Altura, a blockchain-based yield platform, has completed a $4 million financing round with Ascension as the lead investor.

**Sushi CEO Jared Grey Steps Down to Advisory Role; Alex McCurry Joins as Director General** On December 1, Sushi CEO Jared Grey announced in a social media post that he will step down from his leadership roles—CEO and Director General of Sushi Labs—and transition to an advisory position. Grey also noted that Sushi has secured significant strategic investment from Solidity.io founder Alex McCurry to support its long-term development and operations. Concurrently, Alex has joined Sushi as Director General and will lead the protocol into its next chapter. Alex is described as "ambitious" in this endeavor, with exciting plans mapped out for Sushi’s roadmap.

On December 1, White House Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks publicly pushed back against *The New York Times*’ investigation into his conduct as the administration’s lead on AI and cryptocurrency, dismissing the months-long effort as chasing baseless allegations. Sacks issued a social media statement claiming *The Times* assigned five reporters this summer to probe conflicts of interest between his government role and tech industry background. “Through so-called ‘fact checks,’ they landed on accusations we thoroughly refuted,” he wrote. “Anyone reading this piece closely will see they’ve cobbled together anecdotes that don’t back the headline—exactly their intent.” The contentious November 30 *Times* article—headlined “The Silicon Valley Man in the White House: Profiting for Himself and Pals”—alleged Sacks leveraged his dual roles as White House AI/crypto lead and prominent tech investor to push policies benefiting AI and crypto assets, to the advantage of himself and his extensive

As of December 1, Crypto In America reports that Bitnomial is poised to become the first U.S. derivatives exchange to offer spot cryptocurrency trading. The exchange submitted self-certification documents last month under U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Regulation 40.6(a) — a rule that allows Designated Contract Markets (DCMs) to roll out new rules once they demonstrate compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) requirements. Bitnomial’s self-certified rules cover the listing of spot products, including retail leveraged spot trading under CEA Section 2(c)(2)(D), enabling customers to trade and finance digital assets directly on the platform. Per documents filed on November 13, the relevant rules officially took effect last Friday, meaning spot trading could launch in the coming days.

On Monday, December 1, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will participate in an event at Stanford University honoring the late George Shultz and deliver a speech. However, he will not address economic issues due to the Fed’s communication blackout ahead of its upcoming policy decision. No official Fed comments are expected until the central bank announces its interest rate decision next Wednesday. Traders currently put the probability of another 25-basis-point rate cut from the Fed at nearly 90%. If the cut materializes, markets will turn to the Fed’s updated "dot plot" for clues about interest rate trajectory in 2026.

Update: Kalshi, the prediction market, hit a monthly trading volume record of $5.8 billion in November, per The Block data released December 1. That’s a 32% jump from the prior month. Additionally, fellow prediction market Polymarket notched its own November record—$3.74 billion in volume, marking a 23.8% rise from October. Combined, the two platforms’ trading volume neared $10 billion last month.

On December 1, BitMine released data showing it held 2,650,900 ETH as of September 29. Today’s figures put the holding at 3,726,499 ETH—meaning the firm increased its ETH positions by 1,075,599 over the past two months. Over that same period, ETH’s price has fallen from its October opening price of $4,142 to $2,811 (at time of writing), a 32% drop.