Trump: Maybe a decision on the Fed will be made by the end of this year

December 21 — U.S. lawmakers are currently drafting a crypto tax bill titled the Digital Asset PARITY Act, per TheBlock. The legislation would exempt capital gains taxes on stablecoin transactions of $200 or less, while staking and mining rewards would qualify for a five-year tax deferral option.

Dec. 21st — Per Onchain Lens monitoring, a crypto whale withdrew 272.2 million PENGU tokens (valued at approximately $2.52 million) from Binance. Over the past two weeks, the same whale has accumulated a total of 273.08 million PENGU tokens (worth ~$2.55 million) and 405.84 TRUMP tokens (valued at $2,240). ### Notes on U.S. language adaptation: 1. **Conciseness**: Used "~" for "approximately" (common in U.S. crypto/finance briefs) and "crypto whale" (clearer than just "whale" for context). 2. **Abbreviation**: "Dec. 21st" (standard U.S. date shorthand) instead of full "December 21st". 3. **Flow**: Split into two short, scannable sentences (typical of U.S. news alerts) with "the same whale" to link events. 4. **Precision**: Retained exact token counts where critical (272,201,182 PENGU) while using "million" for readability.

VanEck has updated its application for the AVAX Spot ETF (ticker VAVX) as of December 21, introducing a staking reward mechanism that will stake 70% of its AVAX holdings to generate yield for investors. The VAVX ETF will use Coinbase Crypto Services as its initial staking provider, with a 4% service fee. Staking rewards will accrue to the fund and be reflected in its net asset value (NAV). Custodians for the ETF are Anchorage Digital and Coinbase Custody.

December 21 — Ethereum developers recently wrapped up the Fusaka upgrade (built to cut node operating costs) and have now kicked off full planning for the 2026 "Glamsterdam" upgrade. The "Glamsterdam" name combines two simultaneous upgrades to Ethereum’s two core layers: - The Execution Layer (home to transaction rules and smart contracts) will undergo the Amsterdam upgrade; - The Consensus Layer (responsible for coordinating validators and finalizing blocks) will roll out the Gloas upgrade. At the heart of these changes are proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and a block-level Access Control List (ACL) — both aimed at curbing manipulation and abuse tied to Maximum Extractable Value (MEV).

On December 21, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office in New York City announced a 23-year-old Brooklyn resident has been charged with running a phishing scam that stole nearly $16 million from roughly 100 Coinbase users. The suspect impersonated a Coinbase customer support rep, tricking victims into sending assets to his personal address before laundering the funds via a cryptocurrency mixer. To date, law enforcement has recovered about $105,000 in cash and $400,000 worth of crypto. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated the fraudster will be held accountable and brought to justice.

On December 21, the Ethereum Foundation announced it will shift its focus from speed to security in 2026 and roll out strict 128-bit encryption requirements. The foundation noted that while zkEVM has made notable performance gains over the past year, some solutions rely on mathematical assumptions that lack full validation—posing a theoretical risk of on-chain state forgery. As such, the next phase’s top priorities will be bolstering formal verification, attack resistance, and foundational cryptographic security. Moving forward, the foundation will provide security audit and evaluation tools, mandating that zkEVMs meet a minimum 128-bit security strength by 2026 (aligning with current mainstream cryptographic accreditation standards). Though the new rule may slow progress for some scalability projects, the foundation stressed that long-term, attack resilience and credibility are critical to attracting institutions and high-value applications. It’s better to prioritize security fi