WSJ: President Trump Pardons 'Speedway' Lobbyist Who Paid $1 Million for Market Access

On December 25, a Morgan Stanley strategist noted the U.S. economy could be heading for a "jobless productivity-driven boom"—one that would cool inflation and clear the way for additional Federal Reserve rate cuts. U.S. Labor Department data shows year-over-year hourly output growth for all nonfarm workers hit 3.3% in the second quarter, a sharp improvement from the 1.8% annual decline in the prior quarter. Investors’ expectations for the pace of Fed rate cuts next year are more aggressive than the central bank’s official forecasts. Per the CME FedWatch Tool, Fed officials project just one rate cut by 2026, but investors see a 72% probability of a year-end rate cut (source: FXStreet).

On December 25th, **Pacifica**—a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform—now lets users view funding rate data across multiple platforms: Pacifica itself, Binance, Hyperliquid, Bybit, and Lighter. This makes it easy to quickly compare rate differences between exchanges. Pacifica traders have already deployed arbitrage strategies by opening long and short positions simultaneously. Per Pacifica’s real-time funding rate data, the following major crypto assets have notable positive or negative rate gaps vs. other platforms: - HYPE: Pacifica vs. Bybit: +0.00188% - BCH: Pacifica vs. Binance: +0.00108% - SOL: Pacifica vs. Hyperliquid/Binance: -0.00215% - WLFI: Pacifica vs. Binance: +0.00337% - 2Z: Pacifica vs. Hyperliquid: +0.01% For traders looking to do high-frequency trading or boost volume to earn points, funding rates can also help pick trading pairs with manageable costs. On-chain data analysis and copy-trading tool Coinbob has launched **Coinbob Pacifica**

December 25th Update: On-chain analyst Ai Auntie (@ai_9684xtpa) reports that Yihua Group subsidiary Trend Research holds 645,000 ETH (645k ETH) with an average withdrawal cost from centralized exchanges (CEXs) of ~$3,299.43. The holding currently faces an unrealized loss of ~$242 million. Monthly withdrawal breakdown: - November: 630,571.5 ETH withdrawn from CEXs between Nov 2–21, totaling $2.1 billion at an average price of $3,337.39. - December: 84,954.4 ETH withdrawn from CEXs between Dec 14–23, totaling $256 million at an average price of $3,017.73.

On December 25th, Cloverpool data shows Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjusted at block height 929,376 at 11:48:06 AM Beijing time today, rising 0.04% to 148.26 T. The network’s seven-day average hash rate currently stands at 1.07 ZH/s.

Per Onchain Lens monitoring, a whale withdrew 3,000 ETH (≈$8.81 million) from Binance on December 25th.