The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has launched a digital asset pilot program, allowing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC, among other payment stablecoins, to be used as collateral in the U.S. derivatives market. The program is only applicable to futures commission merchants (FCMs) that meet specific conditions. These firms can accept BTC, ETH, and USDC as margin collateral for futures and swaps trading, but must comply with strict reporting and custody requirements.

The crypto asset company arbitrage model, once hailed as the “infinite money glitch,” is now unraveling. This week, even as the premium of stock prices relative to net asset value (NAV) shrank sharply, the two giants, Strategy and BitMine, still made significant purchases against the trend. Strategy spent $962.7 million to acquire 10,624 bitcoins, while BitMine bought 138,000 ether. However, the core engine that fueled their years of expansion— the “perpetual motion” model of financing coin purchases by issuing shares at a high premium— is now on the verge of failure. Facing “channel parity” brought by ETFs, these two companies, which together hold over $72 billion in crypto assets, are being forced into a difficult transformation crucial to their survival.

The world’s largest Ethereum treasury company, BitMine Immersion Technologies, has made another move, purchasing 138,452 ETH worth approximately $429 million last week. This brings its total Ethereum holdings to an astonishing 3.864 million ETH, valued at about $12 billion, firmly securing its position as the top Ethereum holder in the world. According to the company’s chairman and renowned analyst Tom Lee, this increase is a bet on the arrival of an “encrypted supercycle” for Ethereum, driven by multiple positive factors such as the Fusaka upgrade, a shift in Federal Reserve policy, and the trend of asset tokenization on Wall Street. Despite Ethereum rebounding nearly 11% in a week, market prediction platforms indicate that investors remain cautious about whether it can break through the $4,000 mark.

Claude AI predicts that XRP, SOL, and PEPE will deliver impressive results by the end of 2025. Despite Bitcoin dropping more than 7% since the beginning of the year, Claude believes that resilient altcoins will perform well in the long run. The target price for XRP is set at $5 to $8, SOL is expected to reach $600 and become an Ethereum killer, and PEPE is anticipated to more than double.

This week, amid community panic sparked by rumors of California legal filings, Pi Network quietly launched Testnet2 and introduced the BNPi travel booking application. Testnet2 provides developers with a more optimized testing environment for stress-testing transactions and ecosystem tools. BNPi allows users to book hotels using Pi and enjoy up to a 10% discount, supporting more than 15 languages.

The XRP spot ETF market has shown remarkable explosive growth. Since its launch until December 5, in just a few weeks, only 4 ETF products have accumulated a net inflow of nearly $897 million, approaching the $1 billion mark, with a single-week net capital inflow reaching $230 million. This performance far exceeds that of the US Bitcoin spot ETFs, which saw net outflows during the same period. Meanwhile, Ripple has obtained an upgraded payment license in Singapore, and the expansion of its utility continues to make progress. Driven by both rising expectations of Fed rate cuts and strong inflows of institutional funds, the short- to mid-term price outlook for XRP is widely regarded as optimistic by the market, with analysts setting a short-term target of $2.35.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced last week that tokenization could become a core feature of the U.S. market "within a few years," marking the most significant change to U.S. stock market infrastructure in decades. The total value of the U.S. stock market is about $68 trillion, but currently only $670 million exists on-chain in tokenized form, accounting for less than 0.001%.

Top crypto venture capital firm Paradigm has announced its entry into the Brazilian market, leading a $13.5 million Series A funding round for local stablecoin startup Crown, bringing the post-money valuation to as high as $90 million. Crown issues the BRLV stablecoin, which is pegged to the Brazilian real and has already surpassed 360 million reais in subscription volume, claiming to have become the world’s largest emerging market stablecoin. This investment not only marks Paradigm’s first bet on Latin America’s largest economy, but also reveals that in Brazil’s high-interest and highly regulated market, a “yield-generating stablecoin” model tailored for institutions is gaining recognition from top-tier capital.

Layer 1 public chain Stable, dedicated to building a stablecoin-native settlement layer, officially announced the launch of its mainnet, StableChain, on December 8. The release also unveiled the independent organization Stable Foundation, aimed at promoting ecosystem development, along with its native utility token, STABLE. Even more notably, Stable and its partners recently announced a joint investment of over $100 million in the tokenized US Treasury strategy ULTRA, highlighting its grand vision of bridging traditional finance and the crypto world. This series of initiatives marks the transition of a USDT-powered payment-specific blockchain into real-world deployment, potentially reshaping the landscape of global payments and asset tokenization.

Top cryptocurrency venture capital firm Paradigm has announced a $13.5 million investment in the Series A funding round of Brazilian stablecoin startup Crown, bringing the company's valuation to $90 million. This marks Paradigm's first investment in Brazil, signifying the entry of this top VC—known for investing billions of dollars in blockchain startups—into the South American market, which is seen as having huge potential for digital asset adoption.

Today's XRP news highlights dual bullish factors: the Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates by 25 basis points on December 10, combined with XRP spot ETF inflows approaching $1 billion, boosting short- to mid-term bullish prospects. On the technical side, after holding the $2.0 support, the short-term target is $2.35, with a mid-term outlook potentially challenging $2.5.

Seven major financial institutions—the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association, the China Securities Association, the Asset Management Association of China, the China Futures Association, the China Association for Public Companies, and the Payment & Clearing Association of China—have jointly issued a warning, explicitly classifying Pi Network's Pi coin as a "worthless virtual asset." The statement says that criminals use the guise of Pi coins, stablecoins, and "mining" to conduct illegal fundraising and pyramid schemes, and transfer illicit profits through virtual assets.

The world's largest asset management firm, BlackRock, has submitted an application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the iShares Staked Ethereum ETF. The plan is to stake most of the fund's assets to generate yield, providing traditional investors with a convenient, one-click channel to participate in Ethereum staking. Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a revolutionary idea aimed at solving the network's high gas fee issue—establishing an on-chain gas fee prediction market. Together, these two major developments have driven the price of Ethereum up by more than 2% in the past 24 hours, with market sentiment showing a significant rebound. Analysts point out that if the staking ETF is approved, it could open the floodgates for large-scale institutional allocation to Ethereum yield-generating assets.

Layer1 blockchain Stable announced on December 8 the official launch of its mainnet, StableChain, along with the release of its native governance token, STABLE. The network's biggest innovation lies in using USDT as the gas fee token. Before the mainnet launch, two phases of pre-deposit activities attracted over 24,000 wallets, with more than $2.8 billion in funds deposited, demonstrating strong market demand for the Stable network.

AllScale, a self-custody financial platform focused on serving small and micro businesses worldwide, recently announced the completion of a $5 million seed funding round. The round was led by YZi Labs, with participation from Infomed Ventures, Generative Ventures, and other institutions. The project aims to build the world’s first self-custody stablecoin digital bank, providing instant, low-cost, and borderless stablecoin payment and invoicing solutions for freelancers and small and micro businesses globally through account abstraction and an AI-driven financial assistant. Its vision is to become the underlying payment infrastructure powering the “super individual” economy.

The Indian Parliament has disclosed that the Enforcement Directorate has seized criminal proceeds worth approximately 41.9 billion rupees (about $465 million) in cryptocurrency cases, arrested 29 people, and filed 22 charge sheets. One defendant has even been declared an economic fugitive. Authorities discovered undeclared income from virtual digital asset (VDA) transactions amounting to 8.8882 billion rupees (about $100 million) during search operations.

MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has once again demonstrated a "textbook" move by purchasing 10,624 Bitcoins for $962.7 million between December 1 and 7, at an average purchase price of $90,615. This is the company's largest acquisition since July of this year. After this purchase, MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings have reached an astonishing 660,624 coins, with a total cost of $4.935 billion and an average cost of $74,696 per coin. Notably, the company has recently established a $1.4 billion cash reserve fund to cover dividends and interest payments for the coming years, which has completely alleviated market concerns about a potential forced Bitcoin sell-off in the short term, providing a solid buffer for its long-term "buy-only" strategy.

Bank of America predicts that the Federal Reserve will begin purchasing about $45 billion in short-term Treasuries each month starting January 2026 to address the recent sharp decline in reserves. Since quantitative tightening (QT) ended on December 1, the Fed's reserves have fallen to $2.86 trillion, only 9.2% of GDP, reaching a multi-year low. The FOMC will hold a meeting on December 9-10, and the market expects a 25 basis point rate cut.

UBS's latest in-depth report refutes the AI bubble narrative, stating that global data centers under construction have a capacity of up to 25GW, with existing capacity at 105GW and vacancy rates hitting record lows. UBS has raised its market growth forecast for 2026 to 20-25%. Annualized recurring revenue from generative AI has already reached $17 billion, with enterprises achieving 3.6% revenue growth and 5% cost reduction through AI.

Whale Alert flagged a transfer of 43,033 bitcoins (worth approximately $3.9 billion) to an address associated with Twenty One (stock ticker XXI). However, on-chain analysts warn that interpreting this as a new Tether buy order would misrepresent the flow of funds—the source and pricing of these bitcoins had already been determined before the alert was issued.