As the week closes, XRP trades near $2.018 while drawing a vague short-term price comment from YoungHoon Kim, who is known as the world's highest IQ holder. Cardano hovers around $0.37 with a TD Sequential buy signal pointing to potential gains toward $0.46 and $0.54, and its ecosystem sees intense activity around the new NIGHT token. Over the same period, Shiba Inu's market cap slides from $4.97 billion to $4.86 billion, erasing roughly $110 million as volume and demand cool.

On Dec. 9, 2025, Twenty One Capital began trading on the NYSE under ticker XXI and fell 19.97% by the close. The stock opened at $10.74 versus the SPAC's prior $14.27 close, finishing at $11.96 and trading close to the value of its Bitcoin holdings. The first-day action signaled limited appetite for premiums over BTC net assets.

On 14 December 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released new investor guidance that assumes people already own crypto and need to manage post-trade risks. The document emphasizes practical issues around custody, security trade-offs, and how third-party custodians handle client assets. This shift in tone suggests regulators are preparing for a financial system where blockchain-based assets coexist with traditional markets, without explicitly endorsing or discouraging crypto investment.

Heading into 2026, data from Alphactral shows Global M2 money supply has reached a new all-time high near $130 trillion, with China contributing about 37% at $47.7 trillion. While major economies cut rates and the U.S. pursues a $40 billion Treasury plan to ease funding conditions, the total crypto market cap has fallen 21% in Q4 2025, leaving risk assets below their late-Q3 highs and investors wary despite improving liquidity.

On December 14, 2025, a report said President Donald Trump narrowed candidates for the next Federal Reserve chair to Kevin Warsh and Kevin Hassett. According to the report, betting venues and crypto‑linked prediction markets lifted Warsh’s implied odds from roughly 12% to above 38%, as traders anticipate a chair inclined toward faster rate cuts.

On December 12, 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved national trust bank charters for Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos, and Circle. The move advances regulatory onboarding for crypto custody and payments, potentially opening more direct access to U.S. banking rails once conditions are met. No executive statements were posted at that time.

On December 14, Pakistan's Ministry of Finance signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with Binance to assess tokenizing up to $2 billion in sovereign bonds, treasury bills and commodity reserves. The initiative, which follows initial approval from the Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, aims to study blockchain’s role in financial instruments and its potential impact on liquidity, investor access and the country's wider digital reform agenda.

On December 11, 2025, the SEC confirmed the release of an investor bulletin on crypto wallets and custody that outlines practices and risks for different storage methods. The bulletin compares hot and cold wallets, highlights issues like hacking and irreversible loss of access, and advises investors to review third‑party custodian policies. Around the same time, the DTCC received a no‑action letter from the SEC allowing a new service to tokenize stocks, ETFs, and U.S. government securities.