CMC Market Pulse delivers actionable market insights, giving you all the key narratives and developments you need in under 5 minutes.
Market Overview 📉
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on December 12, 2025.
Bitcoin (BTC) ended the week up 0.32%, while Ethereum (ETH) climbed higher, up 2.49% in the same week. Total crypto market cap creeped up 0.32% to close the week at $3.14T, up from $3.13T in the week prior.
Despite price swings in both directions, liquidations stayed relatively muted, with most days seeing less than $300M in liquidations. Funding rates rose slightly once again, as markets show some optimism, but remain at healthy levels.
📌 Binance secures a Global License, under the ADGM Framework, becoming the first ever crypto exchange to do so. - Link
📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy has acquired 10,624 BTC for a total of $962.7M, bringing their total holdings up to 660,624 BTC. - Link
📌 BlackRock files for a staked Ethereum ETF, as per an official S-1 filing with the SEC on December 5th 2025. - Link
Why does it matter?
Crypto markets continue to chop, with BTC remaining in a tight range between $85K and 94K. Altcoins also begin to show strength with ETH and SOL moving ahead amidst a slightly dovish Fed stance. Traditional markets also fared well, with the S&P 500 closing 0.51% higher over the week and the Nasdaq trailing behind at 0.11%.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Pippin (PIPPIN),Terra Luna Classic (LUNC), Zcash (ZEC), Mantle (MNT) and Memecore (M).
Narrative of the Week 📰
This week saw a resurgence in ICOs as projects seek new ways to raise funds and launch their tokens amidst a bearish market environment.
📌 Solana DEX, Humidifi, raises $5.57M, across three token sale phases via Jupiter Exchange’s new launchpad, DTF. - Link
📌 Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) L1 chain, Fogo, announces the FOGO token presale, taking place on 17th December, which will sell 2% of the FOGO token supply at a fully-diluted valuation of $1B. - Link
📌 Universal encrypted compute platform, Octra, announces the OCT token sale, which will take place from 18th to 25th December, selling 10% of the token supply at a fully-diluted valuation of $200M.
Why does it matter?
For many years after 2017’s ICO boom, ICOs largely faded out of relevance. However, this year’s successful ICOs of Plasma, Monad and MegaETH have led many teams to consider leveraging ICOs again to raise funds.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 Crypto social network, Farcaster, pivots away from their social network product to focus on developing their wallet instead. - Link
📌 Sei Network partners with Chinese mobile phone giant, Xiaomi to integrate a new stablecoin payments application into the Xiaomi mobile ecosystem. - Link
📌 Hyperliquid links USDC on HyperCore and HyperEVM, enabling the transfers of natively minted USDC to HyperCore in preparation for the deprecation of the Arbitrum bridge. - Link
📌 The Trump Meme team announces the upcoming launch for the Trump Mobile Game, which uses the TRUMP token for in-game activities. - Link
📌 ZkSync announces plans to deprecate ZkSync Lite in 2026, with full details to be released in the future. - Link
Why does it matter?
The Farcaster pivot continues to highlight that the main product-market fit in crypto still predominantly lies in trading and speculation, with other use cases often falling short.
DeFi Brief 🏦
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on December 12, 2025.
📌 Ethena launches their perpetual DEX, HyENA, built on Hyperliquid, in collaboration with BasedApp. HyENA is currently invite-only and usage will grant both Ethena points and BasedApp XP. - Link
📌 Synthetix introduces Wick Insurance, a system to prevent users from being liquidated for a short period of time to protect against flash crashes. - Link
📌 Solana liquidity protocol, Meteora, introduces a series of new features, including on-chain limit orders on DLMM pools, quote-only fees, auto-vaults, and more. - Link
📌 BTC and ETH yield protocol, Yield Basis, introduces plans for their next milestone, the fee switch, which seeks to distribute fees to veYB token holders. - Link
Why does it matter?
Leading DeFi developments still largely center around perpetual DEXes, which continue to drive the majority of real revenue in crypto.
Fundraises 💰
📌 Cross-chain bridging infrastructure, Lifi, raises $29M in a Series A extension round, with investors including Multicoin Capital and CoinFund. - Link
📌 Crypto AI research tool, Surf, raises $15M in a funding round led by Pantera Capital, with support from Coinbase Ventures and DCG. - Link
📌 Crypto and equities brokerage platform, Cascade, raises $15M in a funding round, with investors including Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, and Archetype. - Link
📌 Brazilian Real stablecoin issuer, Crown, raises $13.5M in a Series A funding round, led exclusively by Paradigm. - Link
📌 Sui liquidity engine, Magma Finance, raises $6M in a strategic funding round, with investors including HaskKey Capital, SNZ Holding, SevenX Ventures, and more. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 Berachain liquidity protocol, Infrared, announces the end of the points program, possibly leading up to an upcoming TGE. - Link
📌 Solana Mobile announces the SKR token, a token to power the Solana Mobile ecosystem, specifically centered around the second Solana Mobile phone, Seeker. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @XtineFang
The battle for ETH dominance begins again.
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