Aave founder Stani Kulechov purchased $10 million of AAVE tokens on Dec. 24, drawing criticism from community members, Cointelegraph reports. DeFi strategist Robert Mullins said the purchase aimed to increase Kulechov's voting power ahead of an upcoming vote on a proposal that could harm token holders' interests. Crypto commentator Sisyphus raised concerns that Kulechov may have sold millions of dollars worth of AAVE between 2021 and 2025, questioning the rationale for the buyback. The controversy unfolds as AAVE holders debate governance practices, with critics arguing that large token purchases can influence outcomes on contentious proposals.

An Ethereum ICO wallet (0x3495) transferred all 2,000 ETH to a new address on Dec. 24 after more than 10 years of inactivity, Lookonchain data show. The address invested 620 USD in the ICO and received 2,000 ETH, now valued at 5.85 million USD, representing a 9,435x return.

Jump Trading transferred 100M USD1 from BitGo to Binance over the past four hours, on-chain analyst Ai 姨 (@ai_9684xtpa) reports. The move came as USD1 liquidity demand on Binance surged following the exchange's launch of a high-yield USD1 wealth management product. USD1 supply increased by 118M tokens today, bringing its market capitalization to $2.87B.

The Trend Research address borrowed $20 million from Aave and deposited the funds into Binance on Dec. 24, Arkham data show. The secondary investment institution affiliated with Yi Lihua continued to increase its holdings by 46,379 ETH, valued at $137 million, via leverage on Dec. 24.

A whale address (0x3c7...) opened a 7x leveraged short position on AAVE worth $2.42 million on Dec. 24, with an average entry price of $151 and a liquidation price of $173, Hyperinsight via BlockBeats reports. The position, now the largest AAVE short on Hyperliquid, shows a 17% unrealized profit following sharp price swings amid whale selling and intensifying Aave community disputes. The same address has placed an additional limit short order of about $780,000 at $154 that remains unfilled, with take-profit set at $136 and stop-loss at $196.

On Dec. 24, whale address 0x0e4 held a 20x leveraged long position in SOL facing a $5.78M unrealized loss, while its 20x BTC and 10x HYPE long positions were jointly down about $8.5M, with overall profit falling from more than $18M to roughly $3M, Onchain Lens data show. Another whale address, 0x35d, was running a 20x leveraged short on SOL with around $11M in profit and was gradually closing the position. The same address also maintained 40x BTC and 25x ETH short positions, bringing its total unrealized profit to over $27.7M.

The supply of USD1, a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial and described as backed by the Trump family, increased by more than 45.6 million tokens within hours after Binance launched a promotion offering 20% annual percentage yield on deposits of up to $50,000 per user. The expansion pushed USD1’s market capitalization above $2.79 billion, according to CoinGecko data reported by Wu Blockchain.

Curve governance voters rejected a proposal from Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov to grant 17.45M CRV tokens (around $6.2M) to development company Swiss Stake AG for ecosystem growth, technical research and ongoing work on its lending protocol, BlockBeats reports on December 24. Egorov said the funds would support software development, infrastructure and security, and cover a core contributor team of about 25 people at Swiss Stake AG, with plans including launching and scaling the updated Llamalend lending system, building on-chain FX functionality, and enhancing Curve's interface and cross-chain capabilities. The vote ended with 54.46% of participating governance power against and 45.54% in favor, and voting data showed addresses linked to DeFi protocols Yearn Finance and Convex Finance accounted for nearly 90% of the opposing votes. Some Curve community members raised concerns about centralization and questioned whether governance relies too heavily on a small group, while others argued Swiss Stake should better disclose past fund usage and suggested any further grants be disbursed in tranches to limit potential negative impact on CRV's price.

Crypto industry mergers and acquisitions reached a record $8.6B across 267 deals in 2025, up 18% from 2024 and nearly four times the $2.17B recorded the prior year, the Financial Times reports. The surge follows the Trump administration's shift to prioritize cryptocurrencies through industry-friendly regulatory appointments, dropped lawsuits against digital asset firms, and launch of a national crypto reserve. Legal firm CMS partner Charles Kerrigan and other industry participants expect new U.S. crypto rules will draw traditional financial institutions into the sector and drive further consolidation. Coinbase executed the year's largest deal by acquiring derivatives exchange Deribit for $2.9B, while Kraken bought U.S. retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5B and Ripple purchased crypto prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25B.