CryptoQuant: Futures Short Squeeze Leads to Longs Dominance, Bitcoin Enters Christmas Rally Window

On December 22, DWF Labs partner Andrei Grachev announced the firm has completed its first physical gold transaction—a test trade involving a 25kg gold bar, which went smoothly. DWF Labs is scaling up operations and plans to facilitate future transactions for physical silver, platinum, and cotton. Its vision is to establish a significant presence in the real-world asset (RWA) market.

On December 22nd, data from Coinbob Popular Address Monitor shows the address linked to a former Hyperliquid employee (0x7ae) has been consistently selling HYPE spot tokens since this month. The address cut its HYPE holdings from $5.85 million to $2.48 million, a total reduction of over 70,000 tokens. It currently holds ~98,200 HYPE tokens. Amid HYPE’s price decline, the address has incurred a $1.43 million monthly loss, with ~$4.2 million remaining in its account. Additionally, it holds a small HYPE short position with an average entry price of $24.17—facing an unrealized loss of 43.5% and a position size of ~$25,800. The address first gained attention for shorting HYPE and its ties to the Hyperliquid team. In a recent post today, the Hyperliquid team stated the address belongs to a former employee dismissed in Q1 2024, who is now fully disassociated from Hyperliquid Labs. The team clarified the individual’s actions do not reflect the team’s standards or values.

On December 22, US-listed Datavault AI Inc. (DVLT) announced it has been awarded two key U.S. patents to advance its on-chain content management and tokenized intellectual property (IP) portfolio, per Globenewswire. The newly issued patents cover a groundbreaking system and method leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts for secure content licensing and tokenized currency.

Dec 22 – Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), said crypto mining could be an extra driver behind the ruble’s strengthening, though its exact impact is hard to quantify. Earlier, Maxim Oreshkin—deputy head of Russia’s presidential executive office—noted that underestimating financial flows tied to mining and cryptocurrency has led to inaccurate ruble exchange rate forecasts, which have already affected the foreign exchange market. The CBR is evaluating the crypto and mining markets and weighing whether to include this data in its balance of payments. Additionally, Russia’s Industrial Mining Association (IMA) reports the country ranks second globally in crypto mining, accounting for over 16% of the world’s hash rate this summer.

Per Coinglass data as of December 22nd, here are the top crypto spot fund flows over the past 24 hours: **Top Net Inflows:** - USDE: $16.6M - TRX: $13.2M - SOL: $10.56M - DOGE: $4.7M - BNB: $4.68M **Top Net Outflows:** - NIGHT: $88.76M - XRP: $37.28M - BTC: $15.71M - ETH: $9.6M - BCH: $5.6M (Note: "M" = million; formatting aligns with U.S. financial news brevity and readability norms.)