Japanese manga artist Ryuju Ryo predicted in "The Future I See" that a major earthquake will occur in the South China Sea Trench on July 5, 2025, causing panic in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Bloomberg data shows that bookings from Hong Kong to Japan plummeted by 83%, and Taiwan-Japan tour prices hit a 20-year low. A Facebook group with 250,000 members is discussing escape strategies. Taiwan's crypto community is also discussing "taking cold wallets and escaping" as a disaster prevention measure, predicting the earthquake's impact on Bitcoin prices.

The Pi Network team has been very active recently, launching updates for the testnet DEX, domain verification mechanisms, and holiday shopping season initiatives. However, the native token PI has not yet shown a decisive breakthrough, continuing to decline on both weekly and monthly charts. The community is seriously divided on the outlook, with some users predicting the price will reach an astonishing $100 target, while others criticize the token for speculation far exceeding its utility.

On December 19, Bitcoin once plummeted to the critical support level of $84,000 before rebounding strongly. It is now back up to around $87,900. The market fear index is at 17, indicating extreme panic, but technical analysis shows that the bulls are defending a key line of defense.

What is x402? It's an open payment protocol for pay-per-use APIs using stablecoins over HTTP. Backed by Cloudflare, x402 has processed 75M transactions worth $24M since May 2025, positioning x402 as infrastructure for the $30T AI agent economy.

Michael Selig is the 15th CFTC chairman confirmed December 18, 2025. Michael Selig previously led the SEC's Crypto Task Force and Project Crypto initiatives. Crypto leaders praise his expertise, but critics question whether the former Willkie Farr partner has sufficient experience.

The U.S. Senate voted 53:43 to confirm Michael Selig, nominated by Trump, as CFTC Chairman. This comes as Congress is considering legislation to expand the agency's crypto regulation authority, with the CFTC set to take over the core role of federal digital asset regulation from the SEC.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quietly updated the Cryptocurrency Asset Frequently Asked Questions on December 17, clarifying how broker-dealers like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs meet custody and capital requirements for crypto asset securities. The key change is that broker-dealers can assert "control" over client crypto assets through a "qualified control location" and written instructions authority without actually holding the private keys. SEC staff withdrew the reliance requirement on the special purpose broker-dealer (SPBD) safe harbor.

The controversy over whether virtual currencies and stablecoins in Taiwan should be taxed resurfaced on December 17 at the Legislative Yuan. Minister of Finance Chuang Cui-yun responded to legislator Lai Shih-bao's inquiry, stating that the Financial Supervisory Commission's regulations related to virtual assets are currently under review. We must wait for the relevant laws to be enacted to determine whether virtual currencies are classified as payment tools or securities, which will then determine the appropriate taxation method. Lai Shih-bao stated that virtual currency trading volume is significant, and the Ministry of Finance should actively consider taxation.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Justice has confirmed the holding of 210.45 Bitcoins as seized assets for criminal investigation purposes, not for investment, but as legal evidence. This demonstrates that Taiwan's blockchain tracking and digital asset management capabilities have reached a new milestone, paving the way for regulatory normalization.

The Bank of Japan unanimously approved a 25 basis points rate hike with a 9:0 vote, marking the first time during Governor Ueda Kazuo's tenure that "everyone is betting on a rate hike." However, after the announcement, the yen initially surged against the US dollar but quickly retreated, closing at 155.86 on Friday. The key signal is embedded in the central bank's statement: "Real interest rates are expected to remain significantly negative, and the accommodative financial environment will continue to strongly support economic activity." This suggests that behind the nominal rate hike, the actual monetary policy remains accommodative, making it difficult for the yen to truly strengthen.

On the eve of 2026, the crypto market has gradually entered a consolidation and maturity phase after reaching a new all-time high. Bitcoin, relying on the consensus of "digital gold," has repeatedly solidified its support around the $80,000 key level; Ethereum, benefiting from the Pectra upgrade and the landing of spot ETFs, has stabilized its ecosystem around $2,900; XRP, after making favorable progress in the US SEC lawsuit, is once again attracting institutional attention. This article will analyze the technical patterns, growth engines, and potential risks of the three core assets, and explore how the turning point in global liquidity and the formation of regulatory frameworks will shape the market landscape in 2026.

Taiwanese currency suspected of money laundering, a major case involving 2.3 billion yuan, enters the preparatory stage. The main suspect, Shi Qiren, fully denies the charges and has summoned 1,601 witnesses. The Shilin District Court has approved all requests, with the trial scale setting a record in Taiwan's judicial history. The court session may be scheduled until April next year.

As the cryptocurrency market enters a downtrend cycle, the movements of venture capital (VC) become a barometer for the industry. Since Bitcoin hit a record high of $126,000 in October 2025, its price has retraced approximately 25%, with the ripple effect quickly spreading to the primary market. This article delves into three major trends currently shaping the crypto VC market: downward revisions in startup valuation expectations, investment transactions concentrating on leading projects, and liquidity challenges following token generation events (TGE). Industry experts point out that the market downturn is prompting investors to shift from chasing short-term momentum to focusing on project fundamentals and long-term utility. The integration of artificial intelligence with blockchain, as well as the fusion of real-world assets (RWA) and blockchain, are seen as the most promising growth tracks for 2026.

The Bank of Japan raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.75%, reaching the highest level in nearly 30 years. The market fears a repeat of history: since 2024, Bitcoin has plummeted after each rate hike by the Bank of Japan, with Bitcoin prices falling 23-31% after the last three rate hikes. However, this time the Japanese yen against the US dollar has fallen to 156 yen, and Bitcoin has rebounded to $87,000. The key lies in the risk of closing yen arbitrage trades; unless the yen strengthens, the risk remains relatively low.

Crypto Information and Research Platform Bankless released the top 10 predictions for cryptocurrencies in 2026 on X. The key points include: Bitcoin will break the 4-year cycle and hit a new all-time high, ETF purchases will surpass BTC, and ICO will make a strong comeback to replace airdrop models. Bankless co-founder David Hoffman specifically emphasized that 2026 is the year of tokenization.

The cryptocurrency derivatives market is facing a critical year-end test. On December 19th at 08:00 UTC, approximately $3.16 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum options will expire simultaneously on the Deribit exchange. This is the last major derivatives settlement before Christmas. Among them, Bitcoin options dominate with a notional value of up to $2.69 billion, with the current price close to the "maximum pain point" of $88,000; Ethereum options are valued at $473 million, with their "maximum pain point" at $3,100, which is significantly different from the current price. In the context of holiday liquidity being thin, this "annual report card" is testing the market's short-term balance and could serve as a trigger for pre-holiday volatility. Traders are holding their breath, waiting for the next clear market catalyst.

The stablecoin market welcomes a heavyweight new player built by United Stables. On December 18, the next-generation stablecoin $U , aimed at creating a unified liquidity layer, officially launched on the BNB Chain and Ethereum mainnet. Its innovative "Stablecoin Inclusive Reserve" model consolidates mainstream stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, USD1, and others as reserve assets, attempting to end the market pain point of liquidity fragmentation. The launch performance has been remarkable: in less than 24 hours, its circulating supply rapidly rose to 58.9 million tokens, and it quickly gained full integration with leading DeFi protocols like PancakeSwap, Lista DAO, and major exchanges. This is not just the birth of a new asset but may also signal a strategic shift for stablecoins from "fiefdoms" to a "unified foundational layer."

Bloomberg senior analyst warns that by 2026, over 100 Crypto ETF will be launched, but most may not survive past 2027 due to lack of funding. The market's "scattergun" strategy could trigger a new round of bubble burst.

AgentLISA is the world's first Web3 agent security operating system, powered by AI to provide intelligent smart contract security analysis. In December 2025, Anthropic research showed that AI can exploit smart contract vulnerabilities with an accuracy of 55.88%, simulating theft of $4.6 million. However, AgentLISA's multi-agent system has actually detected vulnerabilities exceeding $7.3 million.

The Web3 AI security track receives a major announcement. The world's first AI agent security operating system AgentLISA recently announced the completion of a $12 million funding round and plans to launch its token LISA on platforms such as Binance Alpha on December 18. The project aims to leverage its proprietary TrustLLM large model to revolutionize the industry pain points of high costs and long cycles in smart contract auditing, reducing audit times from several weeks to just a few minutes. This token generation event (TGE) and launch mark a high level of recognition from capital and the market for the "AI + blockchain security" integrated track, which is expected to build a new security foundation for decentralized applications.