SOL Surges Above $130, Up 4.2% in 24 Hours

Per HTX market data, Bitcoin rebounded to hit $90,000 on December 29, posting a 2.4% gain over the past 24 hours.

As of December 29, GMGN data shows the Base layer-2 meme token *thenickshirley* has continued surging—hitting a peak market capitalization of $9.142 million just 17 hours after launch. It’s currently trading at roughly $5.84 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $8.7 million. The token’s issuer, Nick Shirley, is a 23-year-old independent journalist and YouTube content creator. On December 26, 2025, he dropped a 42-minute investigative video titled *“I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion-Dollar Fraud Scandal”*—which quickly went viral, racking up 80+ million views and sparking nationwide controversy. The token launched at 5 PM ET on December 28, so it’s been live for less than 24 hours as of this report. BlockBeats notes that meme coin trading is extremely volatile, driven mostly by market hype and sentiment—with no real-world value or use case. Investors should be fully aware of the significant risks involved.

December 29th Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong Limited has unveiled a blockchain-based tokenized deposit solution in partnership with Ant Bank International, enabling 24/7 real-time fund transfers. Co-developed under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA) Project Ensemble and its Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Regulatory Sandbox, the solution supports seamless transfers of Hong Kong dollars (HKD), offshore renminbi (CNH), and US dollars (USD)—boosting efficiency for global corporate fund management. By tokenizing Ant Bank International’s accounts on its proprietary blockchain-powered fund management platform Whale, customer-owned global entities can achieve near-real-time fund flows between one another. Ant Bank International CTO Kevin Li noted the collaboration merges Standard Chartered’s deep banking expertise with Ant Bank International’s strengths in global payments and tokenization. “This new solution boosts liquidity management capabilities by delivering a se

On December 29, Galaxy released 26 crypto predictions for 2026, including these key insights: - Bitcoin is projected to hit $250,000 by 2027, with its price rising gradually. However, a clear 2026 forecast is challenging due to broad market options and macroeconomic volatility. - Solana’s on-chain economy will shift from meme cycles to revenue-generating businesses, pushing the Internet Capital Market (ICM) market cap from roughly $750 million to $2 billion. - Solana’s inflation reduction proposal (SIMD-0411) will be withdrawn, leaving its inflation reform deadlocked—this issue will rank lower in priority than market structure improvements, and no such proposals are expected to pass in 2026. - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will pave the way for tokenized securities in decentralized finance (DeFi), allowing legal tokenized securities to integrate into DeFi. Formal rulemaking is set to begin later in 2026. - By the end of 2026, decentralized exchange (DEX)

On December 29, Crowdfund Insider reported that UK financial institutions recently reviewed progress on the UK’s 2025 crypto regulation and outlined key policy priorities for 2026. UK Finance noted that over the past year, the UK has held extensive discussions on topics including stablecoins, Crypto Asset Trading Platforms (CATPs), and market manipulation prevention. Regulatory focus is gradually shifting from “non-collateralized crypto assets” to stablecoins backed by real-world assets. UK Finance stated that regulators are increasingly framing stablecoins as tools with payment and monetary attributes—rather than purely investment-focused crypto assets. This classification will directly impact redemption timelines, KYC requirements, and issuer compliance costs. It also warned that if the regulatory burden on GBP stablecoins exceeds that of overseas-issued non-GBP stablecoins, it could prompt issuers to relocate, weakening the UK’s control over stablecoins at the intersection of

Dec. 29 — Ethereum contract deployments hit a record 8.7 million in Q4 2025, marking an all-time high, per CoinTelegraph citing Token Terminal data.