On December 19, 2025, SWIFT detailed progress on integrating a blockchain-based ledger into its global payment network. The effort involves collaboration with more than 30 banks and aims to enable real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments with transaction validation and smart-contract features for tokenized assets. Thierry Chilosi cited prototype work with Consensys and consultations on settlement models.

Hyundai Group's headquarters in Seoul received an email demanding 13 Bitcoins and threatening detonations at 11:30 AM if unpaid, according to South Korea's police. The message cited sites in Jongno-gu and Seocho-gu; 13 BTC is worth $1.1 million (KRW 16.4 billion) at current prices. Police searched facilities and said no explosive devices were found.

On December 19, 2025, CryptoQuant's sentiment analysis indicated Bitcoin's demand has cooled since early October, with U.S. spot ETFs turning net sellers in Q4 2025 and offloading about 24,000 BTC. Derivatives data show reduced risk appetite, while short-term holders face average losses of -14.9% with BTC near $86,700 and a cost basis around $101,800.

EchoSync has introduced a copy trading dashboard on decentralized perpetual exchange Aster, linked to its Human vs AI trading competition running from December 9 to 23, 2025. Human traders currently lead the rankings with higher realized profits but larger drawdowns, while AI models show smaller losses and more consistent capital preservation. Aster has set a $200,000 prize pool with conditions favoring human winners and is adding USD1 trading pairs as its ASTER token trades 71% below its September peak.

On December 17, Robinhood's "Robinhood: Deployer" address on Arbitrum executed 500 smart contract deployments for tokenized stocks, pushing its total to 1,997 contracts since May. The cumulative value of these Robinhood-issued tokenized assets has risen from near zero in June to over $10 million by mid-December, led by ETFs and major tech stocks such as the YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy ETF, Alphabet, and Microsoft.

On December 19, 2025, the court-appointed plan administrator for Terraform Labs filed a $4 billion lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Jump Trading, its co-founder William DiSomma, and president Kanav Kariya. The complaint alleges secret token deals, market manipulation, and undisclosed support for TerraUSD’s peg that allegedly let Jump earn billions while UST and LUNA investors absorbed heavy losses.

Coinbase filed lawsuits against Michigan, Illinois, and Connecticut, alleging the states are improperly policing prediction markets that it says fall under CFTC authority. A Thursday filing in the Northern District of Illinois seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, and the exchange plans U.S. event‑contract trading from January 2026.

On December 18, 2025, DPRK-linked hackers were reported to have taken more than $2.02 billion in crypto since January, lifting their lifetime haul above $6 billion. Total crypto theft in 2025 exceeded $3.4 billion across 158,000 incidents, with at least 80,000 unique victims. A March $1.4 billion Bybit breach underscored the shift to fewer, larger attacks.

Taiwan's Ministry of Justice disclosed that, as of October 31, 2025, judicial authorities held 210.45 BTC and roughly NT$1.3 billion worth of seized cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and other tokens tied to fraud and money laundering cases. Officials have not yet decided how to dispose of these assets, but are weighing auctions with proceeds flowing into public revenue, amid ongoing debates over crypto regulation, stablecoin oversight, and the treatment of confiscated digital assets.