IOSG founding partner Jocy wrote on social media on Dec. 21 that 2025 will mark the darkest year for crypto markets yet also signal the dawn of the institutional era, citing data that show institutions now hold 24% of BTC while retail participation fell 66%, even as Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $126,080 before closing the year down 5.4%. Jocy argued current conditions reflect an institutional accumulation phase rather than a bull-market top, noting that ETFs attracted $25 billion in inflows despite BTC's 5% annual decline. He outlined a short-term trading range of $87,000–$95,000 over the next three to six months, a mid-term target of $120,000–$150,000 by the first half of 2026 driven by policy tailwinds and institutional demand, and expected heightened volatility in the second half of 2026 tied to U.S. midterm elections and policy continuity. Jocy added that key 2026 catalysts include progress on a market structure bill, potential expansion of strategic Bitcoin reserves, and post-election policy follow-through, stating that as market structure shifts fundamentally, old valuation frameworks no longer apply and new pricing dynamics are taking hold.

The Ethereum Community Foundation said on Dec. 21 that wallet and explorer interfaces should display full address strings instead of truncating them with ellipses, warning that hiding middle sections introduces unnecessary security risks, BlockBeats reports. The foundation stated that some UI options currently used by wallets and block explorers present solvable security issues. BlockBeats previously reported a phishing case in which an attacker stole 50,000,000 USDT by creating a look-alike address matching the first and last three characters of the victim's address, first sending 0.005 USDT to establish transaction history, after which the victim allegedly copied the similar address from recent transactions and sent 50,000,000 USDT to the phishing address. The attacker swapped the stolen USDT for DAI to avoid freezing, then purchased 16,624 ETH and moved the funds through Tornado.

Trader "Maji" closed all Bitcoin and HYPE long positions and partially exited ETH longs on Dec. 21, HyperInsight data cited by BlockBeats show. The trader maintains a 25x leveraged long position of 5,250 ETH with an unrealized profit of $280,000 and a liquidation price near $2,787.

Binance will launch USDT-margined perpetual contracts for ZKPUSDT, GUAUSDT and IRUSDT on Dec. 21, 2025, the exchange announced. ZKPUSDT goes live at 18:00 UTC+8 with up to 40x leverage, followed by GUAUSDT at 18:15 UTC+8 and IRUSDT at 18:30 UTC+8, both offering up to 20x leverage.

Trader Huang Li'cheng, known as "Machi Big Brother", increased his ETH and HYPE long positions over the past 6 hours on December 21, HyperInsight data cited by BlockBeats show. His ETH long position now totals $16.6M with an entry price of $2,944.04 and liquidation at $2,813.72. His BTC long stands at $1.5M with entry at $88,283.5 and liquidation at $32,842.0, while his HYPE long totals $630,000 with an entry price of $24.1139.

UNI recorded $11.32M in net spot inflows over 24 hours as of Dec. 21, while WET saw $11.30M in net outflows, Coinglass data show. BTC posted $73M in net spot outflows, followed by NIGHT at $67M, ETH at $46M, WET at $11.30M and SOPH at $6.75M. XRP registered $12.30M in net spot inflows, TRX $11.50M, UNI $11.32M, USDE $4.88M and DOGE $2.40M over the same period.

A trader dubbed "BTC OG Insider Whale" held long positions worth more than $730 million as of Dec. 21, with combined unrealized losses exceeding $41 million across ETH, BTC and SOL positions, HyperInsight data show. The account's ETH 5x leveraged long is valued at $605 million with an entry price of $3,147.39 and an unrealized loss of $35.25 million, while its BTC 5x leveraged long is worth $88 million at an entry of $91,506.7 with a $3.5 million paper loss. The SOL 5x leveraged long position stands at $38 million, opened at $135.2032, showing an unrealized loss of $3.05 million.

Markets are monitoring whether Donald Trump will announce a Federal Reserve chair nominee over Christmas, with Kevin Hassett at 54%, Kevin Warsh at 21%, and Christopher Waller at 14%, BlockBeats reports. On Tuesday, the U.S. will release Q3 real GDP annualized quarter-on-quarter initial, Q3 real personal consumption expenditure quarterly initial, and Q3 core PCE price index annualized quarterly initial. Wednesday brings Bank of Canada monetary policy minutes and U.S. initial jobless claims to Dec. 20; Thursday features a speech by BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda and Japan November unemployment rate, with HKEX operating half-day Wednesday, NYSE closing early at 02:00 Beijing Time on Dec. 25, and U.S. stocks closed Thursday for Christmas.