QCP Capital, a Singapore-based crypto investment firm, said in a post today that after a wash last week, spot prices continued to fluctuate sideways as the holiday season approached. Although the market seemed calm on the surface this week, all eyes were on the upcoming large-scale option expiration event this Friday, when nearly $20 billion in notional value of Bitcoin and Ethereum options will expire. This figure accounts for nearly half of Deribit’s total options holdings.

Forbes published an article predicting seven major trends in the crypto industry in 2025: 1. The G7 or BRICS countries will establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve; 2. The market value of stablecoins will double to US$400 billion; 3. The Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem will achieve rapid growth with the help of L2 networks (such as Stacks, BOB, Babylon), and the locked volume is expected to exceed the current US$24 billion of cross-chain packaged Bitcoin; 4. Crypto ETF products will expand to tracks such as Ethereum staking and Solana; 5. Technology giants such as Apple and Microsoft may follow Tesla's example and increase their holdings of Bitcoin; 6. The total market value of the crypto market will exceed US$8 trillion; 7. The improvement of the US regulatory environment will drive the revival of crypto entrepreneurship.

The cryptocurrency market experienced a large pullback last week, which was generally attributed to the so-called "hawkish rate cut" by Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, which triggered concerns in the risk market about inflation and economic recession. However, according to the author's analysis, this is probably only a secondary factor causing capital panic. The real impact lies in the strong pressure on Congress's short-term spending bill initiated by Trump and Musk last Wednesday, and even the uncertainty caused by threatening to cancel the debt ceiling rule, which triggered the risk aversion of funds.

Grayscale announced that it will open private subscriptions for 22 cryptocurrency trust products to qualified investors, including mainstream tokens such as AAVE, AVAX, LINK, SOL, XRP, and fund products in niche areas such as DeFi and AI. Investors can subscribe based on net asset value (NAV).

MicroStrategy announced that it will hold a special shareholders meeting to vote on key proposals aimed at accelerating the 21/21 plan, streamlining the financing process, and aligning director compensation with the company’s Bitcoin-centric strategy.

Crypto derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid has experienced its largest single-day outflow ever as traders rushed to withdraw funds amid concerns that North Korean hackers were trading on the exchange. Taylor Monahan, a security expert at digital wallet provider MetaMask, said digital wallets associated with the hackers began trading on Hyperliquid as early as October. On Monday, she shared the addresses of these suspicious wallets and their activities on the social media platform X. Monahan noted that trading is often a way for North Korean hackers to test potential security vulnerabilities on platforms such as Hyperliquid.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has once again insisted that cryptocurrency staking is taxable, stating that staking rewards create a tax liability once they are received. The news comes amid a legal battle between Tennessee couple Joshua and Jessica Jarrett and the IRS over staking taxation. The couple stakes on the Tezos network and argues that staking rewards should not be taxed until they are sold.

Crypto payment service provider MoonPay is in talks to acquire Helio for approximately $150 million, which would be MoonPay’s largest acquisition to date.

In an interview published on Monday, Vladimir Tenev, CEO of stock and cryptocurrency trading platform Robinhood, said that despite the growing importance of cryptocurrencies to the company, Robinhood currently has no plans to hold Bitcoin for investment purposes.

PANews reported on December 23 that Binance Labs announced that it has invested in Usual, a decentralized RWA (real world asset)-backed stablecoin issuer that focuses on redefining stablecoins through community-first innovation. Usual redistributes value and ownership through the $USUAL governance token, with 90% of the tokens allocated to users, promoting a decentralized and fair financial model.

Avalon Labs, the issuer of the BTC-backed stablecoin USDa, has raised $10 million to grow its Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.