On-chain overnight: Big whales get liquidated, regulatory easing, XRP ETF on the doorstep.

Whale Tragedy List A large Whale shorted BTC with 7 million USDC on Hyperliquid, and ended up losing everything within three days, with a loss of 6.44 million. They shorted a maximum of 2222 BTC (worth 226 million at the time), and now only 300 are left struggling. This loss is probably the worst shorting case of the year.

In contrast, a clever Whale has turned around, switching from shorting ETH to going long, and is now holding 32,802 ETH (worth $119.6 million), with a floating profit of over $15 million. During the same period, “Whale 1011” also made a comeback; after ETH surpassed $3,500, the previous loss of $1.3 million has been completely recovered, and an additional profit of $3.74 million has been earned.

The regulatory window suddenly opens

CFTC Chairman Pham is making big moves - negotiating directly with CME, Cboe, ICE, and Coinbase's derivatives platforms to launch leveraged spot trading products, with the earliest going live next month. This is a rhythm that cannot wait for Congressional approval, directly using existing legal provisions. Quite something.

Another point is that stablecoins may become collateral for digital assets, with policies expected to be launched at the beginning of the year. The United States is quietly pulling the entire crypto system towards on-chain finance.

XRP ETF is about to launch 5 spot XRP ETFs have been filed with the DTCC (Franklin, Bitwise, Canary, 21Shares, CoinShares) and are expected to be officially listed by the end of the month. It feels reminiscent of the January BTC ETF.

Financing Gossip

• Ledger (the leading hardware wallet) will either IPO in New York or raise private equity. The CEO stated that this year is the most profitable in history, with revenue expected to exceed 100 million by 2025.
• The merger between Rumble and Northern Data is about to be finalized, with Tether as the financier, and the valuation cut from 4.5 billion to 2.9 billion, reflecting a downturn in the market.

Major Events This Week Saylor (the CEO of MicroStrategy) hinted on Twitter saying “Best Continue”, suggesting that he might announce further purchases of Bitcoin next week. This guy went on a buying spree last year, and now the market is waiting for his statement.

A bunch of tokens such as LINEA, APT, and AVAX are set to be unlocked this week, with LINEA being the most significant—unlocking $34.4 million, which accounts for 16.44% of the circulating supply. Is this going to cause a dump?

On-chain betting “Brother Maji” continues to increase the position, now holding more than 3900 ETH (12.34 million USD), with 25x leverage, still aggressively investing. The liquidation price is 3322. Another “Command Whale” has also opened a 25x leverage long position in ETH, with 1976 coins, and the bankruptcy line is at 3358.

LOL S15 Finals ended with a 2:2 tie after 5 games, and the betting on Polymarket went crazy—T1's big player bet 1.58 million dollars, KT's big player bet 1.41 million dollars, and the winner of the last game took home over 3 million dollars. The Crypto space is now even betting on esports.

Other Gossip

• The U.S. National Cyber Emergency Team uncovered a major case from five years ago: Chen Zhi (the prince of Cambodia) had 127,000 BTC (now worth $15 billion) stolen by a state-level hacker organization, which the FBI later confiscated directly. How did the FBI take over? The report hints that it might be “state-level hackers raiding the home.” This matter is a bit complicated.
• CZ continues to burn garbage coins, this time burning $490,000 worth of Meme coins, and publicly disclosed the wallet address. Warning: Don't randomly send coins there, they will be burned.
• Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, stated: BTC will reach $250,000, gold will be $27,000, and silver will be $100. He believes this round will crash, so continue to stock up on hard assets.

Reference data sources: On-chain data platform Lookonchain, Yu Jin analysis, Golden Ten Data, Token Unlocks