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The three major U.S. stock indices have opened higher. The S&P 500 is up 0.4%, the Nasdaq is up 0.6%, and the Dow is up 0.1%.

Citigroup has lowered its price target for Strategy (MSTR) to $325 per share from $485, Walter Bloomberg reported. The firm maintained its Buy rating on the stock.

Prediction market Kalshi claims its platform is more accurate at forecasting inflation than Wall Street, CoinDesk reported. The company stated that over a 25-month period, its market's average error was 40% lower than traditional forecasts from Wall Street.

Upshift, Clearstar, and Flare have jointly launched earnXRP, a new product for earning yield with XRP, The Block reported. The platform operates on the earnXRP network, a Layer 1 blockchain focused on XRPFi use cases. It allows users to deposit Flare's FXRP into a single vault, which then deploys the capital across various on-chain strategies to generate returns denominated in XRP.

Bitmain purchased an additional 98,852 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings to 4.066 million ETH, according to a report from Unfolded.

JPMorgan Chase is considering launching a cryptocurrency trading service for its institutional clients, Bloomberg reported. According to the report, which cited an unnamed source, the bank is exploring the provision of both spot and derivatives trading services as a way to expand its presence in the crypto market.

Whale Alert reported that 250 million USDC has been minted at the USDC Treasury.

Whale Alert reported that 250 million USDC has been minted at the USDC Treasury.

On-chain analytics firm Glassnode reported that as Bitcoin's price recovered to the $90,000 level, open interest in perpetual futures increased by approximately 2%, from 304,000 BTC to 310,000 BTC. Concurrently, funding rates have climbed from 0.04% to 0.09%. Glassnode suggested that these trends indicate traders are re-entering aggressive long positions in anticipation of a year-end rally.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor announced on X that the company's U.S. dollar holdings have increased by $748 million, bringing its total to $2.19 billion. He added that the company also holds 671,268 pounds.

Strategy did not purchase any additional BTC between Dec. 15 and Dec. 21, according to Walter Bloomberg.

Decentralized perpetual futures exchange Aster announced via X that it will commence its Stage 5 buyback program on Dec. 23. The exchange stated that during this stage, it will allocate up to 80% of its daily fees to repurchase ASTER tokens, a move intended to simultaneously bolster market stability and community value.

BlackRock has deposited 1,200 BTC, worth $108 million, and 10,000 ETH, worth $30.5 million, to Coinbase Prime, according to Intel. Coinbase Prime is a prime brokerage platform that provides large-scale trading and custody services for institutional investors.

The traditional Santa Claus rally for Bitcoin has shown a trend of diminishing returns and dominant selling pressure over the past five years, according to on-chain analyst Ardi, Cointelegraph reported. The analyst noted that while Bitcoin surged 34.5% during the 2020 rally, year-end returns have progressively weakened in recent years when excluding that outlier. Ardi added that BTC is currently in a similar post-halving phase to 2021, a year when it recorded a 7.9% decline during the same period. He observed that since the beginning of December, Bitcoin whales have been incrementally selling their holdings to capitalize on buying from retail investors. Consequently, the analyst warned that investors should be cautious of further short-term selling pressure.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $90,000. BTC is trading at $90,000.34 on the Binance USDT market.

The Ghanaian government has passed a bill to fully legalize the trading and use of cryptocurrency within the country, Unfolded reported.

Circle has announced that Cygnus, a Web3 and Instagram app layer, has officially joined the Circle Alliance. Cygnus aims to leverage the partnership to expand USDC adoption, utilizing its embedded wallet to bring Instagram users on-chain through its multi-chain integrated structure. The project will use USDC on the Base network as a core asset to simplify on-chain onboarding and increase user engagement. Launched in November 2023, the Circle Alliance is a consortium of fintech, traditional finance, payments, banking, and Web3 companies, institutions, and protocols working to develop an internet-based financial system.

Cointelegraph has highlighted three key factors for the Bitcoin market this week. First, a key indicator tracking the asset's bull-bear cycle has dropped to a multi-year low. Second, the Coinbase Premium has turned negative, suggesting a weakening of demand from U.S. institutional investors. Finally, on-chain indicators show that oversold conditions are easing, potentially creating the conditions for a short-term rebound.

Bitcoin margin long positions on the Bitfinex exchange have swelled to their largest level since early 2024, Coindesk reported. The total currently stands at approximately 72,700 BTC, a significant increase from around 55,000 BTC in early October. This level is comparable to the period just before BTC reached its peak of $73,000 in March of last year. However, the report noted that in past cycles, a surge in margin long positions has often served as a contrarian indicator. While major market bottoms have previously coincided with large-scale investors reducing their long positions, no such bottoming signal has yet emerged in the current market.

Andrei Grachev, co-founder of DWF Labs, announced on X that the firm has successfully completed its first test transaction involving physical gold. He stated that the transaction, which involved a 25 kg gold bar, proceeded smoothly. Grachev added that DWF Labs plans to expand its Real World Asset (RWA) business to include physical silver, platinum, and cotton, aligning with the company's vision to play a key role in the RWA market.

Digital asset investment products saw net outflows of $952 million last week, ending a three-week streak of inflows, according to a weekly fund flow report from CoinShares. Bitcoin investment products experienced $460 million in net outflows, while Ethereum products saw $555 million withdrawn. CoinShares attributed the outflows to several factors, including delays in the implementation of the U.S. crypto market structure bill (CLARITY Act), prolonged regulatory uncertainty, and increased selling pressure from large-scale investors.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has announced that it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals for Sei (SEI) starting at 3:00 a.m. UTC on Dec. 23 to support the network's transition.

Ethereum Layer 2 project Taiko has announced a partnership with Avalon Labs, a Bitcoin on-chain financial services platform. Under the agreement, the two companies will deploy real-world asset (RWA) infrastructure for institutional investors on the Taiko network. Avalon Labs plans to build out features on Taiko including lending contracts, institutional-grade oracle data integration, and stablecoin issuance capabilities. Taiko stated that its strengths include an Ethereum-based rollup structure, an architecture that eliminates centralized sequencer risk, and transaction finality of under two seconds. The project added that it provides on-chain infrastructure that allows institutions to meet requirements for both regulatory reliability and decentralization.

Metaplanet, a publicly listed Japanese company that has incorporated Bitcoin as a key corporate asset, has approved the issuance of dividend-paying preferred stock, Cointelegraph reported. The move signals a shift from a growth-focused model to a traditional capital strategy that includes income-generating securities. Following the approval, Metaplanet can reclassify its capital reserves to fund preferred stock dividends and share buybacks, and the issuance limit for its Class A and B preferred shares has been doubled. The Class B shares have been specifically approved for issuance to overseas institutional investors. According to the report, this structure is seen as a strategy to offer a new type of Bitcoin exposure to global institutions that are reluctant to hold BTC directly or invest in volatile common stock. The company recently began trading on the U.S. OTC market and established a subsidiary in Miami as it works to attract global capital by localizing a U.S.-style Bitcoin strategy within Japan's regulatory environment.

Binance announced it will list five new spot trading pairs—ADA/USD1, ASTER/USD1, LUNA/USDC, LUNC/USDC, and ZEC/USD1—at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Dec. 24.