Yi Lihua's Trend Research Increases Holdings Again, Acquiring 13,462 ETH with a Daily Increase of Over 46,000 ETH

**South Korea’s Supreme Court on December 30 sentenced a cryptocurrency exchange employee to four years in prison and banned them from working in the financial industry for four years.** The court ruled the employee—who received Bitcoin from North Korea—helped orchestrate a plot to induce a South Korean military officer to sell military secrets. North Korean hackers paid the employee roughly $487,000 in Bitcoin to recruit active-duty South Korean officers, the court found. An Army captain involved in the scheme received about $33,500 in Bitcoin. The judge noted the defendant knew their actions involved a hostile country, posed a threat to national security, and were motivated by personal financial gain. The captain was previously sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $35,000 for violating the Military Secrets Protection Act. The exchange employee was convicted under the National Security Act. The case revealed conspirators contacted the officer via a Telegram chat room,

On December 30, MLM Monitor reported that Lighter has withdrawn a total of 32.05 million USDC from its platform to a treasury address, with roughly $100,000 still remaining in the platform’s fee wallet. Of that $32.05 million, approximately $8.6 million has been re-deposited into Lighter since October 16—with around $7.5 million flowing to the LLP (a setup where generated fees are returned to holders, reflected in LLP earnings). This practice is unusual: it has never been publicly disclosed nor mentioned in official documents, and it accounts for roughly 25% of Lighter’s total revenue. The remaining ~$21.9 million USDC has been transferred to a Coinbase custody address. Lighter also disclosed that its treasury address is hard-coded in the contract as “account 0” (responsible for collecting platform fees) and can be modified via a contract mechanism.

As of December 30, Coinglass data indicates total liquidated value across the crypto market over the past 24 hours hit $299 million—with $160 million in long positions liquidated and $139 million in short positions. Globally, 96,590 traders were liquidated in the same period. The largest single liquidation occurred on the Hyperliquid platform for BTC-USD, totaling $5.2354 million.

On December 29, Cantor Fitzgerald noted in its latest year-end report that Bitcoin could be entering a prolonged multi-month downturn, potentially setting the stage for an early "crypto winter" in 2026. Analyst Brett Knoblauch pointed out Bitcoin has retraced roughly 85 days from its recent peak, with prices likely to remain under pressure—possibly even testing the moving average around $75,000. Unlike prior cycles, this downturn is less likely to coincide with widespread liquidations or a systemic collapse. Cantor noted the current market is dominated by institutions, not retail investors, and the "divergence" between token prices and on-chain fundamentals is widening—especially in DeFi, tokenized assets, and crypto infrastructure. Cantor concluded that while 2026 may not necessarily bring a new bull market, the crypto industry’s institutionalization, compliance pathways, and on-chain infrastructure are solidifying as prices cool.

On December 29, an official announcement revealed that Sky Protocol repurchased 1.9 million USDS last week to acquire 29.3 million SKY tokens. Since the launch of its repurchase plan, the total amount repurchased has exceeded 96 million USDS.

**December 29th — Bitmine has officially partnered with three staking service providers to advance its commercial MAVAN (Made in America Validator Network), slated to launch in 2026.** As of December 28, 2025, Bitmine has staked 408,627 ETH—valued at roughly $1.2 billion based on an ETH price of $2,948—representing just a small fraction of its 4.11 million ETH holdings. The current Comprehensive Ethereum Staking Rate (CESR) stands at 2.81%. Fundstrat founder Tom Lee noted that if Bitmine’s entire ETH holdings were fully staked via MAVAN and its partners going forward, the annual staking yield would total approximately $374 million (using the 2.81% CESR), with daily earnings exceeding $1 million.