Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points as expected but reduced next year's expected cuts from four to two. Bitcoin dropped significantly from around $106k to below $93k, but has since partially recovered. Bitcoin dominance has increased for seven consecutive days amid ongoing poor price action. Ethereum ETFs have seen positive inflows for sixteen consecutive days, with flows accelerating. Over the past three weeks, $2.3 billion has been invested compared to $0.3 billion over the previous four months. Solana leads DEX trading volume across all chains for the third consecutive month, reaching $84 billion.

Upcoming Macro Calendar – Source: Trading Economics

Options Market

A hawkish Fed cut dented the market’s long-lasting bullish sentiment since the US election. A  sharp selloff across all risk assets including equities and crypto was triggered following the FOMC Press Conference. For the week, BTC was sold to as low as 92k and ETH to 3.1k before they recovered a little. Front-end realised volatility climbed whereas implied volatility drifted lower as we head into the holiday week. As a result, the volatility carry turned into the negative area. Near-term skew shifted towards puts as downside protection demand rose. ETH’s retracement outpaced BTC’s, pushing ETH/BTC ratio into the downtrend again.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• President-elect Trump appointed Stephen Miran as the Chairman of the Economic Advisory Committee. Stephen Miran previously served as a senior economic policy advisor at the Treasury Department during Trump's first term.

• According to Hypurrscan data, the token ticker “HYENA” was sold at an auction on the Hyperliquid platform for $383,700, which is lower than the previous sale price of $530,000 for “ANIME”. The current record holder for the token ticker sale is "GOD“, with a price of $975,700.

• On December 22nd, the cross-chain protocol Wormhole announced that the Wormhole DAO will launch in the first quarter of 2025. W holders are required to participate in governance staking for the first vote.

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that Jump Trading's subsidiary, Tai Mo Shan Ltd., will pay $123 million to settle charges of misleading investors by stabilizing TerraUSD during its collapse.

•  

  According to official sources, Unichain has released a phased roadmap for its mainnet and announced that the mainnet will launch in early 2025.

• DeFilama platform data indicates that the supply of USDe has exceeded 6 billion tokens.

• On December 18th, Layer1 blockchain project Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom) announced the official launch of its Sonic mainnet. Users can now exchange FTM for S and start exploring the Sonic ecosystem.

• According to official sources, Usual has partnered with Ethena Labs and Securitize, a tokenization platform under BlackRock. The stablecoin USDtb, set to be launched by Ethena Labs and Securitize, will become the primary collateral asset for Usual's stablecoin USD0.

Macro

The major indices closed lower for the week after the cautious commentary by the Fed: the DJIA lost 2.3%, the S&P 500 lost 2.0%, and the Nasdaq lost 1.8%. Chinese equities retreated for the week following increasing concerns on disappointing data about the economy: the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.7%, the CSI 300 fell 0.14% while the Hang Seng index lost 1.25%.