Pre-market Surge: Hut8, a mining company, surged over 18% in pre-market trading after signing a $7 billion leasing agreement with Fluidstack.

**Dec 17 (Quick Update) — Ripple has announced a partnership with Swiss crypto bank AMINA Bank, making it the first European institution to adopt Ripple’s end-to-end payment solution.** By integrating Ripple Payments, AMINA can offer customers 24/7, real-time cross-border fund settlement without relying on the traditional correspondent banking system. The collaboration aims to address inefficiencies in the traditional banking system that crypto-native businesses face with cross-border payments—especially stablecoin settlements. Ripple Payments supports parallel processing of fiat and stablecoins, bridging the gap between Web3 and traditional finance. AMINA stated that adopting Ripple’s technology will significantly reduce cross-border friction and enhance its ability to serve crypto-native clients. Earlier this year, the bank became the world’s first to support custody and trading of Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD.

On December 17, EquiLend—a securities lending infrastructure giant with a lendable asset pool of roughly $40 trillion—announced a strategic minority equity investment in Digital Prime Technologies, a regulated crypto lending service provider. The move aims to position EquiLend in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and the digital asset market; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. EquiLend noted the investment responds to client demand for compliant, transparent, and governable workflows that support simultaneous coverage of traditional financial and digital asset instruments across trading, clearing, settlement, and reporting. The partnership will center on Digital Prime’s institutional lending network, Tokenet, which offers multi-custodial, multi-collateral full lifecycle management, risk exposure monitoring, and institutional-grade reporting. Down the line, the firms plan to add compliant stablecoins as collateral and expand tokenized financial instrument offerings.

December 17 — Official sources confirm OKX Wallet users can now transfer USDT and USDC on X Layer with zero gas fees. Powered by OKX’s in-house x402 protocol, this feature is part of the ongoing development and refinement of X Layer — OKX’s layer-2 network — infrastructure. The upgrade aims to further reduce users’ core transaction costs, enhance on-chain experience, and fuel growth of the X Layer ecosystem. Users can access the feature directly via OKX Wallet. X Layer is a global on-chain ecosystem focused on decentralized finance (DeFi), payments, and real-world assets (RWA). It connects the OKX and Ethereum ecosystems, with a vision to bring everything on-chain. As a leading one-stop Web3 gateway, OKX Wallet already supports over 140 top public chains.

On December 17, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said the Fed’s interest rates are 50 to 100 basis points above the neutral rate. The central bank could cut rates solely based on an easing inflation outlook. (FXStreet)

**Fed’s Waller: U.S. Job Growth Near Zero; AI’s Labor Impact Uncertain** Dec. 17 — Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said U.S. job growth is currently near zero, while the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market remains uncertain. He noted the 2026 job market could improve, driven by productivity gains. Waller added inflation is not expected to reaccelerate, and the labor market signals the Fed should keep cutting interest rates. The central bank can act at a moderate pace without taking drastic steps, he said. (FX168)

On December 17th, per monitoring from HyperInsight (link: https://t.me/HyperInsight), Huang Licheng—nicknamed "Buddy"—opened new leveraged long positions after facing multiple liquidations: - 25x leveraged long on 4,550 ETH, entry price $2,940.6, liquidation price $2,735.3, current unrealized loss: $86,000; - 10x leveraged long on 15,888.88 HYPE, entry price $27.60, current unrealized loss: $4,000.