- Since late Nov 2024, ETH whale addresses (those with 1k+ ETH) have been accumulating ETH, while smaller holders (10-100 ETH) and mid-tier holders (100-1k ETH) have been declining, indicating potential redistribution of ETH.
- This accumulation trend among whales aligns with Ethereum's recent price rebound, suggesting increased confidence from larger participants (including the positive ETH ETF inflows seen in recent weeks) amid cautious behavior from smaller holders.
source: Glassnode
- Bybit, an international crypto trading platform, announced that it will end its withdrawal and custody services for French users starting January 8, 2025, at 8:00 AM UTC. This is due to tightening regulatory requirements imposed by the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF).
- The Markets in Crypto-Assets Act framkework, (‘MiCA’ or ‘MiCAR’) was proposed by the EU back in September 2020. In under three years, the details of the new regulation were largely agreed upon, and in April 2023, the European Parliament approved the act. The date of enactment was set for December 30, 2024.
- On October 15, 2024, France updated its national laws to align with the EU's MiCA and the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR), ensuring consistency with European standards and introducing a transition period until July 1, 2026, for existing Digital Asset Service Providers (DASPs) to comply with the new regime. This includes stricter oversight, marketing rules, banking access, and AML/CFT measures.
- As Europe prepares to fully implement MiCA, Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap, announced on Dec. 17 that it is investing in Malta-based stablecoin firm StablR, who was founded in 2023 and recently secured an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from the Malta Financial Services Authority, allowing it to issue fully compliant stablecoins under MiCA. Following MiCA’s introduction, major exchanges like Coinbase have removed or restricted access to non-compliant stablecoins, and Tether has suspended its euro-pegged stablecoin, EURT which had a market cap of $27 million at the time of suspension.
- On Dec 16, US Bitcoin ETFs (including leveraged and futures ETFs) collectively broke $129 billion in net assets, surpassing gold ETFs for the first time.
- Bitcoin ETF inflows reached $5.5 billion in the first half of December.
- BTC Spot ETFs recorded 14 consecutive days of inflows. At the current $120.33 bn in AUM in BTC spot ETFs, the total net asset value represents over 5.7% of the market capitalization of Bitcoin.
- Microstrategy said in a filing Monday morning that it had acquired an additional 15,350 bitcoins for $1.5 billion. The company now owns roughly 440,000 bitcoins.
