BlackRock files for listing staked Ether ETF

Eric Balchunas has defended "suitcoiners" against criticism for superficial event appearances, arguing that they are responsible for the most recent Bitcoin bull market. 

He claims that these "suits" are the reason why Bitcoin is no longer trading at just $20,000. 

The new type of crypto investors 

In crypto discourse, "suitcoiners" refers to institutional investors, TradFi firms, banks, asset managers, and compliance-heavy entities that entered Bitcoin after the ETF era. They are essentially responsible for bridging crypto with the broader economy.

Data from Bitcoin ETF inflows since their 2024 launch shows over tens of billions of dollars in assets under management. In fact, BlackRock's IBIT alone boasts nearly $70 billion in cumulative inflows. 

It is also believed that the kind of mass, emotional selling pressure that historically drove Bitcoin down 60–80% in bear markets.

Some commentators have taken issue with Bitcoin Investor Week's speaker lineup, which features TradFi figures of the likes of Jan van Eck and BlackRock executives. Their presence clashes with the disruptive libertarian ethos of the early Bitcoin community that wanted to resist traditional finance. 

Long-time large holders, which include miners, offshore funds,and anonymous whale wallets, have been steadily offloading hundreds of thousands of BTC. At the same time, demand from institutional investors has been rising. As a result, volatility seems to be lower. 

However, there are those who actually claim that ETFs are negatively affecting retail investors, pointing to BlackRock's massive profits. 

Binance says it conducted an internal investigation that uncovered signs of insider trading at the exchange. A suspected employee is suspended, according to a message from Binance Futures, and the allegedly manipulated token is pumping. 

According to a post on Monday, Binance’s internal audit department received a report on Dec. 7 that claimed a Binance employee advertised a newly listed token using official Binance social media channels to “obtain personal gain.”

Binance claims the employee “used the text and images relating to the token” to post using official Binance X accounts “less than a minute” after the token was issued onchain at 05:29 UTC.

“These actions constitute abuse of their position for personal gain and violate our policies and code of professional conduct,” Binance wrote. The exchange said it contacted authorities in “the employee’s jurisdiction” and could pursue legal action.

Although Binance did not name the token in its official communique, it is suspected that the exchange is referring to the “year of the yellow fruit” token. The Block reached out to Binance for confirmation. 

Year of the yellow fruit was created at around 5:30 UTC on BNB Chain and followed by an immediate pump, according to DEX Screener data. A trading pair with Wrapped BNB reached a high of $0.0038 about an hour after it was listed and promoted on X.

However, in a sign of crypto’s social mores and the permissionlessness of blockchain tech, the token rallied even higher following Binance’s post confirming insider trading. The suspected token reached a fresh high above $0.0061 shortly after Binance’s disclosure. 

The token, which has a fully diluted market cap of about $1.9 million, has seen $13 million in trading volume, including $6.4 million in buy volume and $6.6 million in sell volume. Its current price is $0.001989. BSC Scan counts 3,658 holders.

The “year of the yellow fruit” token name appears to be a reference to an early post made by the @Binance account on Dec. 4, quoting Raoul Pal at Binance Blockchain Week. According to screenshots shared on X from the alleged insider trader, official Binance channels encouraged traders to “plant wisely” and “harvest abundantly” while again referring to yellow fruit. 

“Yesterday, the 'year of yellow fruit' meme caused an uproar in the crypto community, and on-chain data basically confirms it was privately operated by internal employees!” Marcos Crypto posted ahead of Binance’s disclosure on Monday. 

BNB Chain, a modified fork of Ethereum, was one of the best-performing chains this year, largely driven by the rise of the Aster perps DEX, the success of Binance Alpha, and the growth of its memecoin ecosystem. Beginning in May, PancakeSwap posted volumes it last recorded during the 2021 bull market, according to The Block's data.

“At Binance, we always uphold a user-first principle and are committed to transparency, fairness, and integrity,” the exchange said. “We have zero tolerance for any misconduct. We will continue strengthening internal controls, refining our policies, and ensuring incidents like this do not recur.”

Binance notes that it will split a $100,000 reward with five whistleblowers who reported the suspicious trading activity via its official whistleblower channel.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Tokyo-listed Metaplanet is preparing to roll out a new preferred-share structure modeled on Strategy’s widely watched Bitcoin funding vehicle, as the company doubles down on its push to expand its corporate Bitcoin treasury.

The plan was this week by Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich during remarks at the Bitcoin for Corporations Symposium, where he appeared alongside Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor.

JUST IN: MetaPlanet CEO just announced plan to launch their version of Strategy's (MARS) to buy more .-backed credit is booming 🚀🔥 — BitcoinTreasuries.NET (@BTCtreasuries)

Gerovich told attendees that shareholders will vote later this month on launching a new capital instrument called MARS, short for MetaPlanet Acquisition and Reserve Strategy.

He described it as the company’s version of Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, specifically designed to raise capital dedicated to buying more Bitcoin.Metaplanet Details Structure of ‘Mars’ Bitcoin-Backed Preferred Equity

Metaplanet formally outlined the structure earlier in November when its board approved two new classes of preferred equity known internally as Mars and Mercury.

🚀 Metaplanet raises $135M for Bitcoin acquisitions as Saylor defends treasury strategy, saying Strategy can withstand 80-90% drawdowns. — Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews)

The Mars shares are structured as senior, non-dilutive Class A preferred stock. They sit above both Mercury shares and common equity in Metaplanet’s capital stack, carry no conversion rights, and provide holders with a senior claim on dividends and assets.

Proceeds from these shares are intended to be directed toward Bitcoin accumulation as part of Metaplanet’s long-term treasury strategy.

Mars shares are also designed to pay adjustable monthly dividends.

The dividend rate is structured to rise when the stock trades below par and fall when it trades above that level.

This mechanism is intended to reduce price volatility while offering steady income to investors seeking Bitcoin-linked exposure without direct equity risk.STRC Delivers 10% Returns as Metaplanet look to mirror it

The structure mirrors stock, a variable-rate perpetual preferred share launched in July 2025.

🚀 has launched a $4.2B at-the-market program for preferred shares, building on record Q2 profits and expanding its Bitcoin treasury. — Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews)

STRC currently near $98 and pays an annualized dividend of about 10.75%, with an effective yield close to 11%.

The dividend is adjusted monthly to keep STRC trading near its $100 target price. Source:

Strategy uses proceeds from STRC and other preferred programs to fund Bitcoin purchases.

Since launch, STRC has returned just over 10%, while remaining far less volatile than Strategy’s common stock or Bitcoin itself.

Strategy’s approach has driven an aggressive expansion of its Bitcoin treasury. By late 2025, the company held 650,000 BTC after adding tens of thousands of coins throughout the year.

About 21,000 BTC were purchased using STRC IPO proceeds alone.

Additional purchases in October and November lifted total holdings beyond 641,000 BTC at the time, funded through various preferred offerings and at-the-market share sales.Metaplanet Turns to Buybacks as Japan’s Bitcoin Treasury Trade Cools

Metaplanet appears to be adapting that same funding blueprint to Japan’s market conditions.

The company has already issued Mercury Class B preferred shares, which combine quarterly fixed dividends with the option to convert into common stock.

On Nov. 20, Metaplanet approved the issuance of 23.61 million Mercury shares through a third-party allocation, raising about ¥21.25 billion, or roughly $135 million.

🇯🇵 Metaplanet approves the issuance of new Class B shares via a third-party allotment. — Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews)

The conversion price was set well above the company’s market price, limiting immediate dilution.

At the same time, Metaplanet has relied heavily on debt secured by its Bitcoin holdings.

In late November, the company disclosed a new $130 million loan backed entirely by BTC under a previously announced $500 million credit facility.

As of its latest treasury update, Metaplanet 30,823 BTC valued near $2.7 billion, with an average acquisition cost of $108,070 per coin. Source:

With Bitcoin trading below that level, unrealized losses stood at roughly $636 million.

The timing of the Mars announcement comes during a slowdown across corporate Bitcoin treasuries. DefiLlama data that digital asset treasury inflows dropped to $1.32 billion in November, the lowest monthly total of 2025. Source:

Notably, In November alone, Strategy shares more than 35%, while Metaplanet’s stock over 20% as Bitcoin slid nearly 25% from October highs.

The Dogecoin price has been drifting through a subdued stretch over the past few days, holding around the mid-$0.13 to $0.14. The recent decline has slowed down in the past 48 hours, and the chart now shows the meme coin attempting to steady itself after weeks of persistent selling pressure.

Trader Tardigrade, a well-known crypto analyst on X, shared a new three-day chart suggesting that an important MACD signal is on the verge of forming, and historical performance shows that Dogecoin tends to move bullish once this signal appears.

Approaching The MACD Bullish Cross

Dogecoin’s quiet phase in the past 48 hours has become increasingly important because one of Dogecoin’s higher-timeframe indicators is beginning to show early signs of life. According to Trader Tardigrade, Dogecoin’s MACD indicator on the 3-day candlestick price chart has not yet confirmed a bullish cross, but it is very close to doing so. 

The chart he shared shows the MACD lines converging at the lower boundary of the recent downtrend, and the blue line is approaching the red line. The blue line is about to cross over the red one, mirroring the exact setup that preceded previous breakouts earlier this year. 

Even with Dogecoin trading quietly in recent days, the compression of the MACD indicator hints that bearish momentum is fading. Once the cross officially forms, the trend will shift into a bullish one. This gradual tightening of price movement is also characteristic of an accumulation phase, and this is shown by an important Dogecoin metric.

Dogecoin Price Chart, MACD Cross. Source: @TATrader_Alan On X

How High The Dogecoin Price Could Go

The chart reveals a clear pattern: every time Dogecoin printed a three-day MACD bullish cross in 2025, the price responded with a significant upward move. The first cross was in April, and this preceded a rally that pushed Dogecoin’s price from below $0.14 into a breakout to $0.26. 

A second cross followed during mid-summer in July, and once again the price climbed aggressively shortly afterward. This saw the Dogecoin price rally from around $0.16 to $0.30 very briefly. 

Both events are circled on the chart above, showing how the momentum flipped swiftly once the MACD crossed above the signal line. These repeated reactions strengthen the case that Dogecoin could be preparing for another sizeable run if the indicator confirms a cross in the coming days.

The projection area drawn on the right side of the chart points to a climb that extends well above $0.20. This suggests that the next wave may revisit the upper levels where Dogecoin last traded during its late-summer rally.

The analyst’s chart outlines a wide upward arc, indicating that the expected move would not be a minor rebound but a structured uptrend similar to the earlier surges this year. In terms of a price target, the projection shows Dogecoin reaching a price target around $0.35 in the next few weeks. This would translate to a 140% increase from Dogecoin’s current price of $0.142.

Welcome to the US Crypto News Morning Briefing—your essential rundown of the most important developments in crypto for the day ahead.

Grab a coffee as global markets enter a period of unprecedented friction with the era of synchronized economic cycles coming to an end. While the US quietly restores liquidity, China remains locked in a state of deflation, and Japan’s rising bond yields threaten to destabilize global capital flows. This has created a fractured, multi-speed adjustment that will test investors and policymakers alike.

Crypto News of the Day: How the US, China, and Japan Are Now Moving Against Each Other

Global financial markets are entering a period of profound structural strain, as long-standing assumptions about synchronized economic cycles collapse.

Against this backdrop, investors now face a fractured global system, with competing forces shaping market behavior. The forces are:

• US liquidity injections,
• Chinese political constraints, and
• Japanese fiscal stress.

China’s $18.9 Trillion Debt Trap: Why Beijing Can’t Print

In China, structural constraints limit the government’s ability to pursue large-scale monetary interventions.

The scale of the problem extends from local government debt reaching ¥134 trillion ($18.9 trillion). This is dispersed across 4,000 financing vehicles and has been exposed by a property collapse that has destroyed key revenue streams.

Unlike Japan, which leveraged QE to stabilize its economy, China cannot monetize. Article 29 of Chinese law prohibits primary market bond purchases, and capital flight is severely punished. Debt functions as a political tool rather than an economic liability.

The result: persistent deflation, a slowdown in growth to around 4%, and a tightly managed renminbi (RMB, China’s official currency).

Analysts warn this will extend global disinflationary forces years beyond consensus, a phenomenon Anslem calls “the Long Grind.”

Fed’s Lagging Balance Sheet: The Hidden Risks of Post-QE Tightening

Meanwhile, the US faces its own structural challenges. The Federal Reserve officially concluded its three-year, five-month quantitative tightening (QT) program on December 1, reducing its balance sheet by $2.43 trillion to $6.53 trillion.

Treasury securities dropped to $4.19 trillion, and mortgage-backed securities fell to $2.05 trillion, unwinding over half of the pandemic-era QE expansion.

Analyst Endgame Macro notes that the real danger lies not in the Fed’s balance sheet itself but in the lag of its effects.

Tightening over the past two years has left households stretched, corporate bankruptcies hitting 15-year highs, and small businesses without a safety net.

Even with rate cuts and eventual QE, policy cannot instantly reverse stress already moving through the economy.

The Fed is now pivoting to Reserve Management Purchases (RMP), with officials expected to buy $20–$40 billion in Treasury bills per month starting in January 2026.

Shanaka Anslem explains that this quietly injects $480 billion in liquidity annually while keeping the mechanics of QE off the books.

 Bank reserves, already at $3 trillion, are set to expand, shifting from abundant to adequate and signaling changing conditions for risk assets, inflation hawks, and credit markets alike.

Japan’s Debt Crunch: The 30-Year Ultra-Low-Rate Era Comes to an End

Across the Pacific, Japan is confronting a fiscal reckoning that may ripple through global markets, as revealed in a recent US Crypto News publication.

Japanese bond yields have surged, with the 20-year yield hitting 2.947%, the highest since 1998.

Meanwhile, the 10-year at 1.95% levels are flagged as critical by institutional stress models. The Bank of Japan now holds ¥28.6 trillion in unrealized losses, equivalent to 225% of its capital base, rendering it technically insolvent.

Rising yields threaten the $1.13 trillion in US Treasuries held by Japanese investors, as well as the $1.2 trillion yen carry trade, which could unwind and trigger $500 billion in global capital outflows over 18 months.

Not a Soft Landing: The World Enters a Three-Speed Financial Reset

The convergence of these forces, that is, US liquidity expansion, Chinese fiscal restraint, and Japanese debt stress, marks the end of synchronized cycles and the beginning of a multi-speed, volatile environment.

Analysts warn of structural impacts on credit markets, currencies, and even crypto. X, a market observer, notes that a Japanese bond sell-off could trigger a Tether depeg, depress Bitcoin, and force corporate crypto holders, such as MicroStrategy, to liquidate, creating cascading effects across digital assets.

Meanwhile, in the US, corporate bankruptcies are rising, with 655 filings through October 2025, the highest in 15 years. Shanaka Anslem warns that the reckoning has only begun, as shadow banks and private credit absorb risks that traditional banks rejected, masking underlying vulnerabilities.

With tariffs, interest rate pressures, and fiscal tightening compounding the stress, analysts see 2026 as a year of structural adjustment.

Liquidity injections, market psychology, and geopolitical factors will collide to determine winners and losers across asset classes.

The long grind presents as a prolonged period of volatility driven not by cyclical missteps but by structural, multi-decade shifts in monetary policy, fiscal discipline, and global capital flows.

Forces Reshaping Global Finance

Investors should track:

• US RMPs,
• Fed rate cuts,
• Shadow credit defaults, and
• Japanese capital repatriation,

These forces collectively reshape risk, return, and liquidity in ways not seen since the end of the post-global financial crisis (GFC) low-rate era.

Byte-Sized Alpha

Here’s a summary of more US crypto news to follow today:

• Crypto fund inflows hit $716 million as Bitcoin, XRP, and Chainlink lead institutional shift.
• Coinbase plots full comeback in India, fiat support expected in 2026.
• Bitcoin to $170,000: Reaganomics 2.0 will send BTC soaring in 2026.
• Peter Brandt and “the world’s highest IQ man” give opposing Bitcoin predictions.
• Four key US economic data to shape Bitcoin sentiment this week.
• Landmark FSRA license forces three-entity overhaul for Binance in Abu Dhabi.

Crypto Equities Pre-Market Overview

Crypto equities market open race: Google Finance

Bitcoin fell back below $90,000 around Monday’s Wall Street open as US selling pressure returned.

Key points:

• Bitcoin keeps volatility coming as US sellers send price back below $90,000.

• Liquidations remain steady as investors stay on the sidelines amid indecisive price action.

• Evidence of buying the dip is visible across exchanges over the past two weeks.

BTC price runs out of room as Wall Street returns

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price action staying volatile as the TradFi trading week got underway.