The Japanese Interest Rate Hike Lands, Triggering a Crypto Market Recovery, with Some Altcoins Strengthening

December 20th, the Brooklyn Court brought criminal charges against Ronald Spektor—a suspect in Coinbase customer support scams—alleging he stole roughly $16 million from around 100 Coinbase users. Spektor is accused of impersonating Coinbase support via phishing and social engineering tactics to pull off the theft. He faces 31 counts, including first-degree grand larceny, first-degree money laundering, conspiracy to commit fraud, and other related charges. During the investigation, police seized about $105,000 in cash and $400,000 worth of cryptocurrency from the defendant. The District Attorney’s Office is currently tracing additional suspected stolen crypto assets linked to the scams.

**Bitcoin: Luke Gromen Shifts to Short-Term Bearish (Dec 20) – Key Notes** On December 20th, Luke Gromen—founder of Forest for the Trees and a macroeconomic analyst—told *The Monetary Matters Network* podcast he’s now short-term bearish on Bitcoin, despite being long-term bullish (he bought most of his position below $30k in late 2022/early 2023 and has never sold). His reasons for the shift: 1. Bitcoin remains highly correlated with tech stocks, but future AI competition’s bottleneck is **electricity** (not semiconductors) → dim outlook for both tech and Bitcoin. 2. Bitcoin has failed to break out relative to gold, and the future liquidity environment is: *“Unless it’s nuclear-grade money printing, it’s tightening.”* 3. Quantum computing poses a threat to Bitcoin (a risk 2–9 years out). Gromen also emphasized Tether’s moves as critical: the firm recently invested in AI and gold, and its **gold balance sheet position now exceeds its Bitcoin holdings**.

On December 20th, Farcaster’s official X account announced its USDC lending service is now live. Users can lend USDC on the Morpho platform to earn a 5% yield. Farcaster users can click “USDC Lending” in their wallet page to deposit USDC and start earning rewards—withdrawals are available at any time.

On December 20, Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas shared the top 25 U.S. stock ETFs by annual inflows on X (formerly Twitter). Among these funds, the Bitwise Bitcoin Spot ETF (ticker: IBIT) was the only one with a negative return—posting an annual gain of -9.59%. Notably, despite its underperformance, IBIT still ranked sixth in annual inflows, even outpacing the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which delivered a 64% annual return. This is a strong positive signal for the long term: the fund has attracted over $25 billion in inflows even during a bearish market phase, suggesting even greater potential once the market shifts to bullish territory.

On December 20, former President Donald Trump claimed during a press conference that sales of his Trump Gold Card have reached $1.3 billion, describing the product as “selling like hotcakes.” But prediction platform Polymarket has added a note to its related market: it will only count data for “definitively approved quantities backed by completed payments.” Trump’s December 19 statement on gold card sales, as well as Howard Lutnick’s claim that “$1.3 billion worth has been sold in just a few days,” do not meet this standard. As of press time, the probability on Polymarket that the Trump Gold Card will have $0 in sales this year remains as high as 89%. The Trump Gold Card is an investment immigration program introduced under the Trump administration, allowing wealthy foreigners to obtain U.S. residency by paying a substantial fee—currently set at $1 million plus a $15,000 processing fee.

December 20th — LookOnChain monitoring shows an Ethereum ICO wallet (0xbDb6) has just transferred all 2,000 ETH (valued at $5.96 million) to a new wallet, after lying dormant for over 10 years. The wallet’s holder only invested $620 in the ICO to receive 2,000 ETH; that holding is now worth $5.96 million, a 9,616x return on investment (ROI).