Good Morning,

U.S. stock markets were closed on Thursday in remembrance of former President Jimmy Carter, but crypto is 24/7 and is bearing the entire brunt of any nervousness ahead of today’s December employment report

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Gensler gives his last words on crypto, Fidelity picks its favorite alt coin, Marc Cuban has been fully coin pilled, Backpack clears up the FTX EU acquisition confusion, and more

It’s finally Friday, let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Bitcoin has returned to levels not seen in more than one month

  • Thorough the day it barely held above $91,000 and down about -3% over the past 24 hours.

• SOL and LINK were notable underperformers among altcoins

• The selling comes ahead of Friday morning's job report, which, if strong, might have markets eliminating the idea of any Fed rate cuts in 2025

Market Predictions

• Traders on Kalshi are currently predicting if what the Fed decision in January will be (no change, cut 25 basis points, etc.)

• You can trade this market by checking out Kalshi

• Get a $20 bonus when you deposit $100 or more with code “LIT” on signup

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

• SEC Chair Gary Gensler distances himself as an enemy of crypto but reiterates about crypto bad actors (BL) 

• NEOS Investments announced a 28.2% distribution yield for their Bitcoin High Income ETF, BTCI

• Sound Planning CEO confirms on FOX Business that Bank of America now conducts 100% of its internal transactions using XRP, watch video here

• Mark Cuban prefers Bitcoin over gold (TD) 

• Mastercard expands its Crypto Credential solution to the UAE and Kazakhstan (TD) 

• Exodus becomes the first crypto wallet to be listed on a major US exchange (TD)

• Senator Cynthia Lummis is set to lead the US Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee (TB)

• China unveils its $54.5B national blockchain infrastructure roadmap (BT)

• Circle donates $1M USDC to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee (BL)

• 22% of financial advisors allocated crypto in 2024, up from 11% in 2023 (TB)

• CFTC subpoenas Coinbase for customer data related to Polymarket transactions (BL)

• The EU’s MiCA regulations could boost market share for euro-pegged stablecoins (TB)

• Fidelity believes Ethereum’s strong fundamentals give it a long-term edge over Solana (TB)

• L1 MANTRA will tokenize $1B of UAE property developer DAMAC Group's assets (CD) 

• BlockDAG raises $178M in presale as it nears its $600M fundraising target (TM)

• Ira Auerbach will lead Tandem, Offchain Labs' blockchain venture studio and fund (TB)

• Gemini appoints new European leadership to boost expansion (CD) 

• Backpack clarifies its FTX EU acquisition and confirms that it will handle returning funds to FTX EU customers (TB)

• Wyler is uncertain about the direction of Reddit's RCA NFT collection following her departure as head (TD)

• Kraken offers trading fee credits to FTX clients receiving distributions on its platform (FM) 

• Bitcoin miner Cleanspark now holds over 10K Bitcoin (CS) 

• Thai authorities confiscate 996 Bitcoin mining rigs illegally siphoning electricity (CS) 

Launches

• Mobile crypto game InfiniGods is preparing to launch and airdrop its native token, GOD (TD) 

• Polkadot-based Phala Network launches Ethereum L2 rollup with Succinct Labs and Conduit (TB) 

Venture Capital

• Plume Network advances mainnet launch with partnerships and its $25M RWAfi fund (TM)

• Sol Strategies is raising $19M in debt financing from ParaFi Capital to expand Solana staking operations (TB)

Regulation

• IMF advises Kenya to overhaul its outdated crypto regulations (CT)

Cybersecurity

• Whitehat hacker recovers $1.5M of $2.5M stolen in the year’s first DeFi hack on Moby (PT)

• Man loses $188K to crypto scammer posing as long-lost childhood friend (DH)

Extra Reads

• Is the Fed’s rate cutting cycle over? One key driver behind talk of a swift end to this cutting cycle is around surprisingly stubborn inflation and here’s why

See full breakdown here

• Three A16Z predictions for crypto spring and why only two are right

See prediction here

Chart of the Day

Market sentiment in a nutshell

Meme Dump

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