SBF's ex-girlfriend will be released early, and she was transferred from state federal prison to community supervision on October 16th.

On December 18, TechInAsia reported that Standard Chartered Bank has launched a blockchain-based tokenized deposit solution for Ant International, enabling real-time transfers in Hong Kong dollars (HKD), offshore renminbi (CNH), and US dollars (USD). The bank has partnered with global fintech firm Ant International to deploy this technology on Ant’s Whale platform. This initiative is part of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA) “Project Ensemble” plan, which aims to advance distributed ledger technology (DLT) development in the region. Ant International is the first customer to adopt the new solution, gaining access to 7/24 treasury management and liquidity transfers. Both Standard Chartered and Ant International are members of the EnsembleTX group, which supports tokenization applications in Hong Kong. Since May 2024, Standard Chartered has joined the Project Ensemble architecture community to help establish industry standards and test tokenization use cases.

**December 18 (CoinDesk) — Nasdaq-listed VivoPower is expanding its XRP-related strategy via a new joint venture, targeting a multibillion-dollar stake in Ripple Labs that would let investors indirectly hold nearly $1 billion in underlying XRP assets.** In a Tuesday press release, the company said its digital asset arm Vivo Federation has been tapped by Korean asset manager Lean Ventures to preliminarily pursue a $300 million Ripple Labs share acquisition. Based on current XRP price estimates, VivoPower calculates this stake equates to roughly 450 million XRP — valued at around $900 million. Notably, the deal does not involve direct XRP purchases. Lean Ventures plans to set up a dedicated investment vehicle to hold the Ripple shares acquired by Vivo Federation, with Korean institutions and eligible retail investors as target participants. VivoPower added it has secured Ripple’s approval to buy initial preferred shares and is currently in talks with existing institutional share

**December 18** Per LookOnChain monitoring, whale address 0xc8D4 has fully withdrawn its remaining 7,654 ETH (≈$21.62M) from three other wallets in the past hour, netting an approximate $4M profit. The address first accumulated 12,906 ETH at a market bottom in May 2018 and has repeatedly sold at peak levels since. Over the last three years, it has amassed over $15M in total profits from ETH trading.

According to data from Farside Investors, on December 18, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs posted a net inflow of $457.3 million yesterday, with individual fund flows as follows: - BlackRock IBIT: +$1.112 billion - Fidelity FBTC: +$3.915 billion - Bitwise BITB: -$8.4 million - ARK ARKB: -$37 million Separately, U.S. Ethereum spot ETFs recorded a net outflow of $22.4 million yesterday, including: - BlackRock ETHA: -$19.6 million - Fidelity FETH: -$2.8 million

On December 18, PeckShieldAlert monitoring revealed that a whale’s multisig wallet was hacked due to a private key leak, resulting in an estimated loss of $27.3 million. The attacker has already laundered $12.6 million (equivalent to 4,100 ETH) via TornadoCash and holds approximately $2 million in liquid assets. Additionally, the attacker controls the victim’s multisig wallet, which holds a leveraged long position on the Aave platform: the wallet deposited $25 million worth of ETH as collateral and borrowed 12.3 million DAI.

On December 18, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said in a social media post that crypto index ETPs are expected to see significant inflows, with highly varied structures and sizes. He’s named the 21Shares FTSE Crypto 10 ex-BTC Index ETF (ticker: TXBC) as one of the ETFs to watch in 2026. BlockBeats Note: This ETF tracks the FTSE Russell crypto index, offering exposure to a broad portfolio of digital assets. It holds the top 10 crypto assets by market cap (excluding Bitcoin) instead of focusing on a single token.