In August 2025, Ethereum (ETH) exceeded its 2021 peak, touching $4,945 and a $600 billion market capitalization. Institutional flows dominate this cycle: reserves on centralized exchanges fell to 10.5% by December 21, more than 35.6 million ETH are staked, and Exchange Traded Products attracted about $12.7 billion in 2025.

Hong Kong plans to introduce explicit rules allowing insurance companies to invest in cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and digital infrastructure, with the Insurance Authority proposing a 100 per cent risk charge on volatile tokens. A public consultation on the framework is scheduled from February to April 2026, and even limited allocations from the sector's HK$635 billion in 2024 gross premiums could significantly increase liquidity in digital asset markets.

On 18 December, a coalition of over 125 crypto firms and advocacy groups urged the US Senate Banking Committee to oppose expanding the GENIUS Act, challenging banking lobby efforts to limit stablecoin returns. Banks, in Capitol Hill briefings, warned of up to $6.6 trillion in deposits shifting to digital platforms. Companies named include Coinbase, Gemini and Kraken.

Terraform Labs’ bankruptcy administrator has filed a $4 billion lawsuit against Jump Crypto, accusing it of secretly supporting TerraUSD’s $1 peg through confidential agreements. The case unfolds against a stablecoin market with about USD 309 billion in supply and more than USD4 trillion in transaction volume, raising new questions about the role of market makers, regulation, and user protection.

On December 18, 2025, the U.S. SEC filed proposed final judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh. The settlements include permanent anti-fraud injunctions, a 10-year officer/director ban for Ellison, 8-year bans for Wang and Singh, and a further five-year conduct injunction.

On 18 December 2025, Fasttoken (FTN) surged nearly 200% within 24 hours, climbing from about $0.37 to above $1.30 amid broad altcoin weakness. The rebound followed a year in which FTN fell over 90% from early-2025 highs, while analysts cited oversold conditions, fading MEXC delisting fears, and thin liquidity as possible catalysts.

A renewed clampdown on domestic Bitcoin mining in China drove a sharp hashrate decline and a price slide to $86,000. The restrictions focused on Xinjiang forced large operations offline, removing about 100 EH/s of computing power within 24 hours and intensifying selling as miners sought liquidity for costs and relocation.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin miner Hut 8 revealed a $7 billion AI data centre lease with Fluidstack at its River Bend campus in Louisiana, supplying 245 megawatts of capacity over a 15-year base term. The deal, which could reach about $17.7 billion with extensions and includes Google as financial guarantor, sent Hut 8 shares up roughly 20 per cent in pre-market trading.

In December 2025, the Solana network reportedly handled a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack peaking at about 6 terabits per second without downtime or a meaningful rise in fees. Co-founders and infrastructure operators attributed this resilience to upgraded defences, validator clustering, the QUIC protocol, and local fee markets, as the validator set shifts toward larger professional operators.