Today's News Highlights:
The IRS requires DeFi brokers to report digital asset sales profits and collect user transaction information starting in 2027.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange has released management measures for reporting high-risk transactions related to illegal cross-border financial activities involving virtual currencies.
The Minister of Justice of Montenegro has signed an extradition order for Do Kwon to be extradited to the United States.
Galaxy Research's annual forecast: BTC will break $150,000 in the first half of the year, and ETH will exceed $5,500.
ETH/BTC bull James Fickel repaid his WBTC loan about 4 hours ago, incurring a loss of $68.84 million over the past year.
Michael Saylor: 60 companies hold over 590,000 BTC.
The president of The ETF Store: In the past two days, five institutions have applied for crypto ETFs.
Smart money that made $4.92 million from trading PEPE in the past six months has added another $2.79 million to its PEPE position early this morning.
Regulatory News
According to the announcement from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the "Bank Foreign Exchange Risk Transaction Reporting Management Measures (Trial)" has been published and will take effect immediately. The measures are a supporting document to the "Bank Foreign Exchange Business Management Measures (Trial)" and aim to strengthen banks' foreign exchange risk management, enabling early identification, early warning, and early handling of high-risk transactions suspected of false trade, underground banks, and illegal cross-border financial activities involving virtual currencies.
Key contents include: clarifying the reporting responsibilities for banks' foreign exchange risk transactions, requiring the establishment of monitoring systems and submission of reports; specifying the scope of information reporting, including activities suspected of illegal cross-border capital flows; clarifying report contents, such as basic information and proposed measures; and strengthening internal management measures, including internal control systems and data confidentiality management.
According to the Phnom Penh Post, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has released new regulations that for the first time allow commercial banks and payment institutions to provide services related to stablecoins and asset-backed cryptocurrencies, while still prohibiting unsupported assets like Bitcoin. The new regulations require relevant institutions to obtain prior approval before engaging in crypto asset exchange, transfer, and custody services, while prohibiting the use of customer assets.
Previously, Cambodia blocked 16 unlicensed crypto trading websites to strengthen regulation of the digital asset market.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Justice of Montenegro, Minister Bojan Božović has signed a decision to extradite Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon to the United States. Previously, the Supreme Court of Montenegro ruled that the legal conditions for extradition to the U.S. were met. The Ministry of Justice prioritized the U.S. extradition request after considering factors such as the severity of the case, the location of the crime, and the order of extradition requests, while rejecting South Korea's extradition request.
Do Kwon is under investigation by U.S. and South Korean authorities for his involvement in the financial scandal related to the collapse of TerraUSD and Luna. This incident led to the evaporation of approximately $40 billion from the cryptocurrency market in May 2022, triggering the bankruptcy of several crypto companies. Do Kwon has been accused of defrauding investors and concealing assets. He was arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 for using a forged passport and sentenced to four months in prison. After serving his sentence, both the U.S. and South Korea submitted extradition requests. After review, the Montenegrin Ministry of Justice decided to prioritize the U.S. extradition request.
The IRS has finalized rules requiring DeFi brokers to report total profits from digital asset sales and provide clients with 1099 forms, collecting user transaction information, including names and addresses. The Treasury Department noted that the final rules apply to "front-end service providers" that "interact directly with customers," meaning entities operating major websites used to access decentralized protocols, rather than the protocols themselves. According to the document, the rules are expected to take effect on or after January 1, 2027. The idea of strengthening tax enforcement for digital asset service providers first appeared in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021 to help fund the expenditures authorized by the act.
The Blockchain Association has filed a lawsuit against the IRS's "DeFi broker" regulations
The U.S. cryptocurrency lobbying group, the Blockchain Association, announced on Twitter that it has filed a lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department regarding the new "broker" regulations. The IRS and Treasury have exceeded their statutory authority by expanding the definition of "broker" to include providers at the front end of DeFi transactions, even though they do not execute trades. This not only infringes on the privacy rights of individuals using decentralized technology but also pushes the entire thriving technology overseas.
AI
OpenAI plans to restructure to create a stronger nonprofit organization
OpenAI announced that its board is evaluating the company's structure, transforming the existing for-profit division into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) to balance the needs of shareholders, stakeholders, and the public interest while providing stronger resource support for the nonprofit division. This move aims to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity and to advance its mission by raising more capital. In the future, the PBC will focus on commercial operations and technological development, while the nonprofit organization will concentrate on promoting public welfare in areas such as education, healthcare, and science.
OpenAI reports that ChatGPT's weekly active users have surpassed 300 million
OpenAI revealed in its announcement article that currently, over 300 million people use OpenAI's products weekly for productivity enhancement, learning, and other activities, with most users being free users.
Project Updates
Bitget will destroy BGB worth over $5 billion, accounting for 40% of total supply
The Bitget team has released a new version of the BGB white paper, announcing the introduction of a buyback and burn mechanism. In the first burn, 800 million BGB held by the core team will be destroyed at once, accounting for 40% of the total supply. Based on the current price of BGB, the value of the destroyed portion exceeds $5 billion. After the burn, the total supply of BGB will be reduced to 1.2 billion, with 100% in circulation.
At the same time, BGB will initiate quarterly buyback and burn, starting in 2025, where Bitget will use 20% of the profits from the exchange and wallet business each quarter to buy back and burn BGB. The profits will come from trading fees for spot, contract, and leveraged trading on the Bitget exchange, as well as income from Swap, contract, and NFT trading fees on Bitget Wallet.
The white paper also introduces BGB's future rights plan, which will focus on on-chain application scenarios, PayFi payment scenarios, and in-platform rights scenarios, allowing BGB to become a mainstream asset deeply integrated into popular public chains and leading DeFi ecosystems.
Binance Wallet adds support for 9 dApps, covering cross-chain trading and decentralized liquidity
According to official news from Binance Wallet, 9 new decentralized applications (dApps) have been launched, including UniSat, ALPHA-X, WOOFi, oooo protocol, DeSyn Protocol, Prosper, Eddy Finance, Matrixdock, and Jasper Vault. These applications cover various fields such as cross-chain trading, AI insights, and decentralized liquidity.
Galaxy Research has released its 2025 forecast report, covering the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum, DOGE, stablecoins, DeFi, L2s, policies, VC, and more. The specifics are as follows:
- Bitcoin will break $150,000 in the first half of the year and test or reach $185,000 in Q4 2025.
- By 2025, the assets under management of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETPs will exceed $250 billion.
- In 2025, Bitcoin will once again be one of the best-performing assets globally on a risk-adjusted basis.
- At least one top wealth management platform will announce a recommendation for a Bitcoin allocation of 2% or higher.
- Five companies in the Nasdaq 100 index and five nation-states will announce the addition of Bitcoin to their balance sheets or sovereign wealth funds.
- Bitcoin developers will reach a consensus on the next protocol upgrade in 2025.
- Among the top 20 publicly traded Bitcoin miners by market capitalization, more than half will announce transformations or partnerships with hyperscale providers, AI, or high-performance computing companies.
- Bitcoin DeFi (defined as the total amount of BTC locked in DeFi smart contracts and deposited in staking protocols) will nearly double by 2025.
- The trading price of Ethereum will exceed $5,500 in 2025.
- The Ethereum staking rate will exceed 50%.
- The ETH/BTC ratio will be below 0.03 in 2025 but will be above 0.06 by the end of the year.
- In 2025, L2s collectively will generate more economic activity than Alt L1s.
- As on-chain applications distribute at least $1 billion in nominal value from treasury and revenue sharing to users and token holders, DeFi will enter a "dividend era."
- On-chain governance will see a revival, and applications will experiment with future governance models.
- By 2025, the four major global custodians will hold digital assets.
- At least ten stablecoins supported by TradFi partners will be launched.
- By 2025, the total supply of stablecoins will double, exceeding $400 billion.
- Tether's long-standing market dominance will fall below 50%, challenged by yield alternatives such as Blackrock's BUIDL, Ethena's USDe, and even Coinbase/Circle's USDC rewards.
- The total amount of crypto venture capital will exceed $150 billion, growing by more than 50% year-on-year.
- Stablecoin legislation will pass in both houses of Congress and be signed by President Trump in 2025, but market structure legislation will not.
- The U.S. government will not purchase Bitcoin in 2025 but will use its existing Bitcoin holdings to establish reserves, with various departments and agencies taking action to explore expanding Bitcoin reserve policies.
- The SEC will investigate the first so-called "special purpose broker-dealer," Prometheum.
- Dogecoin will eventually reach $1, and the market capitalization of the world's largest and oldest memecoin will reach $100 billion.
VolatilityShares applies to launch a leveraged ETF based on Solana futures
The president of The ETF Store, Nate Geraci, tweeted that Volatility Shares has submitted an application to the U.S. SEC for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on Solana futures, covering 1x, 2x, and -1x leveraged exposure. Volatility Shares has actively pushed the SEC to launch an Ethereum futures ETF.
Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge sued by ex-wife for allegedly stealing SOL staking rewards
According to Bloomberg, Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge has been sued by his ex-wife, Elisa Rossi, who accuses him of stealing "millions of dollars" in rewards generated from SOL staking and seeks claims including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and fraud. The lawsuit states that Stephen Akridge "exploited the significant disparity in his expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain" to secretly obtain Elisa Rossi's staking rewards. Although Elisa Rossi mentioned "huge amounts" in her request to keep parts of the lawsuit confidential, the value of the tokens involved in the lawsuit has not been disclosed. Elisa Rossi stated that these accounts were "operated and controlled by Stephen Akridge" from early March to mid-May.
Akridge served as Solana's chief engineer and played a key role in developing the blockchain platform alongside co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Before joining Solana, Akridge worked at Qualcomm and is now the CEO of California-based cybersecurity company Cyber Grant.
ProShares applies to launch Bitcoin hedge ETFs based on the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and gold
The president of The ETF Store, Nate Geraci, tweeted that ProShares has applied to launch Bitcoin hedge ETFs based on the S&P 500 index, Nasdaq 100 index, and gold.
The president of The ETF Store: Five institutions have applied for crypto ETFs in the past two days
The president of The ETF Store, Nate Geraci, tweeted that in the past 48 hours, five institutions have applied for crypto ETFs, including:
- Strive Bitcoin Bond ETF;
- Bitwise Bitcoin Standard Company ETF;
- REX BTC Corporate Treasury Convertible Bond ETF;
- VolatilityShares' ETF based on Solana futures, covering 1x, 2x, and -1x leveraged exposure;
- ProShares' application for Bitcoin hedge ETFs based on the S&P 500 index, Nasdaq 100 index, and gold.
ai16z initiates a proposal to upgrade token economics models, suggesting the launch of a Launchpad
ai16z has initiated a proposal regarding the update of token economics models, focusing on creating an official ai16z Launchpad platform for Eliza-based projects; implementing community governance processes; implementing ai16z staking for early access and fee-sharing benefits; using issuance fees and LP profits to buy back and reinvest in Eliza development instead of burning; positioning ai16z as an AI L1 blockchain, etc.
Important Data
Ethereum spot ETF saw a net inflow of $47.77 million yesterday, continuing a four-day net inflow
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, ETH/BTC bull James Fickel sold 6,429 ETH (worth $21.45 million) about 4 hours ago to exchange for 227 WBTC to repay all his WBTC loans. James Fickel had maintained a long position on the ETH/BTC ratio for a whole year, incurring a loss of $68.84 million (20,632 ETH):
- In the first half of the year, he borrowed 2,987 WBTC at a rate of 0.054 through Aave and sold it for 55,315 ETH to long the ETH/BTC ratio;
- Starting in August, he gradually sold ETH to buy back WBTC for repayment, spending a total of 75,947 ETH to buy back 2,987 WBTC at a rate of 0.0393 for repayment;
- Ultimately, he lost 20,632 ETH ($68.84 million) on his long position in the ETH/BTC ratio.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, in the past two days, a whale spent $1.87 million to purchase 60.03 million MIRA at an average price of $0.031. Currently, these MIRA are worth $486,000, and the whale is facing a loss of about $1.38 million.
Michael Saylor: 60 companies hold over 590,000 BTC
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor tweeted a list of 60 companies holding BTC and their holdings. As of December 23, these 60 companies collectively held 591,368 Bitcoins, worth approximately $55.88 billion.
According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, "a suspected $VIRTUAL project team/early participant" recharged 2 million VIRTUAL to Bybit two hours ago, worth $6.96 million. In the past week, a total of 8.75 million tokens have been transferred to the exchange, approximately $27.08 million, with a recharge price of $3.09; currently, three associated addresses still hold $181 million worth of tokens, accounting for 10.9% of the total token supply on the Base network.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, three hours ago, a whale deposited 250,000 LINK ($5.37 million) to Binance and OKX. From December 14 to December 18, this whale withdrew 595,000 LINK ($17.31 million) from Binance at an average price of $29.1, currently facing a loss of approximately $4.5 million on LINK.
According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, "smart money that made a profit of $4.92 million through PEPE trading in the past six months" added another $2.79 million in PEPE early this morning. The current trading position has increased to 81.79 billion PEPE. In the past week, they have withdrawn PEPE worth $14.25 million from Kraken, with an average price of $0.00001742, currently making it the top asset in that address's holdings, with an unrealized profit of $695,000.
A whale that bought 13.16 million ai16z two weeks ago is currently up $5.66 million
According to Lookonchain monitoring, two weeks ago, a whale spent 10 million USDC to purchase 13.16 million ai16z, now worth 15.66 million dollars, with an unrealized profit of 5.66 million dollars.
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