Donald Trump’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial, has been on a massive crypto buying spree in December — now nearing a total spend of $45 million after buying $250,000 of Ondo (ONDO).

Since Nov. 30, a World Liberty wallet has purchased $30 million worth of Ether (ETH) and $10 million worth of Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC) alongside a handful of other purchases, according to a Dec. 16 X post from the blockchain monitoring account Lookonchain and data from Arkham Intelligence.

Lookonchain

A man posing as an Uber driver in Scottsdale, Arizona, has reportedly been arrested after allegedly stealing a combined $300,000 of crypto from two unsuspecting passengers.

According to a Dec. 12 report from Fox10 Phoenix, the Scottsdale Police Department alleges Nuruhussein Hussein lured victims waiting outside the W Hotel in Scottsdale in March and again in October by posing as the Uber they ordered and talking to them by name.

Authorities allege Nuruhussein Hussein picked up two victims out

Ripple’s chief technology officer, David Schwartz, says there could be potential “supply shortages” in the early days of Ripple’s US Dollar-pegged stablecoin but is warning investors not to “FOMO.”

In a Dec. 15 post to X, Schwartz said he expects outsized volatility for RippleUSD (RLUSD) stablecoin immediately following its launch, with several large orders for the token despite being designed to maintain a 1:1 parity with the US dollar. 

He noted that some small initial pre-market bids for th

Michael Saylor, the orchestrator of MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment strategy, hinted it bought more Bitcoin over the weekend — marking the firm’s first acquisition with an average purchase price of over $100,000.

In a Dec. 15 post to X, Saylor asked whether MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin (BTC) portfolio tracker SaylorTracker was “missing a green dot” — hinting the Bitcoin-stacking firm has purchased again.

Source: Michael Saylor

Saylor has posted the SaylorTracker chart for five consecutive Sunda

Bitcoin’s price rallied over 3.2% to set a new all-time high above $105,000 on Dec. 15 as speculation of it becoming a United States reserve asset continues to grow.

Bitcoin (BTC) topped out at $105,100 but has since fallen slightly to $104,850, TradingView data shows. Its previous high was $104,000, which was set on Dec. 5.

It is now up nearly 20% over the last month and 55.5% since the US presidential election on Nov. 5.

Bitcoin’s change in price over the last 24 hours. Source: TradingView

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever recently gave a lecture at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) 2024 conference in Vancouver, Canada arguing that the age of artificial intelligence pre-training is ending and forecasted the rise of an AI superintelligence.

According to Sutskever, increasing computing power through better hardware, software, and machine-learning algorithms outpaces the total amount of data available for AI model training. The AI researcher likened data to fossil f

Bitcoin (BTC) recovered sharply from the weekly lows and is charging toward the all-time high of $104,088. VanEck expects the cryptocurrency bull market to hit its first peak in the first quarter of 2025. After that, the asset manager anticipates a 30% pullback in Bitcoin and a sharper retracement of up to 60% in altcoins. The recovery is expected to begin in fall, with “major tokens regaining momentum and reclaiming previous all-time highs by the end of the year.”

Another bullish voice was tha

XRP (XRP) experienced a historic rally in November 2024 due to political tailwinds and new product developments. Georgios Vlachos, co-founder of the Axelar open-source interoperability platform, told Cointelegraph that the upcoming RLUSD stablecoin will likely boost demand for XRP in 2025.

Vlachos said that many people, including those in emerging economies, use stablecoins as a method of transaction and a store of value. RLUSD transactions and remittances will mostly settle on the XRP Ledger (

Donald Trump will likely issue an executive order on his first day in office to designate Bitcoin (BTC) as a United States reserve asset, according to Jack Mallers, CEO and founder of Strike.

A 200K Bitcoin buy order is coming in January 2025?

In a podcast interview with YouTuber Tim Pool, Mallers explained that the president-elect could rely on provisions within a so-called "Dollar Stabilization Act," which grants him considerable authority to protect the US dollar.

“There’s potential to use

Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has sparked speculation of an impending token launch and user airdrop following its registration in the Cayman Islands.

The news was shared on Dec. 14 by Waleswoosh, a pseudonymous researcher from the Azuki NFT collection, who posted a screenshot of OpenSea’s Cayman Islands registration. NFT community members have since speculated that the digital collectible platform plans to launch a cryptocurrency and conduct a token airdrop. 

Source: Waleswoosh

What are Bitcoin miners as energy buyers?

Bitcoin miners can work as dynamic energy buyers with the flexibility to adjust consumption according to energy supply and demand using sophisticated energy management strategies. 

First things first, you need to understand the Bitcoin mining basics.

To secure the Bitcoin blockchain network, process transactions, and mint new coins, computers need to solve complex mathematical puzzles. As a result, miners running these computers need access to reliabl

Ethereum liquid restaking protocols saw their total value locked (TVL) increase by almost 6,000% in 2024, as the demand for staked asset utility increased this year. 

On Jan. 1, decentralized finance (DeFi) data aggregator DefiLlama showed that Ethereum’s liquid restaking TVL used to be around $284 million. After almost a year, the amount surged almost sixty times, reaching $17.26 billion on Dec. 15. 

Liquid restaking total value locked in Ethereum. Source: DefiLlama

The increase in liquid re

MicroStrategy founder and Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor has tipped crypto miner MARA Holdings to be next in line among Bitcoin firms to join the Nasdaq 100.

“Thanks Fred. I expect $MARA will be the next,” Saylor said in a Dec. 14 X post, responding to MARA Holdings chairman and CEO Fred Thiel, who congratulated Saylor on MicroStrategy’s inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 Index, which was announced on Dec. 13.

MicroStrategy is expected to join before the trading day begins on Dec. 23.

MARA aims for Nas

Bitcoin wallets holding less than 1 BTC are expected to grow by approximately 9% in the near term as small-scale investors keep accumulating despite the asset breaking past the $100,000 mark, according to a crypto analyst.

“Despite being labeled as “shrimps,” these holders are showing strong confidence in Bitcoin’s growth, continuing to accumulate coins even at current price levels,” CryptoQuant contributor Axel Adler said in a Dec. 14 X post.

Trend suggests upward movement for Shrimp wallets

JPMorgan raises price targets on Bitcoin mining stocks

Analysts at JPMorgan raised price targets for four Bitcoin mining stocks to reflect value from the miners electrical power assets and BTC holdings, according to a Dec. 10 report shared with Cointelegraph. 

The mining operations to see upgrades include MARA Holdings (MARA), CleanSpark (CLSK), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Iren (IREN), according to the report, which was written by analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce. Each stock is already

Former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra recently gave a lecture to an audience gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel in Hua Hin, in which he urged the government of Thailand to study cryptocurrencies and continue sandbox experimentation to remain relevant on the global stage.

According to an article from Money and Banking Online, the former Prime Minister did not suggest that Thailand should begin buying cryptocurrencies but urged Thailand to study digital assets because of the cu

Hong Kong has rapidly become a cryptocurrency hub, positioning itself as a center for financial innovation alongside the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Singapore. Ivan Ivanov, global CEO of WOW Summit, said this innovation was a mixture of strong regulatory policy and Hong Kong's status as a special economic region.

Ivanov told Cointelegraph that Hong Kong's special relationship with mainland China and robust regulation allow Hong Kong to be a sandbox for financial and technical innovation, whi

A cryptocurrency trader has reportedly turned a $27 investment in the Pepe memecoin into an extraordinary $52 million profit, according to blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain.

An unknown Pepe (PEPE) trader bagged the life-changing profits, crypto intelligence firm Lookonchain revealed in a Dec. 14 X post.

“A $PEPE whale that had been dormant for 600 days transferred all 2.1T $PEPE($52M) to a new address… From $27 to $52 million — an extraordinary 1,900,000x return!”

Savvy Pepe trader transa

Coinbase’s chief legal officer has responded to criticism of the exchange’s token listing and delisting practices after a $1 billion lawsuit accused the company of anticompetitive behavior regarding Wrapped Bitcoin.

Crypto exchange Coinbase is being sued for over $1 billion by BiT Global Digital, which is accusing the company of harming the crypto market through its decision to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) in November.

In a Dec. 13 complaint, BiT Global alleged that Coinbase decided to delist

Ether could surpass its previous all-time high during the first quarter of 2025, according to market analysts.

Ether (ETH) has been unable to remain above the key $4,000 psychological threshold despite Bitcoin (BTC) breaching the record $100,000 high on Dec. 6 for the first time in crypto history.

However, Ether may soon start catching up to Bitcoin’s gains following last week’s crypto market deleveraging, which is “indicative of a reset in leveraged long exposure,” according to a market repor