Arthur Hayes reduced his Ethereum exposure, selling about 1,871 ETH worth roughly $5.53 million over the past week and reallocating into ENA, PENDLE, and ETHFI. On December 24, 2025, he sent 682 ETH (about $2 million) to Binance while building a USDC position nearing $48 million. His ETH balance has fallen to approximately 3,160 ETH.

On December 24, 2025, Midnight developer Sebastien Guillemot said the team completed a key cryptographic step to enable direct interoperability between Ethereum and Cardano wallets. He cited support for Ethereum’s Keccak and Cardano’s Blake2b as the basis for a privacy-first layer that validates ownership without exposing user data.

By December 24, 2025, US regulators under the Trump administration and Paul Atkins' SEC had begun expanding retail access to crypto and private credit, including within retirement plans. New spot crypto ETFs and interval funds are being fast-tracked, with expectations that more than 100 additional crypto ETFs could launch by 2026, raising concerns among advisors that everyday investors may not understand the complex risks and liquidity issues involved.

On Dec. 24, 2025, XRP community figure BearableGuy123 resurfaced with a "589"-themed image and a 2026 message. Upbit recorded three deposits totaling 51,231,999,673 SHIB within roughly eight hours, and Bitcoin's monthly Bollinger Bands show price under the midband with the lower band near $52,187.

Bitcoin traded near $87,000 as a record options expiry totaling $23.7 billion is set for Friday. The event spans roughly 300k BTC option contracts and 446k IBIT option contracts, and some market participants point to an initial upside target around $100,000 once the expiry clears.

CryptoQuant data shows that decentralized borrowing on Aave has dropped sharply since August 2025, with weekly USDT and USDC loans falling from $6.2 billion to $1.9 billion by late November. At the same time, Nexo's weekly retail credit withdrawals fell from $34 million in mid-July to $8.8 million in mid-November before rebounding to $23 million, suggesting users increasingly prefer borrowing against collateral over selling in a weak market. Overall, CeFi lenders appear to be acting as a liquidity backstop while DeFi leverage contracts.

In Q3 2025, US GDP rose 4.3% while core PCE hit 2.9% quarter-over-quarter, pointing to a Goldilocks-style backdrop of strong growth and easing inflation. Against this macro setup, large investors are building positions in Ethereum, Sui, Worldcoin, Hyperliquid and presale token Bitcoin Hyper, with several wallets committing multi-million-dollar sums. The combination of supportive data and whale accumulation is driving speculation about the next major crypto bull phase.

US exchange-traded funds amassed $1.4 trillion of net inflows in 2025, with more than 1,000 new products debuting and trading activity reaching annual highs. On December 23, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a $189 million net outflow, led by BlackRock’s IBIT at $157 million, while Ethereum spot ETFs saw $95.52 million exit.