33,253,435,685,633.082 Shiba Inu in 24 Hours: What Was That?

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have scope to recover further from recent falls as the Federal Reserve looks set to cut interest rates on Wednesday, IG analyst Chris Beauchamp says in a note. While equities have rallied ahead of the Fed decision in recent weeks, the crypto recovery appears to be only just getting started, he says. "Looser monetary policy should see renewed flows into crypto, with the situation intensified by the recent pullback creating more potentially attractive longer-term entry opportunities." Falls in bitcoin and ether at the weekend and last Monday attracted buyers. This should reinforce the view that lows have formed for now, Beauchamp says. Bitcoin rises 1.5% to $91,541, according to LSEG. Ether rises 1.8% to $3,144. (renae.dyer@wsj.com)

Binance said on Monday it had launched an internal investigation Sunday into an employee it suspected of abusing access to inside information by posting from an official Binance Futures social media account for personal gain.

The exchange said in an X post that its audit team received a report alleging the employee used non‑public information to craft a post on the official Binance Futures X account “less than a minute” after the token was issued onchain.

The employee in question was immediately suspended, and Binance said it has contacted authorities in the jurisdiction where the employee is based to pursue potential legal action.​

Cointelegraph reached out to Binance to request further details on the cryptocurrency in question and the profit made, but had not received a reply by publication.

Binance leans on whistleblowers

The exchange is leaning into whistleblowing as a governance tool, confirming that its promised $100,000 reward will be split among several users who submitted the earliest valid reports through its official audit@binance.com channel after those tips were verified and deduplicated.

According to reports, a well-known crypto commentator/investor who goes by the handle Crypto X AiMan has sold all his Bitcoin and moved the proceeds into XRP. He says four reasons drove his decision, and the move has stirred debate across trading circles.

Investor Dumps Bitcoin For XRP

AiMan, who says he first bought Bitcoin when it traded at $3,000, told followers that legal clarity is the main reason for his shift. He pointed to a July 2023 court ruling by Judge Torres that found certain programmatic XRP sales were not securities.

According to him, that court decision gives XRP a different standing from many other tokens. He also noted that US regulators often treat Bitcoin as a commodity, a stance reiterated by former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. AiMan framed the court outcome as a rare, explicit legal test that favored XRP.

He highlighted another factor: Ripple’s large holdings. Based on company disclosures, Ripple holds close to 40 billion XRP, nearly 40% of the total supply. AiMan argued those reserves could support future use cases if Ripple or its partners chose to deploy the tokens for payments.

He called XRP faster and cheaper to move than Bitcoin, saying it is built for cross-border transfers — a point he used to contrast XRP’s utility with Bitcoin’s role as a store of value. He also ran through a market-size scenario.

Market analysts have projected the cross-border payments market at $250 trillion by 2027, and AiMan suggested that even a 1% share of that volume could mean big gains for XRP.

He admitted the trade is extreme: “If I’m wrong? XRP probably goes to zero, and I lose everything,” he said. He added that if he is right, the payoff would be huge.

XRP’s Legal Advantage

Market reaction has been mixed. Based on reports from data providers, traders are taking large short positions against XRP. Coinglass figures show XRP with $15 million in shorts versus $0.6 million in longs — a roughly 96% short allocation and a shorts-to-longs ratio near 25 to 1.

For comparison, Bitcoin had $131 million in shorts and $70 million in longs; Ethereum showed $110 million shorts and $58 million longs. Despite heavy shorting, XRP has posted daily gains at times, according to recent price movements. Aggressive Shorts Dominate Positioning

Analysts say heavy short positions can indicate weak near-term sentiment. They also create technical risks, because a squeeze could push prices higher quickly if shorts are forced to cover.

That does not remove the core risks AiMan flagged and others raised: a big token allocation held by one company raises centralization concerns, and banks have not broadly shifted settlement rails to public tokens.

Bitcoin still has a market cap near $1.8 trillion and deeper liquidity, which many investors view as stability in a volatile market.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

A new market thesis is grabbing attention.

Author and industry expert Shanaka Anslem Perera says the Bitcoin cycle didn’t break this time, but flipped instead. And if he’s right, the bear market everyone is waiting for may already be behind us.

A Different Cycle

Perera points to one unusual moment: Bitcoin broke its all-time high before the halving. That has never happened in any previous cycle.

To him, that was the key signal that the usual four-year rhythm had inverted.

He argues that 2024 wasn’t a bull run at all, calling it “political repricing.” In other words, investors were reacting to the possibility of a pro-crypto U.S. administration, not the start of a new crypto wave.

2025 Looks Like a Bear Market in Disguise

On paper, Bitcoin near $90K shouldn’t feel bearish. But Perera says the signs are there:

• Bitcoin dominance at multi-year highs
• Altcoins “bleeding to death”
• $3.5B in ETF outflows in a single month
• A 29% correction from the October peak
• Sentiment indicators stuck in fear

A price that once sounded impossible now feels uncomfortable.

Bitcoin’s Demand Now Moves With the Fed

Perera believes the halving cycle was overtaken by macro. Once ETFs funneled institutional capital into Bitcoin, demand began tracking Federal Reserve liquidity instead of retail euphoria.

Some agreed with him, saying Bitcoin “outgrew its old cycle” the moment it entered mainstream financial plumbing. Others argued the narrative is compelling but not confirmed.

Looking Ahead to 2026

Perera’s conclusion is straightforward: if the market already lived through its bear phase emotionally , even at high prices, the next major move could be the real blow-off top.

Kraken has partnered with Avelacom to give institutional clients faster access to its trading systems, aiming to appeal to firms using latency-sensitive strategies in digital asset markets.

The deal connects Avelacom’s network directly to Kraken’s matching engine. The setup allows professional traders to receive market data and execute orders more quickly, enabling strategies such as cross-exchange arbitrage and liquidity aggregation.

Low-Latency Connection for Kraken Clients

In an announcement on Monday, Kraken said clients using the integration can expect real-time price updates with minimal delay and improved execution consistency.

The exchange called the upgrade part of its effort to meet the needs of institutions trading across multiple liquidity venues. Avelacom operates a global network linking major financial hubs, including London and Tokyo.

Its fiber route between the two cities offers sub-138 millisecond round-trip latency, while hybrid routes combining fiber and wireless further reduce transmission time.

The partnership strengthens Kraken’s institutional infrastructure as demand grows for faster and more robust trading systems in the crypto sector. Kraken offers access to the network through its institutional division for clients seeking enhanced trading performance.

Recently, Kraken collaborated with Deutsche Börse Group to unify fragmented crypto, foreign exchange, and derivatives markets into a single access point for institutional investors. The collaboration linked Deutsche Börse’s traditional exchange infrastructure with Kraken’s digital asset platform.

Expanding Institutional Infrastructure

The deal aims to make trading, settlement, and custody processes seamless across both traditional and digital assets, ensuring investors experience consistent handling whether dealing in stocks, tokens, or futures. The scope covers trading, custody, settlement, collateral management, and tokenized assets.

Both parties said the goal is to deliver “frictionless” institutional access through one integrated setup. Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi described the agreement as an example of “what happens when two infrastructures designed for scale and trust intersect.”

“Our partnership with Deutsche Börse Group demonstrates what happens when two infrastructures designed for scale and trust intersect,” commented Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Kraken.

Additionally, Kraken has agreed to acquire Backed Finance, a platform that issues blockchain-based tokens representing real-world securities such as stocks and exchange-traded funds.

The move aims to bring tokenized products closer to Kraken’s main trading operations ahead of its planned public listing in 2026, and will allow the exchange to integrate the issuance and trading of these assets within a single platform.

Strategy (MicroStrategy) has acquired 10,624 BTC for $962.7 million at an average price of $90,615 per bitcoin. 

Its total holdings to 660,624 BTC with an average acquisition cost of $74,696 per bitcoin.

The December purchase is the largest in Q4, surpassing the Nov. 17 buy (8,178 BTC) and dwarfing the smaller weekly tranches (168–525 BTC in October/November).

Bitcoin remains unfazed 

However, the mammoth purchase has had little impact on the Bitcoin price, which is still sitting just below $92,000. 

MSTR is up by 3% in pre-market trading following the recent announcement.