Bitcoin dropped below $86,000 on December 1, 2025, marking its steepest decline in recent weeks and erasing prior gains. The downturn triggered more than $400 million in liquidations across leveraged cryptocurrency futures positions. Global digital asset market capitalization contracted approximately 4% to around $3 trillion, according to market data.

Yearn Finance's yETH vault suffered a security breach that resulted in approximately $3 million worth of ETH being stolen. The attacker exploited a smart contract vulnerability to mint excessive tokens and drain the liquidity pool. Other Yearn vaults remained unaffected, with V2 and V3 operations continuing normally.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino rejected S&P Global's downgrade of USDT's dollar-peg rating to "weak" on November 26, calling the assessment outdated and incomplete. Ardoino said the agency overlooked Tether's $7 billion excess equity, $184.5 billion in reserves, and $500 million monthly Treasury income. S&P cited increasing allocations to high-risk assets including Bitcoin, precious metals, corporate bonds, and secured loans as the basis for lowering the rating from level 4 to level 5.

Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes stands by his $250,000 Bitcoin price forecast for year-end despite market skepticism. He identifies $80,600 as Bitcoin's recent bottom, with the asset currently trading at $90,864. Hayes cites anticipated Federal Reserve rate cuts and the conclusion of quantitative tightening as key catalysts for the projected 170% rally.

UK regulatory authorities will require cryptocurrency platforms to report all user transactions beginning in 2026. His Majesty's Revenue and Customs will gain automatic access to domestic and international crypto transaction data for the first time, ahead of the 2027 global information exchange under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework.

The United Arab Emirates enacted Federal Decree Law No. 6 of 2025, mandating central bank licensing for all cryptocurrency and decentralized finance platforms operating within or from the country. Unlicensed operations face penalties up to 1 billion dirhams ($272 million). The regulation covers virtual assets, DeFi protocols, stablecoins, tokenized assets, decentralized exchanges, wallets, and blockchain infrastructure.

MegaETH terminated its pre-deposit campaign after multiple technical malfunctions pushed contributions to $500 million, well beyond initial controls. An early execution of a Safe multisig transaction, combined with configuration errors and rate-limiting issues, allowed deposits to proceed uncontrolled. The team froze the raise at $500 million and abandoned plans to expand to $1 billion.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is establishing a CEO Innovation Council to develop cryptocurrency regulatory frameworks. Acting Chair Caroline D. Pham announced the initiative on November 25, 2025, with nominations due by December 8. The move aligns with pending legislation that could expand the agency's authority over digital assets.

Japan's Financial Services Agency has mandated that cryptocurrency exchanges maintain liability reserves to protect users from losses due to hacks and fraud. The regulatory amendment follows revisions to the Payment Services Law passed in June 2025. Exchanges must hold a portion of customer assets domestically and establish dedicated buffer funds to ensure rapid reimbursements in the event of security breaches or unauthorized outflows.