ChainCatcher news, Singaporean crypto investment firm QCP Capital stated today that earlier in the Asian session, Bitcoin surged past $106,500, reaching another milestone. In the past 12 hours, the total amount of short liquidations reached approximately $151 million, driving this rally, as the weekend market lacked liquidity and traders became overly complacent (the funding rate on Deribit briefly turned negative), leading to a squeeze on short positions in the market. The Bitcoin-to-gold ratio reached an all-time high during this wave, further highlighting Bitcoin's status as "digital gold" and solidifying its position as a more popular store of value than traditional gold.The inclusion of MicroStrategy in the Nasdaq 100 index further boosted market sentiment. Michael Saylor hinted that even if the spot price exceeds $100,000, the company may continue to purchase Bitcoin. This inclusion could attract passive capital into MicroStrategy's stock, thereby indirectly making it easier for the company to raise funds to buy Bitcoin. This week's Federal Reserve meeting seems to be merely background noise for Bitcoin, as its movements remain firmly driven by market sentiment. Although the likelihood is low, if the Federal Reserve and Powell take an extremely dovish stance, it could still provide support for further increases in Bitcoin.

ChainCatcher news, Greeks.live macro researcher Adam posted on the X platform that next week is a macro big week, with a number of central banks led by the Federal Reserve about to announce interest rate decisions. Currently, the futures market shows a 99% expectation of a 25bp rate cut by the Federal Reserve.Other important data this week is also worth paying attention to, as the next interest rate meeting will enter the Trump cycle. During this period, it is also worth noting whether there will be significant fluctuations in the U.S. stock market. Currently, ETF inflows are strong, and a strong U.S. stock market is also beneficial for cryptocurrencies. Last week, the cryptocurrency market was relatively quiet, although market capital inflows remained strong. As Christmas approaches, the market is undergoing year-end position adjustments. The options market is relatively stable, and large trades and market interest rates are worth monitoring. Currently, the implied volatility (IV) for major maturities is at a relatively low level, with short-term IV showing a significant decline. Additionally, in the cryptocurrency interest rate market, the Bitfinex interest rate market has been relatively stable recently.

ChainCatcher news, billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya stated in an online meeting that approximately 8000 Google quantum chips could crack SHA-256.Previously, Chamath Palihapitiya posted on X: "Quantum computing will pose a risk to v1 encryption methods, but the timeline is very unclear and not in the near term."

ChainCatcher news, the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has released a digital debt reference guide based on DLT. This document is the result of ICMA's DLT Bond Working Group, chaired by Christoph Hock of Union Investment."Token economics, especially DLT-based bonds, have become increasingly important in recent months," Hock mentioned, alluding to the recent wholesale DLT settlement trials conducted by the European Central Bank in central bank money, which have helped to increase activity. He continued, "Currently, we see the entire value chain being highly fragmented, and we look forward to strengthening collaboration and standardization, which will play a key role in further building the tokenized world. With its DLT Bond Reference Guide, ICMA and all stakeholders have taken a significant step in this direction."As an asset management company, Union Investment has been one of the most active investors in the digital bond space, starting with the issuance of the first bond by the European Investment Bank (EIB) in April 2021. The EIB has now issued six digital bonds, including two issued in November as part of the ECB DLT settlement trial.

ChainCatcher news, Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha posted on his social platform, "Seeing more and more regulators hurriedly imposing penalties and restrictions on businesses before the government is about to change. Their actions expose their illegitimacy. Widespread and erratic overregulation is stifling the U.S. economy."

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, billionaire and Pantera Capital founder and managing partner Dan Morehead disclosed that the institution holds altcoins including TON, SOL, and ONDO.

ChainCatcher message, according to HODL15Capital monitoring, as of December 13, the top 14 entities holding Bitcoin include BlackRock IBIT, MSTR, Fidelity FBTC, Grayscale GBTC, ARKB, BITB, MARA, HODL, Tesla, Coinbase, HUT, BRRR, SQ, Grayscale BTC, Tether, CLSK, among which the top three are:BlackRock IBIT: holds 539,049 BTC;Microstrategy (MSTR): holds 423,650 BTC;Grayscale GBTC: holds 210,093 BTC.

ChainCatcher news, DeFinance Capital founder Arthur posted on the X platform that, based on the performance of DeFi in the market, it seems to be entering a DeFi super cycle rather than a meme coin super cycle.However, meme ecosystem KOL Murad seems to disagree with this view and responded, "Should we look at the annual return rate?"

ChainCatcher news, according to Jin10, Pantera Capital founder and managing partner Dan Morehead stated that cryptocurrency is an emerging asset class that remains largely undeveloped by institutional investors. He remains optimistic about the long-term development trends of the cryptocurrency market.

ChainCatcher news, according to market data from GMGN, the Solana ecosystem meme coin blinkdot (BLINK), launched by the founder of GRIFFAIN, has a market capitalization exceeding 40.6 million dollars, with a 24-hour increase of 193%, and the current coin price is reported at 0.04 dollars.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Oku.trade has now integrated the OKX DEX API, allowing users to enjoy a seamless trading experience, low slippage, better quotes, and improved liquidity provided by OKX DEX.It is reported that Oku is a front-end platform for Uniswap v3, deployed on 23 chains, offering 0% trading fee swaps and cross-chain bridge services, aiming to provide the best exchange rates for all EVM chains. The platform features include limit orders for swaps, liquidity management, and permissionless liquidity pool creation, among others. Currently, the key functionalities implemented by the OKX DEX aggregator API include single-chain swaps, cross-chain bridges, and cross-chain trading, aiming to become the developer's first choice and the industry standard by providing industry-leading API solutions, while promoting the expansion and diversification of the OKX DEX aggregator ecosystem.

ChainCatcher news, former Google engineer Casey Caruso has founded the crypto venture capital fund Topology Ventures, which has raised $75 million. The fund will invest in cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, neural technology, aerospace, and robotics.Cendana Capital and Accolade Partners are the main investors in the fund, which has raised three times its original target. Other limited partners include a16z's Marc Andreessen, Bessemer's managing partner Bob Goodman, former Bessemer member and current owner of the Chemistry fund Ethan Kurzweil, co-founder of OpenAI and co-author of GPT-4, as well as Paris Hilton.

ChainCatcher news, according to IBTimes, the smart contract platform Waterfall Network announced the completion of a new funding round of $11.6 million, with participation from Bolt's Capital, Alpha Token Capital, and Enflux. The funds will be used to strengthen the platform's infrastructure, simplify nodes, and further improvements.Waterfall Protocol, launched in July 2024, is a Layer 1, scalable, decentralized smart contract platform developed by the software development company BlueWave based on DAG technology and fast finality PoS consensus. It is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by The Block, a developer report released by the venture capital firm Electric Capital found that Solana is the preferred blockchain for new developers. The report found that among the 39,148 new developers exploring cryptocurrency this year, 7,625 are developing on Solana, indicating that the number of developers on this network has increased by 83% year-over-year.The report states that this is the first time since 2016 that the growth rate of the Solana blockchain ecosystem has surpassed that of Ethereum. However, in terms of total developers, Ethereum remains the largest blockchain in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Solana ranks second in the same regions based on the number of developers.Electric Capital's report also found that in 2024, Aptos, Base, Bitcoin, Internet Computer, NEAR, Polkadot, Polygon, Starknet, and Sui each added over 1,000 new developers. Additionally, BNB, Optimism, Scroll, Stellar, and TON also added 500 new developers.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, after the U.S. PPI and initial claims data exceeded expectations, Paul Ashworth, an analyst at Capital Economics, stated: "The components of the PCE, which the Federal Reserve prefers, are generally weak, and the CPI data released yesterday indicates that the core PCE month-on-month will only rise slightly by 0.03%.It now seems more likely that the Federal Reserve will continue to cut rates by 25 basis points next week." Meanwhile, last week, the number of initial jobless claims increased by 17,000, the highest level since mid-October last year, while economists expected a decrease of 4,000, to 220,000.

ChainCatcher news, DeFi platform Step Finance has acquired the early-stage startup Moose Capital, which specializes in the tokenization of traditional stocks, aiming to allow users to buy and sell shares of companies like Nvidia and Tesla directly on the Solana blockchain.In addition to acquiring Moose Capital's products (which are planned to be renamed Remora Markets), Step Finance has also onboarded the team and regulatory licenses of this startup in preparation for a launch in the first quarter of 2025.Step Finance aims to become the portfolio management tool and analytics hub for Solana users. It also owns the media company SolanaFloor, which focuses on the NFT market, and the global event project Solana Allstars, which is active in over 50 cities.