Bloomberg: Citigroup Teams Up with Coinbase to Explore Offering Stablecoin Payment Services to Customers

December 19: Per LookOnChain monitoring, the whale address "pension-usdt.eth"—who previously shorted ETH and suffered a $2.1 million loss—has flipped to a long position. Using 3x leverage, the trader holds long positions on 1,000 BTC (≈$87.8M) and 10,000 ETH (≈$29.6M), with current unrealized gains exceeding $1.4 million.

On December 19, U.S. equities opened with the following moves: - The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 0.19% - The S&P 500 Index added 0.28% - The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.51% Oracle (ORCL.N) surged 5.3% at the opening bell, while Nvidia (NVDA.O) gained 1.5%. (Source: Golden Ten)

The Block reported on December 19th, citing Dune Analytics data, that Hyperliquid has seen over $430 million in outflows this week—marking the third-largest outflow in the platform’s history. The protocol’s Total Value Locked (TVL) has fallen from over $6 billion in mid-September to roughly $4 billion. Meanwhile, its native token HYPE has dropped nearly 20% amid a broad market downturn over the past week. While on-chain data doesn’t necessarily reveal traders’ specific motives, competition among decentralized perpetual contract platforms may have driven fund rotation. During these outflows, rivals like Lighter and Aster have surged in DEX perpetual contract trading volume rankings this year, chipping away at Hyperliquid’s dominance in the space.

On December 19th, it was noted that the AI agent token AVA—backed by Holoworld AI—launched in November 2024. Twenty-three wallet clusters linked to the token’s deployer amassed roughly 40% of AVA’s total supply at issuance. Just ahead of its launch, these wallets received funding from exchanges Bitget and Binance and purchased AVA during the token’s launch phase.

**December 19** Federal Reserve Governor Waller and former President Trump held a "productive interview" Wednesday regarding the Federal Reserve Chair role. Per Polymarket odds: - 14% chance Waller becomes the next Fed Chair - Waller’s nomination probability has fallen to 21% - Kevin Hassett’s nomination odds have risen to 56% Previously reported: Senior administration officials said the pair discussed the labor market and strategies to boost job growth. The interview took place at the presidential residence and concluded just before Trump’s national economic address Wednesday night. Attendees included U.S. Treasury Secretary Besent, White House Chief of Staff Wells, and Deputy Chief of Staff Scavino. Officials added BlackRock’s Rick Rieder will be interviewed at Mar-a-Lago in the final week of this year.

On Friday, December 19, New York Fed President William said some "technical factors" may have distorted November’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, pushing it below actual levels. Williams noted: "There are special real-world factors tied to difficulty collecting data in October and the first half of November. As a result, I believe certain category data has been distorted, which may have depressed the CPI by roughly 0.1 percentage point." He also stated the U.S. economy is currently in "solid shape" and hinted he expects to eventually see a rate cut. However, he stressed he’s not rushing to adjust monetary policy. (FXStreet)