PA Daily News | Interactive Brokers now supports stablecoin deposits; Coinbase may partner with Kalshi to launch an internal prediction market.

Today's top news highlights:

1. Interactive Brokers now supports stablecoin deposits.

2. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved the franchise applications of five trust banks, including Ripple and BitGo.

3. The Firedancer mainnet has been officially launched and is running stably.

4. Fogo cancels $20 million token presale, opting instead for community airdrop.

5. OKX: Evidence of manipulation of OM prices has been discovered; evidence has been submitted to regulators and legal proceedings have been initiated.

6. Sources: Coinbase plans to partner with Kalshi to launch an internal prediction market, expected to be released next week.

Macro

People's Bank of China: Promote the internationalization of the RMB and steadily develop the digital RMB

The Party Committee of the People's Bank of China convened a meeting, emphasizing the need to steadily advance high-level financial opening-up and safeguard national financial security. The meeting stressed the importance of implementing global governance initiatives, actively participating in and promoting the reform and improvement of global financial governance, pragmatically conducting financial diplomacy and multilateral and bilateral monetary and financial cooperation, advancing the internationalization of the RMB, continuously building and developing a multi-channel, broad-coverage RMB cross-border payment system, and steadily developing the digital RMB.

Interactive Brokers now supports stablecoin deposits.

According to Bloomberg, brokerage giant Interactive Brokers has now allowed some U.S. users to deposit stablecoins into their personal accounts. Users can deposit directly through their crypto wallets without linking a bank account. This feature will be gradually rolled out to more users.

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower, with Circle down 5.76% and Strategy down 3.74%.

According to CLS News Agency, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.51%, but rose 1.05% for the week; the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.69%, but fell 1.62% for the week; and the S&P 500 fell 1.07%, but fell 0.63% for the week. Popular tech stocks generally declined, with Nvidia falling over 3%, and Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon all falling over 1%, while Tesla rose over 2%. Blockchain concept stocks generally fell, with COIN (Coinbase) down 0.58%; MSTR (Strategy) down 3.74%; and CRCL (Circle) down 5.76%.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has approved the franchise applications of five trust banks, including Ripple and BitGo.

According to an official announcement, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has approved the franchise applications of five national trust banks. These approvals are conditional but will allow these institutions to operate under federal regulations. The approved institutions are all in the digital asset sector and include First National Digital Currency Bank, Ripple National Trust Bank, BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association, Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, and Paxos Trust Company, National Association.

Moody's proposes a stablecoin rating framework centered on reserve quality.

Credit rating agency Moody's has proposed a new framework for assessing stablecoins. This framework will evaluate and rate the creditworthiness of stablecoin debt. Moody's framework effectively means that two stablecoins claiming 1:1 backing of the US dollar, even if they share the same underlying assets, could receive different ratings simply because of the different assets used to back them.

Moody's stated, "We will address market value considerations by estimating the market value risk for each eligible reserve asset, depending on its type and maturity." "The analysis will yield a projected interest rate applicable to the value of each asset. We also recommend considering operational, liquidity, technological, and other factors related to stablecoins to arrive at a final rating."

The Polish government has resubmitted the Crypto Asset Markets Act without making any changes.

The Polish government has reintroduced a cryptocurrency bill that was previously vetoed by President Karol Nawrocki. Officially titled the Crypto Asset Markets Law, the bill aims to align Poland's regulatory framework with the EU's Crypto Asset Markets (MiCA) mechanism, which establishes a unified set of rules for cryptocurrency regulation across the EU. The Polish government has resubmitted the bill without any modifications. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has urged its passage to address national security concerns related to Russia and former Soviet republics.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has denied any cooperation with "Hong Kong Yunbo Holdings/Yunbo Holdings 2.0" and has not issued any stablecoin licenses.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued a statement saying that "Hong Kong Yunbo Holdings/Yunbo Holdings 2.0" has no cooperative relationship with the HKMA and is not regulated by it. The HKMA has not yet issued any licenses to stablecoin issuers and advises the public to be vigilant about stablecoin promotions and to check the list of regulated institutions on its official website.

Opinion

Vanguard executive: Bitcoin is a speculative asset, but acknowledges its potential practical applications during periods of inflation or volatility.

John Ameriks, global head of quantitative equities at asset management firm Vanguard, called Bitcoin a purely speculative asset, akin to a collectible toy. Despite his criticisms, Ameriks stated that the cryptocurrency could find real-world applications beyond market speculation in situations of high fiat currency inflation or political instability.

Coinbase: The Fed's shift from balance sheet reduction to net injection may provide support for the crypto market.

Coinbase Institutional published an analysis on its X platform stating that the Federal Reserve's 25 basis point rate cut this week was in line with expectations. However, its plan to conduct Reserve Management Purchases (RMPs) of U.S. Treasury securities within the next 30 days is at least a positive development. This liquidity injection came earlier than expected, and reserve growth could continue until April 2026.

Coinbase Institutional believes that the Federal Reserve's shift from balance sheet reduction to net injection is seen as "light quantitative easing" or "implicit quantitative easing," which could support the cryptocurrency market. Combined with the RMP and federal funds futures indicating two rate cuts (50 basis points each) in the first nine months of 2026, this suggests that market hawkish sentiment may be lower than expected.

Project Updates

Firedancer's mainnet has officially launched and is running stably.

According to Solana's official Twitter account, after three years of development, Firedancer is now live on the Solana mainnet and has been running stably on some validator nodes for 100 days, successfully producing 50,000 blocks.

The Almanak airdrop was delayed due to system issues and a DDoS attack.

According to an Almanak announcement, today's airdrop experienced delays in claiming tokens and wallet deployment failures due to operational errors and a DDoS attack. The claiming function was originally scheduled to open at 12:15 UTC, but was actually postponed to 12:35; approximately 1,100 users encountered a "PENDING" status issue during wallet creation. The team has restored the system, cleared the lag, and confirmed that users' tokens are safe.

According to CoinGecko data, the price of Almanak tokens has plummeted by approximately 80% in the past 24 hours due to an airdrop system malfunction, currently trading at around $0.034. Previously, the DeFi smart proxy platform Almanak completed an $8.45 million funding round, with investments from institutions such as Delphi Labs .

Tether plans to explore on-chain equity solutions after completing a $20 billion equity financing round.

According to Bloomberg, while pursuing a funding plan of up to $20 billion, Tether is considering ways to improve liquidity, such as share buybacks or equity tokenization. Tether management is concerned that existing shareholders selling shares at a discount will affect the valuation and has not yet allowed them to participate in this funding round. Tether previously launched the Hadron asset tokenization platform, which aims to represent assets such as stocks in blockchain form.

Phantom partners with Kalshi to launch on-chain prediction market functionality

According to Phantom's official Twitter account, Phantom will partner with Kalshi to launch a prediction market feature, allowing users to trade binary event contracts within their wallets, covering popular events in sports, politics, crypto, and culture. Trading is similar to a token swap, supporting various tokens including CASH, with real-time odds and market dynamics viewing, and the ability to participate in market chat interaction. This feature will be gradually rolled out to qualified users over the next week.

Binance Wallet responds to ZEROBASE front-end incident and initiates user protection measures

Binance Chinese-language issued a statement regarding the ZEROBASE frontend attack that resulted in some users authorizing malicious contracts. Binance Wallet has blocked the malicious domains and blacklisted the affected contracts. Security alerts will be automatically sent to potentially affected users within 30 minutes. Users can check and revoke authorizations for suspicious contracts on the wallet's authorization page.

OKX: Evidence of manipulation of OM prices has been found; evidence has been submitted to regulators and legal proceedings have been initiated.

OKX issued a statement on its X platform stating that it had discovered conclusive evidence that multiple interconnected and colluding accounts used a large amount of OM as collateral to borrow a large amount of USDT, artificially inflating the price of OM. OKX's risk team correctly flagged this abnormal activity, contacted the account holders, and requested corrective action, but they refused to cooperate. To control the risk, OKX took over these linked accounts. Shortly afterward, the price of OM plummeted. OKX only liquidated a small amount of OM, but the sharp price drop still resulted in substantial losses, all of which were borne by the OKX Security Fund.

Furthermore, multiple third-party analyses indicate that the price crash was primarily triggered by perpetual contract trading outside the OKX platform. The OKX Security Fund operates entirely as designed. OKX has submitted all evidence and documents to regulatory and law enforcement agencies. Several lawsuits and legal proceedings are currently underway.

Coinbase has included Lighter in its listing roadmap.

According to a Coinbase Markets announcement, Coinbase has added Lighter to its asset listing roadmap. The listing will depend on market-making support and sufficient technical infrastructure. A separate announcement will be released once these conditions are met.

Tether plans to acquire Exor's 65.4% stake in Juventus Football Club in an all-cash deal.

Tether has submitted a binding all-cash offer to Exor to acquire all of its shares in Juventus Football Club, representing 65.4% of its issued share capital. The transaction is subject to Exor's acceptance, signing of final documents, and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals. Following the transaction, Tether plans to launch a public tender offer for the remaining shares at the same price per share, funded entirely by its own capital, and commits to a long-term commitment to the club. If the deal is completed, Tether is prepared to invest €1 billion to support and develop Juventus. According to Bloomberg, sources familiar with the matter revealed that the Agnelli family, which holds a controlling stake in the club, does not intend to sell its shares.

Fogo cancels $20 million token presale, opting instead for community airdrop.

The L1 blockchain project Fogo has cancelled its planned $20 million token pre-sale (representing 2% of the total supply). Instead, the FOGO tokens intended for the pre-sale will be airdropped to the community, and the 2% originally allocated to core contributors will be burned. According to the token economics model, 38.98% of the tokens will be unlocked when the network launches on January 13th. This includes immediately tradable airdrop shares, tokens for foundation operations, and core contributor shares unlocked in installments. The token allocation is approximately 1/3 for the foundation, 34% for core contributors (locked for four years), 8.77% for institutional investors, 7% for advisors, and 11.25% for the community.

Sources say Coinbase is planning to partner with Kalshi to launch an internal prediction market, expected to be released next week.

According to a CNBC report citing sources familiar with the matter, Coinbase is preparing to launch an internal prediction market powered by Kalshi, with an announcement possible as early as next week. While not an exclusive partnership, Kalshi will be Coinbase's only operator partnered with a prediction market once the product launches.

Previously, it was reported that Kalshi had joined forces with Coinbase, Robinhood, and others to form a prediction market alliance.

Important data

Machi's long ETH positions were liquidated in the early hours of the morning, resulting in a loss of $20.62 million since the crash on October 11th.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, Ma Ji (Huang Licheng)'s ETH long positions were liquidated during the overnight drop. Since the crash on October 11th, he has lost $20.62 million of his principal.

A new wallet, possibly belonging to Bitmine, received nearly 15,000 ETH from BitGo, worth $48.42 million.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a newly created wallet received 14,959 ETH from BitGo, worth $48.42 million. This wallet likely belongs to Bitmine.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of $49.164 million yesterday, with only BlackRock IBIT experiencing net inflows.

According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $49.164 million yesterday (December 12, Eastern Time).

The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net inflow yesterday was BlackRock ETF IBIT, with a net inflow of $51.128 million. IBIT's total historical net inflow has now reached $62.732 billion.

The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net outflow yesterday was the Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a net outflow of $1.964 million. The total historical net inflow of FBTC is currently $12.175 billion.

As of press time, the total net asset value of the Bitcoin spot ETF was $118.271 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Bitcoin's total market capitalization) of 6.57%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $57.904 billion.