Tom Lee says Ether’s correlation with software stocks is further evidence that “crypto spring” has begun. Ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies has slowed the pace of its Ether purchases after previously increasing its buying rate and acquiring more than 100,000 tokens over the last three weeks. Bitmine said on Monday that it purchased 26,659 ETH over the last week, down from the over 100,000 tokens a week it was previously maintaining, but that it was still on track for its goal to buy 5% of the token’s 120.7 million circulating supply by the end of the year. “We have decided to slow down our pace of weekly accumulation from >100,000 per week as we originally targeted reaching the ‘alchemy of 5%’ target in late 2026,” Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said. “Our previous pace of >100k weekly buys would have us reach 5% by mid-July.” Read more
Bitcoin options show bulls targeting $115,000 by year-end but are traders becoming overly optimistic? Key takeaways: Bitcoin (BTC) bulls have high hopes for the year-end options expiry on Dec. 25, which features $6 billion at stake. The 33% price gain since the $60,130 yearly low on Feb. 6 have played a major role in bringing back bullish expectations. However, the huge amount of call (buy) options targeting $115,000 and higher for Dec. 25 raises questions about whether bulls are overconfident. Read more
Bitmine bought 101,627 Ether last week, lifting holdings to 4,976,485 ETH, or about 4.12% of supply, as the company moves closer to its 5% target. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the world’s largest public holder of Ether, increased its ETH treasury last week with another large purchase. The company acquired 101,627 ETH during the week of April 13 to April 19, according to a press release and an accompanying Form 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The purchase marks Bitmine’s largest Ether buy since Dec. 15, 2025, according to chairman Tom Lee. “Bitmine has maintained the increased pace of ETH buys in each of the past four weeks, as our base case ETH is in the final stages of the ‘mini-crypto winter,’” Lee said. Read more
New BTC price analysis predicted that the bear market would bottom out later in the year, before beginning a "two-year accumulation phase." Bitcoin (BTC) should find a floor near $55,000 in the second half of 2026, a new prediction says. Key points: Bitcoin’s MVRV Z-score metric still needs to match old bear-market bottoms to signal trend change, says CryptoQuant. Read more
The Bitcoin miner sold 1,818 BTC and said it will end monthly production updates as it shifts toward a broader data center and infrastructure strategy. Riot Platforms sold 1,818 Bitcoin in December for $161.6 million at an average net price of $88,870, as part of a strategy shift from Bitcoin mining to monetizing its power and data center infrastructure, including support for artificial intelligence workloads, the company said Tuesday. As of Dec. 31, the company held 18,005 Bitcoin (BTC), including 3,977 restricted BTC, down from 19,368 Bitcoin at the end of November, while producing 460 Bitcoin during the month. Restricted Bitcoin refers to BTC that the company owns but has pledged as collateral under its debt facilities and holds in a segregated custody account, according to its regulatory filings. Read more
Although monetary losses declined, users still lost tens of millions of dollars to common cybersecurity exploits like address poisoning scams. The total losses from hacks and cybersecurity exploits in the crypto industry amounted to about $76 million in December, a 60% decrease from November’s $194.2 million in losses, according to blockchain security company PeckShield. There were 26 major crypto exploits in December, PeckShield said in an X post, with one user losing $50 million in an address poisoning scams, a type of attack where the threat actor sends small amounts of cryptocurrency from a wallet that closely resembles a legitimate wallet address, betting that the intended victim won’t notice the discrepancy. Typically, the first and last four characters of the addresses match, with the attacker hoping that the victim will accidentally send funds to the fraudulent address by selecting the poisoned address from their transaction history without closely examining the entire string. Read more
The Bitcoin price slump at the end of the year hasn’t discouraged Michael Saylor’s Strategy from buying over 22,000 BTC in December alone. Bitcoin’s price continued to fall as 2025 neared its end, declining 4% in December. Despite a slump in markets, Strategy capped off the year with massive Bitcoin buys. In December alone, the software company turned Bitcoin investment vehicle picked up over 22,000 Bitcoin (BTC). In the US, prediction markets are inking deals with major media outlets and scoring approvals from major federal agencies. However, in 11 states, gambling and gaming regulators are taking legal action against platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Watchdogs state that such markets constitute a form of gambling, a claim the companies themselves dispute. Read more
Arkham data shows wallets associated with the Official Trump meme team pulling about $94 million in USDC from TRUMP liquidity pools in December and routing the funds to Coinbase. Onchain analysts tracking the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on Solana have flagged large transfers from wallets labeled as parts of the “Official Trump Meme” cluster moving about $94 million in USDC from TRUMP liquidity pools over the past month. The most recent movement, highlighted by blockchain data platform Arkham, involved 33 million USDC (USDC) being withdrawn from liquidity on Tuesday and sent to an entity labeled Fireblocks, which then routed funds to wallets labeled as belonging to Coinbase. Public Solana records on Solscan corroborate the large USDC outflows from TRUMP‑linked wallets. Read more
US-listed XRP ETFs continued to draw steady inflows through December, even as Bitcoin and Ether funds posted sharp monthly outflows. Spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States continued to attract capital through December, extending their inflow streak to 29 consecutive days despite choppy market conditions. According to data from SoSoValue, spot XRP (XRP) ETFs recorded $8.44 million in net inflows on Monday, pushing cumulative inflows to $1.15 billion since they launched. Total net assets stood at about $1.24 billion, even as XRP prices and broader crypto markets faced selling pressure during the month. “XRP inflows are a function of regulatory clarity and steady accumulation into a less crowded trade, than BTC/ETH,” Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Kronos Research, told Cointelegraph, adding that XRP’s cross-border settlement use case “offers differentiated exposure that continues to attract longer-horizon capital.” Read more