Meta is reportedly planning to lay off about 10% of employees at its Reality Labs division this week as it reallocates resources from metaverse projects to artificial intelligence and wearables. The unit, which has around 15,000 staff working on VR hardware and metaverse platforms like Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms, has accumulated more than $70 billion in losses since its launch in August 2020.

Early-2026 instability in Venezuela and Iran has underscored the dual use of USDT: a hedge for residents against inflation and banking risk, and a channel allegedly used by sanctioned actors. Dec. 5 data indicates Tether blacklisted about $3.3 billion from 2023 to late 2025, while since 2023 a network linked to Iran's IRGC moved over $1 billion in stablecoins.

Digital asset infrastructure provider Fireblocks has acquired crypto accounting and tax compliance platform TRES for $130 million to enhance its institutional product suite. The deal is aimed at helping clients manage audit-ready, tax-compliant records as stablecoin settlements reach hundreds of billions of dollars each month and more enterprises move treasury flows on-chain. TRES will continue operating as a standalone product while its infrastructure is integrated into Fireblocks' stack.

On Monday, Goldman Sachs upgraded Coinbase's COIN to buy and raised its 12‑month price target to $303, prompting an 8% gain and a $254.92 close. Analyst James Yaro cited selective optimism toward U.S. brokers and crypto infrastructure, highlighting tokenization and prediction markets, while Coinbase pursues its "everything exchange" strategy.

Net spending across six Visa-linked crypto cards rose from $14.6 million in January 2025 to $91.3 million by December, a 525% jump. EtherFi's card led with $55.4 million, followed by Cypher at $20.5 million. The lineup also includes GnosisPay, Avici Money, Exa App, and Moonwell.

In a Saturday X post, Vitalik Buterin said Ethereum can overcome the blockchain trilemma through PeerDAS and ZK-EVMs. He cited PeerDAS for 2025 and initial ZK-EVM usage in 2026, noting data availability sampling is on mainnet and ZK-EVMs are performance-ready but still need safety work.

Prediction market traders on Polymarket currently assign only a 21% chance that Bitcoin will hit $150,000 before 2027, even as several analysts forecast much higher levels in 2026. The market instead prices an 80% probability of BTC touching $100,000 and 45% odds of it reaching $120,000, below its prior all-time high. This cautious stance follows Bitcoin ending 2025 in negative territory and comes amid expectations of a new Federal Reserve chair, lower interest rates and upcoming U.S. crypto legislation.

In 2025, crypto saw notable reversals: presidential pardons for Ross Ulbricht and Binance's CZ, a privacy-coin resurgence, and Ripple's lawsuit conclusion. Monero rose above $400 and Zcash surged 817% according to CoinGecko, while Ripple finalized a $50 million settlement and XRP set a new all‑time high. These shifts frame expectations for 2026 around adoption and regulation.

On Sunday, silver set a new high near $84 before surging 6% to $83.75 and then sliding 10% to $75.15 within 70 minutes. Gold also climbed to around $4,530 as rate-cut bets and industrial demand drew interest to precious metals. Bitcoin stayed muted in December at $90,160, down 0.5% over 30 days.