El Salvador has acquired an additional 1511 BTC so far this year

Coinbase Investment Research Director David Duong noted on December 29: “We see specialized blockchain networks—including L2s, standalone L1s, and app-specific chains—emerging rapidly, quickly reshaping the crypto infrastructure competitive landscape. For instance: - Circle’s Arc platform, built for USDC-focused institutional use cases, aims to be a compliant, best-in-class institutional infrastructure; - The Tempo network (incubated by Stripe and Paradigm) focuses on bridging institutional payment rails, targeting the massive cross-border payments and global trade market; - The Canton Network is building a private, permissioned blockchain to unlock trillions of dollars in institutional capital tied up in asset tokenization and securities exchanges.” This infrastructure fragmentation isn’t accidental—it’s a strategic institutional response to a core challenge: Large firms generally refuse to outsource their core business logic to competitor-controlled platforms. At its root:

On December 28, Hyperliquid announced on Discord its team token unlock schedule: 1.2 million HYPE will unlock on January 6, with monthly unlocks on the 6th going forward.

On December 28, Uniswap announced it has eliminated all interface fees for its app and API. Earlier reports confirmed the Uniswap "Fee Switch Activation Proposal" passed its final governance vote. Following a two-day timelock, the fee switch for Uniswap v2 and v3 will activate on the Unichain mainnet—triggering UNI token burns. The proposal will also burn 100 million UNI tokens from the Uniswap treasury and roll out a protocol fee discount auction system to boost liquidity provider returns.

December 28 — According to Coinbob Popular Address Monitor (via https://t.me/Coinbob_track_CN), a whale address labeled "pension-usdt.eth" has moved large profits earned on Hyperliquid into the yield farming space. The address recently withdrew ~$10 million from Hyperliquid and immediately deposited the funds into AAVE to lend and earn stable compound interest. Its total AAVE lending now stands at ~$30 million. Alongside those transactions, the whale opened an ETH short position at $2,918 at 1 AM ET yesterday and has been steadily adding to the position. The current total short position totals ~$88.33 million, with an average entry price of $2,928 and a liquidation price of $3,849 — making it the largest ETH short position on Hyperliquid. Monitoring also shows the whale has raked in ~$14.59 million in swing trading profits on Hyperliquid over the past 30 days. Its strategy relies on low leverage, short holding periods (average ~23 hours), and focuses primarily on BTC and ETH t

U.S. stocks hit a fresh record high on Dec. 28, with the S&P 500 just ~1% away from its first-ever 7,000-point close—on track for an eighth straight monthly gain, the longest such streak since 2017-2018. “Momentum’s clearly bullish,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth advisor at Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management. “Barring an external shock, the path of least resistance remains higher.” Next week’s Fed meeting minutes will be a key catalyst, as investors eye clues on further rate cuts. Investors also await former President Trump’s pick to replace Fed Chair Powell; any hints could move markets next week. The S&P 500 is up nearly 18% YTD, while the Nasdaq has gained 22%. Tech—a key bull market driver—has recently struggled, offset by strength in other sectors. Anthony Saglimbeni, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, noted this signals a rotation into more reasonably valued areas. (Source: FXStreet)

Jake O, Head of Wintermute’s OTC Trading, noted in a December 28 post that Lighter’s Token Generation Event (TGE) will serve as a key indicator of current market risk appetite, and how the market absorbs the initial 25% token supply release will largely reflect overall market sentiment strength.