Cointelegraph.com
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Cointelegraph.com - 16:32 Dec 25, 2025
Emerging markets are finally accessing finance, with a $310-billion stablecoin market showing that adoption is not hype. Here is what this milestone actually means. The stablecoin market reached a pivotal milestone on Dec. 12, 2025, hitting $310 billion in total value. That represents a 70% increase in just one year. This growth is not just another cryptocurrency bubble metric; it signals a fundamental shift in how digital assets are beginning to be used globally. To understand why the $310-billion stablecoin market matters, it is first necessary to understand what stablecoins are. Unlike Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH), which fluctuate based on market sentiment, stablecoins are designed to aim for price stability by referencing an underlying asset, typically through reserve backing or algorithmic mechanisms. This is typically the US dollar, though some track the euro or commodities such as gold. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 14:10 Dec 25, 2025
BTC may fall to $70,000 and ETH to $2,400 if the Fed pauses rate cuts in the first quarter of 2026 and inflationary pressure persists. Key takeaways: Fed pauses could pressure crypto, but “stealth QE” may cushion downside risks. Liquidity matters more than cuts, shaping the direction of BTC and ETH in Q1 2026. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 14:00 Dec 25, 2025
Quantum computing won’t break Bitcoin in 2026, but the growing practice of “harvest now, decrypt later” is pushing the crypto industry to prepare sooner rather than later. Quantum computing has long been viewed as a threat to cryptocurrencies, a technology that could one day crack the cryptography securing Bitcoin and other blockchains. In 2026, that fear is resurfacing as major tech firms accelerate quantum research and investment. While the technology is not yet ready for widespread use, the pace of investment and experimentation has gained traction. In February, Microsoft unveiled its Majorana 1 chip, which the company dubbed “the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture,” rekindling debate about how quickly quantum hardware might move from research into real-world systems. However, despite growing attention, most experts say the risk to crypto remains theoretical, not imminent. The real concern, they argue, is not a sudden cryptographic collapse next year, but what attacke... -
Cointelegraph.com - 13:49 Dec 25, 2025
A prison letter from Keonne Rodriguez has reignited debate over crypto privacy tools, developer liability and executive clemency. Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of Bitcoin privacy tool Samourai Wallet, spent Christmas Eve documenting his first day inside a US federal prison, offering a personal account as a crypto developer now serving a five-year sentence. In a letter shared by The Rage, he described the experience of surrendering himself to the prison camp. The account detailed the intake process, which included searches, medical clearances and the transition into prison housing. Rodriguez also described the emotional weight of leaving his family days before Christmas. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 13:00 Dec 25, 2025
The coming year will see perfect parallel processing, big increases in the gas limit and number of data blobs, and 10% of Ethereum’s network switching to ZK. The coming year is set to be crucial for Ethereum scaling. In 2026, the Glamsterdam fork will bring perfect parallel processing to the chain and ratchet up the gas limit to 200 million, up from 60 million today. A significant number of validators will switch over from reexecuting transactions to verifying zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs instead. This sets the Ethereum layer 1 on a path to scale up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) and potentially beyond, though that target won’t be hit in 2026. Meanwhile, data blobs will increase (potentially up to 72 or more per block), enabling the layer 2s (L2s) to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. L2s are becoming easier to use as well; ZKsync’s recent Atlas upgrade allows funds to stay on mainnet but trade in the fast execution environment of chains in ZKsync’s Elastic Network. The planned E... -
Cointelegraph.com - 11:57 Dec 25, 2025
Crypto derivatives trading surged to $86 trillion in 2025, averaging $265 billion per day, as Binance captured almost 30% of global volume, CoinGlass reported. Cryptocurrency derivatives trading volume surged to almost $85.7 trillion in 2025, averaging about $264.5 billion a day, according to a report by liquidation data tracker CoinGlass. Binance led the market with roughly $25.09 trillion in cumulative derivatives volume, or about 29.3% of global trading, meaning nearly $30 of every $100 traded ran through the exchange, CoinGlass said. OKX, Bybit and Bitget followed, each posting $8.2 trillion to $10.8 trillion in yearly volume. These four exchanges accounted for about 62.3% of total market share. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 11:46 Dec 25, 2025
Zhao urged the blockchain industry to adopt new security measures, including scam address blacklist, after an investor lost $50 million to an address poisoning scheme. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao proposed additional security measures to “eradicate” address poisoning, including wallet warnings and blacklists of suspicious accounts. "All wallets should simply check if a receiving address is a 'poison address,' and block the user. This is a blockchain query," Zhao wrote in a Wednesday blog post. Address poisoning is a form of phishing in which scammers trick victims into sending crypto to illicit wallets by first sending them small transactions. Unsuspecting users often copy and paste the attacker’s address from their wallet history. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 10:04 Dec 25, 2025
Market data showed shrinking participation across NFTs, with fewer buyers, sellers and transactions signaling fading speculative interest. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) extended their year-end slide in December, with total market valuations falling to their lowest level in 2025. According to data from CoinGecko, the overall valuation of the NFT sector fell to $2.5 billion in December. This represented a 72% decline from a peak of $9.2 billion in January. The decline came as NFT sales activity remained subdued following a weak November performance. In December, weekly NFT sales failed to surpass $70 million during the first three weeks of the month, falling below November’s pace. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 07:00 Dec 25, 2025
Bitcoin ETF performance remained negative on Christmas Eve as a short final US trading session produced another $175 million in net outflows. Bitcoin (BTC) institutional outflows continued into Christmas as the US gained the title of biggest BTC seller. Key points: Bitcoin ETF netflows stay negative for Christmas Eve as the institutional investment vehicles lose another $175 million. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 05:47 Dec 25, 2025
Crypto hackers took social engineering to a whole other level this year, and advances in artificial intelligence mean scams are about to get even harder to detect. The majority of crypto exploits in the coming year won’t be caused by a zero-day bug in your favorite protocol, say crypto security experts. It’s going to be caused by you. That’s because 2025 has shown that the majority of hacks don’t start with malicious code; they begin with a conversation, Nick Percoco, chief security officer of crypto exchange Kraken, told Cointelegraph. From January to early December 2025, data from Chainalysis shows that the crypto industry witnessed over $3.4 billion in theft, with the February compromise of Bybit accounting for nearly half of that total. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 05:18 Dec 25, 2025
Elon Musk added that “triple-digit” economic growth could even be possible by 2030; however, some Bitcoiners worry about a 2026 bear market. The Bitcoin community is hopeful for the cryptocurrency to again rally after billionaire Elon Musk predicted that the US economy could experience significant growth by December 2026 at the earliest. “Double-digit growth is coming within 12 to 18 months,” Musk said in an X post on Tuesday, “If applied intelligence is proxy for economic growth, which it should be, triple-digit is possible in ~5 years.” Bitcoiners often look to macroeconomic signals, from growth forecasts to central bank policy, as clues for how broader economic trends could impact Bitcoin’s (BTC) price. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:59 Dec 25, 2025
The number of crypto deals reportedly skyrocketed this year and hit a record total value of $8.6 billion, led by Coinbase’s record-breaking acquisition of Deribit. The crypto sector reportedly saw a record $8.6 billion worth of deals in 2025, as the crypto-friendly Trump administration brought confidence to crypto-focused mergers and acquisitions. The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that 267 deals were inked in the crypto industry up to Tuesday, an 18% increase from 2024. The $8.6 billion in deal value is a nearly 300% jump from last year, which saw $2.17 billion in deals, and the growth is expected to continue into 2026. Coinbase made the biggest acquisition of the year with its $2.9 billion purchase of the crypto options trading platform Deribit, the biggest-ever acquisition in crypto. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:16 Dec 25, 2025
Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick says “there’s a lot of room” in crypto for more than one blockchain as networks race to win market share of tokenized assets. Solana and Ethereum will both thrive in the tokenization race and neither blockchain will push the other out of the space, says Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick. “They are both Facebook,” Hadick told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday, when asked which blockchain will gain market dominance like social media platform Facebook or fall behind like the once-popular MySpace. Hadick said that with growing interest in tokenization and increasing economic activity onchain, there’s room for multiple blockchains to coexist. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:01 Dec 25, 2025
Blockchain tokenization is radically expanding the definition of money, enabling anyone to trade, save and spend in virtually any asset they like, says Kraken’s Mark Greenberg. Blockchain tokenization is transforming money beyond fiat currencies such as the US dollar by allowing users to save and instantly move virtually any asset across platforms, said a Kraken executive. “I think we’re past the point where money only means fiat or your local currency,” Kraken head of consumer Mark Greenberg told CNBC on Wednesday, adding that “anything can be money” with tokenization. Kraken’s xStocks is one of several tokenized stock offerings to hit the market this year as crypto exchanges look to expand beyond offering crypto trading. Coinbase and Gemini have also begun to offer tokenized stocks and have pushed betting via prediction markets as another offering to hook users. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:01 Dec 25, 2025
Some Polymarket users reported that their accounts had been breached and drained, which the prediction market blamed on a third-party provider. Prediction markets platform Polymarket has pinned a series of reported user account breaches on a third-party login tool. In a post to the company’s Discord on Tuesday, Polymarket said that it had flagged and resolved a security issue that impacted “a small number of users,” after some had reported suspicious activity on their accounts. “The issue was caused by a vulnerability introduced by a third-party authentication provider,” Polymarket said. “Polymarket takes security extremely seriously, and the issue has been remediated.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:04 Dec 24, 2025
Venture partners such as Pantera, Hash3 and Variant look back on a year of regulatory shifts and uneven markets, outlining crypto’s biggest winners and losers in 2025. After a year of regulatory change and uneven market performance, crypto investors are reassessing where value accrued in 2025. In a recent podcast, Pantera Capital partner Mason Nystrom, Hash3 co-founder Hootie Rashidifard and Variant partner Alana Levin identified incumbents, such as Robinhood, alongside stablecoin companies and prediction markets as this year’s top performers. According to Nystrom, incumbents benefited from acting once the regulatory environment became clearer. He pointed to Robinhood, which he said had taken a cautious stance toward crypto in recent years before moving more aggressively in 2025, adding that incumbents “have done an excellent job getting ahead of where the puck is skating” as clarity emerged. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:15 Dec 24, 2025
The listing follows Kyrgyzstan’s passage of crypto legislation, the launch of a new US dollar–pegged stablecoin backed by physical gold, and plans to build a national crypto reserve. Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov said a recently launched stablecoin pegged to the country’s fiat currency has been listed on cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In a Wednesday X post, Japarov said Kyrgyzstan's KGST stablecoin, pegged to the som, would contribute to the development of cross-border payments and deepen the country’s ties to the crypto ecosystem. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao wrote on social media that “many more” nation-backed stablecoins would be coming to the exchange. Zhao began advising the central Asian nation in April as part of an agreement to provide technical expertise and consulting services. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:00 Dec 24, 2025
Bitcoin options markets remain tilted toward bears despite US investors’ expectations of economic stimulus injections and semi-bullish outlook for 2026. Key takeaways: $30.3 billion in Bitcoin options will expire at year-end, with most call (buy) bets placed well above the $89,000 to $94,000 price range. Bearish strategies stay favored unless BTC breaks $94,000 as prices above $88,000 have erased over half of put (sell) option bets. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 19:17 Dec 24, 2025
As crypto, governments and Big Tech converge on digital identity, selective disclosure and zero-knowledge proofs are emerging as a privacy-first alternative to surveillance systems. For years, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has advocated for privacy in the crypto space. Buterin argues that onboarding users alone is not enough, cautioning that widespread use of “walled gardens” would undermine the core purpose of decentralized systems. “The goal is not to onboard people to Ethereum. The goal is to onboard people to openness and self-sovereignty,” he recently wrote on a X post. Buterin is one of crypto’s most prominent advocates for privacy as an industry's core value, emphasizing individual protection from state and corporate surveillance and arguing that decentralization helps disperse power away from a few dominant actors. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 18:45 Dec 24, 2025
ETH options data shows investors increasing downside protection as the year-end $6 billion options expry approaches, signaling caution. Ether (ETH) has been unable to sustain prices above $3,400 for the past 40 days, raising concerns among traders that bears may remain in control for longer. Key takeaways: $6B in Ether options will expire on Friday, with call (buy) bets outnumbering put (sell) instruments by 2.2 times. Read more
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