Weekly Rollup - December 9, 2025

Market highlights

• The crypto market saw two sell-offs with liquidations totalling over US$1 billion this week.
• Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade went live on December 3, triggering a 4% rally.
• The U.S. SEC halted applications for ETF products with more than 2x leverage.
• The CFTC approved spot-crypto trading on regulated U.S. futures exchanges.
• The UK has passed legislation that formally recognises digital assets as personal property.

Markets Overview

Risk assets made modest gains this week as the markets digested the latest inflation, consumer spending and sentiment readings. The U.S. core personal consumption expenditures index for September came in as forecast at 0.2%, while the ADP non-farm employment change came in under forecast at -32,000 jobs. These indicators of cooling inflation and a labour market that also continues to cool has put the likelihood of a December 10 U.S. rate cut at 89.4%, according the CME’s Fed Watch tool.

All eyes will presumably be on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this week. The Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank of Canada and Swiss National Bank will make their next interest rate decisions this week, too.

Weekly performance: S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow Jones +0.5%, Nasdaq +0.9%.

Looking ahead:

• Reserve Bank of Australia meeting - Tuesday, December 9
• U.S FOMC meeting - Wednesday, December 10
• Swiss National Bank meeting - Thursday, December 11

Crypto Market Sector Performance

Most crypto sectors saw gains this week, with the exception of staking services and perpetual decentralised exchanges. It follows recent weeks, where many crypto sectors saw declines, indicating that a recovery could be beginning. This week’s growth is presumably due to the broader gains across the market in the first half of the week, though a sell-off in the second half of the week saw many cryptocurrencies retreat.

The crypto market saw another sell-off on December 4. The cause is not immediately obvious, especially as the U.S. stock indexes continued to climb. Total crypto liquidations throughout the day reached US$500 million, and US$412 million worth were long positions. The crypto fear and greed index is still in fear territory at 24.

Biggest winner

• Oracle: Chainlink (+14.8%) saw gains, presumably due to the new bridge, which links Solana and Base, powered by Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol. Users and developers can now trade and deploy Solana assets within Base-native apps, unifying liquidity and cross-chain access.

Bitcoin (BTC)

• Opened the week at US$90,364, rallied to a high of US$94,181 on Wednesday, December 3. This week’s gains were seen as the start of a potential recovery from the recent sell-off, though price has not yet made a convincing break above the key level at US$93,800. On December 4, bitcoin liquidations reached US$191 million, which were mostly long positions. Price has since recovered slightly to around US$91,300 to start the new week (+5.6% 7D).
• BTC dominance ranged between 59.4% and 59.6% this week.
• Bitcoin investment products saw US$352 million of inflows this week.

With the U.S. rate-cut decision approaching, traders have built more than US$6 billion in leveraged short positions against bitcoin. If the rate cut materialises and triggers a short squeeze, where bitcoin rallies to around US$96,250, those positions could unwind rapidly, pushing bitcoin higher.

In bitcoin buying news:

• Strategy bought 10,624 BTC, its largest BTC buy in months. This brings the company’s total holdings to 660,624 BTC, with an average purchase price of US$74,696.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Ethereum (ETH)

• Opened the week at US$2,991, rallied to US$3,241 on Thursday, December 4, and retreated slightly to start the new week around US$3,150(+12.8% 7D).
• Ethereum dominance hovered between 11.9% and 12.2% this week.
• Ethereum-focused funds saw inflows of US$39.1 million this week.

The Ethereum network’s Fusaka upgrade went live on December 3. It introduces a new data-sampling protocol (PeerDAS) and expanded blob capacity, enhancing scaling for layer-2 rollups. The upgrade triggered a 4% price rise for ETH and boosted trading volume.

Ethereum whales began buying following the crypto market’s sell-off on Monday, December 1, where US$600 million in long positions were liquidated. On chain data shows that one whale bought US$55 million worth of ETH on December 2. The surge in large-holder accumulation, plus rising buy-volume and open interest, signals renewed confidence in the cryptocurrency.

Vitalik Buterin proposed creating a trustless, on-chain “gas futures” market for Ethereum. The market would enable users or developers to pre-purchase gas for future time intervals to hedge against volatile transaction fees. Supporters say it could bring clearer fee-expectation signals, while critics argue the market lacks a natural “short side,” limiting its viability.

In Ethereum buying news:

• BitMine added 138,452 ETH to its treasury, bringing its holdings to over 3.8 million ETH, worth US$12 billion.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Altcoins

The altcoin season index is currently at 35, which is bitcoin season.

Sui-eet thing

• Sui gained 21.7%. The layer-1 network’s gains are presumably due to the launch of ZenLedger’s new enterprise-grade tax and compliance infrastructure on the network, Grayscale’s filing for a new Sui trust, and the launch of 21Shares’ 2x SUI exchange-traded fund (ETF), the first Sui-based ETF on the market.

Ripple effect

• XRP gained 2.9%. Ripple, the company that created XRP, secured expanded approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), allowing its subsidiary in the region to broaden regulated payment services using XRP and its stablecoin RLUSD. The expansion enables Ripple to offer token-based settlements, cross-border transfers and regulated on-/off-ramp services to banks, fintechs and crypto firms.

Layer 1 declines

• Aptos declined by 21.1%. The layer-1 chain is presumably seeing weakness following a November 11 token unlock, which saw almost 1% of supply released. This week, Paxos launched the USDG0 stablecoin on Aptos, but it wasn’t enough to buoy price.
• Monad declined by 17%. The new layer-1 mainnet launched on Monday, November 24. The network promises Ethereum-style development with higher performance through fast block times, parallel execution, and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility. Monad tokens dropped to US$0.025 at launch as users rushed to sell their airdrop proceeds, then rebounded by more than 50% to trade around US$0.03.

Crypto ETF News

Digital asset investment products saw inflows of US$716 million, marking the second week of inflows since the steep sell-off throughout late October and early November.

In altcoins, XRP saw inflows of US$245 million, while Chainlink saw inflows of US$52.8 million.

BlackRock filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF. And Franklin Templeton launched its Solana ETF, which trades under the ticker SOEZ on the New York Stock Exchange Arca. Also this week, iShares Digital Assets AG issued a tranch of over 1.3 million securities under its iShares Bitcoin exchange-traded product. The securities were issued at US$9.09 per unit and will begin trading on December 9.

The U.S. SEC sent warning letters to issuers of high-leveraged ETFs, including proposed crypto-linked funds, citing serious risk concerns. The regulator paused reviews of applications aiming for more than 2x leverage, effectively blocking new 3x and 5x crypto ETF proposals until issuers address the regulator’s concerns.

Other crypto news

• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved spot-crypto trading on regulated U.S. futures exchanges, allowing for leveraged and non-leveraged trading under federal oversight. This new oversight brings U.S. on-shore crypto trading under the same protections as traditional commodities markets.
• The UK passed the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, formally recognising digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, tokens, and NFTs, as personal property. This grants holders legal clarity over ownership, inheritance, theft recovery and insolvency, aligning crypto with traditional property categories and strengthening protections for users
• An Indiana lawmaker has introduced legislation, House Bill 2014, that would require public-sector retirement and savings plans to offer crypto-linked ETFs (including those backed by bitcoin) as investment options. The bill also bans local governments from imposing unreasonable restrictions on crypto use, such as payments, self-custody, or mining, and protects individual digital-asset rights.
• HYPE treasury company, Hyperliquid Strategies, authorised a US$30 million stock-repurchase program, allowing it to buy back its own shares over the next 12 months. The firm says the buyback aims to raise shareholder value by increasing per-share exposure to HYPE while continuing its broader crypto treasury strategy.
• HYPE treasury company, Hyperliquid Strategies, authorised a US$30 million stock-repurchase program, allowing it to buy back its own shares over the next 12 months. The firm says the buyback aims to raise shareholder value by increasing per-share exposure to HYPE while continuing its broader crypto treasury strategy.
• Sony Group plans to issue a U.S.-dollar-backed stablecoin intended for payments across its entertainment ecosystem, including games, anime and streaming services. Its banking arm has applied for a U.S. license and partnered with a stablecoin infrastructure provider. The stablecoin is expected to launch in 2026.