On December 18, 2025, PeckShield reported that a whale's multisig wallet was emptied of about $27.3M following a private key compromise. The drainer pushed roughly $12.6M (4,100 ETH) through Tornado Cash, retained about $2M in liquid assets, and controls a wallet that holds a leveraged Aave position with around $25M in ETH against roughly $12.3M in DAI debt.

Bitcoin drifted toward $86,000 on Thursday as Asian markets opened weaker following Wednesday's tech-led slide on Wall Street. A snapshot showed BTC at $86,575 (-1.1%), Ether at $2,832 (-4.2%), and XRP at $1.86 (-3.7%), with total crypto market value at $3 trillion (-1.5%).

On December 17, 2025, HashKey Holdings launched trading on HKEX, initially rising about 6% before slipping under the HK$6.68 IPO price. The offering raised roughly $206M and drew heavy demand, with institutional subscriptions about 5.5x and retail nearly 394x, while cornerstone investors included Fidelity and UBS.

The Bank of Canada has outlined that any future Canadian stablecoins must maintain a one-to-one peg with central bank money and be fully backed by high-quality liquid assets to ensure convertibility at par. Governor Tiff Macklem also called for clear, fee-free redemption terms and tied stablecoin oversight to broader payments and open banking modernization expected to advance by 2026.

Bitcoin climbed about 2% in Asian trading on Wednesday to around $87,000, while regional equities posted modest gains following a mixed US jobs report. Analysts highlighted record-low Bitcoin exchange reserves and upcoming US CPI data as key drivers for expectations on 2026 Federal Reserve rate cuts and a potential move toward $90,000.

According to on-chain data from Ember, a large AI Agent-focused wallet has exited a basket of agent tokens bought for $31.12M, receiving just $2.57M and realizing a loss of about $28.54M. Individual positions in AIXBT, FAI, NFTXBT, POLY, BOTTO and MAICRO dropped between 84% and 99% as the whale's sell orders hit thin order books.

Grayscale's 2026 outlook anticipates Bitcoin setting a new all-time high in the first half of 2026, supported by institutional participation and clearer regulation. The report notes roughly $87B of net inflows into crypto ETPs since Jan. 2024 and highlights Bitcoin's issuance rate below 1%, with the 20 millionth coin expected in March 2026.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin dropped nearly 4% to about $85,940 as Asian equity markets softened and traders trimmed risk ahead of upcoming US economic indicators. Major altcoins also declined and total crypto market capitalization fell to $3.02 trillion, while analysts remained divided on Bitcoin's path into 2026 and on how Federal Reserve policy should evolve. The pullback left both digital assets and Wall Street sensitive to any surprises in jobs and inflation data.

HashKey, operator of Hong Kong's largest licensed crypto exchange, has priced its Hong Kong IPO close to the upper end of its HK$5.95–HK$6.95 range, selling 240.6M shares at HK$6.68 for proceeds of about HK$1.6B ($206M). The deal, which drew strong institutional demand and is scheduled to start trading on Wednesday, could make HashKey the first publicly listed crypto exchange in the city.