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Across the top three crypto futures exchanges by open interest, the aggregate long/short ratio for BTC perpetual futures over the last 24 hours is 49.77% long to 50.23% short. The breakdown by exchange is as follows: - Binance: 50.08% long / 49.92% short - OKX: 50.52% long / 49.48% short - Bybit: 49.81% long / 50.19% short

Jack Yi, the founder of LD Capital, stated on X that the recent Bank of Japan interest rate hike was the last major headwind for the cryptocurrency market, which he expects will resume its upward trend after a short-term correction. He described the latest volatility as a final offensive by short sellers in the futures market. For those focused on long-term investment rather than short-term trading, Yi argued that now is the most suitable time to buy spot cryptocurrencies. He predicted the industry will experience significant growth next year, driven by policy shifts, a quantitative easing cycle including interest rate cuts, and wider blockchain adoption. Yi emphasized that investors must tolerate volatility in the hundreds of dollars to achieve gains in the thousands.

South Korean investors' net purchases of overseas cryptocurrency-related stocks have surged more than threefold year-over-year, reaching approximately 10 trillion won ($7.14 billion) between Jan. 1 and Dec. 18, Digital Asset reported. This marks a significant increase from the roughly 3 trillion won ($2.14 billion) recorded during the same period last year. The most heavily purchased individual stock was Bitmain Immerse Technologies, with net buys totaling $1.33 billion, representing 20% of all investments in the category. Products related to Strategy also saw strong demand, though investors primarily favored derivative instruments over the company's direct stock. A Strategy options exchange-traded fund (ETF) attracted $513.8 million in net purchases, while a 2x leveraged Strategy ETF drew $411.94 million.

Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Lifinity is shutting down, SolanaFloor reported. The move follows a proposal to cease operations that was submitted to the project's community on Dec. 10 and subsequently passed unanimously. In line with the proposal, the Lifinity DAO will distribute its $42 million in assets to LFNTY token holders. Holders are estimated to receive between $0.90 and $1.10 per token.

A solo miner successfully mined Bitcoin block 928,351 on Dec. 18, receiving a reward of 3.152 BTC worth approximately $271,000, Cointelegraph reported.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen to an eight-month low, raising the possibility of further short-term corrections, Cointelegraph reports. According to data from Coingecko, the market cap is now $2.93 trillion, down approximately 33% from its peak in early October. Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe suggested that if BTC declines further into a sell-off, altcoins could face an additional correction of 10% to 20%. Conversely, blockchain analytics firm Santiment noted that market sentiment remains at a level of extreme fear. The firm observed that historically, strong pessimism among retail investors has often served as a signal for a market rebound.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes stated on X that investors should not bet against the Bank of Japan. He noted that the central bank's explicit policy is to maintain negative real interest rates. Hayes predicted this will lead to the yen weakening to 200 per U.S. dollar and Bitcoin reaching $1 million.

A U.S. court has sentenced Magdaleno Mendoza to six years in prison for his role in the IcomTech crypto scam, Decrypt reported. Mendoza was indicted by the Department of Justice for defrauding investors of hundreds of thousands of dollars by recruiting them into a Ponzi scheme that promised guaranteed daily returns from cryptocurrency trading and mining.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $97.67 million in net outflows on Dec. 18, marking the sixth consecutive day of outflows, according to data from TraderT. BlackRock's fund led the trend with $103.3 million in outflows. In contrast, Grayscale's ETHE and Mini ETH funds saw net inflows of $2.74 million and $2.89 million, respectively. The remaining ETFs reported no net flows for the day.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $160.65 million (237.6 billion won) in total net outflows on Dec. 18, reverting to outflows after just one day of net inflows, according to data compiled by TraderT. BlackRock's IBIT was the only fund to see positive movement, attracting $33.44 million. In contrast, Fidelity's FBTC experienced significant withdrawals of $170 million, while Bitwise's BITB and Ark Invest's ARKB saw outflows of $11.54 million and $12.27 million, respectively. Flows for the remaining ETFs were flat.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $87,000. BTC is trading at $87,019.65 on the Binance USDT market.

The Bank of Japan has raised its key interest rate by 25 basis points as expected, moving it from 0.5% to 0.75%. This marks the highest level for the rate in 30 years, since 1995. The central bank ended its 17-year negative interest rate policy in March of last year by raising the rate to 0.1%. It followed with gradual increases to 0.25% in July of last year and to 0.5% in January of this year.

Coinbase has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. states of Connecticut, Michigan, and Illinois over the regulation of prediction markets. Paul Grewal, the company's Chief Legal Officer, stated on X that some state governments have tried to control or block these markets by treating them as subject to gaming and gambling regulations. He argued that this approach not only violates the law but also stifles innovation. Grewal asserted that prediction markets fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not state governments.

Decentralized perpetuals exchange Aster announced on X a trading campaign to celebrate its listing of RocketPunch (RTX), running from 9:00 a.m. UTC on Dec. 19 to 2:00 p.m. UTC on Dec. 29. The campaign features a total prize pool of 150,000 ASTER and additional RTX. Participants can trade the RTX/USD1 pair after swapping USDT for USD1, with no fees on USD1/USDT trades during the event. Rewards are calculated based solely on buy order fees for the RTX/USD1 spot trading pair, with each user eligible for up to 3% of the prize pool. The minimum payout is one ASTER or one RTX. To qualify, users must continuously hold at least 444 ASTER in their Aster spot and perpetuals accounts. Dropping below this balance or moving the tokens to an external wallet will result in disqualification. Eligibility status can be checked on the event page once the campaign begins.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $86,000. BTC is trading at $86,085.56 on the Binance USDT market.

Forced liquidations in the cryptocurrency perpetual futures market over the past 24 hours were predominantly long positions. Key figures include: BTC at $178 million (65.59% long), ETH at $132 million (58.32% long), and SOL at $34.29 million (82.51% long).

The bankruptcy administrator for Terraform Labs has filed a $4 billion lawsuit against crypto market maker Jump Trading, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to the complaint, Terraform Labs alleges that Jump Trading profited massively and without public disclosure by intervening to defend the price of TerraUSD (UST), claiming these actions contributed to the eventual collapse of the Terra ecosystem. The lawsuit states that between 2021 and 2022, Jump Trading engaged in large-scale purchases of UST during de-pegging events to artificially support its price, allegedly earning approximately $1 billion in profits from these activities.

According to Arkham (ARKM), Bitmine (BMNR) is estimated to have purchased at least an additional $229.31 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) this week. An address believed to belong to Bitmine withdrew 30,075 ETH ($88.31 million) from FalconX around midnight on Dec. 19. This follows a previous withdrawal of 48,049 ETH ($141.78 million) from the same platform on the morning of Dec. 17.

Two anonymous whale addresses have withdrawn a combined 4,664 ETH, valued at $14.2 million, from Binance, according to on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa. One address withdrew 2,656 ETH ($7.55 million) at an average price of $2,842.39, while the other withdrew 2,008 ETH ($5.65 million). The analyst noted that the second address has withdrawn a total of 6,411.4 ETH ($24.83 million) over the past four months at an average price of $3,873, with most of the funds being staked.

On-chain trading infrastructure startup aPriori (APR) has partnered with Chainlink (LINK) to enhance its interoperability and data infrastructure. As part of the collaboration, aPriori's Monad (MON)-based token, aprMON, has integrated Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) as its exclusive solution, launching as a Cross-Chain Token (CCT). aPriori stated that the integration, which includes Chainlink Price Feeds for APR and aprMON, enables secure cross-chain transfers and provides tamper-proof market data. Separately, aPriori's AI-based DEX aggregator, Swapr, has surpassed $15 million in trading volume on Monad since its soft launch on Dec. 5. The platform maintains an average daily trading volume of over $1 million and is the highest-volume DEX aggregator on the Monad network.

Sports finance (SportsFi) platform GolfN announced it has entered a new phase of global expansion, driven by collaborations with international brands, user growth, and the development of its global distribution infrastructure. As part of its global partnership efforts, GolfN has added Oakley, Puma, and Hyperice to its rewards marketplace. The company is reportedly gaining thousands of new users weekly in South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The platform currently has 41,000 total users who have logged 21,000 rounds of golf at approximately 11% of golf courses worldwide, which the company claims has allowed it to accumulate the largest user behavior dataset in the leisure golf sector. To support its growing user base, GolfN plans to expedite the delivery of equipment and prizes and host more frequent global and regional redemption events. In line with its expansion, GolfN has introduced a new points program that rewards users for all golf-related activities, including playing and practicing. Users can earn points by recording rounds, completing missions, and checking in at courses. These points can be exchanged for golf equipment, merchandise, various experiences, and the platform's upcoming GOLF token. GolfN stated it is preparing for a Token Generation Event (TGE) for GOLF and will continue to expand its partner network and rewards catalog.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb announced that it will list DeXe (DEXE) on its KRW market at 7:00 a.m. UTC today.

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.