According to Foresight News, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced the upcoming retirement of Cicely LaMothe, the Deputy Director of the Division of Corporation Finance. LaMothe has been instrumental in issuing over 25 new and revised compliance and disclosure interpretations, covering topics such as rebate provisions, de-SPAC transactions, and Rule 10b5-1. She also released Staff Legal Bulletin 14M, providing insights on the applicability of Rule 14a-8, and issued seven staff statements on rapidly evolving crypto-related issues, including liquid staking, stablecoins, mining activities, meme coins, and crypto ETPs. LaMothe joined the Division of Corporation Finance in 2002 and has held several senior leadership roles, including Director of the Disclosure Review Program, Deputy Director of the Office of Assessment and Continuous Improvement, and Deputy Director of Disclosure Operations. In 2022, she was appointed as the Deputy Director of Disclosure Operations.

According to PANews, the South Korean Supreme Court has upheld a four-year prison sentence for a cryptocurrency exchange employee involved in an espionage case. The employee was found guilty of assisting North Korean hackers in recruiting a South Korean army captain to exchange military secrets for Bitcoin. The employee received $487,000 in Bitcoin from the hackers and paid the captain $33,500 in Bitcoin as compensation. The court ruled that the employee violated the National Security Act, posing a threat to national security. The involved army captain had previously been sentenced to ten years in prison and fined for breaching the Military Secrets Protection Act. Investigations revealed that North Korean hackers instructed the employee to provide the captain with a "watch-shaped hidden camera" and a USB hacking device intended for use on military laptops to remotely access the Korea-U.S. Joint Command Control System, although the attempt was unsuccessful.

Haseeb, Managing Partner of Dragonfly, published his predictions for 2026 on X, with some key points as follows: 1. BTC will exceed $150,000 by the end of the year, but its market dominance will decline; 2. A major tech company (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) will launch or acquire a crypto wallet in 2026; 3. Three major Perp DEXs will take 90% of the market share in this sector, while other projects can only compete for 10%; 4. Equity investment will grow rapidly, accounting for more than 20% of total DeFi investment by the end of the year; 5. The supply of stablecoins will increase by about 60% in 2026, with USD stablecoins maintaining a share of over 99%, and USDT's dominance slightly declining to about 55%; 6. The Clarity Act will officially become law, but it will require significant negotiation. 7. The prediction market is developing rapidly, but 90% of prediction market products will be completely ignored and gradually disappear by the end of the year; 8. The main application scenarios of artificial intelligence in the field of encryption are still limited to software engineering and security, while other aspects are still in the prototype stage.

According to data from msx.com, at the close of trading on the US stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.51%, the S&P 500 fell 0.35%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5%. The crypto sector generally declined, with DFDV falling 7.6%, ABTC falling 4.23%, and HODL falling 3.36%. msx.com is a decentralized RWA trading platform that has listed hundreds of RWA tokens, covering US stock and ETF tokens such as AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, NFLX, and NVDA.

According to BlockBeats, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch has forecasted that Bitcoin may be entering the early stages of a 'crypto winter,' reflecting its historical four-year cycle pattern. He suggests that Bitcoin's price could remain under pressure for several months and might even test Strategy Company's average cost price of around $75,000. Unlike previous downturns, this adjustment may not be characterized by large-scale liquidations or systemic collapses. Knoblauch notes that the current market landscape is being shaped by institutional participants rather than retail traders. He highlights a growing gap between token price performance and 'underlying real progress,' particularly in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), asset tokenization, and crypto infrastructure.

Maxine Waters pressures SEC's Paul Atkins after crypto case terminations, highlighting administrative oversight concerns. source: https://coincu.com/news/waters-sec-crypto-case-explanation/

Flow dropped its rollback plan after community criticism. source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/flow-scraps-rollback-plan/

In its year-end report, investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald pointed out that Bitcoin may be entering a prolonged downtrend, potentially facing a "crypto winter" in 2026. Analyst Brett Knoblauch stated that with approximately 85 days remaining until Bitcoin's cyclical high, prices may remain under pressure in the coming months, even testing the average break-even point of around $75,000 for Strategy positions. However, Cantor believes this correction differs from previous bear markets triggered by large-scale liquidations or systemic risks. The dominant force in the market is shifting from retail to institutional investors, with token price performance showing a clear divergence from underlying developments. Decentralized finance, asset tokenization, and crypto infrastructure continue to advance. The report shows that the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) has grown to approximately $18.5 billion this year, tripling since the beginning of the year, covering credit products, US Treasury bonds, and stocks. Cantor predicts that the on-chain RWA market will exceed $50 billion in 2026, with the growth rate likely to accelerate as more financial institutions attempt on-chain settlement. In terms of trading structure, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are continuously eroding the market share of centralized platforms. Although Cantor predicts that overall trading volume may decline in 2026 as cryptocurrency prices fall, DEXs, represented by perpetual contracts, are still expected to continue to grow, driven by improvements in infrastructure and user experience. On the regulatory front, the recently passed Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act (CLARITY) in the United States is considered a significant turning point. This act clarifies the definition of digital assets between securities and commodities and, after meeting decentralized conditions, transfers primary regulatory authority over the spot crypto market to the CFTC. This framework is expected to reduce policy uncertainty and provide a compliant path for banks and asset management institutions to participate more deeply in the crypto market. Furthermore, the report also mentions the rapid expansion of on-chain prediction markets, especially in the sports betting sector, where related trading volume has exceeded $5.9 billion, reaching more than 50% of DraftKings' third-quarter trading volume. Institutions such as Robinhood, Coinbase, and Gemini have entered this field, promoting a more transparent, order book-based model. Cantor also cautioned that risks remain: Bitcoin's price is only slightly above the cost range of some crypto asset treasury companies, and a break below key support levels could trigger market sentiment volatility; meanwhile, the pace of accumulation by digital asset trusts has slowed as prices and premiums have contracted. Overall, Cantor believes that a new price surge is unlikely in 2026, but as the market cools, a more robust infrastructure and deeper institutionalization are gradually taking shape. (CoinDesk)

According to ChainCatcher, French Hill, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, emphasized the necessity of a comprehensive market structure alongside the proposed Genius Act, which focuses on dollar-backed stablecoins. Hill likened passing the stablecoin bill without a market structure act, such as the Clarity Act, to having a mobile phone without network and signal towers. Hill highlighted the industry's need for clear 'signal towers'—established rules for banks, brokers, DeFi protocol developers, and traders—to function effectively. He pointed out that stablecoins require both issuance regulations and distribution channels, and that a lack of market structure could lead to fragmented liquidity and hinder widespread adoption.

Prediction market Kalshi predicts a 75% probability that Democrats will win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. Against this backdrop, Maxine Waters, the senior Democratic member of the House Financial Services Committee, has issued sharper criticisms of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins's policies on cryptocurrency regulation. In a letter to the committee's Republican chairman, French Hill, Waters stated that the SEC has terminated or suspended several important enforcement cases targeting the crypto industry, involving companies such as Coinbase, Binance, and Justin Sun. She pointed out that the committee has not adequately examined the SEC's reasons for abandoning these cases, nor how it will prevent fraud and manipulation in markets targeting large retail investors. Waters also claimed that some of the companies involved announced the termination of their cases before the SEC's formal vote and questioned the "unusually active" role played by Atkins' team in the settlement process. She believes that the SEC's recent policy shift, primarily through staff statements rather than informal rules, may circumvent the Administrative Procedure Act, weakening public comment and congressional oversight, and therefore demands that Atkins appear at a hearing to explain. The report points out that since the Donald Trump administration took office and completed its leadership change, the SEC has dropped several lawsuits targeting the crypto industry. Atkins has also repeatedly stated publicly that supporting the development of the US crypto industry is a regulatory priority, a stance that is becoming a focus of continued scrutiny and questioning from the Democratic Party. (CoinDesk)

Jinse Finance launches its daily cryptocurrency and blockchain news bulletin, "Jinse at 8 AM," issue 2924, providing you with the latest and fastest news on the digital currency and blockchain industry.

If you had to summarize the crypto market in 2025 in one sentence, it would be: "If things continue like this, nobody will be trading crypto anymore."

Jinse Finance launches the "Jinse Web3.0 Daily," providing you with the latest and fastest news on MEME, DeFi, DAO, NFT, and the metaverse industry.

The same encrypted world is diverging into different cities, different residents, and different lifestyles.

When regulators stop trying to eliminate encryption and instead choose to absorb it, it means an era has come to an end.

The current state of stablecoin development, its operating mechanisms, potential returns and risks, and the evolving international regulatory framework.

JPMorgan Chase has frozen accounts used by at least two rapidly growing stablecoin startups in recent months, highlighting the risks that cryptocurrency trading poses to banks, which must understand the customers they do business with and the sources of their funds.

Governance, Crypto Markets, Underlying Algorithms, and Social Robustness: Christmas Reflections on the Evolution of Principles and Their Game Theory Logic. (Golden Finance) Technology is merely a lever; it can amplify both benefits and destruction.

The Bitcoin developer community has recently been engaged in a heated discussion about the Cat BIP proposal. The core of the discussion is not about NFTs or junk transactions, but rather about what kind of judgments the consensus layer should be allowed to make.

Japan is moving forward with a major overhaul of its crypto taxation framework, proposing a flat 20% tax on profits from digital assets under its 2026 tax reform plan. While this marks a significant reduction from the current 55% rate, the new policy currently applies only to a limited set of “specified” crypto assets, leaving many to wonder what that means.