engagement rather than opportunistic intervention.Not all recovered value falls within Balancer’s direct reimbursement scope. Approximately $19.7 million in osETH and osGNO has been redirected toward StakeWise governance, which now manages compensation independently for holders linked to those assets. The decision fragments restitution pathways and requires impacted users to track parallel claims processes, adding layers of outcome uncertainty as the wider community evaluates whether incremental returns soften losses or raise concerns about long-term trust. Discussions surrounding the failure of multiple audits highlight systemic risk in composable&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralised-finance">DeFi</a> infrastructure, emphasizing how sophisticated pool architecture can produce vulnerabilities even after extensive code review.This reimbursement push lands at a moment where the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index reflects volatility across multiple chains and liquidity conditions remain thin compared to pre-exploit norms. Balancer’s governance experiment now operates under heightened pressure, with investors watching how quickly compensation reaches wallets and whether transparency and response speed translate into confidence recovery. The coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> ecosystem has historically responded sharply to exploit fallout, and crypto price fluctuations often accelerate when protocols mishandle restitution or transparency. The DAO’s choice to repay in-kind, avoid socialized losses, and publish detailed criteria suggests an effort to preserve structural fairness rather than surface-level optics. Whether that measured approach is enough to stabilize sentiment remains an unanswered question as the reimbursement vote advances.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot watches in dismay as cryptocurrency liquidity is siphoned from a digital pool

Balancer Hack Fallout: DAO Advances $8M Reimbursement Plan After $128M Breach

<h2>Massive Outage Hits CME’s Globex and EBS Platforms, Triggering Market-Wide Pricing Paralysis</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>CME Group halted trading across futures, options, rates, commodities and FX due to a cooling-system breakdown at a CyrusOne data center.</li><li>Equity index, crude oil, gold, Treasury, and major FX pairs such as EUR/USD and USD/JPY went dark, leaving traders without live price feeds.</li><li>The outage collided with post-Thanksgiving low liquidity and month-end rollovers, raising systemic risk across financial markets.</li></ul>Traders woke up to a market blackout on November 28, 2025, after CME Group halted trading across its core derivatives platforms, including Globex&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/futures-contracts">futures</a> and options and the EBS foreign-exchange system. A cooling-system failure at a CyrusOne-operated data center cut access to pricing and execution for one of the world’s most relied-upon financial infrastructure hubs. CME confirmed the shutdown and told participants it was working on restoration procedures, stating that markets would remain halted until engineers stabilized the system and provided a timeline for reopening.<figure class="image"><img alt="CME.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/CME_d230b0354f.png"></figure>Disruption spread instantly. Benchmarks linked to U.S. equities — including S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures — stopped updating alongside crude oil (WTI), gold, and a wide suite of commodity contracts. U.S. Treasury futures froze, removing a key global reference for interest-rate expectations. FX markets felt the shock as well: the EBS platform went offline, freezing trading in core currency pairs such as EUR/USD and USD/JPY and leaving dealers without live liquidity. Some brokers suspended execution entirely, while others attempted to build pricing internally, producing uneven spreads and elevated exposure risk due to lack of transparency or confirmed market depth.Timing added fuel to the disruption. The outage hit just after U.S. Thanksgiving during traditionally thin participation and ahead of month-end positioning when hedges, rolls, and settlement flows normally peak. With benchmarks offline, traders were left holding unpriced risk — positions could not be adjusted, marked to market, or hedged, raising concern over potential volatility once execution resumed. Market participants described the moment as chaotic, with several desks reporting they were effectively blind, forced to hold risk without reference rates or futures pricing history.Attention has turned to infrastructure resilience. CyrusOne operates more than 55 global facilities, yet redundancy did not prevent the blackout from freezing multiple asset classes simultaneously. The breakdown highlighted how concentrated the modern trading ecosystem has become, where a single cooling-system fault can cascade into a global pricing freeze across equities, commodities, FX, and even digital-asset exposure. This fragility matters beyond traditional finance — crypto derivatives that depend on CME futures benchmarks for institutional pricing signals could face index distortion until the market stabilizes, affecting models like&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> index calculations or spot-referenced valuations tied to coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> standards.CME technicians continued restoration work throughout the day and committed to issue reopening guidance once systems recovered. The episode now sits as one of the most significant operational failures since the exchange’s last major outage in 2019, a stark reminder of how crucial — and vulnerable — centralized market infrastructure remains.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot inspects an overheating server rack after a critical cooling system breakdown

CME Cooling Failure Freezes Global Futures, FX and Commodity Trading

<h2>Deepening Competition Among Robinhood, Kalshi, and Polymarket Signals a Structural Shift in Event-Based Trading</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Robinhood and Susquehanna’s acquisition of MIAXdx (formerly LedgerX under FTX) positions the firm to challenge Kalshi and Polymarket.</li><li>Kalshi’s valuation surge and global volume dominance show accelerating institutional confidence in event-contract markets.</li><li>Polymarket pushes toward U.S. re-entry as regulatory disputes and lawsuits raise volatility across the sector.</li></ul>Robinhood has moved aggressively into the prediction-markets space after acquiring a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/miami-international-holdings-announces-sale-of-miaxdx-to-robinhood-markets-in-partnership-with-susquehanna-international-group-302626126.html">90% stake</a> in MIAXdx — the exchange formerly known as LedgerX during its time under&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ftx-token-ftt">FTX</a> — marking a pivotal expansion meant to bring event-based trading to mainstream retail flows. MIAX paid $50 million for LedgerX during the FTX bankruptcy process in 2023, later retaining a 10% share under the new ownership structure alongside Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group.&nbsp;The acquisition builds on a product line launched in March 2025, where Robinhood’s prediction-market offering has already processed more than nine billion contracts for over one million users. Messaging from executives describes the acquisition as a response to “strong customer demand,” with plans to build infrastructure internally while remaining open to additional purchases if conditions align. The company also expects to launch its derivatives and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/futures-contracts">futures</a> exchange through MIAXdx in 2026, with Susquehanna set to act as initial liquidity provider, and internal data suggests Robinhood users account for roughly 25% to 35% of Kalshi’s daily volume. Revenue tied to the firm’s event contracts is reportedly annualizing above $200 million as of September 2025, positioning the platform to collide directly with category leaders.Kalshi has surged ahead in valuation and activity, drawing global attention after doubling its valuation from approximately $5 billion to nearly $11 billion within weeks, fueled by a roughly&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/kalshi-1b-fundraise-11b-valuation-polymarket-race-2025">$1 billion funding</a> event that followed an earlier $300 million raise backed by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> Ventures, and other deep-cap investors. The platform claims users across over 140 countries, a geographical reach that underscores the accelerating shift of event-contract products beyond U.S. borders.&nbsp;Weekly prediction-market volume recently climbed to&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/prediction-markets-neutrl">$3.68 billion</a>, more than 2.4× last year’s election peak, driven heavily by Opinion Labs, which now accounts for almost one-third of total volume despite holding only 14% of open interest, a split that reflects reward-farming rather than organic trading. A single Opinion Labs market — “Will Satoshi move any Bitcoin in 2025?” — generated $1.28 billion, or 32% of the platform’s volume alone.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img alt="image-156.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image_156_4b6a39da4f.png"></figure>Category distribution shows Polymarket remains broadly diversified with 38% sports, 28% crypto, and 17% politics across weekly turnover, while Kalshi skews sharply toward sports with 85.5% of its volume tied to athletic outcomes.<figure class="image"><img alt="image-157.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image_157_be7053f19e.png"></figure><figure class="image"><img alt="image-158.png" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image_158_24a27279a1.png"></figure>Growing volume and rising valuations now sit against a mounting legal backdrop, as Kalshi faces a class-action&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71970661/1/pelayo-v-kalshi-inc/">lawsuit</a> in the Southern District of New York alleging that the platform operates an unlicensed sportsbook while presenting wagers as event contracts. The filing claims Kalshi “dupes consumers into thinking they are legally gambling against other consumers, when they are actually gambling against the house,” arguing that since January 2025 the company has offered sports bets — point spreads, overs/unders, player props, and same-game parlays — even in jurisdictions where online betting is prohibited.&nbsp;Plaintiffs point to Kalshi ads urging users to “Bet on the NFL” and describing access as “Legal in 50 states,” while noting that 90% of Kalshi’s September 2025 volume derived from sports, with gamblers placing more than $2 billion during that period. Regulators have issued cease-and-desist orders, yet the suit claims Kalshi continues to operate nationwide and plaintiffs are now seeking restitution, fees, and damages.Polymarket, long constrained by U.S. restrictions, is charting its way back into the domestic market through the acquisition of a regulated exchange and clearinghouse (QCEX), a blueprint that mirrors Robinhood’s MIAXdx pathway and signals that non-regulated positioning may no longer sustain competitive growth. Legal exposure remains a critical variable, however, as regulators continue to classify certain contracts — particularly sports-linked outcomes — as potential unlicensed wagering. This creates a climate where growth, user acquisition, and valuation sit alongside unresolved policy interpretation, forming what analysts describe as a “bet on regulation.”&nbsp;The accelerating rise of Kalshi and the entrance of Robinhood through a former FTX-linked exchange highlight a shifting battleground that merges fintech structure with betting-style behavior, while Polymarket’s re-entry effort underscores the strategic pressure to secure U.S. compliance if long-term scale is to be realized. The three-way rivalry now defines a sector where political outcomes, macroeconomic releases, earnings reports, and real-world events trade like futures — a market whose expansion depends as much on appetite as on legal oxygen.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot archer fires "MIAXdx Acquisition" arrow into Robinhood's prediction market target

Robinhood Expands With MIAXdx, Kalshi Hits ~$11B, and Polymarket Progresses Through U.S. Market Barriers

<h2>Legal Strategy Intensifies Amid Debate Over Accountability, Systemic Losses, and Crypto-Market Memory</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Do Kwon requests a maximum five-year U.S. sentence ahead of December 11 hearing.</li><li>Terra’s collapse erased roughly $40 billion in crypto-market value, sparking global prosecution.</li><li>Guilty plea reduces charges, asset forfeiture expected; further penalties remain possible.</li></ul>Do Kwon, cofounder of Terraform Labs and once a central figure in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/">crypto price</a> speculation and the broader crypto price index cycle, has formally urged a U.S. court to sentence him to no more than five years in federal prison, despite the enormous fallout tied to the implosion of TerraUSD (<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/terra-classic-usd-ustc">UST</a>) and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/terra-luna">LUNA</a>. His request&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-27/do-kwon-says-five-years-in-prison-enough-for-terra-crypto-fraud">arrives</a> just before a scheduled sentencing hearing on December 11, 2025, and marks the latest turn in a case that reshaped regulatory attitudes, investor expectations, and how coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization">market cap</a> narratives are evaluated when algorithmic stability claims collide with reality. Defense attorneys frame the appeal as proportional to the “physical and psychological toll” they say he endured during overseas detention, along with his decision to plead guilty and concede wrongdoing after years of global pursuit.Federal prosecutors had originally stacked nine separate counts against Kwon, ranging from securities and commodities fraud to money-laundering conspiracy. A negotiated plea trimmed that exposure to two charges centered on wire fraud and conspiracy, while officials still emphasize that the collapse erased about $40 billion in value across the crypto market. U.S. guidelines technically allow up to 25 years for the charges still standing, yet plea terms could cap sentencing near 12 years if the judge accepts compliance, asset surrender, and the full slate of agreed conditions. Kwon has already committed to forfeiting more than $19 million believed to be tied to the scheme, including equity and crypto holdings linked to Terraform operations, though prosecutors maintain the financial damage dwarfs the assets recovered so far.Court records detail how UST’s one-to-one dollar peg, marketed as algorithmically self-correcting, required concealed intervention. A high-frequency trading firm quietly absorbed massive volumes of UST when the peg first cracked in 2021, creating a false perception of stability while public messaging insisted the system maintained itself. Investigators say Kwon kept pushing the story of mathematical resilience and reserve backing while retaining control of the Luna Foundation Guard, alleged to have misrepresented collateral quality and misused hundreds of millions of dollars meant to anchor UST during volatility. Global regulators later flagged these behaviors as material misstatements that fueled investor confidence during a period of surging token issuance and expanding coin market cap metrics, just months before the entire structure collapsed.Prosecutors describe the episode as one of the largest frauds in the history of digital assets, a precautionary case study for the crypto price index era where systemic losses no longer resemble isolated exchange failures but market-wide contagion. Kwon himself acknowledged wrongdoing in court, conceding that withholding information about covert market support misled users who believed UST could self-correct without intervention. Despite the request for leniency, the outcome still rests with the judge, and U.S. sentencing will not automatically resolve his exposure elsewhere. South Korean authorities continue to pursue separate penalties, some of which observers say could exceed whatever the U.S. court decides. Whether five years becomes the final number or simply the opening bid, the case now stands as a reference point illustrating how public narratives, algorithmic trust, and ballooning crypto price cycles can unwind faster than legal systems can respond.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot pleading for a 5-year prison term, anticipating sentencing hearing