The International Monetary Fund warned on Thursday that stablecoins could accelerate currency substitution in nations with fragile monetary systems, undermining central banks' control over capital flows. The IMF noted that the growth of dollar-backed stablecoins and their ease of cross-border use may drive individuals and businesses in economically unstable regions to favor U.S. dollar stablecoins over local currencies.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, saw his odds of becoming Federal Reserve chair reach 80% in prediction markets on Dec. 5 after Trump identified him as a potential candidate, BlockBeats reports. Hassett holds Coinbase stock and has participated in cryptocurrency policy discussions. BiyaPay analysts said lower interest rates and regulatory shifts could benefit Bitcoin, Ethereum, and crypto-related equities, while cautioning about amplified volatility.

Machi Big Brother increased his 25x leveraged Ethereum long position to $37.36 million on the afternoon of Dec. 5, buying during the price decline, HyperInsight data show. The position's unrealized profit narrowed to $863,700 as Ethereum experienced downward price movement throughout the afternoon session.

Cloudflare announced on Dec. 5 it completed repairs to a service disruption and is monitoring results, BlockBeats reports. The outage affected access to multiple cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase and Kraken, as well as user interfaces of numerous DeFi protocols. The company confirmed service restoration following the afternoon incident that impacted crypto applications across centralized and decentralized platforms.

A whale address staked 24,000 ETH valued at $75.94 million on Dec. 5 after holding the tokens for five months, Onchain Lens data show. The address had acquired the ETH for 60.7 million USDC, resulting in an unrealized profit of $15.2 million at current prices. The staking transaction marks the whale's first on-chain movement of the holdings since the initial purchase.

Ethereum's validator participation rate fell to 74.7% at Epoch 411,448 following the Fusaka network upgrade, Beaconcha.in data show. Prysm announced Thursday its v7.0.0 consensus client unnecessarily generated old states when processing outdated attestations, causing node failures, and recommended users temporarily launch with the "--disable-last-epoch-targets" flag. The 25% drop left the network less than 9 percentage points above the 66.6% supermajority threshold required to maintain finality. As of Epoch 411,712, voting participation has recovered to nearly 99%, with sync participation at 97%, while MigaLabs data show Lighthouse now accounts for 52.55% of consensus nodes and Prysm 18%.

Bitcoin has entered a structural correction phase with a maximum drawdown of 32% from its all-time high, CryptoQuant analyst @AxelAdlerJr said on Dec. 5. The correction places the market in a middle zone between deep pullback and bottom formation, similar to a year-long phase seen in the previous cycle. Signal combinations show patterns historically observed during bear markets, and without improvement in macroeconomic and on-chain indicators, the risk of further decline remains elevated, requiring time for recovery and a shift in the network's profit-loss structure.

SpaceX transferred 1,083 BTC valued at $99.81 million on Dec. 5, marking its second transfer in seven days, on-chain analyst Ai Yi reports. The transfer allocated 800 BTC ($73.71 million) to address bc1qy…xv5g9, which has not yet moved the funds. Tokens transferred to another address a week prior also remain unmoved.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw more than $2.7 billion in outflows over the five weeks ending Nov. 28, marking its longest weekly redemption streak since launching in January 2024, Bloomberg data show. The ETF recorded an additional $113 million in outflows through Thursday, extending the run to a potential sixth week. IBIT manages over $71 billion in assets. Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode said the trend marks a reversal from sustained inflows that previously supported price levels.