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The Republican-led U.S. Senate has officially appointed Mike Selig as the new chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Coindesk reported. Selig previously served as a senior legal advisor to the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) crypto task force. According to the report, Selig's leadership is expected to accelerate key tasks within the agency's ongoing "crypto sprint," an initiative focused on intensively reviewing digital asset issues to establish a regulatory framework. The CFTC is currently developing proposals to include stablecoins in tokenized collateral and to integrate blockchain technology into its regulatory system.

Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump, arguing that his approach to the cryptocurrency industry and personal business ventures are negatively impacting the market. In a recent interview with Decrypt, Hoskinson stated that the memecoin Trump launched just before his inauguration has turned bipartisan efforts on crypto legislation into a partisan conflict. He also described the president's mentioned plan for a strategic Bitcoin reserve as an inappropriate act of the government picking winners and losers. Hoskinson suggested that the inclusion of some altcoins, including ADA, in the proposed reserve list appeared to be an attempt to silence criticism rather than a policy-based decision. He added that while he believes he was not invited to a presidential dinner due to these comments, he feels it is more important to protect the industry's integrity.

CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season Index has fallen one point from the previous day to 17. The index measures whether altcoins are outperforming Bitcoin. It is considered an "altcoin season" if 75% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins and wrapped tokens, have performed better than Bitcoin over the last 90 days. A score closer to 100 indicates a stronger altcoin season.

A Bitcoin OG (early holder) address identified as 1011short deposited 5,152 BTC worth $440 million to Binance approximately five hours ago, Onchain Lens reported. The address currently holds long positions in ETH, BTC, and SOL and has an unrealized loss of $76.6 million.

According to data from the crypto options exchange Deribit, Bitcoin options worth $2.65 billion are set to expire at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Dec. 19. The put/call ratio for this batch is 0.77, with a max pain price of $88,000. At the same time, Ethereum options valued at $460 million will also expire. These options have a put/call ratio of 1.06 and a max pain price of $3,100.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, compiled by data provider Alternative, registered 16, a one-point decrease from the previous day, keeping market sentiment in the "extreme fear" category. The index measures market sentiment on a scale where zero represents extreme fear and 100 signifies extreme optimism. It is calculated based on volatility (25%), trading volume (25%), social media mentions (15%), surveys (15%), Bitcoin's market cap dominance (10%), and Google search volume (10%).

Whale Alert reported that 80,000 ETH has been transferred from an unknown wallet to Beacon Depositor. The transaction is valued at about $226 million.

The decentralized synthetic asset protocol Synthetix (SNX) is returning to the Ethereum mainnet, Cointelegraph reported. The founder of Synthetix explained that while derivatives trading had migrated across various networks over the past few years, Ethereum now has sufficient capacity to support high-performance financial applications. The founder added that the extreme network congestion that previously affected Ethereum has now been significantly resolved.

White House AI and Cryptocurrency chief David Sacks announced via a post on X that he has confirmed the markup for the crypto market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, will proceed in January. Sacks stated he received this confirmation during a call with U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman.

JPMorgan has described predictions that the stablecoin market will grow to $1 trillion in the coming years as overly optimistic, The Block reported, citing a new report from the bank. The financial giant argued that stablecoin growth is not independent and will likely follow the broader cryptocurrency market's trend rather than significantly outpace it. According to the report, a key issue is that the growth drivers for stablecoins are confined to activities within the crypto ecosystem, with most demand stemming from DeFi lending and derivatives trading. Taking these factors into account, JPMorgan projects the stablecoin market will reach a maximum size of $600 billion by 2028.

Decentralized prediction market Kalshi has added support for the Tron (TRX) network, The Daily Hodl reported. The platform now supports deposits and withdrawals for both TRX and Tron-based USDT.

Wall Street firms Benchmark and JPMorgan have raised their outlook on Coinbase, arguing that the market has not yet fully priced in the company's recent major updates, such as the introduction of stock trading support. According to The Block, Benchmark maintained its Buy rating for Coinbase and raised its price target to $421. The firm stated that Coinbase's product demonstration indicates a shift from simple marketing to a clear execution roadmap, showcasing its potential to diversify revenue beyond crypto spot trading. JPMorgan assigned an Overweight rating to the company, assessing that the latest updates significantly expand the user experience. The bank emphasized that the announcement was notably aimed at customers rather than investors, predicting that higher user engagement will create more significant revenue opportunities in the future.

Whale Alert reported that 5,152 BTC has been transferred from an unknown wallet to Binance. The transaction is valued at about $438 million.

Major exchanges have seen $113 million worth of futures liquidated in the past hour. In the past 24 hours, $508 million worth of futures have been liquidated.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has fallen below $85,000. BTC is trading at $84,881 on the Binance USDT market.

The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) has expressed concern that a U.S. bill providing tax exemptions for small cryptocurrency transactions may only apply to stablecoins, potentially excluding everyday Bitcoin transactions. According to Cointelegraph, a bill introduced in July by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis would offer tax exemptions for crypto transactions under $300, with an annual limit of $5,000.

Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro at Fidelity Investments, has predicted that Bitcoin will struggle in 2026, according to U.Today. He stated that the cryptocurrency likely reached its cycle high this past October and is expected to find a support level between $65,000 and $75,000.

Digital asset treasury company Forward Industries will tokenize its shares, FWDI, through Superstate, The Block reported. Forward Industries currently holds approximately 6.8 million SOL.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde announced that the ECB has completed its technical preparatory work for a digital euro, with only the relevant legislation now pending. She also stated that the central bank will not pre-commit to a specific interest rate path, adding that inflation is projected to return to the ECB's 2% target by 2028. The ECB held the eurozone's key interest rate steady on Thursday.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is in discussions to invest in crypto payments firm MoonPay, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Tomoya Asakura, CEO of Japan's SBI Global Asset Management, has criticized the slow pace of the country's cryptocurrency tax reform. He warned that Japan risks falling behind not only the U.S. but also other parts of Asia and the Middle East in crypto development, according to DL News. Currently, Japanese crypto traders face taxes of up to 55% on their profits and, unlike with stocks, are not permitted to carry over losses to offset future gains. Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) had previously expressed its intent to reclassify crypto as an investment vehicle, aiming to lower the capital gains tax rate to 20% to achieve parity with stock traders. The Japanese Diet is expected to pass an amendment to include cryptocurrencies under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act in early 2026. As legal amendments typically take a year to be promulgated, traders anticipate the new tax regime will take effect in January 2027.

Major exchanges have seen $101 million worth of futures liquidated in the past hour. In the past 24 hours, $465 million worth of futures have been liquidated.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has fallen below $86,000. BTC is trading at $85,987.39 on the Binance USDT market.

Polymarket announced it has resolved recent issues caused by a Polygon network outage, restoring its site and all related functions. According to Wu Blockchain, there is speculation that due to recurring network problems, Polymarket is now prioritizing the development of its own Layer 2 server. However, the company has not yet released any specific plans or a timeline for this initiative.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has fallen below $87,000. BTC is trading at $86,986.8 on the Binance USDT market.