Ether futures overtake Bitcoin on CME as ETH volatility spikes, fueling debate over a potential Ether super-cycle amid a broader crypto market pullback.

Bitcoin’s negative open to December shows bears’ plan to pull BTC to the $80,000 support. Analysts are now calling for a bull market to end with a drop to $70,000 and below.

Kalshi launches tokenized event contracts on Solana, enabling regulated, on-chain trading of event outcomes on the blockchain network.

The post Kalshi brings tokenized event contracts to Solana appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Coinbase expands its Coinbase 50 Index with Hedera, Mantle, VeChain, Immutable, Sei, and Flare, noting their rising market relevance.

The post Coinbase adds six new tokens to its top 50 index appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Infrastruktura płatnicza oparta na blockchainie przestaje być eksperymentem, a staje się regulowanym biznesem. Rynek kryptowalut wchodzi na kolejny etap. Z jednej strony w 2025 roku rośnie presja regulatorów na giełdy i podmioty emitujące stablecoiny. Z drugiej projekty takie jak Ripple konsekwentnie pozyskują licencje na kluczowych rynkach azjatyckich. XRP poczyniło kolejny duży krok w rozwoju – Ripple ze zgodą od Singapuru na rozwój regulowanych usług płatniczych!

Nowa fala infrastruktury krypto. Czego potrzebują inwestorzy?

Po pierwsze, bezpieczne bramki wejścia z walut tradycyjnych do kryptowalut oraz wiarygodne platformy handlowe wciąż stanowią fundament ekspozycji na BTC, XRP czy innych altcoinów. Stąd wybór odpowiedniej giełdy i metody zakupu kryptowalut pozostaje kluczowy. Po drugie, rosną też oczekiwania wobec samych sieci. Muszą być skalowalne, tanie i zgodne z nowymi standardami regulacyjnymi.

Na tym tle coraz głośniej mówi się o kolejnej fali innowacji infrastrukturalnych, zwłaszcza wokół Bitcoina. Obok rozwoju warstwy płatniczej i stablecoinów na regulowanych rynkach, pojawiają się projekty próbujące rozszerzyć funkcjonalność BTC poprzez rozwiązania warstwy 2. Jednym z nich jest Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER), który stawia na połączenie bezpieczeństwa Bitcoina z wydajnością środowiska SVM znanego z Solany.

Singapur wzmacnia trend regulowanych płatności opartych na krypto

Decyzja singapurskiego regulatora, by dopuścić Ripple do szerszego świadczenia regulowanych usług płatniczych, potwierdza atrakcyjność jurysdykcji Azji Południowo‑Wschodniej dla firm krypto‑fintech. To region, w którym transgraniczne przelewy detaliczne i B2B są codziennością, a tradycyjne systemy SWIFT bywają zbyt wolne i kosztowne.

Huge news from Singapore: https://t.co/KVxTs7IEKc

The @MAS_sg has approved an expanded scope of payment activities for our Major Payment Institution license – enabling us to deliver end-to-end, fully licensed payment services to our customers in the region.

— Ripple (@Ripple) December 1, 2025

Zgoda Singapuru to także sygnał dla banków i instytucji finansowych, że rozwiązania oparte na blockchainie mogą funkcjonować w ściśle nadzorowanym otoczeniu prawnym. Dla użytkowników końcowych liczy się jednak przede wszystkim doświadczenie, czyli szybkość rozliczeń, niższe opłaty i mniejsza zależność od pośredników. Ten sam zestaw oczekiwań coraz częściej przenosi się na pozostałe segmenty rynku kryptowalut, w tym infrastrukturę Bitcoina.

Rozwój regulowanych usług płatniczych zwiększa presję na tradycyjne giełdy kryptowalut, które muszą nadążyć za standardami KYC i AML oraz rosnącą konkurencją fintechów posiadających licencje płatnicze. Dla polskich inwestorów wybór najlepszej giełdy oraz sposobu, jak kupić kryptowaluty, w praktyce oznacza połączenie wygody, opłat i poziomu regulacji.

Bitcoin jako rezerwa, ale rynek domaga się warstwy 2

Bitcoin pozostaje przede wszystkim cyfrową rezerwą wartości, a nie siecią transakcyjną wysokiej przepustowości. Ograniczona przepustowość rzędu kilku transakcji na sekundę i rosnące w szczytach cyklu opłaty on‑chain utrudniają budowę na nim masowych usług finansowych czy gamingowych. To od lat otwiera przestrzeń dla rozwiązań warstwy 2.

Lightning Network częściowo odpowiada na potrzebę błyskawicznych płatności, ale wciąż ma ograniczoną funkcjonalność, jeśli chodzi o złożone smart kontrakty i DeFi. Inwestorzy szukają więc projektów, które potrafią połączyć bezpieczeństwo Bitcoina jako warstwy rozliczeniowej z elastycznością nowoczesnych maszyn wirtualnych, znanych choćby z Solany czy EVM. To w tym segmencie pojawia się miejsce na eksperymenty z nowymi L2.

Bitcoin Hyper: eksperyment z SVM na warstwie 2 Bitcoina

Na tym tle Bitcoin Hyper pozycjonuje się jako jedno z pierwszych podejść do stworzenia warstwy 2 dla Bitcoina z pełną integracją Solana Virtual Machine. Architektura zakłada wykorzystanie Bitcoina jako warstwy rozliczeniowej. Rzeczywiste wykonywanie transakcji odbywa się na L2 z masowo wyższą przepustowością i znacznie szybszym czasem transakcji.

Projekt celuje w ekosystem DeFi i dApps, które dziś migrują tam, gdzie opłaty liczone są w ułamkach centa, a smart kontrakty można pisać w dojrzałych językach jak Rust. Dzięki kompatybilności z tokenami SPL, zmodyfikowanymi na potrzeby L2, możliwe jest przeniesienie części istniejącej infrastruktury z Solany przy zachowaniu rozliczenia w BTC na pierwszej warstwie.

Kluczowym komponentem ma być zdecentralizowany most kanoniczny dla transferów BTC między L1 a L2. To podejście upraszcza osiąganie wysokiej wydajności, ale rodzi pytania o stopień decentralizacji i model zaufania, co stanowi bardzo istotną kwestię dla konserwatywnych posiadaczy Bitcoina.

Z perspektywy inwestorów istotne są twarde liczby. Według danych projektu, przedsprzedaż tokena $HYPER zebrała już 28 814 775,96 dolarów, przy cenie 0,013355 dolara za sztukę. Wczesne zaangażowanie większych portfeli nie gwarantuje sukcesu, ale często bywa obserwowane w projektach, które później przyciągają płynność na L2.

Model ekonomiczny przewiduje wysokie APY dla stakingu. Dla uczestników przedsprzedaży zaplanowano siedmiodniowy okres vestingu przy jednoczesnej dystrybucji nagród za udział społecznościowy. W praktyce oznacza to zachętę do aktywnego korzystania z sieci, a nie jedynie biernego trzymania tokenów.

Co oznacza to dla polskich inwestorów?

Zgoda Singapuru dla Ripple pokazuje, że infrastruktura płatności oparta na krypto wchodzi w etap regulowanej komercjalizacji. Jednocześnie wyścig o zbudowanie skalowalnej warstwy 2 dla Bitcoina, reprezentowany m.in. przez Bitcoin Hyper, sygnalizuje, że rynek nie zadowoli się samą narracją cyfrowego złota bez realnych zastosowań transakcyjnych.

Dla polskich użytkowników oznacza to konieczność selekcji: zarówno przy wyborze giełdy i metod zakupu kryptowalut, jak i przy analizie nowych projektów infrastrukturalnych. Eksperymentalne rozwiązania L2, w tym $HYPER, mogą oferować wysokie potencjalne zyski, ale wymagają chłodnej oceny ryzyka technologicznego i regulacyjnego. Aby wziąć w nich udział, można dołączyć do przedsprzedaży $HYPER.

Bitcoin has fallen below the $90,000 level, intensifying speculation that the market may be entering the early stages of a broader bearish cycle. The drop comes as on-chain and derivatives data reveal a notable shift in investor behavior, especially among large holders.

According to a recent CryptoQuant report by Darkfost, whales have become significantly more active on Binance, driving a marked increase in BTC inflows to the exchange. This rise in transfers exceeding 100 BTC suggests that the market’s largest players have begun adjusting their positioning, often a sign of evolving risk attitudes and strategic repositioning.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has been in a corrective phase for nearly two months, consolidating after its prior rally. This pause has been accompanied by a sharp contraction in Open Interest, which has fallen from $47.5 billion to roughly $29 billion today.

The decline reflects substantial disengagement from speculative positions, whether triggered by cautious profit-taking or by liquidations cascading through the derivatives market.

Whale Defense Intensifies as Retail Investors Remain Passive

Darkfost highlights that the rise in whale inflows—measured using a 90-day average—offers a deeper understanding of the current market mood. This metric shows that major holders are prioritizing protection in an increasingly uncertain environment.

Since Bitcoin’s last all-time high, the average whale inflow to Binance has effectively doubled, now approaching 4,000 BTC. Such an increase is rarely insignificant; it typically reflects hedging, de-risking, or preparing liquidity for active repositioning.

In contrast, inflows from retail investors have remained relatively stable and far less volatile. Their exchange activity has not experienced the same directional surge, suggesting that smaller market participants have not meaningfully adjusted their exposure. This divergence creates a striking behavioral split between investor classes.

While whales shift into a defensive posture—moving coins, reassessing exposure, and potentially preparing for further downside—retail participants appear more passive. This may indicate slower reaction times to macro and on-chain signals or simply lower capital at risk.

Historically, such patterns emerge during transitional phases in the market, when sophisticated holders take early precautionary measures before broader sentiment shifts. The growing contrast reinforces the idea that Bitcoin is navigating a phase where caution dominates among its biggest players.

Bitcoin Tests 200 SMA as Market Searches for Direction

Bitcoin’s 3-day chart shows a decisive shift in momentum, with price breaking below the 50 SMA and 100 SMA after weeks of persistent selling pressure. The failure to hold the $90,000 level pushed BTC into its sharpest correction since mid-2024, and the structure now reflects a market struggling to stabilize. The current candle cluster is forming directly on top of the 200 SMA, a historically significant long-term support zone that often separates cyclical uptrends from deeper bearish phases.

The reaction so far has been mixed. BTC briefly dipped below the 200 SMA before recovering back above it, signaling that buyers are attempting to defend the trend boundary. However, the bounce lacks conviction, and volume remains elevated on down candles—an indication that sellers are still aggressive. As long as BTC trades below the 50 and 100 SMAs, the market structure remains vulnerable.

The downtrend also shows a clear sequence of lower highs and lower lows, confirming that momentum favors continuation unless $92,000–$95,000 is reclaimed. Losing the 200 SMA on a closing basis would open the door to deeper retracements toward $78,000 and $72,000, where prior consolidation zones sit.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com

The first thing many Ukrainians check in the morning is not Instagram or email, it is a war map. DeepStateMap.Live, a volunteer-built OSINT project, shows which villages are under occupation, where Ukrainian advances hold, and where the front looks fragile. It’s a survival tool as much as a news product, funded by donations and backed by a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Defense to keep its view of the battlefield accurate.

Now imagine that same map, draped over a glossy 3D globe called PolyGlobe, with little icons marking Polymarket contracts like “Will Russia capture Huliaipole by December 31?” When you hover over the bet, the exact neighborhood lights up. The area where someone’s parents live is the area where someone else has “Yes” odds priced to three decimal places.

That’s the dichotomy this story lives in: a wartime public good on one side, and a crypto prediction platform with real-money wagers on captured towns on the other.

In late November, a Ukrainian tech outlet reported that Pentagon Pizza Watch, the pseudonymous team behind PolyGlobe, had integrated DeepState’s API directly into its war-betting dashboard without permission. The map, the article said, was being pulled into a Polymarket visualization tool so that traders could see shaded control zones, unit icons, and attack arrows directly under their war bets, a “first-of-its-kind OSINT market tracker” built on top of someone else’s wartime infrastructure.

DeepState UA, the group behind the map, reacted within hours. In a public statement relayed through local media and social channels, they said they had never authorized any betting service to plug into DeepStateMap and called the use of their work in war gambling unacceptable, adding that third parties were probably accessing the data through a free API intended for humanitarian and military needs or via scrapers.

Pentagon Pizza Watch apologized and removed the integration, claiming they assumed a public endpoint was fair game. While relatively brief, the issue opened a deeper question that goes well beyond one plugin: what happens to open wartime tools when crypto markets start treating them as raw material for bets, while both Ukrainian and Russian families bury the dead from drone strikes and artillery fire?

When the frontline becomes a futures contract

Polymarket has leaned hard into geopolitical and war markets. According to reporting from dev.ua, in November, there were roughly 100 active contracts tied to the Russia–Ukraine war, from whether Russian troops would capture Pokrovsk or Myrnohrad by year’s end to when a ceasefire might finally hold, with about 97 active war bets and nearly $96.8 million in volume. A trader clicking into these markets finds language that looks more like a rules appendix than a forum about human lives.

In multiple contracts, Polymarket explicitly names the Institute for the Study of War’s interactive Ukraine map as the primary resolution source and DeepStateMap.Live as a backup if ISW becomes unavailable. If both maps go offline, the plan is to fall back to a “consensus of credible reporting.” In other words, the frontline map millions of Ukrainians use to understand whether their village is under occupation is written into the fine print of an on-chain casino as a kind of oracle of record.

Supporters of prediction markets will say this is the point. Their pitch is that you crowdsource probabilities from people willing to put money on the line, the markets digest all available information, including live OSINT feeds, and what comes out is a cleaner read on the future than any political pundit can deliver. For long-term macro questions or election odds, that argument at least fits the usual “wisdom of crowds” story.

But war is a different category. Someone checking Polymarket to see if a ceasefire has a 5% or 10% price this month is consuming a financial product. Someone checking DeepStateMap to see whether Russian artillery is near their town is trying to decide if they can drive their kids to school, just as someone in Kursk or Belgorod is trying to figure out whether Ukrainian drones are going to hit a fuel depot near their apartment.

This is a conflict that has already left tens of thousands of civilians dead. Different sources report different numbers, but the consensus is that there are more than 50,000 recorded civilian casualties in Ukraine alone, and likely well over a million soldiers on both sides killed or wounded. One side of the market is taking risks voluntarily, while the other is exposed to violence forcefully. When the two collapse into the same stack of tools, some of the distance that normally separates speculation from real-world harm disappears.

The PolyGlobe integration pushed that logic to its natural endpoint. The dev.ua report quotes the Pentagon Pizza Watch team saying that geographic war markets “constantly confuse people,” and that draping DeepState’s map over their globe would clear that up by letting users hover over a region and see “the exact area of the transaction where it is being resolved.” No more quibbling over whether a station really counts as “captured,” just zoom in and watch the map repaint in near-real time as troops move. It’s a neat little UX trick for a trader, and a stomach-turning one if that shaded district happens to be where someone you know is serving.

To be clear, Polymarket didn’t write the PolyGlobe code and never claimed to be scraping DeepState’s API. Its war markets, though, sit at the center of an orbit of tools and plugins that are, and the platform sets the basic incentive structure that makes those tools profitable.

When a third-party dashboard wraps humanitarian OSINT around Polymarket markets, it’s doing so to increase trading volume, attract more users, and make the gambling smoother for people speculating on the capture of Ukrainian towns or the fall of another Russian-held village.

That’s not an accidental side effect of an innocent tool, just the business model doing exactly what it was designed to do.

When public goods meet private odds

DeepStateMap is a high-traffic, high-stakes information source: by early 2024, the map had been viewed more than a billion times, with daily traffic in the hundreds of thousands, and its team works with the Ukrainian military to cross-check frontline information so civilians and soldiers can see where the fighting actually is.

While most of the focus is on Ukrainian territory, the same war has brought drone and missile attacks to border regions in Russia, Crimea, and the Black Sea, killing and injuring civilians there as well; the UN has documented hundreds of civilian casualties in Western Russia and occupied Crimea linked to this conflict, even without full access to Russian-controlled areas.

It’s funded by a mix of donations and government support, and its API is intentionally oriented toward humanitarian uses, journalists, and civil defense. When DeepState UA says that “systematic attempts at unauthorized use” are forcing them to tighten API access, move to individualized keys, and spend time on intellectual property enforcement, they aren’t only talking about the annoyance of a scrape.

Every hour spent policing degens is an hour not spent improving the map, hardening it against DDoS, or building better overlays for air raid patterns and artillery range on either side of the border. It pushes a volunteer-heavy team into gatekeeping mode, reviewing requests and yanking keys, instead of treating their data as a shared public utility.

The bigger risk here is that, under enough abuse, projects like DeepState conclude that open endpoints are more trouble than they are worth. They can lock the API behind closed partnerships, slow down refresh rates, or degrade granularity in the public version. That might be rational self-defense for the team, but it looks very different if you are an NGO field worker, a local journalist, or a family trying to make route decisions based on where the front appears to be.

Polymarket’s own record doesn’t make this tension easier to swallow. Earlier this year, the platform dealt with a $7 million controversy over a market on whether Donald Trump would secure a mineral deal with Ukraine. The contract settled “Yes” even though no such agreement materialized, after a large holder of UMA governance tokens reportedly used their voting power to push through that outcome. If huge financial stakes can twist a niche geopolitical market about a hypothetical Trump deal, it is not hard to imagine similar games around war contracts that rely on subtle frontline changes.

That doesn’t mean prediction markets have no place in conflict analysis. Academics and policy types have experimented with war-related contracts for years, often inside controlled, low-stakes environments, to gauge expectations about outcomes like peace agreements or sanctions.

The Polymarket version of this is different in at least two ways: the money is big, with almost $100 million traded across Russian–Ukrainian war markets in a single month according to Ukrainian press, and the experience has been tuned for retail gamblers. The result is a hybrid product that borrows the language of “information markets” but feels, to the people whose lives sit under those price charts, like a sportsbook, just with better branding.

There is a more basic question hiding underneath all of this. Whose consent matters when turning a public map of a war into infrastructure for financial bets? The company that made it? Ukrainians? Russians?

DeepState UA built its project to help Ukrainians orient themselves in a conflict that has displaced millions and killed tens of thousands of civilians, while Russians are also losing relatives and friends to a war launched in their name that now sends Ukrainian drones toward their homes. The team has made it very clear that they do not want to be part of a wagering economy around territorial loss.

Polymarket and its satellite tools, by contrast, operate from a crypto culture where everything that can be priced will be, and where “degen” is worn as a badge rather than a slur. For one set of communities, war is an existential reality; for the other, it is a volatility source with an RSS feed.

The episode with PolyGlobe will fade from the news cycle. Pentagon Pizza Watch has already taken down the DeepState integration and promised not to touch the data without explicit permission. Polymarket’s war markets will keep trading, with their references to ISW and DeepState sitting in the rulebooks, and a fresh crop of users will keep discovering that they can bet on the fate of towns they have never heard of.

The real question is what gets left behind when prediction markets move from “Who wins the election” to “Who loses their home this quarter,” while Russia keeps firing cruise missiles at Ukrainian apartment blocks and Ukraine keeps launching drones into Russian cities that were once far from any front line.

If humanitarian mapping projects decide that betting platforms are parasitic, the likely move is to retreat: more friction, more locked-down data, fewer open feeds. That may frustrate degens, but they will find something else to gamble on. The people who cannot route around that withdrawal are the civilians who depend on clean, fast, open intelligence to navigate their days in their war-forsaken towns.

War betting defenders will say that markets only mirror reality, that odds on a ceasefire or a breakthrough in Donbass are just numbers. But those numbers are painted over their real places where real people live, and every bet written against that backdrop feels like one more small cut to the fragile trust that keeps civilians sharing information and volunteers updating maps. The dark side of Polymarket’s war games is the slow corrosion of a digital commons created to help people survive a war, now forced to spend its time protecting itself from those who would turn that war into a game.

The post Polymarket war bets collide with the maps civilians use to survive appeared first on CryptoSlate.

When crypto sells off, the market doesn’t so much walk down the stairs as it slips on the first step and discovers there never were any handrails. Everyone knows why: perps are a stadium, options are a side alley, and insurance in a storm is hard to buy.

Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Bitfinex, knows what the missing handrails are: credit, clearing, margin, and products professional traders actually use when it’s raining. In an exclusive interview with CryptoSlate, he argued that real hedging is a distribution problem masquerading as a philosophy debate.

“If we make sophisticated tools more accessible and connected, institutions can operate with greater efficiency.”

Seatbelts for a market that loves speed

Options are supposed to be the seatbelts of volatile markets, but in the crypto industry, they’ve mostly been decorative. There are, of course, the inevitable bursts of liquidity around expiring strikes, a few large players playing calendar chess. But when the tape turns red, spreads widen, size disappears, and everyone reaches for the exits at once.

The result is the spiral we’ve all become familiar with: protection is scarce, so risk is cut with blunt instruments, which deepens the drawdown, which then makes protection even scarcer. Ardoino’s view is that the fix starts with giving serious desks a familiar toolkit, wired into rails that don’t snap under stress.

“Market makers need advanced tools to hedge and manage risk, and they will gravitate toward platforms that help build a more stable market,” he said.

This is why Bitfinex has been rolling out instruments that speak to how risk is actually managed: not just directional bets, but volatility itself. Volatility perpetuals, contracts that track the forward-looking choppiness of BTC and ETH, are the sort of thing pros reach for when they don’t want to bet on “up or down” but “how wild?”

“Our new offerings, like our BTC and ETH volatility perpetuals, cater specifically to advanced traders who want to hedge or trade around market turbulence.”

He explained that this is exactly what clients wanted during rough markets:

“During periods of market turbulence, the primary needs from our sophisticated clients always revolve around execution reliability and robust risk management tools.”

Bitfinex doesn’t seem to be all talk, as it’s growing its derivatives business where the rules match the experiment. The company relocated Bitfinex Derivatives to El Salvador, a bet on regulatory clarity that, in Ardoino’s words, is less about ideology and more about permission to build boring, useful infrastructure at speed. He told CryptoSlate that policy alignment matters because it anchors long-horizon work:

“Ultimately, for this growth to take off, the market needs the backing of forward-looking jurisdictions. Our move to relocate Bitfinex Derivatives to El Salvador is a prime example of aligning with a regulatory environment that is open to crypto innovation. This clarity supports the long-term goal of building out the necessary institutional infrastructure and serving underserved regions, especially in Latin America.”

A core piece of that plumbing is the “universal account.” In a typical options setup, collateral sits in silos: futures in one bucket, options in another, spot in a third. The risk engine treats these positions separately, so traders over-post margin, withdraw to move funds, and lose precious time during market chaos.

A universal account solves this fragmentation. One wallet funds spot, perps, options, and structured products, and a single risk engine sees offsets across the whole portfolio. Ardoino believes that this is a powerful concept that can fundamentally change capital efficiency by reducing the amount of idle collateral. He explained that it also comes paired with risk-based margining:

“If they can use a universal account with a risk-based margining system like portfolio margin, they are no longer forced to silo excessive collateral for every individual position.”

In his view, the payoff here is market-wide:

“This approach helps improve market maturity. It allows institutional players to hedge more effectively, which in turn leads to a more stable and orderly market overall, benefiting both institutional and retail participants.”

Plumbing, not hype

There’s a reason options participation skews to a small set of venues: onboarding, fragmentation, and the cognitive tax of managing risk across a dozen partial solutions.

Bitfinex’s goal, through its integration with Thalex, is to treat convenience is a liquidity strategy. If traders can route into an options venue without a second round of paperwork, they won’t feel like they’re margin trapped on one island. Distribution and access are the real product here, at least according to Bitfinex’s vision.

Thalex is a dedicated crypto options venue focused on BTC and ETH, built around a low-latency matching engine and portfolio-aware risk. Bitfinex integrated Thalex to give its customers direct access to listed options without separate onboarding. The companies have since announced a merger to bring Thalex’s options stack under the Bitfinex umbrella, aligning accounts, settlement, and risk so that options, perps, and spot can sit behind one set of rails. In practice, that means a single login and a unified margin system across a broader product set.

“Our partnership with Thalex means customers can use their existing accounts and verification, making it more straightforward to access a wider product set,” he explained. The aim is to reduce frictions so capital can commit. “When we offer familiar financial structures adapted for crypto, along with easy accessibility, it lowers the barrier for big, credible market makers to engage.”

While phrases like “stable settlement” and “predictable risk engines” might sound like empty branding, they’re actually what keeps market makers quoting through stress. Ardoino’s repeated emphasis here is on the institutional fit:

“Attracting truly credible balance sheet is about providing a stable, mature, and efficient trading environment.”

The rest follows from shipping what pros need:

“Crypto derivative products, such as stablecoin-settled futures and options instruments, are critical to ensuring a more rounded market.”

The other axis of legitimacy is the US, where listed products have a habit of setting the tone for everyone else. Asked whether US instruments, including CME listings and ETF options, will siphon the flow away from offshore venues, Ardoino flips the frame.

“In a broad sense, US-listed instruments will act as a catalyst. They legitimize the asset class globally, bringing in institutional investors and large pools of capital that were previously on the sidelines.”

And for Bitfinex’s role in that expansion, the strategy is explicit:

“For Bitfinex, the focus is on positioning ourselves as a long-term player that can support the new forms of capital raising and institutional investment this global shift enables.”

What changes if hedging gets easy

Imagine another sell-off like the one we’ve seen last week, but this time with better plumbing. A miner that wants crash insurance can buy puts that actually fill in size, funded against the rest of its book in a single account. A basis desk can lean into skew without sacrificing its inventory to margin silos. A market maker can quote through the shock because its risk engine recognizes offsets instead of punishing them.

None of that will make prices go up, though, but it will make the path down significantly less painful. Wicks shorten when insurance is available at a known price, and forced sellers become optional sellers. If BTC and ETH are going to shake the “cliff dive, dead cat, doom loop” pattern, it starts with a margin system that rewards hedge discipline and a product set that lets traders express risk cleanly.

This is also how options grow from a curiosity to a habit. You probably won’t see venues that win this race for options advertised on crypto arenas. The venues that position themselves at the very top of this market will most likely look like nothing more than basic trading infrastructure. That means being boring about uptime during chaos and opinionated about product design when it counts.

Bitfinex’s roadmap, which now includes volatility products, stablecoin-settled instruments, universal accounts, and regulatory posture tuned for building, looks like an operator’s answer to a trader’s week.

The test is whether market makers answer the call and whether the venue can prove, day after day after day, that execution and risk are handled like a utility, not a casino. Ardoino emphasized again that attracting truly credible balance sheet depends on providing a stable, mature, and efficient trading environment.

So if crypto wants to trade like the asset class it insists it is, this checklist is now long overdue.

The post Bitfinex’s options playbook: Ardoino on building rails that won’t snap appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The XRP Ledger recorded an abnormal surge in AccountSet and AMM Bid transactions this week, triggering widespread discussion across crypto Twitter. The ledger processed more than 40,000 AccountSet transactions in late November, marking its highest configuration activity in years.

The activity continued even after BitGo ended its batch updates. This indicates new actors are preparing or reconfiguring large numbers of accounts, rather than routine custodial adjustments.

What the AccountSet Surge Indicates

AccountSet transactions update settings, including security flags, AMM (Automated Market Maker) permissions, and multi-sig configurations. They are typically used when institutions prepare accounts for new services or liquidity operations.

Therefore, a spike of this magnitude suggests structured onboarding. Analysts believe this may involve custodians, market makers, or automated systems configuring XRPL accounts at scale.

The pattern resembles network preparation rather than retail behavior. 

Previous spikes linked to custodial maintenance did not reach current levels, reinforcing the view that new participants are entering the network.

AMM Bid Activity Signals Liquidity Positioning in XRP

AMM Bid transactions also surged after November 23. These transactions help liquidity providers bid for AMM auction slots and position themselves within XRPL’s automated market-maker pools.

The sharp rise suggests liquidity actors are preparing to secure early positions. Early bids often capture the most profitable rewards, making the timing significant.

The AMM spike coincides with broader XRPL developments. RLUSD approvals, AMM rollout progress, and institutional onboarding have all accelerated in recent weeks. This offers a possible explanation for the sudden liquidity movement.

XRP ETF Inflows Add Another Layer of Context

The surge also follows the debut of spot XRP ETFs in the United States. The products accumulated $643.92 million in net inflows and reached $676.49 million in total ETF assets. 

Inflows increased on nine of the last ten sessions, showing strong institutional demand.

While ETF inflows do not directly interact with the XRP Ledger, they influence how custodians manage XRP storage and security. 

Large ETF demand can trigger new institutional custody accounts, reconfigured storage systems, expanded wallet infrastructure, and preparation for higher settlement activity. These processes often involve AccountSet transactions. 

Therefore, the ETF wave may be indirectly contributing to the configuration spike.

Implications for the Market

The combined surge in configuration and AMM activity signals structural preparation beneath the XRP ecosystem. This type of activity often precedes network upgrades, liquidity expansion, or new institutional pipelines.

Although XRP price remains volatile, the ledger’s data suggests increasing backend activity. Market watchers view the patterns as early indicators of broader engagement, rather than isolated anomalies.

For now, developers have not commented publicly. 

However, the coordinated rise in AccountSet and AMM Bid transactions points to meaningful infrastructure changes underway on the XRP Ledger.

The post XRP Ledger Activity Suddenly Exploded This Week, What Is It Signalling appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Bitcoin is trading under pressure this week after falling to $86,000, driven by bearish macroeconomic cues and weaker risk appetite. 

The decline is raising concern among analysts because it coincides with an important shift in profitability among short-term holders, who are seeing their first meaningful profits since February 2023.

Bitcoin Holders Could Sell

The MVRV Long/Short Difference has slipped into negative territory for the first time in nearly three years. This shift signals that short-term holders now hold more unrealized profit than long-term holders, a rare dynamic that last appeared in early 2023. Historically, such periods lead to heightened selling because short-term investors tend to exit positions quickly when they see profit.

This trend is concerning for Bitcoin’s price outlook. With BTC already under a month-long downtrend, any spike in short-term selling could intensify the decline. The metric’s drop reflects rising fragility in market sentiment and hints at a potential acceleration of downward momentum if conditions fail to improve.

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Broader macro momentum is also flashing warning signs. Bitcoin’s NVT Ratio has surged, showing the network is becoming overheated. The ratio compares the dollar value of network activity with transaction volume. A high reading indicates strong social enthusiasm but weak on-chain usage, a combination that often precedes corrective moves.

This imbalance suggests Bitcoin’s current valuation may not be supported by underlying activity. If the divergence persists, a market correction could follow to bring the ratio back to healthier levels. This adds pressure to the already fragile short-term outlook.

BTC Price Slips To Crucial Support

Bitcoin is trading at $86,005, holding just above the $85,204 support level. The asset remains trapped under a persistent downtrend that has lasted more than a month. This would prevent any sustained recovery attempts.

If market conditions worsen or short-term holder selling accelerates, Bitcoin could break below $85,204. A drop through this support would expose the price to $82,503 and potentially deepen losses as fear rises across the market.

However, if buyers step in and support strengthens, Bitcoin could reclaim upward momentum. A bounce from current levels could send BTC toward $89,800. A decisive move above that resistance would be essential for Bitcoin to retest $90,000 and invalidate the bearish thesis.

The post Will Bitcoin Price’s Drop To $86,000 Trigger These Holders’ Selling? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

A fresh analysis points to a developing bullish pattern that may set the stage for a massive surge in the Dogecoin price. The crypto analyst who shared this analysis argues that the current structure in DOGE’s trend suggests the early formation of a recovery move strong enough to trigger a 174% price rally. With momentum building and technical indicators aligning, this new setup could be the catalyst that pushes Dogecoin out of its downtrend. 

Dogecoin Price Trend Signals 174% Rally

Dogecoin is entering a phase that analysts say could be the beginning of a powerful bullish structure forming on the charts. According to crypto market expert Javon Marks, the popular meme coin is maintaining a series of signals pointing toward a major upside continuation phase. If confirmed, these developments could open the door to an explosive 174% rally in the weeks ahead.

Marks explained that Dogecoin’s price behavior is beginning to reflect a bullish trend that could accelerate rapidly. The chart shows that momentum indicators are displaying early signs of strength and recovery while key support levels have remained firmly intact. This combination is laying the foundation for a much bigger breakout, one that the analyst predicts could spark a rally well above 174%. 

The analysis shows that the projected 174% rally is part of a broader recovery wave, with Dogecoin expected to reach $0.374 as its first target. Beyond that stage, a more ambitious goal sits near $0.6533, a level that lies more than 315% above DOGE’s current price of $0.136. Even more impressively, Marks has forecasted an explosive surge to $1.25, representing a staggering 820% increase in the meme coin’s price. 

The accompanying chart shows Dogecoin forming a series of higher supports following a prolonged corrective period. According to Marks, this developing trend shows that the meme coin is maintaining strong bullish signals despite its volatile price action over the recent months. The chart also displays a clear break from its extended downtrend, followed by a sequence of impulsive waves that continue to hold above previous lows.

Dogecoin Eyes Breakout Above Key Resistance Zone

Sharing similar bullish sentiments, crypto analyst Sudelytic notes that Dogecoin is showing signs of a resurgence after a prolonged period of quiet activity. According to the expert, the meme coin is approaching a key resistance zone between $0.30 and $0.35, a price range that could determine its next move.

If Dogecoin breaks above this zone with strength, Sudelytic predicts it could target new levels above $1.5. Despite its strong breakout potential, the analyst cautions that this resistance area is challenging to overcome. A failure to move past it could result in additional sideways action before any significant upward momentum returns. 

Given the significance of this resistance, Sudelytic notes that Dogecoin’s price action is being closely monitored. He points out that the meme coin’s history of unexpected rallies is the key reason why he remains optimistic about its outlook. 

Michael Saylor’s recent post has stirred fresh buy speculation around Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings. He shared a portfolio chart and wrote, “What if we start adding green dots?” — a line that many investors read as a nudge toward new purchases. According to the chart, Strategy’s Bitcoin stash is valued at close to $60 billion, reflecting a total of 649,870 Bitcoins acquired across 87 distinct buys.

Saylor’s Comment Spurs Market Talk

The company’s tracker shows each past purchase as an orange dot. The idea of green dots implies new markers — new buys — could appear if Strategy chooses to add more Bitcoin. That signal comes at a time when volatility has returned to crypto markets, making any hint of institutional accumulation a headline-worthy event.

CEO Lays Out When Sales Might Happen

According to Strategy’s CEO Phong Le, selling would be a last resort. Le told listeners on a podcast that the firm will only sell its Bitcoin in extreme conditions — chiefly if market values drop below net asset value (NAV) and fresh capital cannot be raised.

What if we start adding green dots? pic.twitter.com/a19bD33KzD

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) November 30, 2025

Reports indicate the company expects to meet yearly preferred-share dividend obligations of about $750 million to $800 million by raising capital when its stock trades above NAV. Le said this approach lets the firm keep building its holdings while meeting payouts.

Based on company materials, the firm says it can maintain dividends even in stress. Strategy recently rolled out a BTC Credit dashboard aimed at giving investors clearer visibility into how the company can service its liabilities over the long term.

Company figures show the average purchase price sits near $74,000. The dashboard suggests that, according to the firm’s math, dividend payments could be sustained for decades even if Bitcoin traded around the firm’s average cost.

After touching highs above $126,000 in October, Bitcoin fell sharply and dropped below $86,000 in early Asian trading on December 1, sliding as much as 6% in a single session.

BREAKING: Bitcoin falls -$4,000 in 2 hours as mass liquidations return.

$400 million worth of levered longs have been liquidated over the last 60 minutes. pic.twitter.com/qKB7MYJapu

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) December 1, 2025

Other tokens moved lower too — Ethereum slipped more than 7% to about $2,800 during the same period. Analysts link the sell-off to a broader “risk-off” mood, with jitters around inflation and central bank policy weighing on risky assets.

Strategy said it had faced pressure earlier when Bitcoin traded near $90,000, a stretch that briefly put its Nasdaq-100 membership at risk. Even so, company leaders continue to stress a long-term approach to holding Bitcoin.

The recent public hint from Saylor and Le’s comments on selling policies together signal that Strategy is keeping the door open to buy on dips, while also setting clear lines about when selling would be considered.

The coming weeks will test whether those green dots appear on the company’s tracker and whether market conditions give large holders the chance to add to their positions.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView