Market Movement: BTC continued to fluctuate overnight with heightened volatility. Spot gold surged past $4,600/oz, and silver approached historic highs, significantly increasing risks associated with high-level price swings.

Fed Conflict: Tensions between Donald Trump and Jerome Powell escalated. The New York Times reported that federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into the $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters, suspecting Powell of providing false statements to Congress. Powell responded that these actions are essentially pressure stems from the Fed's commitment to an independent monetary policy based on economics rather than politics.

Strategic Partnership: PayPal announced support for Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and will be integrated as a payment option for Google AI.

Regulatory Shift: South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) plans to end a 9-year ban on corporate crypto investment. The new policy would allow listed companies and institutional investors to allocate up to 5% of their equity or net assets annually into the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap listed on Korea’s five major exchanges. This is expected to affect 3,500 entities; discussions regarding the inclusion of stablecoins like USDT are ongoing, with final guidelines expected in Jan/Feb.

Rate Projections: Major investment banks revised their 2026 rate cut forecasts. Citi, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley postponed the expected first rate cut to mid-year. JPMorgan adopted a more hawkish stance, predicting no rate cuts in 2026 and potential hikes in 2027.

Economic Outlook: NY Fed President John Williams stated that current monetary policy is well-positioned with no immediate reason to cut rates, aiding labor market stability and the return to the 2% inflation target. He also projected a 2026 U.S. GDP growth of 2.5%–2.75%.

Institutional Service: Standard Chartered plans to establish a crypto asset prime brokerage within its venture arm, SC Ventures, to compete for institutional-grade crypto trading volume.

IPO Filing: U.S. crypto custody giant BitGo has filed for an IPO in the U.S., aiming to capture the market window for crypto and mid-cap IPOs in early 2026.

Funding Round: Stablecoin infrastructure firm VelaFi announced a $20 million Series B round led by XVC and Ikuyo, with participation from Alibaba Investment, Planetree, and BAI Capital. The company specializes in enterprise-grade stablecoin payments and treasury management (on/off-ramps, cross-border payments, API).

Legislative Delay: Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman announced that the markup of the crypto market structure bill, originally set for this Thursday, is postponed to the last week of January to allow more time for bipartisan negotiations.