SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated that multiple types of ICOs should not be considered securities transactions and therefore do not fall under the SEC’s regulatory scope. According to the token classification framework he proposed last month, network tokens, digital collectibles, and digital utility tokens and their corresponding ICOs should be regulated by the CFTC, while only tokenized securities-related issuance activities should be overseen by the SEC. This stance suggests that, in the absence of new market structure legislation, the trend of ICO fundraising may reemerge in the US. (Decrypt)

Privacy public chain project Octra will conduct a public token sale on Sonar (founded by Echo and recently acquired by Coinbase) on December 18, 2025, aiming to raise $20 million by selling 10% of the total OCT supply, corresponding to a $200 million FDV. Unsold tokens will be burned. Early investors hold 18% of the tokens, the team holds 15%, and the remaining 67% is allocated to the community. Previously, Octra completed a $4 million pre-seed funding round with investors including Big Brain Holdings and others. (The Block)

Wu said that Coinbase announced it will launch Hyperlane (HYPER) spot trading on December 10, 2025. The HYPER-USD trading pair will open after 9:00 AM Pacific Time once liquidity conditions are met. Hyperlane is a platform that provides developers with cross-chain communication capabilities, offering on-chain APIs for sending messages across different blockchains.

Bitwise’s first crypto investment product, the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF (BITW), has been converted from an over-the-counter closed-end trust to an exchange-traded product (ETP) trading on NYSE Arca. The fund has approximately $1.25 billion in assets and tracks an index comprised of 10 major crypto assets, selected by market capitalization and rebalanced monthly. Currently, Bitcoin accounts for about 75% and Ethereum about 15%, with the remaining components including XRP, SOL, ADA, LINK, LTC, SUI, AVAX, and DOT. (The Block)

Wu said it has learned that the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued Interpretive Letter No. 1188, confirming that national banks may, under compliance requirements, engage in "riskless principal" crypto asset transactions. Such transactions refer to banks conducting crypto asset trades simultaneously with two clients in opposite directions under their own name, without holding any crypto asset inventory, acting solely as an intermediary. The OCC emphasized that these activities must be conducted in a safe, sound, and lawful manner.

According to Bloomberg, Stripe and crypto venture capital firm Paradigm have announced that their jointly developed blockchain project, Tempo, has officially entered public beta, allowing businesses to build stablecoin-based payment applications. New partners include UBS and Cross River Bank, while existing partners cover Deutsche Bank, Nubank, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Tempo uses an independent payment channel design to reduce transaction costs and speed up settlement, with a fixed transaction fee of $0.001 per transaction, supporting USD stablecoins including USDT and USDC.

Wu Blockchain has learned that Tether has announced a strategic partnership with African fintech platform HoneyCoin, aiming to expand the adoption of stablecoins in Africa. HoneyCoin will launch a cashless POS platform supporting USDT payments, enabling merchants to accept stablecoin payments directly at checkout, and integrate USDT into its ecosystem to reduce cross-border payment costs and improve settlement efficiency. The two parties also plan to initially roll out offline stablecoin payments in Kenya and develop QR code payments, real-time foreign exchange conversion, and a merchant dashb

According to Fortune, crypto giant Circle is partnering with privacy chain Aleo to launch a privacy-enabled stablecoin called USDCx. Aleo co-founder Howard Wu stated that USDCx will support the concealment of transaction records and asset trails, aiming to achieve a level of privacy similar to that of the banking system, targeting institutional settlements and large-scale fund use cases.

Wu said that Coinbase has announced its Crypto-as-a-Service platform has enabled direct BTC trading for PNC Bank’s private banking division, making it the first major US bank to allow private banking clients to directly buy and sell Bitcoin. The cooperation between the two parties integrates digital assets into the traditional financial system, providing high-net-worth clients with compliant custody and trading channels.

The retro privacy project Horizen has announced the relaunch of its mainnet on Base, transitioning into a Layer 3 network aimed at providing "compliance-viable" privacy solutions. The project originally launched as ZenCash in 2017, later rebranded to Horizen, and this summer reissued the ZEN token, phasing out the old mainchain and EON sidechain. Horizen Labs stated that the new network will achieve regulator-friendly privacy through a "selective disclosure" mechanism, and plans to launch a 100 million ZEN developer grant program to support applications in privacy finance, GambleFi, SocialFi,

Cryptocurrency exchange BTCC has announced that its perpetual contract trading pairs have been officially integrated into TradingView, the charting platform with over 100 million users worldwide. Users can now trade perpetual contracts directly through TradingView's professional charting tools, covering crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, and more.

Standard Chartered Bank stated in a report on Tuesday that it has halved its year-end 2025 Bitcoin price forecast to $100,000, down from the previous target of $200,000. At the same time, the bank has postponed its long-term target of $500,000 to 2030, which was originally set for 2028. The bank's analyst Geoffrey Kendrick pointed out that the downgrade is due to a reassessment of demand expectations, including the fact that aggressive corporate purchases by entities such as MicroStrategy have "come to an end," and institutional adoption through ETFs has been slower than expected. Kendrick sai

Bitcoin mining company IREN announced the completion of a $2.3 billion convertible bond issuance and the repurchase of $544 million in old convertible bonds, achieving a balance sheet restructuring. The new bonds include $1 billion with a 0.25% coupon maturing in 2032, and $1 billion with a 1% coupon maturing in 2033, along with a $300 million greenshoe option. The total net proceeds from this transaction are approximately $2.27 billion, with the remaining funds to be invested in Bitcoin mining, data center expansion, and operational turnover. (CoinDesk)

Wu said it has learned that Wintermute's latest market update indicates that the recent crypto market has been oscillating within a more resilient range, with capital flowing back into BTC and ETH. Both retail and institutional investors are showing a bullish bias but with low leverage allocations. BTC has returned to around $92,000, with a total market cap of about $3.25 trillion. Although last week saw a sharp drop of about $4,000 within an hour due to a series of liquidations—triggering approximately $2 billion in liquidations—the market quickly absorbed the selling pressure and did not con

According to Bloomberg, German automaker BMW AG has begun using a blockchain-based system to automate part of its foreign exchange transactions, as companies increasingly seek to leverage the technology behind cryptocurrencies to accelerate and simplify billions of dollars in cross-border payment processes. The company is using JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Kinexys platform, which automatically transfers euros from a Frankfurt account when the balance of BMW's US dollar account in New York falls below a set threshold.

Wu said has learned that NYSE-listed company Hyperscale Data (NYSE American: GPUS) has disclosed its Bitcoin treasury (DAT) holdings at approximately $75 million, accounting for about 83% of the company's market capitalization. Its subsidiary Sentinum holds a total of 451.85 BTC (about $41 million), of which 64.37 BTC were mined and 387.48 BTC were purchased from the market. The company also has $34 million in cash set aside to continue purchasing BTC, and plans to gradually achieve a $100 million BTC target through a DCA (dollar-cost averaging) investment strategy.

Polygon has completed its latest protocol upgrade, the Madhugiri hard fork, aimed at increasing the network's throughput by about 33% and reducing block consensus time to 1 second. Polygon core developer Krishang Shah stated that this upgrade includes support for three Fusaka Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP-7823, EIP-7825, and EIP-7883). The upgrade also introduces a new transaction type specifically designed for Ethereum→Polygon cross-chain bridge transactions and increases protocol flexibility to facilitate future scalability upgrades. Polygon claims that expanding throughput in the futu

The Russian government plans to advance a cryptocurrency regulatory framework next year, proposing to introduce criminal liability for illegal mining activities and administrative penalties for minor violations. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak stated that the country will comprehensively regulate digital currency circulation and strengthen crackdowns on electricity theft mining and unregistered mining farms. Although mining has been legalized in Russia, less than one-third of mining enterprises are registered, and some regions have implemented mining bans due to electricity shortages.
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