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Bubblemaps CEO Nick Vaiman said Sybil attacks are increasing across presales and airdrops, calling on teams to use KYC or algorithmic detection. A Solana presale event encountered distribution issues after a bot farm reportedly used over 1,000 wallets to snipe nearly the entire Wet (WET) token sale in seconds. Hosted through the decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter, the presale sold out almost instantly. But genuine buyers effectively had no chance to participate because a single actor dominated the presale, according to organizers. Solana automated market maker (AMM) HumidiFi, the team behind the presale, confirmed the attack and scrapped the launch entirely. The team said it would create a new token and hold an airdrop to legitimate participants while explicitly excluding the sniper. Read more
Paribu has bought a majority stake in Dubai- and Bahrain-licensed CoinMENA in a deal valuing the exchange at up to $240 million. Turkish crypto exchange Paribu has acquired a majority stake in CoinMENA, a Sharia-compliant cryptocurrency exchange licensed in Dubai and Bahrain. According to a Thursday CoinMENA announcement, Paribu acquired a majority stake in CoinMENA in a deal valuing the company at up to $240 million. The company claims the transaction is Türkiye’s largest fintech deal to date and the country’s first cross-border acquisition of a digital asset platform. Paribu said it plans to use the acquisition to scale its operations beyond its home market. CoinMENA obtained a license from Bahrain’s central bank in early 2021 and another from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority at the end of 2023. Read more
Bitcoin market participants saw the yearly open at $93,000 and above as particularly important heading into the weekly close. Bitcoin (BTC) analysis has mapped out key BTC price levels to watch going into the weekend, with a focus on the yearly open above $93,000. Key takeaways: Key Bitcoin price levels above and below the spot price are here as BTC is about to close the week. Read more
Cantor Fitzgerald slashed its Strategy price target, but remains bullish on the stock despite fears over potential exclusion by the MSCI Index and forced liquidation concerns, the FT said. US-based financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald slashed its price target on Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-heavy company, Strategy, but kept a bullish stance on the cryptocurrency’s long-term upside, downplaying fears of forced liquidation, according to the Financial Times. Cantor Fitzgerald reportedly lowered its 12-month price target on Strategy stock by 60%, adjusted to $229 from $560, according to a Thursday analyst note seen by the FT. Despite the downgrade, Cantor’s “buy” rating reportedly remains unchanged, as the bank said that fears surrounding Strategy’s forced liquidations were “not warranted,” despite receiving significant attention. Read more
Ether price action staged a repeat of its 2021 bull market moves against Bitcoin, leading to predictions of fresh long-term highs against BTC. Ether (ETH) is teasing 170% gains in under two months as history repeats itself against Bitcoin (BTC). Key points: Ether has the potential to rematch long-term highs above 0.09 in Bitcoin terms. Read more
AlphaTON exits baby-shelf limits and plans a meme-sized $420.69 million fundraising program despite being a nano-cap with a steep stock decline. Small-cap publicly traded firm AlphaTON Capital has signaled ambitions to access a substantially larger fundraising capacity as it delves deeper into the artificial intelligence and Telegram ecosystem. The company has exited the SEC’s “baby-shelf” limitations and filed a $420.69 million shelf registration, a precise figure often referenced in crypto’s meme culture. The rules limit the amount of capital that very small public companies can raise through a shelf registration. This aims to prevent tiny issuers from flooding the market with stock and heavily diluting investors. According to Google Finance data, AlphaTON capital stock, ATON, suffered significant losses in the last month. The stock dropped from $4.75 on Nov. 5 to $1.71 at the time of writing. This marked a 64% drop in a single month. Read more
Italy’s markets regulator sets firm MiCA deadlines, forcing VASPs to seek authorization or exit by Dec. 30, and urges investors to check providers’ compliance plans. Italy’s securities regulator set a firm timetable for applying the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) in the country, warning that unlicensed crypto platforms face a deadline to either seek authorization or leave the market. The move directly affects virtual asset service providers (VASPs) currently operating under Italy’s regime and the retail investors who use them. In a news release published Thursday, Italy’s Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) reminded the market that Dec. 30 is the last day VASPs registered with the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM) can operate under the existing national framework. Read more
A 25% dip in Ethereum’s voting participation coincided with a bug in the Prysm consensus client shortly after the Fusaka upgrade, with the network just 9% away from losing finality. Shortly after the Fusaka network upgrade, the Ethereum network saw a sharp drop in validator participation after a bug in the Prysm consensus client knocked a chunk of votes offline. According to a Thursday Prysm announcement, version v7.0.0 of the client unnecessarily generated old states while processing outdated attestations, a flaw that Prysm core developer Terence Tsao said prevented the nodes from functioning correctly. Developers recommended that users launch the client with the “--disable-last-epoch-targets” flag as a temporary workaround. Beaconcha.in network data shows that at epoch 411,448, the network achieved only 75% sync participation (the percentage of 512 randomly selected nodes signing chain heads) and 74.7% voting participation. Voting participation being down 25% is under 9% shy of the network losing the two-th...
FINRA found the number of people invested in crypto was steady from 2021 to 2024, but fewer were considering either buying more or investing for the first time. US investors are not considering buying crypto as much as they used to, as risk-taking behavior has dropped, according to a study from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The percentage of crypto investors was unchanged between 2021 and 2024 at 27%, but the number of investors considering either purchasing more or buying for the first time dropped to 26% in 2024 from 33% in 2021, FINRA reported on Thursday. The industry regulator found that those with “high levels of investment risk” dropped four percentage points to 8% between 2021 and 2024. The biggest drop was among investors under 35, which shaved nine percentage points to 15%. Read more
Bitcoin’s downturn has barely anything to do with “anything crypto specific,” but it’s unlikely to surge early next year, says 21Shares co-founder Ophelia Snyder. Current market conditions will make it difficult for Bitcoin to replicate its early 2025 price gains going into 2026, says 21Shares co-founder Ophelia Snyder. “It’s unlikely that the factors driving the current volatility will fully resolve in the short term,” Snyder told Cointelegraph. “A repeat performance next January will depend heavily on broader market sentiment.” Read more
Santiment says social sentiment toward XRP has hit its lowest levels since October, entering the fear zone, but suggested that has preceded a rally in the past. Social sentiment toward XRP has tanked into the “fear zone,” but the intelligence platform Santiment says a similar drop has led the token rallying. Santiment said on Thursday that its social data is showing that XRP (XRP) is seeing “the most fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) since October.” “The last time we saw near this level of fear from the crowd was November 21, and XRP’s price immediately rallied 22% over the next three days,” it added. Read more
Indian crypto holders now hold 5 tokens on average, Ripple secures regulatory approval in Singapore, and Japan’s crypto tax: Asia Express The average crypto holder on the popular Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX is starting to diversify their portfolio, according to recent survey results. The Indian crypto investor today holds an average of 5 tokens per portfolio, CoinDCX said in an annual report released on Thursday. Its survey indicates the average investor in India has almost doubled the range of crypto tokens they hold, up from around two to three tokens in 2022. CoinDCX said that investors are increasingly exploring the potential of other blockchain networks rather than focusing solely on Bitcoin. Read more
Indian crypto holders now hold 5 tokens on average, Ripple secures regulatory approval in Singapore, and Japan’s crypto tax: Asia Express The average crypto holder on the popular Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX is starting to diversify their portfolio, according to recent survey results. The Indian crypto investor today holds an average of 5 tokens per portfolio, CoinDCX said in an annual report released on Thursday. Its survey indicates the average investor in India has almost doubled the range of crypto tokens they hold, up from around two to three tokens in 2022. CoinDCX said that investors are increasingly exploring the potential of other blockchain networks rather than focusing solely on Bitcoin. Read more
Meta is reportedly cooling on the metaverse with planned 30% cuts in its virtual reality research department, Reality Labs, which shareholders seemingly support. Social media giant Meta is reportedly planning to scale back its metaverse spending by up to 30% and redirect the funds into virtual reality glasses and artificial intelligence. No final decision has been made yet, but budget cuts and possible layoffs are on the table for Meta’s Reality Labs division, mainly aimed at its virtual reality unit, which eats up the bulk of metaverse-related spending, Bloomberg and The New York Times reported on Thursday. The budget cuts could come as early as January, but Meta plans to redirect resources to a Reality Labs unit developing augmented reality glasses. Read more
The bond was auctioned off to holders of the digital yuan, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) developed by the Chinese government. Hua Xia Bank, a publicly traded financial institution linked to China’s government, issued 4.5 billion yuan ($600 million) in tokenized bonds on Wednesday, aiming to reduce clearing friction by removing intermediaries from the auction process. According to Sina, the onchain government bonds were issued by Hua Xia Financial Leasing, a subsidiary of Hua Xia Bank, a state-controlled commercial bank in China. The bonds offered a three-year fixed yield of 1.84% to holders. The $600 million bond tranche was auctioned off exclusively to holders of China’s digital renminbi, also known as the digital yuan. Read more
After securing $20 million in seed funding for the project in January, Brian Shroder announced a step toward 1Money’s planned stablecoin network. 1Money, a company co-founded by the former CEO of Binance.US, has launched a stablecoin orchestration platform ahead of its plans to build a layer-1 blockchain for payments. In a Thursday announcement, 1Money said the platform by the same name will have “zero platform fees,” opting instead for usage-based fees for transactions involving stablecoins and fiat. According to the company, the initiative will continue on 1Money’s layer-1 network for stablecoin payments, offering no gas fees. “For too long, legacy stablecoin service providers have held the ecosystem back with outrageously high monthly minimums and bloated fees, 1Money is ending that era,” said Brian Shroder, 1Money co-founder and CEO and former CEO of Binance.US. Read more
Kalshi will provide real-time prediction data across CNBC’s TV, digital and subscription platforms beginning in 2026 as part of a mult-year partnership. CNBC has entered a multi-year partnership with prediction market operator Kalshi to incorporate real-time forecasting data across its TV, digital and subscription platforms. According to Thursday’s announcement, Kalshi’s event probability data will be integrated into CNBC programming beginning in 2026, including on shows such as “Squawk Box” and “Fast Money,” with a dedicated ticker displaying forecast moves in real-time. Kalshi will also launch a CNBC-branded page on its platform featuring markets selected by the network. Read more
ETH outperformed Bitcoin in terms of spot ETF flows and short-term returns. Technical charts suggest traders are positioning for a 20% upmove. Ether (ETH) has outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of price action and exchange-traded fund (ETFs) flows this week, reinforcing the capital rotation narrative. Over the past two weeks, the spot ETH ETFs recorded $360 million in net inflows versus BTC’s $120 million, signaling a shift in investors’ preference for the time being. Key takeaways: Spot ETH ETFs have attracted three times more inflows than BTC, strengthening their relative momentum. Read more
The SEC approved a 2x leveraged ETF tied to SUI as regulators warn that excessive leverage continues to amplify volatility across crypto markets. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a leveraged exchange-traded fund tied to the SUI token from 21Shares, allowing investors to gain amplified exposure to the Sui ecosystem as questions persist about the risks of leverage in crypto markets. On Thursday, the Sui Foundation announced that 21Shares has launched its 2x leveraged SUI (SUI) ETF, trading under the ticker TXXS on the Nasdaq. The fund is designed to deliver twice the daily return of SUI, giving investors a way to gain leveraged exposure without directly holding the cryptocurrency. In practical terms, if SUI rises 10% in a single day, the ETF aims to rise by about 20%. Losses are similarly magnified on the downside. Read more
Gold advocate Peter Schiff faced Binance co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao during an event panel in Dubai, arguing that tokenized gold is a better store-of-value asset than Bitcoin. A panel featuring gold advocate Peter Schiff and Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao at Binance Blockchain Week highlighted the challenges of verifying physical gold, after Schiff was unable to confirm whether a gold bar presented to him was genuine. The debate centered on whether tokenized gold or Bitcoin (BTC) is a better store of value asset based on divisibility, portability, verifiability, durability and supply constraints — key factors in assessing an asset’s viability as money. CZ argued that BTC is a better medium for storing value for several reasons, including the ability for any user to instantly verify the cryptocurrency through a full node or other methods that check a cryptographically secure public ledger. Read more11141 items