Venezuelan economist Asdrubal Oliveros said in a recent podcast that the country now collects roughly 80% of its crude oil export revenue in Tether's USDT and other stablecoins. PDVSA has required USDT payments for spot oil sales since March 2024, while Caracas struggles to convert growing stablecoin balances due to currency controls and sanctions. Despite these constraints and U.S. measures including a 25% tariff and tanker seizures, Venezuela's GDP reportedly increased from $102.38 billion in 2023 to $119.81 billion in 2024.

Two Canadians from Ontario and Prince Edward Island lost a combined $2.3 million to an AI-enabled deepfake cryptocurrency investment scheme. The Ontario victim lost $1.7 million after being deceived by a fake Elon Musk video, while the other victim lost $600,000 after watching a clip falsely linked to Dragon's Den. The report was updated on December 21, 2025.

On December 21, 2025, SantaStealer was detailed as a malware-as-a-service that prioritizes crypto wallets. It is promoted on Telegram and hacker forums with monthly plans at $175 (Basic) and $300 (Premium). Rapid7 links it to BluelineStealer and notes weak evasion, while data is exfiltrated in 10MB chunks over port 6767.

On Saturday, December 13, the stablecoin market set a new capitalization high at $310.117 billion. At the time of writing it is near $309.911 billion, with USDT at $186.242 billion and USDC at $78.315 billion, together holding around 85 percent of the sector.

Bitcoin mining equities declined 1.8% in the week ending December 5, 2025, with market capitalization falling to $67.89 billion from $69.12 billion. Trading volume dropped 25.66% to $307.35k. Average cash costs for public miners to produce one Bitcoin reached $74,600, while all-in costs including depreciation and stock-based compensation climbed to $137,800, according to CryptoRank data.

Public bitcoin mining companies posted gains last week, with all top ten firms recording positive returns. The sector's total market capitalization reached $69.1 billion, rising 5.04% in 24 hours as Bitcoin traded above $90,000.

Ledger launched an integrated multisig feature on October 24, 2025, charging a $10 flat fee per transaction plus 0.05% on token transfers. Developers and security researchers criticized the closed-source implementation and fee structure, arguing it contradicts the company's original ethos.

Early Warning Services (EWS), which operates the Zelle peer-to-peer payment network, announced plans to enable cross-border money transfers using stablecoins. The initiative aims to extend Zelle's domestic payment capabilities to international transactions. Zelle processed over $1 trillion in peer-to-peer payments in 2024, with August 2025 volumes reaching approximately $108 billion.