By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

If you're waiting for a spark to ignite a Santa rally in bitcoin and the wider crypto market, today's U.S. inflation release might just be it.

Initially, I wasn't sure the report matters anymore. Obsessing over prices feels so 2022, when inflation was through the roof and the Fed squarely focused on interest-rate hikes to tame the beast. Recently, though, CPI has been below 3% and the Fed has cut rates, focusing on balancing employment

A trader turned $2,500 into $200,000 by buying XRP futures with 500x leverage on cryptocurrency exchange Rollbit on Tuesday.

XRP jumped by 26% during U.S. trading hours after Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP, received “final” regulatory approval to offer the RLUSD stablecoin in the U.S.

The savvy trader opened a position worth $2,560 when XRP was trading at $1.9025 and the amount of leverage meant that the position would have been liquidated if price slumped below $1.9004. The position was

Italy is set to trim its planned tax increase on crypto capital gains, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/italy-scale-back-tax-hike-cryptocurrency-capital-gains-lawmakers-say-2024-12-10/" target="_blank">Reuters reported on Tuesday</a>.

Two months ago, the government was intent on raising the tax <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/10/16/italy-to-raise-capital-gains-tax-on-crypto-to-42-from-26-reports" target="_blank">to 42% from 26%</a> by the end of December.

"The

XRP outperformed bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, with dogecoin (DOGE) leading losses in the past 24 hours before the release of U.S. inflation data later Wednesday.

Bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) remained steady around $98,000, while ether (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/ethereum/ " target="_blank">ETH</a>), BNB Chain’s bnb, and Cardano’s ADA fell by as much as 2%. Memecoin DOGE dropped 4%, even as shiba inu (SHIB) and flo

For the third week, bitcoin (BTC) remains locked in a price range between $90,000 and $100,000, punctuated only by Dec. 5's short-lived rise into six figures. This indecisive price action might have left traders feeling uninspired, with two key reasons holding back the upside.

First, the influx of liquidity into the crypto market through channels like spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has significantly slowed, taking the wind out of the bullish momentum.

The weekly rate of change in the so-cal

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has formed a strategic partnership with stablecoin giant Circle to accelerate global adoption of the USDC stablecoin, the companies said on Wednesday at Abu Dhabi Finance Week.

Through the partnership, Circle's USDC will be more extensively available to over 240 million customers for trading, savings and payments. Binance will also adopt the second-largest stablecoin as "a vital dollar stablecoin" for its own corporate treasury, according to

Early traders of NFT marketplace Magic Eden's new token ME had a lot to be thankful for – if they could access their airdrops, that is.

In the first minutes of trading Tuesday, the token's fully diluted valuation hit $15 billion. But as more claimants managed to process their airdrops – and in some lucky cases, sell – that valuation began to crater. It eventually settled at an FDV around $5 billion.

ME's rocky rollout stood in sharp contrast to other recent token launches. Hyperliquid's HYPE <

XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) network, surged during the U.S. afternoon hours on Tuesday as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company's much-anticipated stablecoin obtained regulatory approval from the New York Department of Financial Services.

"This just in…we have final approval from NYDFS for RLUSD! Exchange and partner listings will be live soon," Garlinghouse <a href="https://x.com/bgarlinghouse/status/1866571228464460215" target="_blank">posted on X</a>.

XRP rallied

El Salvador and Argentina are partnering to help develop the crypto industry in Latin America.

Juan Carlos Reyes, El Salvador’s top crypto regulator and president of the Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD), and Roberto Silva, the president of the Comisión Nacional de Valores of Argentina (CNV), on Tuesday signed an agreement for the two countries to collaborate on crypto regulation.

“At CNAD we have two core objectives, when it comes to international collaboration,” Reyes told CoinDe

Tether's stablecoin USD₮ has been recognized as an accepted virtual asset in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the company announced <a href="https://tether.io/news/tethers-usdt-recognized-as-accepted-virtual-asset-in-adgm/" target="_blank">on Tuesday</a>.

The approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority means that companies which are licensed can offer pre-approved USD₮ services in Abu Dhabi's Global Market. Though, the release did not say what those approved services might be.

Cryptocurrencies continued to this week's decline on Tuesday, with altcoins in near-freefall as bitcoin (BTC) slid further from the $100,000 level.

Among the worst-hit cryptos were XRP, Polkadot (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/polkadot" target="_blank">DOT</a>), Litecoin (LTC), Aptos (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/aptos" target="_blank">APT</a>) and Cardano (ADA), down 15%-18% over the past 24 hours, extending Monday declines. The <a href="https://indices.coindesk.com/indices

A deputy in the Russian parliament proposed the creation of a strategic bitcoin (BTC) reserve to tackle sanctions imposed on the country, <a href="https://ria.ru/20241209/rezerv-1988201715.html" target="_blank">state-owned news agency Ria reported on Monday</a>.

Anton Tkachev of the New People party, which formed in 2020 and has 16 out of the 450 seats in the State Duma, asked Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to "assess the feasibility of creating a strategic bitcoin reserve in Russia by analogy

Microsoft (MSFT) doesn't appear to be adding its name anytime soon to the list of corporate entities holding bitcoin (<a href="https://indices.coindesk.com/indices/xbx" target="_blank">BTC</a>) after its shareholders voted against a proposal that would have directed the board of directors to study such a move.

Titled "<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312524242884/d878959ddefa14a.htm" target="_blank">Assessment of Investing in Bitcoin</a>," the proposal was put forwa

Taproot Wizards, a collection of 2,108 JPEGs inscribed on Bitcoin using the Ordinals protocol, headed into 2024 on the heels of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/01/12/taproot-wizards-bitcoin-ordinals-project-that-raised-75m-to-sell-quantum-cats-collection" target="_blank">a $7.5 million seed funding round</a>, which was promptly exceeded by the sale of <a href="https://magiceden.io/ordinals/marketplace/quantum_cats" target="_blank">Quantum Cats</a>, a digital art collection of brightl

After eight long, harrowing months locked up in a Nigerian prison, Tigran Gambaryan is finally back home in Atlanta, recovering from his ordeal.

The Nigerian government finally agreed to release Gambaryan on humanitarian grounds in October to allow him to return to the U.S. to receive medical care for a host of conditions he developed while in Kuje prison including malaria, double pneumonia, and a herniated disc in his back that left him in excruciating pain and struggling to walk.

In addition

“Crypto + AI” is personified by Erik Voorhees. His career has spanned the eras. In 2012, when Voorhees launched the blockchain-based gambling game “Satoshi Dice” — which once accounted for half of all Bitcoin transactions — he pioneered a novel use case for cryptocurrency.

The founder of the decentralized exchange ShapeShift is now applying the ethos of bitcoin to the next wave of AI, launching Venice.AI with the humble goal of “unfettered civilizational advancement.” In <a href="https://x.com/

Here's the new political calculus for a U.S. congressional candidate: You nod to crypto and say you're on the pro-innovation side, and chances are, a million dollars (or more) could drop from the sky to pay for TV spots that highlight your strengths or pillory your opponent.

In any of hundreds of lesser known districts of the House of Representatives, a few hundred thousand dollars tends to make or break a candidate. When the leading crypto-driven political action committee notices you, a massi

Evan Cheng didn’t just build another blockchain when he created Sui. He engineered a paradigm shift.

Over the past year, Sui, one of the darlings of the bull market, has blown past $1.5 billion in total value locked (TVL), up from just over $200 million at the start of the year, thanks to the market's confidence in its new infrastructure developments, such improvements to Sui’s underlying Move programming language, and the launch of Circle's USDC on the chain.

VanEck's <a href="https://www.van

As (literally) a thousand DePIN projects bloomed in 2024, they could thank one decentralized physical infrastructure network in particular for showing the way: Helium. The original DePIN (before DePIN was a word), Helium was started by Amir Haleem, Shawn Fanning, and Sean Carey all the way back in 2013. It took until 2019 for the team to deploy IoT hotspots, allowing users to share wireless coverage and earn tokens.Of course, it’s harder to deploy hardware to people’s homes than it is to issue a

The relentless efforts by Bitwise CEO <a href="https://x.com/HHorsley" target="_blank">Hunter Horsley</a> and chief investment officer <a href="https://x.com/Matt_Hougan" target="_blank">Matt Hougan’s</a> to bring institutional money into crypto for the past seven years finally paid off when spot ETFs for both bitcoin and ether were approved by the SEC earlier this year. The digital asset manager launched funds for both, taking its assets under management to north of $10 billion, and a <a href="