According to MLM monitoring, as reported by Odaily Planet Daily, Lighter withdrew a total of 32.05 million USDC from its platform and transferred it to its vault address, with approximately $100,000 remaining in Lighter's fee wallet. Of this $32.05 million, approximately $8.6 million has been deposited back into Lighter since October 16th, with approximately $7.5 million going into LLP (the fees generated are returned to holders and reflected in LLP earnings). This is unusual, as it has never been publicly disclosed or mentioned in any documents before, representing approximately 25% of total revenue used for this purpose. The remaining approximately $21.9 million USDC was transferred to a Coinbase escrow address. Lighter also disclosed that its vault address is hardcoded into account 0 in the contract, responsible for receiving platform fees, and the address can be changed through the contract mechanism.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, the ether.fi Foundation spent 700,000 USDT last week to buy 987,709.78 ETHFI, bringing the total buyback amount to $13,182,149 to date.
Odaily Planet Daily reports that Kim Byung-ki, the floor leader of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, is facing pressure to resign. Multiple South Korean media outlets have revealed that while the National Assembly was pushing for criticism of Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, his son was interning at competitor Bithumb, raising concerns about a potential conflict of interest. According to a former aide to Kim Byung-ki, at his request, his team launched a concentrated attack at the National Assembly level on Upbit's operator, Dunamu, accusing it of monopolistic practices in the domestic cryptocurrency exchange market. This instruction reportedly occurred in February of this year, when Kim Byung-ki was still a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, which has direct oversight authority over financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.
NewsTapa, an investigative media outlet, previously reported that Kim Byung-ki's son was placed in an internship at Bithumb's data analytics team shortly after a private meeting between Kim Byung-ki and Bithumb executives in November 2024. In the following weeks, Kim Byung-ki repeatedly criticized a "trading platform with a market monopoly" at committee meetings, without naming it, but this was widely interpreted as referring to Upbit. However, Kim Byung-ki himself has denied the conflict of interest allegations, emphasizing that his remarks stemmed from his principled opposition to market monopolies, and that his son's employment was "completely unrelated" to his legislative and regulatory activities. (DL News)
According to Odaily Planet Daily, JOJO briefly broke through 0.83 USDT and is currently trading at 0.8276 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 2615.1%.
Gold prices fell sharply on Monday after hitting a record high over the weekend, with international spot gold prices briefly dropping to around $4,300 per ounce. In the context of thin liquidity ahead of the year-end holidays, gold is facing strong profit-taking, amplifying the correction after its sharp rise in recent months. Furthermore, a moderate rebound in the US dollar has also added pressure on gold. However, some analysts believe that despite the short-term pullback in gold prices, the overall macroeconomic background still supports its upward trend. The market continues to expect the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy next year. In addition, political developments in the United States, particularly concerns about central bank independence, maintain an uncertain environment that favors safe-haven assets. (Golden Ten)
According to a report by Odaily, Cantor Fitzgerald stated that Bitcoin may be entering a prolonged downturn, but this could be a prelude to a more stable, institutionally driven phase for the crypto industry. Analyst Brett Knoblauch noted in his year-end report that the market may be in the early stages of a crypto winter, echoing Bitcoin's historical four-year cycles. Currently, Bitcoin is about 85 days from its peak, and the price may remain under pressure for several months, potentially even testing MicroStrategy's (MSTR) average break-even price of around $75,000.
Brett Knoblauch stated that unlike previous downturns, this adjustment may not be defined by large-scale liquidations or structural failures. Institutional participants, rather than retail investors, are shaping the market profile, and there is a gap between token price performance and the actual progress of decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenized assets, and crypto infrastructure. The report shows that the tokenized value of on-chain real-world assets (RWA), such as credit products, US Treasuries, and stocks, has tripled this year, reaching $18.5 billion. Cantor Fitzgerald predicts that this amount could exceed $50 billion by 2026.
Furthermore, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) within DApps are gaining market share from centralized platforms due to improvements in infrastructure and user experience. Cantor Fitzgerald predicts that while trading volume may decline in 2026 as Bitcoin prices fall, DEX trading, especially perpetual contracts, will continue to grow. The passage of the U.S. Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act (CLARITY) is considered a turning point, as the law clarifies the definition of digital assets as securities or commodities.
Other trends highlighted by Cantor Fitzgerald include the rise of on-chain prediction markets, particularly in sports betting, where trading volume has surged to over $5.9 billion. Companies like Robinhood (HOOD), Coinbase (COIN), and Gemini (GEMI) have entered the space. Despite the risks and the fact that Bitcoin's price is only about 17% higher than MicroStrategy's average cost, Cantor Fitzgerald believes that despite the cooling price, more durable infrastructure and deeper institutional adoption are solidifying. (CoinDesk)
Odaily Planet Daily reports that Sky Protocol released data on its X platform: last week it used 1.9 million USDS to repurchase 29.3 million SKY tokens. Since the repurchase program started, the cumulative repurchase amount has exceeded 96 million USDS.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, Securitize stated on the X platform that BlackRock's BUIDL has become the first tokenized government bond project to have paid out a total of $100 million in dividends.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, the US Bitcoin ETF saw a net outflow of 3,495 BTC today, compared to a net outflow of 8,778 BTC over the past 7 days; the Ethereum ETF saw a net outflow of 17,969 ETH, compared to a net outflow of 29,287 ETH over the past 7 days; and the SOL ETF saw a net inflow of 6,401 SOL, compared to a net inflow of 117,433 SOL over the past 7 days.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, Ethereum treasury company BitMine announced on the X platform that as of December 28th, it had staked 408,627 ETH, worth approximately $1.2 billion at a price of $2,948. BitMine also disclosed that it is currently developing MAVAN, a US-based Ethereum validator network described as a custom infrastructure designed specifically for native Ethereum staking, with a planned full launch in the first quarter of 2026.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, spot silver prices plummeted 10.00% intraday, currently trading at $71.20 per ounce. (Golden Ten)
Odaily Planet Daily reports that silver has undoubtedly become the focus of attention following its strong performance last week. Rumors of short squeezes and margin calls triggered the final surge on Friday, but this market sentiment is now dissipating. Silver prices fell more than $7 during the day, marking the largest single-day nominal drop on record. Precious metals are currently in a sentiment-driven market, with gold also suffering from profit-taking today, falling by about 4% intraday. Analysts point out that we are currently in a challenging trading environment. Overall market liquidity is generally low, which often leads to abnormally amplified price fluctuations. Hedge funds are unwilling to intervene against the trend to hedge against excessive market movements, and market makers are also limiting their participation. (Golden Ten)
Odaily Planet Daily reports that gold prices have fallen further, with spot gold currently below $4330 per ounce, a drop of $200, or 4.49%, on the day. (Jinshi)
According to Odaily Planet Daily, based on monitoring by on-chain analyst Ai Yi, 5 minutes ago, Trend Research, a subsidiary of Yi Lihua, withdrew another 13,462 ETH (US$39.31 million) from Binance. The on-chain holdings of ETH were updated to 626,071, with a value exceeding US$1.83 billion. The average cost was ~$3,105.5, resulting in a floating loss of US$110 million.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a whale, "0x94d3," opened short positions in BTC, ETH, and SOL in the past 5 hours, with current positions of 1,360 BTC (US$119 million), 36,281 ETH (US$106 million), and 348,215 SOL (US$43 million).
Odaily Planet Daily reports that spot gold prices accelerated their decline, falling below $4,350 per ounce, a drop of over $180 on the day, representing a 4% decline. (Jinshi)
