Cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index Rises to 25, Market Still in "Extreme Fear" State

Hong Kong is planning to roll out new regulations for cryptocurrency and its supporting infrastructure to guide insurance industry investment, Bloomberg reported on December 22. The insurance regulator will impose a 100% risk charge on cryptocurrency assets. For stablecoin investments, the risk charge will be determined based on the fiat currency the stablecoin is pegged to under Hong Kong’s regulatory framework. The regulator’s proposal remains subject to potential revisions. A public consultation is scheduled to run from February to April, after which the proposal will be submitted for the legislative process.

December 22 — Sources report @polymarketbet has summarized key takeaways from Polymarket team member Mustafa’s recent update in the project’s Discord community, as follows: 1. Polymarket intends to leave Polygon and launch its own Ethereum Layer 2 solution, POLY. The rollout of POLY is a "top priority." (Polymarket’s operations were disrupted by Polygon’s December 18 outage.) 2. Polymarket plans to cut ties with all third-party vendors (including GoldSky, Alchemy, etc.). "These providers are all way too problematic — we’ll be migrating away ASAP." 3. This week, Polymarket will launch 5-minute markets.

On December 22, crypto influencer @ingalvarezsol used metrics including Polymarket’s valuation range (20–30 billion USD), OTC point pricing (90 USD per point), and LIT token’s pre-market price (3.4 USD) to project Lighter’s valuation: - **Minimum (Bear Market Range):** 15 billion USD (tied to its venture capital round financing) - **Bear Market Baseline:** 30–42 billion USD (calculated via reverse-engineering from market/pre-market/point prices) - **Optimistic Outlook (Final Valuation):** At least 75–125 billion USD @ingalvarezsol stressed Hyperliquid and Lighter are fundamentally distinct: - Hyperliquid builds a Web3-native liquidity layer, with profitability driven mainly by retail transaction fees (plus ecosystem dynamics). - Lighter focuses on decentralized trading infrastructure, aiming to onboard fintechs, brokers, and professional market makers over time—while keeping retail execution costs extremely low (including 0% fees on select spot markets). A key catalyst

On December 22, Aave’s community will launch voting on the ARFC proposal titled “Brand Asset Ownership Transfer to Tokenholders” via Snapshot tomorrow at 10:40 AM. Voting will run through December 26. The proposal covers clear definitions of Aave’s brand assets and intellectual property—including domains, social media accounts, naming rights, and more—as well as usage rights and related terms. It also grants the DAO governance control over these assets.

Onchain Lens data indicates a whale tagged "1011" was liquidated for $17.94 million during a sharp market downturn on December 22nd. Notably, the whale deposited an additional $3 million last night to open a 10x leveraged long position on HYPE. Additionally, the whale holds small long positions across BTC, ETH, and SOL, with a combined position value exceeding $10 million.

December 22 – Arcium confidential computing network member @milianstx said in a post that using Tornado Cash could lead to users’ wallets being flagged across hundreds of apps, making them unusable. @milianstx also urged users not to mix their funds with North Korean hackers.