Digital asset industry executives are joining tech CEOs in making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his upcoming return to the White House.

British stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK has successfully raised $50 million in an all-equity Series B round of financing, led by cryptocurrency-focused giant fund Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and existing investor Tiger Global. According to people familiar with the matter, BVNK is valued at approximately $750 million after this round of financing. A BVNK spokesperson declined to comment on the valuation.

Pudgy Penguins announced on the X platform that PENGU is now online and open for claiming. Eligible participants can start claiming PENGU, including holders of Pudgy Penguins, Lil Pudgys, Rogs and SBTs. Holders have 88 days to claim, and all unclaimed supply will be permanently locked/destroyed after the 88th day.

Digital asset company Tether has announced that it has invested in European stablecoin provider StablR, aiming to accelerate adoption in the region. StablR will use Hadron, Tether’s new tokenization platform launched last month, to simplify the tokenization of stocks, bonds, commodities, stablecoins, and more.

MicroStrategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor posted on the X platform that so far this year, MSTR's financial operations have brought shareholders a 72.4% bitcoin return, equivalent to a net profit of about 136,965 bitcoins for shareholders. Based on a price of $107,000 per bitcoin, this is equivalent to about $14.66 billion this year.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published final guidance on Tuesday to help member states implement the upcoming rules. ESMA published its final reports on reverse solicitations, systems, cryptocurrencies that may constitute financial instruments, and draft technical standards for market abuse prevention.

A study by the University of Kent's School of Computer Science shows that if Bitcoin wants to effectively protect against the threat posed by quantum computing, a protocol update is required, which will cause the cryptocurrency to be offline for 76 days. The study also pointed out more realistically that Bitcoin can also use 25% of its servers for protocol updates while allowing users to continue mining and trading at a slower speed. But in that case, the downtime will be as long as 305 days, or 10 months.

Can AI agents become bubble-making machines? Solana and Base, which ecosystem is more suitable for AI agents?

The crypto market's transformation in the fourth quarter has put the industry in a race with Wall Street for dominance in terms of 2024 performance. Coinbase, in particular, has performed well, with its exchange revenue now ranking fifth in the world. Data confirms that Coinbase's revenue reached $5.75 billion in the past 12 months, surpassing Nasdaq and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Jamie Coutts, chief cryptocurrency analyst at investment firm Real Vision, said on December 17 that cryptocurrencies are eating into the share of traditional finance (TradFi).

Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, wrote on the X platform: "In the United States, the assets under management of Bitcoin ETFs ($129.3 billion) have exceeded those of gold ETFs ($128.9 billion). Although gold had a 20-year first-mover advantage, it has now been overtaken."

Binance announced the launch of Binance Alpha, a new platform within the Binance Wallet (formerly Binance Web3 Wallet) that aims to spotlight promising early blockchain projects and help users explore Alpha opportunities. Binance Alpha is a platform for showcasing tokens that may be considered for listing on the Binance exchange in the future. It will serve as a "pre-listing token selection pool" and is committed to improving the transparency and fairness of the Binance exchange token listing process.

No one can define a rushing river.

NFT trading platform OpenSea has sparked speculation that it may be preparing to conduct a token airdrop after registering an entity in the Cayman Islands. Anonymous researcher Waleswoosh of Azuki and X platform user posted a screenshot of OpenSea’s registration. The registration information appeared in the Cayman Islands General Registry and was also confirmed by OpenSea to CoinDesk.

European Parliament member Sarah Knafo gave a pro-Bitcoin speech in the European Parliament, calling for the creation of a “strategic Bitcoin reserve” while speaking out against a digital euro.

A few minutes ago, the Ethereum Foundation sold 100 ETH at an average price of $4,024.73, worth 402,473 DAI. This year, it has sold a total of 4,466 ETH worth $12.6 million.

The Hong Kong Government recently announced that it has informed the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Effective Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes that Hong Kong is committed to implementing a Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (Reporting Framework) to enhance international tax transparency and combat cross-border tax evasion. Hong Kong is committed to implementing the Reporting Framework with appropriate partners on a reciprocal basis, provided that the relevant partners meet the standards for protecting confidentiality and security of information. Taking into account the latest timetable set by the Global Forum, the Government initially plans to complete the required local legislative amendments by 2026 or earlier, and to conduct the first automatic exchange of information under the Reporting Framework with relevant tax jurisdictions starting in 2028.