Cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index Rises to 20, Market Still in 'Extreme Fear' State

December 20: Prediction markets again showed a strong tilt toward bets that Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard will be the next Fed Chair. Polymarket put her odds at 54%, while Kalshi had them at 51%. Jerome Powell and Kevin Warsh—both Trump nominees—are tied for second and third place in the odds.

Dec. 20 report from *The New York Times*: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has launched a new "gig" as a self-styled "legal advisor" behind bars. He has advised several people, including former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and music producer Sean Combs. In an interview, SBF said he helps others in ways some swamped lawyers can’t. He noted federal defense standards are "shockingly low," adding he isn’t replacing lawyers—instead, the attorneys "weren’t doing much to begin with." Many lawyers have too many cases to give their clients proper attention, he claimed. SBF is currently serving time at a California federal prison, appealing his own conviction, and seeking a presidential pardon.

**LookOnChain Monitoring: ZEC Whales Accumulating on December 20** - A whale address starting with `t1dHhe` withdrew 202,077 ZEC from Binance 16 hours ago, worth approximately $91.43 million. - Another address starting with `t1Nt2i` pulled 4,257 ZEC from Binance 5 hours ago, valued at roughly $1.93 million. ### Notes on American English adaptation: 1. **Concise structure**: Uses a clear headline + bullet points (common in crypto news alerts). 2. **Casual yet precise tone**: Replaces formal phrases with natural alternatives (e.g., "pulled" alongside "withdrew" to avoid repetition; "roughly" alongside "approximately" for variety). 3. **Readability**: Uses commas for thousand separators, dollar signs ($) with millions (M implied by context), and backticks to highlight addresses (standard in tech/crypto content). 4. **Timeliness focus**: Leads with the monitoring platform/date, then prioritizes recent withdrawals (16h → 5h) to emphasize active accumulation.

On December 20, Binance Alpha launched trading for TradeTide (TTD), per official sources. The token is currently trading at $0.0753, with a market capitalization of $10.02 million.

December 20 — Arthur Hayes announced: “We’re shifting from ETH to high-quality DeFi tokens. We believe as fiat liquidity improves, these tokens will outperform the market.” Prior to that announcement, Hayes had been actively bullish on the crypto market over the past two days and had also transferred 1,188 ETH to market makers and centralized exchanges (CEXs).

A new address withdrew 199,520 LINK (worth roughly $2.49 million) from Binance on Dec. 20, per Onchain Lens monitoring.