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U.S. crypto lobbying groups are expanding their activities ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Cointelegraph reported. The outlet noted that due to lobbying and media campaigns by groups such as the Coinbase-backed nonprofit Stand with Crypto, many new members of the 119th U.S. Congress have already stated their support for pro-crypto legislation and policies. Fairshake, a crypto industry Super PAC prominent during the 2024 presidential election, is also continuing its support for pro-crypto candidates by spending $2.5 million in 2025 special elections. The midterm elections in November 2026 will determine all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 seats in the Senate. According to the report, if the Democratic Party gains a majority in either chamber, it could significantly constrain the advancement of crypto legislation under President Donald Trump's administration.

Amir Zaidi has been appointed Chief of Staff to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Summer K. Mersinger, The Block reported. Zaidi previously worked at the CFTC from 2010 to 2019, where his duties included the supervision of Bitcoin futures contracts.

Whale Alert reported that 3,892 BTC has been transferred from an unknown wallet to Coinbase Institutional. The transaction is valued at about $341 million.

The Republican-led U.S. Senate has scheduled a review for the market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, for Jan. 15, Crypto in America reported, citing multiple sources. The review follows a delay from last year, when Republican senators had made a concerted effort to pass the legislation. David Sacks, the White House's head of AI and cryptocurrency, had previously confirmed that the Senate would take up the bill in January. The bill aims to establish a clear regulatory framework for the digital asset industry by delineating the jurisdictional roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It also includes provisions to exempt certain cryptocurrencies that meet specific criteria from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933.

An estimated $250 million has been withdrawn from the decentralized perpetual futures exchange Lighter following the airdrop of its native token, LIT, CoinDesk reported, citing on-chain data platform Bubble Maps. The outflow represents approximately 20% of Lighter's $1.4 billion in total value locked (TVL). Nicholas Vaiman, CEO of Bubble Maps, explained that while the figure appears substantial, such capital movements are a natural phenomenon after airdrops as users rebalance their positions and move on to the next yield farming opportunity.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has fallen below $88,000. BTC is trading at $87,984.66 on the Binance USDT market.

Trump Media (DJT) has announced a plan to distribute cryptocurrency to its shareholders in partnership with Crypto.com (CRO). Shareholders are scheduled to receive one token for each share of DJT they hold. The token will not have a cash value but will be used to provide benefits for services related to Trump Media.

U.S. initial jobless claims for the fourth week of December (Dec. 21-27) totaled 199,000, below the forecast of 219,000.

Losses from exploits totaled $118 million in December, according to blockchain security firm CertiK. Phishing attacks accounted for $93.4 million of this amount. Major incidents included losses from Trust Wallet ($8.5 million), Flow ($3.9 million), and Unleash Protocol ($3.9 million).

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reiterated its position that stablecoins pose a risk to macroeconomic and financial stability, Reuters reported. In its Financial Stability Report, the central bank emphasized that the risks associated with stablecoins outweigh their benefits. The RBI argued that to maintain confidence in currency and preserve financial stability, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) should be prioritized over stablecoins.

Binance has announced it will list perpetual futures for COLLECT/USDT and MAGMA/USDT on Dec. 31. The COLLECT/USDT pair is scheduled to go live at 1:15 p.m. UTC, followed by the MAGMA/USDT pair at 1:30 p.m. UTC. Both contracts will support up to 20x leverage.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $89,000. BTC is trading at $89,000 on the Binance USDT market.

Binance announced its total product trading volume for the year reached $34 trillion, with its user base growing to 300 million and total user assets hitting $162.8 billion. In a recent annual open letter, co-CEOs He Yi and Richard Teng stated that the exchange's institutional trading volume increased by 21% year-over-year, PA News reported. They also noted a strengthening integration between on-chain and off-chain products, with Binance Wallet now processing over 60% of major on-chain transactions. The co-CEOs emphasized Binance's focus on enhancing regulatory compliance and security, adding that growth in the coming year will be driven by sovereign funds and enterprise applications.

Whale Alert reported that 400,000,090 USDT has been transferred from HTX to Aave. The transaction is valued at about $400 million.

Cumulative trading volume on decentralized perpetual futures exchanges (Perp DEXs) has surged to $12.09 trillion, marking a nearly threefold increase since the start of the year, Cointelegraph reported, citing data from DeFiLlama. This year's volume alone accounts for $7.9 trillion, with 73% of that activity occurring in the second half of the year. The report noted that the market structure has shifted from the early dominance of Hyperliquid (HYPE) to a more diversified competitive landscape following the emergence of newer platforms such as Aster (ASTER) and Lighter (LIT).

Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang, the co-founders of the Layer 1 blockchain network Neo (NEO), are in a public dispute over the project's financial and governance operations, Wu Blockchain reported. Da Hongfei stated that Zhang controls the majority of Neo's funds and consensus node voting rights. He claimed to have long urged Zhang to transfer personally managed NEO and GAS tokens to the Neo Foundation's multi-signature address, but said Zhang has repeatedly made excuses to delay the action. Da added that the foundation's financial report, which Zhang had demanded, will be released in the first quarter of next year. Previously, Zhang had criticized Da for not disclosing the Neo Foundation's financial status and called for a full, verifiable report. Zhang also noted that Da is scheduled to step down from Neo mainnet-related work on Jan. 1, 2026, to focus on the NeoX and SpoonOS projects.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it has begun reviewing a proposal from the Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE) to change the tick sizes for its Mini Bitcoin U.S. ETF Index (MBTX) options. The proposal includes adjusting the minimum price increment, or tick size, to $0.01 for options priced under $3 and $0.05 for those priced at $3 or more. CBOE submitted the proposal to the SEC in late September, arguing that the change is necessary for consistency with BlackRock's spot BTC ETF, IBIT, which already uses a finer tick size.

The NFT market saw a significant increase in supply this year, but this was met with a sharp decline in sales revenue compared to the previous year, Cointelegraph reported, citing data from CryptoSlam. According to the data, a total of 1.34 billion NFTs were circulated in 2025, a 25% increase from one billion in 2024. In contrast, total NFT sales revenue fell by approximately 37% to $5.63 billion from $8.9 billion last year, and the average sale price for an NFT dropped from $124 to $96. The report suggests that NFT supply has outpaced demand, with the market's ability to absorb new assets weakening. The total NFT market capitalization has contracted to its current level of $2.4 billion after peaking at $17 billion in April 2022.

Lookonchain reported that a wallet presumed to belong to BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes again purchased 4.86 million ENA, worth $986,000, and 697,851 ETHFI, worth $485,000, a short time ago.

Bybit has announced that it will delist the ELX, ODOS, and DMAIL spot trading pairs at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Jan. 7.

The Ethereum mainnet recorded an all-time high of 2.2 million daily transactions this week. Meanwhile, average transaction fees have fallen to 17 cents, according to Cointelegraph. The network's transaction efficiency has significantly improved this year following the Pectra and Fusaka upgrades.

South Korea's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has fined cryptocurrency exchange Korbit 2.73 billion won (approximately $2.0 million) and issued an institutional warning for violating customer due diligence and transaction restriction rules, Yonhap News reported. The FIU, operating under the Financial Services Commission, identified around 22,000 such violations. The regulator also found 19 transactions with unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers and instances where Korbit failed to conduct money laundering risk assessments before listing new assets. In addition, the FIU took disciplinary action against relevant executives, issuing a caution to the CEO and a reprimand to the chief compliance officer.

Across the top three futures exchanges by open interest, long positions account for 50.16% of BTC perpetual futures contracts over the past 24 hours, while short positions make up 49.84%. The breakdown by exchange is as follows: - Binance: Long 50.04% / Short 49.96% - OKX: Long 51.83% / Short 48.17% - Bybit: Long 50.99% / Short 49.01%

Coinbase has warned that the U.S. could fall behind China in the competition for digital finance if it prohibits or limits interest payments on stablecoins, The Block reported. Faryar Shirzad, the company's Chief Policy Officer, stated that China's decision to allow interest payments on its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, signals the beginning of a global digital money race. He emphasized that the U.S. can no longer delay a decision on allowing interest payments. Shirzad cautioned that if the issue is neglected during the U.S. Senate's negotiations on the market structure bill (CLARITY Act), the country risks losing its global competitiveness. Previously, the People's Bank of China had issued guidelines permitting interest payments on CBDC wallets.

South Korea's Financial Security Institute (FSI) announced on Dec. 31 that it will revise its vulnerability analysis and evaluation standards for 2026 in response to the rapidly changing IT environment, including the expansion of cloud and digital asset services. The update establishes new evaluation criteria for virtual asset exchanges, reflecting the increasing institutional adoption and market growth of these assets. To proactively manage risks such as regulatory compliance, the FSI has added new assessment categories for virtual asset compliance, blockchain, wallets, and smart contracts, which will be applied to security evaluations of virtual asset operations, management, and utilization.