On December 18, Intuit said it partnered with Circle to enable USDC payments across TurboTax and QuickBooks. The collaboration aims to deliver faster, lower‑cost settlement for users, but a launch timeline and user‑flow specifics were not disclosed. The news was met with a positive market reaction.

On December 18, 2025, DPRK-linked hackers were reported to have taken more than $2.02 billion in crypto since January, lifting their lifetime haul above $6 billion. Total crypto theft in 2025 exceeded $3.4 billion across 158,000 incidents, with at least 80,000 unique victims. A March $1.4 billion Bybit breach underscored the shift to fewer, larger attacks.

On 18 December 2025, Aster detailed its fifth airdrop stage, called "Crystal", which introduces the project's most restrictive and lowest-emission distribution so far. The airdrop will start on 22 December and run for six weeks, using a split-claim model that burns unclaimed bonus tokens from early participants while rewarding those who accept a lockup period. This phase comes ahead of the planned Aster Chain testnet and mainnet launches, and is designed to reduce immediate selling pressure and favor long-term alignment.

SBI VC Trade, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, will open a new recruitment window for its "Rent Coin" crypto lending service at 20:00 (JST) on Dec. 18, 2025. The program supports 34 assets, including XRP, Bitcoin (BTC), and Dogecoin (DOGE), with fixed lock-up options such as one week or 28 days and usage fees paid in the same coin.

According to Delovoy Peterburg this week, St. Petersburg‑based Rozetki SPb filed a patent for an EV charging station with a built‑in crypto mining module. The company estimates mining could cover 7,200 rubles while 300 kWh of monthly charging costs about 2,600 rubles at 6.2 rubles per kWh, though experts cited by RBC note public network tariffs can reach 18–19 rubles per kWh.

On December 17, E‑Estate said it integrated AI to guide property selection and risk checks, and on December 18 it released a Tokenized Property Disclosure & Asset Report. The firm cites $18.4 million invested and 11 properties tokenized, and plans a January 31, 2026 Miami summit to outline its Vision 2034 roadmap and tokenization plans.

On 18 December 2025, SoFi Technologies launched SoFiUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank on Ethereum. The company says the token is fully backed 1:1 by cash held in its Federal Reserve account and targets settlement, payments, and remittances, with institutional integration first and wider consumer access planned later.

On December 18, 2025, Wu Blockchain highlighted steep post‑TGE losses across several projects launched via Kaito's community launchpad. Play AI, Hana Network, Novastro, and Bitdealer now trade far below their initial valuations, with FDVs near $2.1m, $10.5m, $1.05m, and $2.8m. CoinGecko also shows Kaito Capital Launchpad tokens at about $77.1m in combined market cap, down nearly 15% in 24 hours on roughly $38.3m volume.