If you feel like you’re wading through waist-deep sludge, you are.
The December 26th options expiry was supposed to be the "big one," the moment the market finally picked a direction. Instead, the powers that be took a page out of the U.S. Congressional playbook. They looked at a mounting crisis and decided to kick the can down the road. Eh, that’s next month's problem.
Here is the updated reality of our "free market":
The Setup
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The New Deadline: Mark January 30th on your calendar. The expiry volume has ballooned even further, because why solve a problem today when you can make it exponentially more explosive next month?
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The Coiled Spring: We are watching a spring being wound with pathological intensity. The price is being suppressed so intentionally.. They can only move the goalposts so many times before they run out of field.
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The 2026 "Prophecy": All those analysts screaming about a 2026 mega-breakout? This is the tension they’re talking about. It’s a violent move looking for a place to happen.
The Ground Reality
Until the spring snaps, expect more of the same thrilling stagnation. We may continue crabbing sideways through January.
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The $90k Ceiling: Every time BTC breathes on $90k, people ape into long positions, only to be promptly liquidated by the exchanges and firms like Jane Street, Binance, Wintermute and Coinbase. It’s a predictable cycle of harvesting retail hope for profits.
My Advice
Unless you enjoy donating your capital to market makers, tread lightly with perps. If you must trade this range, stop hunting for the god candle. Set your limit sells, take modest wins, and stop giving the exchanges a reason to celebrate. Or just chill, stack, hold spot and LST’s and wait out the storm.
Price Movements on the Week
$BTC - Up 0.44% (-4.83% 30 days)
$SOL - Up 0.48% (-11.97% 30 days)
$ETH - Down 0.61% (-4.22% 30 days)
$ZEC - Up 23.84% (+13.43% 30 days)
$HYPE - Up 8% (-27.17% 30 days)
Total Crypto Market Cap - Up 0.4% (-4.9% 30 days) - We are under 3T.
Whole lotta nothing burger. The Deribit Digital Asset options for December 26, expired without much movement. This was a record-large event with ~$23-27 billion in notional value across $BTC, $ETH and $SOL options. What happened to the volatility we expected? As @david_eng_mba explained, Instead of letting positions expire (which unpins the price), the market executed a massive, coordinated roll into Jan 30th 2026.
In a move that mirrors the US Govt deciding on a budget, they said, nah, lets kick the can down the road and let it be next month’s problem. Read his full tweet - https://x.com/david_eng_mba/status/2004622478925349248?s=20
Self custody gets another hit. Trust Wallet (@TrustWallet) browser extension got hacked this week with over $7 million in losses for users for people running v2.68. To start the compensation process, affected users should please complete this form:https://be-support.trustwallet.com
If you use Trust Wallet, follow these steps.
• Step 1: Do NOT open the Trust Wallet Browser Extension v2.68 on your desktop device, to ensure the security of your wallet and prevent further issues.
• Step 2: Go to Chrome Extensions panel in your Chrome browser by copying the following address line (shortcut to the Official Trust Wallet Browser Extension): chrome://extensions/?id=egjidjbpglichdcondbcbdnbeeppgdph
Step 3: Switch the toggle to "Off" below the Trust Wallet if it's still "On".
Step 4: Click "Developer mode" in the upper right corner.
Step 5: Press the "Update" on the left upper corner.
Step 6. Check the version number: 2.69. This is the latest and secure version.
It’s punting season. The Senate pushed the Market Structure bill into 2026. Michael Selig (former SEC Crypto Task Force chief counsel) was sworn in as the new CFTC Chairman this month, just as the Senate Banking Committee delayed the crypto market structure legislation until early 2026 due to negotiations over DeFi and AML rules.
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Still Bullish outlook: With Selig at CFTC and Paul Atkins (also pro-innovation) leading the SEC, the industry gets sympathetic leaders at both key regulators. They can provide significant regulatory clarity through guidance, rulemaking, and coordination.
Never could have seen this one coming, but Solflare (@solflare) jumped on the wagon and introduced production markets with ZERO additional fees, powered by @Kalshi, enabled by @dflow. Rumor has it that if your wallet doesn’t have perps and prediction markets, it’s unc.
The artist formerly known as 0xMert, Mert (@mert) has been on a roll in vibe coding his Solana site (https://solprice.now/) that shows $SOL price, news on its price timeline, predictions on SOL’s price, open leverage and more. Helius has also been working hard on Orb Markets (@Orb_Markets). Orb is being built out to be a better solscan/coin market cap product to check transactions, buy tokens, etc all in one place. Anyone who’s used solscan knows how badly we need an upgraded option.
The Solana Foundation (@SolanaFndn) launched Kora (a gasless relayer) that allows apps to sponsor transaction fees, lets users pay fees with any token instead of holding SOL, and moves transaction signing into a secure, isolated environment. This lowers onboarding friction for new users and enables businesses to deploy Solana apps with a Web2-like experience while staying fully onchain. No $SOL? No problem.
Solstice (@solsticefi) had a rough week. First, their ICO fell well short of their expectations...in this market? Then, $USX depegged down to $0.92. Sell pressure on Orca and Raydium exceeded available liquidity, causing the secondary market price to drop. 1:1 redemptions on their site still worked and eUSX wasn’t affected, but it’s not a good look. If you jumped on it, there was an arbitrage opportunity to buy dollars for $0.92. It’s since returned after they injected liquidity back into the secondary markets.
If you use Huma (@humafinance), part 2 of their Season 2 airdrop is claimable now. They did it in 2 parts and you can grab the remainder now to restake or just claim to sell. If you missed the first claim, you can get them combined. https://claim.huma.finance/ - you can double check the address in their tweet - https://x.com/humafinance/status/2004537897882722489?s=20
If you are based in the USA (of course you aren’t….you have to use a VPN).
For all of the Cardano fans out there, Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) says he will be departing X and leaving behind his “twin” which I’d assume is a cigar smoking bot that will repost his announcements from his new homes, the Midnight Discord for weekly AMAs, YouTube for livestreams, and long-form writing he will do. X has become too toxic for him after suing someone for vibe code hacking the network a few weeks ago. He does get points for posting a Star Trek video.
Is the Aave drama over yet? One thing is certain to be lining up: the Tokens vs Equity debate will play out more in 2026. Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) posted a great blog outlining his views - https://blog.variant.fund/tokens-versus-equity
As we enter the post-Gensler regulatory environment it opens new opportunities for experimentation in token/equity models, but we need the Clarity Act to pass to have a clearer view of the options on the table for protocols to experiment with.
Meanwhile, Uniswap (@Uniswap) had a major governance vote, with 125,342,017 YES/ 742 NO votes. What’s next? 100m UNI will be burned, fee switches will be flipped, labs will turn off frontend fees and focus on the protocol, and more
The OCC approved federal trust charters for Circle's “First National Digital Currency Bank” and “Ripple National Trust Bank”, as well as conversions from state charters for Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets. Why does this matter? It’s a major step toward integrating cryptocurrency firms into the regulated U.S. banking system. They aren’t quite like your traditional banks yet. It legitimizes and mainstreams key parts of the crypto ecosystem like custody and stablecoins, while subjecting them to rigorous federal supervision. It supports safer scaling and institutional confidence but reinforces that crypto growth in the U.S. will increasingly occur within regulated boundaries.
A national trust bank charter is a limited-purpose federal banking license issued by the OCC. It allows institutions to engage in fiduciary activities, such as:
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Custody and safekeeping of assets (including digital assets like cryptocurrencies and stablecoins).
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Trust services.
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Related activities like stablecoin reserve management and blockchain-based settlement.
Unlike full-service national banks, these trust banks cannot:
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Accept deposits.
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Offer checking/savings accounts.
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Lend money.
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Access FDIC insurance
Instead of freezing funds, Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) burned over $500k running an ad on the Vegas Sphere during Christmas week. It’s a pure brand recognition play, as they didn’t say anything in it about crypto, nft’s, tokens, etc. Is it as impactful as a superbowl ad? Doubtful, but they did beat Ansem (@blknoiz06) and $WIF to it.
Want to compare stable yields on Solana? Fundamental (@fundamental_fi) launched a dashboard to compare rates on Elemental/Lulo/ Jup Lend/ Kamino/Drift. They say they are a public good dedicated to tracking true, verifiable yields across @solana, but they are run by @elementaldefi, which is a brand new USDC yield protocol, currently with 65 users and $2.1 locked up. It looks like they are positioning to go against Lulo and other stable yield aggregators for a set it and forget it approach that compounds your gains.
Who needs privacy? In the past year crypto social keeps pushing to follow peoples wallets and @phantom terminal is out here telling you to “Track your favorite traders to analyze their past activity and identify historical trends.” Oi Vey.
Thanks for reading,
Stay Free
• Ebullition
