Bitget opened deposits for its Theoriq (THQ) Launchpool on December 16, allowing users to stake BGB or THQ to earn 2,333,300 THQ in rewards through December 19 at 23:00 (UTC+8), BlockBeats reports. The Launchpool features two pools: a BGB pool offering 2,133,300 THQ with staking caps of 50,000 BGB for VIP users and 5,000 BGB for regular users, and a THQ pool distributing 200,000 THQ with an individual staking limit of 3,333,000 THQ. THQ is now trading in Bitget's Innovation Zone and AI Zone, with withdrawals scheduled to open at 00:00 on December 18 (UTC+8).

PIPPIN on Solana fell approximately 30% in two hours on Dec. 16, trading at $0.372 with a market capitalization of $365 million, GMGN data cited by BlockBeats show. Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps said insiders control 80% of the token's supply, valued at approximately $380 million. Bubblemaps identified 16 newly appeared wallets showing similar funding sources, receiving comparable amounts of SOL, having no prior transaction history, and executing large PIPPIN withdrawals from centralized exchanges, with activity clustered on Solana and consistent patterns across addresses; another linked set of 11 wallets holds approximately 9% of total supply, with fund flows and time windows highly consistent and suspected to be controlled by the same entity. BlockBeats reminded users that meme coins typically have no real use cases and exhibit significant volatility, advising investors to exercise caution.

Visa said on Dec. 16 it will allow U.S. institutions to settle transactions in USDC using the Solana blockchain, BlockBeats reports. Cross River Bank and Lead Bank are among the first banks to adopt the settlement option. Visa is also working with Circle as a design partner for the Arc blockchain and plans to support the Arc network once it launches.

Perp DEX aggregator vooi will open airdrop claims at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on Dec. 18, according to its Dec. 16 announcement. Eligible participants include trading points holders, V1 early users and Cookie campaign winners, with the snapshot taken at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on Dec. 8 and a 30-day claiming window. Vooi disclosed the total token supply is 1 billion, allocated as follows: 10.53% to airdrops and community sale, 27.82% to community growth and marketing including a second-season airdrop, 17% to community contributors, 13.65% to the private round and strategic investors, and 31% to the project foundation.

U.S. spot XRP ETFs have exceeded $1 billion in cumulative net inflows since launching in November, with $10.89 million in net additions on Monday, BlockBeats reports. Products from Canary, Grayscale and Franklin Templeton all posted net inflows on the day. Spot Solana ETFs drew $35.20 million in net inflows Monday, lifting cumulative net inflows to $711 million, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $358 million in net outflows—the largest single-day outflow in nearly a month—and spot Ethereum ETFs registered $225 million in net outflows. Vincent Liu, Chief Investment Officer at Kronos Research, said the $1 billion milestone for XRP spot ETFs reflects rising institutional interest in assets with regulatory clarity beyond BTC and ETH.

Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital) founder Yi Lihua said on Dec. 16 that ETH fundamentals remain strong, with market liquidity down since the Oct. 11 plunge and derivatives now dominating over spot, BlockBeats reports. He said spot investors may not buy the lowest price but can still find an appropriate range. He views ETH as a core asset in an on-chain finance era, with WLFI among core allocations, and said their research-based logic remains unchanged, adding that current volatility is normal ahead of the "four-year cycle resonance" and Christmas.

Centralized exchanges posted a net outflow of 36,000 ETH in the 24 hours through December 16, Coinglass data show via BlockBeats. Binance led outflows with 40,000 ETH, followed by Bybit at 30,700 ETH and Bitfinex at 4,586.21 ETH. OKX recorded an inflow of 22,300 ETH, topping inflows.

Prediction market predict.fun announced on Dec. 16 that its Predict platform officially launched, with airdrop snapshots already taken for addresses that traded sizable meme tokens on BNB Chain, participated in perpetuals on Aster DEX, and engaged with markets including Polymarket, Limitless, Myriad Markets, and Opinion Labs, as well as existing Predict (Blast) users, BlockBeats reports. The airdrop checking page opened the same day. Binance founder CZ welcomed the new predict.fun market on BNB Chain via social media on Dec. 4, noting that user funds earn yield while locked in predictions and that the platform's founder previously worked at Binance, with the project incubated and funded by YZi Labs.

ZEC briefly fell 5.5% below $380 on Dec. 16, pushing Hyperliquid's largest ZEC short position into profit with roughly $16.5M in exposure at a $389 average entry and $250,000 (8%) in unrealized gains, HyperInsight data show. On-chain data show three whale addresses with liquidation prices near $350 responded differently: address 0x58e fully closed its position, address 0x96e exited with about $1M in realized losses, while address 0x535 remains unchanged and faces liquidation near $348. The same whale holding the platform's largest ZEC short added to ETH and MON short positions and now holds the largest short exposure in all three assets, with its ETH short alone sized at roughly $92.45M at a $3,377 entry and showing $14.33M (232%) in unrealized profit, bringing total short exposure to about $118M. The address first opened its ZEC short on Oct. 10 at roughly $184 and averaged up over time, with unrealized losses reaching $21M on Oct. 17.