Coindesk

Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR)MicroStrategy (MSTR), the software developer that has made acquiring bitcoin (BTC) a core value, added to its holding for a seventh week in a row.The company bought 5,262 BTC for a total of $561 million in the week ended Dec. 22 to take its total holdings to 444,262 BTC it said. The purchase, at an average price of $106,622 per bitcoin, was teased by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor in a Sunday post on X. It brings the value of MicroStrategy's holdings to $42.2 billion at current market prices and raises the average cost to $62,257 per bitcoin.The latest acquisitions were funded by share sales under the company's at-the-market...

XRP dropped 3% in the past 24 hours, leading losses among major tokens as bitcoin (BTC) started the festive week in the red and Japanese bitcoin accumulator Metaplanet (3350) announced its biggest purchase.The Tokyo-listed company said it bought a record 619.70 BTC for 9.5 billion yen ($61 million) in a move that lifted its BTC holdings by 54%.BTC is still 1.5% lower over 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, with ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA, Solana’s SOL and dogecoin (DOGE) all down as much as 2%. Chainlink’s LINK and Tron’s TRX gained, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index fell 1.39%.Metaplanet has now acquired 1,762 BTC for 20.87 billion yen ($133.2 million), with an average purchase price of 11.85 million yen. Between...

HyperLiquid, a layer-1 blockchain and decentralized exchange for perpetual futures (perps), has experienced a notable outflow of the USDC stablecoin amid speculation North Korean hackers are interacting with the platform, according to a post on X by pseudonymous observer Tay, known for tracking threats posed by to crypto protocols by the country. A record $60 million of USDC fled the exchange by 10:00 UTC Monday, according to Hashed Official's Dune-based tracker. USDC, the world's second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, is used as collateral on HyperLiquid. The deposit bridge still holds $2.2 billion in USDC. Addresses associated with hackers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have accrued losses exceeding $700,000 while trading on HyperLiquid, Tay said. The transactions indicate the hackers...

Bitwise's Europe head of research, who has been accurately bullish on bitcoin (BTC) for months, has turned cautious after last week's 8% dip, warning of deeper losses in the coming weeks.Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, fell 8.8% to nearly $95,000 last week, the biggest percentage drop since August, according to data source TradingView and CoinDesk Indices. The losses came as the Federal Reserve signaled fewer rate cuts for next year while stressing that it prohibited from holding BTC and doesn't seek a change in the law to do so.The so-called hawkish rate projections also roiled sentiment in traditional markets, leading to a 2% drop in the S&P 500 and a 0.8% gain in the dollar index, lifting it...

President-elect Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he is appointing Stephan Miran, a former Treasury official from the first Trump White House, and current economist with Hudson Bay Capital Management, to chair the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). The CEA's role is to advise the president on economic issues, including evaluating the effectiveness of federal policies and programs, analyzing economic trends, and crafting recommendations to foster growth and stability.Miran has long been an advocate for crypto, recently appearing on Blockworks' Forward Guidance podcast. He has previously tweeted about how crypto regulations need to be reformed in the U.S. to allow for innovation to flourish.Miran has previously criticized Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell as "wrong politically and economically" for urging...