Today's news highlights:
Bitwise CIO: This BTC correction is merely a temporary fluctuation and does not change the long-term bullish trend of the crypto market.
Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) breaks through $1, reaching an all-time high.
World Liberty purchased 231,726 ENA for 250,000 USDC.
El Salvador reached a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the IMF, making Bitcoin payments voluntary.
Powell: We are not allowed to own Bitcoin, nor do we wish to change the law.
Kelp DAO released KERNEL token economics, allocating 55% for community rewards and airdrops.
A Binance user survey revealed that 23.89% of respondents believe AI tokens will dominate market growth in 2025, while 16.1% hold Meme coins.
Primitive Ventures investor reflects on missing a hundredfold opportunity with Virtuals: More integration of crypto and AI is expected in 2025
Regulatory news
Binance.US plans to resume its dollar services in early 2025.
According to Decrypt, Binance.US plans to resume dollar trading services in early 2025, marking the first major adjustment since suspending fiat trading in June 2023 due to SEC allegations. Interim CEO Norman Reed stated that restoring fiat services is the feature users are most looking forward to, and the platform is collaborating with new partners to expand custody and wallet solutions. Despite regulatory pressures, Binance.US has supported trading of 160 cryptocurrencies and over 20 assets for staking over the past 17 months and insists that no wrongdoing has been found. The company's goal is to assist the development of the cryptocurrency industry and provide more choices for U.S. users.
Osprey Funds launched the first publicly traded BNB fund in the U.S.
Osprey Funds announced the launch of the Osprey BNB Chain Trust fund (code: $OBNB) and its listing on the OTCQX market, marking the first publicly traded BNB-based fund in the U.S. This fund provides U.S. investors access to BNB through traditional brokerage accounts or IRA accounts, which is one of the few ways to invest given that BNB cannot be traded on U.S. centralized exchanges. BNB, as the native token of the BNB chain, underpins decentralized applications, DeFi protocols, and smart contracts.
The youngest Bitcoin Core contributor in history at 17 years old received the Chaincode Labs Bitcoin scholarship.
According to Bitcoin Magazine, New York's Chaincode Labs awarded 17-year-old Ishaana Misra the first Bitcoin scholarship, making her the youngest core code contributor in Bitcoin's 15-year history. The scholarship was selected from 232 applicants worldwide, covering her tuition for one year, renewable annually, potentially supporting her entire undergraduate education. Misra started programming at the age of 12 and entered the Bitcoin field after reading the Bitcoin white paper before high school. She transitioned from running nodes to contributing to the Bitcoin Core codebase by self-learning C++. Misra stated that the Bitcoin community focuses on results rather than age, creating a particularly friendly environment for young developers. Chaincode Labs CEO Adam Jonas stated that this scholarship aims to encourage young people to engage in Bitcoin open-source development and provide them with experience and educational support.
El Salvador reached a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the IMF, making Bitcoin payments voluntary.
According to Cointelegraph, El Salvador has reached a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and plans to receive funding support over the next 40 months. As part of the agreement, the country will make Bitcoin payments voluntary for merchants while gradually reducing government participation in Bitcoin-related projects, including phasing out its management of the state-supported wallet app Chivo. The IMF stated that this move will significantly reduce the potential risks associated with Bitcoin projects while clearly defining that the public sector is limited to specific participation in Bitcoin economic activities. Additionally, taxes will be paid only in US dollars, not Bitcoin. The agreement still requires approval from the IMF's executive board, marking the end of four years of negotiations between El Salvador and the IMF since the country adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in June 2021. The IMF has previously warned that the speculative nature of Bitcoin could pose financial risks to the country. The agreement will also facilitate additional financing from institutions such as the World Bank, totaling over $3.5 billion. Nevertheless, El Salvador's Bitcoin advisor Max Keiser dismissed this on social media, stating that Bitcoin usage in the country has 'never been so active and continues to grow.' However, surveys show that 92% of Salvadorans have not used Bitcoin for transactions, up from 88% in 2023.
A California court ruled that Coinbase can delist wBTC, rejecting a temporary injunction request from BiT Global.
According to The Block, a federal court in California ruled that Coinbase can delist wBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin), rejecting a temporary injunction request from BiT Global, associated with Sun Yuchen. Coinbase previously announced that it would delist wBTC on December 19, a decision related to its former custodian BitGo's collaboration with BiT Global to manage $14 billion in assets. BiT Global claimed that delisting wBTC would cause irreparable harm and sued Coinbase for violating competition law and defamation. However, the court found BiT Global's claims to be unfounded and supported Coinbase's right to decide the asset list on its platform. Coinbase responded by stating that BiT Global's accusations are baseless and plans to seek sanctions against them or their law firm. Currently, wBTC is the second-largest wrapped token by market cap (nearly $14 billion), allowing Bitcoin to be used in the Ethereum ecosystem. Coinbase's competing product, cbBTC, has surpassed $2.1 billion in market cap since September. Coinbase emphasized that its platform accounts for less than 1% of wBTC trading activity and denied attempting to monopolize the wrapped Bitcoin market.
Powell: We are not allowed to own Bitcoin, nor do we wish to change the law.
The Federal Reserve announced its latest interest rate decision, cutting rates by 25 basis points as expected, with the federal funds rate target range lowered to 4.25%-4.5%. The latest dot plot indicates two rate cuts are expected in 2025, down from four predicted in September. According to the Fed's statement, recent data shows steady growth in economic activity, easing in the labor market, a rising but still low unemployment rate, and inflation close to the target but slightly elevated. The committee will continue to reduce its balance sheet, with the decision supported by a majority of members; Beth Hammack voted against it, arguing for maintaining rates at 4.5%-4.75%. Powell stated, 'Through today's action, we have lowered the policy rate by a full percentage point from its peak; our policy stance is now significantly less restrictive. Therefore, we can be more cautious in considering further adjustments to the policy rate.' He noted that more progress on inflation must be seen before further rate cuts. The wording indicates that we are at or approaching a moment of slowing rate cuts. Powell also stated at the press conference that we are not allowed to own Bitcoin, nor do we wish to change the law.
AI
Sources: Apple is in talks with Tencent and ByteDance to launch AI features in China.
According to Reuters, Apple is in talks with Tencent and ByteDance to integrate its AI models into iPhones sold in China. These negotiations are still in the early stages. Several domestic companies have already launched AI models, including ByteDance's 'Doubao', Tencent's 'Hunyuan', and Baidu's 'Wenxin Yiyan'. Additionally, Apple's negotiations with Baidu regarding the use of its AI models have been hindered by technical issues, including disputes over using iPhone user data to train AI models. Apple is facing pressure from declining market share in China, particularly with increased competition from domestic brands like Huawei. Huawei recently launched the Mate 70 series, featuring a self-developed large language model, with AI capabilities becoming a selling point. In the third quarter, Apple's smartphone sales in China fell by 0.3% year-on-year, while Huawei's grew by 42%.
Sahara AI announced the official launch of the beta version of its first-phase data platform testing network, with over 780,000 users signing up.
Sahara AI announced the official launch of the beta version of its first-phase data platform testing network. This event attracted over 780,000 user signups, with over 10,000 users successfully gaining participation qualifications. Through the Sahara AI testing network, ordinary users can contribute to the AI ecosystem by engaging in data collection, optimization, and labeling tasks, earning rewards while participating in building the world's first decentralized AI collaboration platform. The launch of the testing network is the first phase of Sahara AI's ecosystem development. Subsequently, Sahara AI will launch an AI data marketplace and model center to further drive the tradability, traceability, and decentralized collaboration of AI assets. It is reported that Sahara AI previously secured $43 million in funding from investment institutions such as Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Polychain Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Samsung Next to promote the development of decentralized AI.
OpenAI: ChatGPT now supports interaction with users via telephone.
According to an official announcement from OpenAI, ChatGPT now supports interaction with users via telephone. U.S. users can call the dedicated number 1-800-CHAT-GPT (1-800-242-8478), which supports both landline and traditional mobile phones. This feature is also integrated with WhatsApp, allowing users to send inquiries via this number, with functionality similar to the existing web and mobile versions. Currently, U.S. users can make 15 minutes of voice calls free each month, with specific rules and limitations subject to change. OpenAI stated that to gain a more comprehensive experience and access more features (like search, higher limits, and more personalization), existing users should continue using ChatGPT directly through their accounts.
Financing
Crypto and AI company Fraction AI completed $6 million in Pre-Seed funding, co-led by Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital.
According to The Block, the decentralized crypto and AI startup Fraction AI, focused on data labeling, completed $6 million in Pre-Seed funding. This round was co-led by Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital, with participation from other investors including Borderless Capital, Anagram, Foresight Ventures, and Karatage. Additionally, angel investors such as Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal and NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin are involved as advisors. Fraction AI, established in February 2024, aims to reshape the data labeling process through decentralization, employing a hybrid approach combining human insight and AI agents. Its platform involves three types of participants: stakers who earn rewards by staking ETH or liquid staking tokens (like stETH), developers who create AI agents and participate in challenges, and reviewers who participate in evaluations using the native token FRAC (assessing results based on specific criteria). Fraction AI plans to launch its mainnet and native token FRAC by the end of Q1 2025 or early Q2, has completed closed testing, and is expected to launch public testing next month, with over 60,000 test users at this stage. The company is currently developed on Ethereum, with plans to expand to NEAR and multiple Ethereum Layer 2 networks.
UTXO Stack completed a new round of financing, with a valuation of $50 million.
UTXO Stack announced the completion of a new round of financing led by UTXO Management, PAKA Fund, and CMS Holdings, with a valuation of $50 million. This financing will be used to accelerate liquidity development for the Lightning Network, introduce stablecoins into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and plans to launch a Bitcoin liquidity provider airdrop incentive in early January 2024, along with the first token generation event (TGE) on the Lightning Network.
Former Google and Stripe executives founded an AI agent operating system startup, /dev/agents, completing $56 million in financing.
According to Bloomberg, the startup /dev/agents, founded by former Google and Stripe executives, recently completed $56 million in seed funding, with a valuation of $500 million. The funding was led by Index Ventures and co-led by CapitalG, Alphabet's investment fund, with participation from well-known angel investors including Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy.
/dev/agents plans to create a next-generation cloud operating system supporting AI agents, aiming to streamline development processes and provide developers with a unified technical framework to promote the widespread application of AI agents. The core team includes co-founders with extensive experience in Android, AR/VR, and operating system development: David Singleton, Hugo Barra, Ficus Kirkpatrick, and Nicholas Jitkoff. The team is dedicated to developing interactive interfaces and AI agent computing infrastructure suitable for multiple devices to enable seamless collaboration between users and AI agents.
Cross-border payment service provider Juicyway completed $3 million in Pre-Seed financing.
Juicyway, a cross-border payment service provider based on stablecoins, announced the completion of $3 million in Pre-Seed financing, with participation from P1 Ventures, Ventures Platform Fund, and Future Africa. Juicyway primarily uses stablecoins and cryptocurrencies to simplify cross-border settlements by bypassing traditional intermediaries and reducing transaction delays. The new funding is intended to support its provision of accessible quasi-banking and cryptocurrency wallet services, allowing stablecoins to act as a bridge for seamless deposits and withdrawals, promoting instant settlements and reducing reliance on highly volatile currencies.
AI software engineering platform Braintrust completed $36 million in Series A financing, led by a16z's Martin Casado.
AI software engineering platform Braintrust announces the completion of $36 million in Series A financing, led by Martin Casado of Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Elad Gil, Greylock, Basecase, Datadog, Databricks Ventures, Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Simon Last (Notion), Bryan Helmig (Zapier), and others. This round of financing brings Braintrust's total funding to $45 million.
Braintrust aims to address challenges in developing large language models (LLMs), such as non-deterministic models and the unpredictability of natural language input. The platform has collaborated with top teams like Notion, Stripe, and Airtable to support users in improving AI product quality through continuous experimentation. On average, Braintrust user teams conduct over 10 experiments daily. Additionally, Braintrust launched a new feature called 'Functions', allowing users to create tools, prompts, and scorers directly in the codebase and upload them to the platform via simple commands, optimizing experimentation and deployment processes while reducing infrastructure management time.
Project updates
Re-staking platform Swell: Swellchain officially launched.
The liquidity re-staking platform Swell announced the official launch of the Optimistic Rollup Swellchain based on the Optimism OP Stack. As a chain centered on re-staked assets, it is built on the 'Proof of Restake' mechanism and has received support from Ethena Labs, EigenLayer, among others. Users can share 31,250,000 $SWELL rewards by holding assets through cross-chain transactions before December 31 while exploring upcoming dApps like Euler Finance and Ambient Finance. Swellchain is also building an ecosystem around $USDe and $sUSDe stablecoins to provide liquidity rewards for DeFi users.
Sophon mainnet launched, with no network fees in the initial phase.
Sophon, a modular blockchain based on ZKsync that received investment from Binance Labs, has now launched its mainnet and deployed its token SOPH (currently non-transferable). Users can enjoy fee-free services during the initial phase, and node holders' rewards will start accumulating on January 1, 2025. Full transferability of the token is expected to be opened in the first quarter of 2025. Sophon aims to create an intuitive and user-friendly blockchain ecosystem for high-throughput consumer applications through automatic account creation, gasless architecture, and instant transaction confirmation. Related reading: A quick overview of the ZKsync-based superchain Sophon.
Kelp DAO released KERNEL token economics, allocating 55% for community rewards and airdrops.
The Ethereum liquidity re-staking platform Kelp DAO announced details of KERNEL token economics, allocating 55% to community rewards and airdrops (20% for airdrops, 35% for future community rewards), 5% for ecosystem and partners, 20% for private sale, and 20% for team and advisors (tokens for the team and private sale have a 6-month lockup period and will unlock over 24 months). Additionally, 20% of KERNEL tokens will be distributed through three rounds of airdrops: • First round airdrop: 10% of the total supply, snapshot date is December 31, 2024; • Second round airdrop: 5% of the total supply, from January 1 to April 30, 2025; an additional 15% loyalty reward for re-staking before January 15, 2025; • Subsequent airdrop: remaining 5%, plans to be determined. KERNEL tokens will be used for governance, providing economic security through re-staking, liquidity mining, and ecosystem revenue buyback scenarios. The token generation event (TGE) is expected to be completed in early Q1 2025.
The Kraken L2 network Ink officially launched its mainnet, months ahead of schedule.
According to an official announcement from Ink, the Kraken L2 network Ink has officially launched its mainnet, several months ahead of schedule. Ink has become part of the Optimism superchain, aiming to provide bridging tools to further connect users with DeFi developers.
The Trump family's crypto project WLFI announced it is seeking long-term cooperation with Ethena Labs.
According to The Block, the Trump family's crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) and Ethena Labs announced that they are seeking 'long-term cooperation', starting with the implementation of Ethena's revenue token sUSDe. According to a statement, 'As the first step in the cooperation, Ethena and WLFI will explore potential ways to implement sUSDe as the first new token available for collateral on the WLFI protocol, which is backed by Aave. Introducing sUSDe into WLFI's upcoming Aave instance will allow that instance to benefit from Ethena's total locked value (TVL) and user base.' The governance body of World Liberty Financial will vote on this measure this week. The two companies stated, 'If WLFI's Aave instance does not receive approval from the governance body, or if sUSDe is not approved as a collateral asset, WLFI and Ethena will continue to explore cooperative opportunities and intend to look for integration points.' According to the statement, Wednesday's announcement was released after World Liberty Financial purchased $600,000 worth of ENA tokens. A spokesperson for World Liberty Financial stated that the purchase of ENA tokens 'is not directly related to this cooperation but demonstrates WLFI's confidence in the long-term viability and success of the Ethena network.'
Perspective
Bitwise CIO: This BTC correction is merely a temporary fluctuation and does not change the long-term bullish trend of the crypto market.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan published an analysis stating that the Federal Reserve's announcement of a 25 basis point rate cut and the reduction of next year's rate cut expectations from four cuts to two has led to a significant correction in risk assets. The S&P 500 fell 3%, the Russell 2000 small-cap index fell 4.4%, and the Bitcoin price dropped from about $106,000 to below $99,000 before slightly rebounding. Meanwhile, about $600 million in leveraged long positions in the crypto market were liquidated, exacerbating market volatility. Matt Hougan believes that this correction is merely a temporary fluctuation and does not change the long-term bullish trend of the crypto market. He noted that the Fed's influence on the crypto market has diminished, while internal drivers in the crypto space are stronger, including a shift in Washington's policy to support crypto, increased institutional investment and ETF fund inflows, government and corporate purchases of Bitcoin, and significant breakthroughs in blockchain technology. Additionally, he mentioned that the 10-day exponential moving average for Bitcoin (about $102,000) remains above the 20-day exponential moving average (about $99,000), indicating that the market trend remains positive. Overall, he believes that the crypto market is in a multi-year bull market, and short-term interest rate adjustments will not change this trend.
Binance user survey: 23.89% of respondents believe AI tokens will dominate market growth in 2025, while 16.1% hold Meme coins.
Binance released a global user survey report yesterday, with 27,230 respondents sharing their views on the current crypto market and expectations for 2025. The data shows that nearly 45% of participants entered the crypto space in 2024, with 24.52% joining in the past six months and 20.60% in the past year. Despite the influx of new users, trading activity remains high, with 31.09% of users trading daily. The survey also indicated that user expectations for the crypto market in 2025 focus on more regulation (19.39%), AI tokens dominating market growth (23.89%), and broader applications of blockchain technology (16.51%). In terms of holdings, respondents favored Memecoins (16.1%), followed by Bitcoin (14.44%) and BNB (14.23%). Binance Spot trading is the most popular product, chosen by 25.89% of users, followed by Binance Earn (25.34%) and Binance Convert (17.33%).
Primitive Ventures investor: More integration of crypto and AI is expected in 2025.
Primitive Ventures investor Marco Manoppo shared on X about his experience of missing a hundredfold investment opportunity with Virtuals Protocol. Marco reflected that, despite early engagement with the project, he failed to invest in time due to misjudging the trend of the combination of crypto and AI. He emphasized that the Virtuals team achieved rapid iterations through the cost advantages in Southeast Asia and stood out in the market with a pragmatic business orientation. Marco predicts that more integration of crypto and AI is expected in 2025, particularly in the innovation of AI agent tokenization, consumer applications, and payment fields.
Key data
FTX/Alameda has sold most of the 25 million WLD it held, leaving only 334,000.
According to Ember monitoring, 25 million WLD held by FTX/Alameda has mostly been sold. Only 334,000 WLD (about $800,000) remain. Data shows that the FTX/Alameda address transferred 21.856 million WLD (about $58.77 million) to five BitGo custodial wallets today and half a month ago, possibly selling to large investors or institutions through OTC. Additionally, since August, they have also transferred 2.809 million WLD to Binance weekly.
Data: The premium for USDT against the Korean won on Upbit reached 3%, the highest in 26 years.
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju tweeted that Korean won whales are accumulating USDT in large amounts. Currently, the USDT-KRW trading pair on Upbit exchange has a premium of about 3%, with USDT priced at 1,559 KRW. Notably, this unofficial exchange rate level is similar to that during the 1998 IMF financial crisis, marking the highest in 26 years.
Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) breaks through $1, reaching an all-time high.
According to GMGN.AI market data, the Meme project Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) on the Solana chain has broken through $1, rising 25.1% in 24 hours, currently priced at $1.05, reaching an all-time high with a market cap exceeding $1 billion. Previously, Binance Alpha announced a second batch of projects: CKP, GEAR, SD, SYRUP, and FARTCOIN.
The Mt. Gox wallet address transferred out 816.3 BTC, valued at approximately $82.12 million.
On-chain data shows that the Mt. Gox wallet address transferred 816.3 BTC, valued at approximately $82.12 million.
Marathon Digital accumulated 1,627 BTC over the past 8 hours, valued at about $166 million.
According to on-chain data monitored by Lookonchain, Marathon Digital (@MARAHoldings) accumulated 1,627 BTC over the past 8 hours, valued at about $166 million.
World Liberty purchased 231,726 ENA for 250,000 USDC four hours ago
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, four hours ago, the Trump family crypto project World Liberty used $250,000 USDC to purchase 231,726 ENA and exchanged 103 cbBTC (valued at about $10.36 million) for WBTC. World Liberty has conducted several large on-chain transactions this month, including purchasing 8,105 ETH for $30 million USDC, 103 cbBTC for $10 million USDC exchanged for WBTC, 78,387 LINK for $2 million USDC, 6,137 AAVE for $1.91 million USDC, 741,687 ENA for $750,000 USDC, and 134,216 ONDO for $250,000 USDC.
U.S. stock market closes: Nasdaq plummets 3.5%, Dow Jones sets record for longest single-day decline in 50 years.
U.S. stocks closed on Wednesday, with the Dow initially down 2.58%, marking the longest single-day losing streak in 50 years (10 consecutive trading days down); the S&P 500 index fell 2.95%, and the Nasdaq fell 3.6%. Tesla (TSLA.O) dropped 8.28%, and Nvidia (NVDA.O) fell 1.14%. The volatility index VIX saw an intra-day gain of up to 78.0%, settling at 28.32 after the U.S. stock market closed. Blockchain concept stocks also experienced significant declines.
