International operation busts crypto fraud network that laundered more than $815 million

US-based financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald has slashed its price target on Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-heavy company Strategy but kept a bullish stance on the cryptocurrency’s long-term upside, downplaying fears of forced liquidation, according to the Financial Times.

Cantor Fitzgerald reportedly lowered its 12-month price target on Strategy stock by 60%, adjusted to $229, down from $560, according to a Thursday analyst note seen by the FT.

Despite the downgrade, Cantor’s “buy” rating reportedly remains unchanged, as the bank said that fears surrounding Strategy’s forced liquidations were “not warranted,” despite receiving significant attention.

Strategy has “enough cash” to fund dividend payments for 21 months, Cantor Fitzgerald’s analysts reportedly said. “Also, MSTR can still raise cash through equity facilities should it be needed. Absent a 90% pullback from current BTC levels, This Fear is Not Warranted.”

Ether is teasing 170% gains in under two months as history repeats itself against Bitcoin .

Key points:

• Ether has the potential to rematch long-term highs above 0.09 in Bitcoin terms.

• Bull market history continues to play out for the largest altcoin, with $3,700 the next target.

• Bitcoin itself could see $100,000 as soon as next week, analysis predicts.

Trader on ETH bull run: “You know what’s coming”

New analysis released on X Friday by trader Mags shows identical ETH price action playing out from the 2021 bull market.

Ether has spent years grinding lower in BTC terms, but the past few months have given the narrative a firmly bullish slant.

As Mags notes, ETH/BTC bottomed out in April, while wicking to the exact lows that laid the foundation for the previous bull run.

A reversal upward then produced an initial top in February 2021, followed by a support retest — a pattern now being repeated. What happens next could well be music to the ears of long-suffering ETH hodlers.

“Right now, it’s around the exact support from where it pumped 170% in just 7 weeks, printing seven weekly green candles in a row, followed by a slow distribution phase,” Mags commented.

A decentralized finance platform called USPD has fallen victim to a complex security breach that resulted in approximately $1 million being stolen from its protocol. What first looked like a normal system setup months ago was actually a hidden trap waiting to strike. 

In the meantime, USPD is offering a 10% bounty if the attacker returns 90% of the stolen funds.

How the USPD Attack Happened?

According to blockchain security firm PeckShieldAlert, the attacker planted the trap all the way back on September 16, while the project was still being deployed. They used a clever technique during the proxy setup phase, gaining admin rights before USPD’s own deployment script could finish.

Meanwhile, this type of exploit is now being called a “CPIMP” attack, short for Clandestine Proxy In the Middle of Proxy.

What made this attack particularly sneaky was how well it was hidden. The hacker installed what security experts describe as a “shadow” implementation that cleverly forwarded everything to USPD’s properly audited contract. 

By manipulating event data and storage information, they tricked blockchain explorer Etherscan into showing the legitimate, audited code, even though they had secretly planted their malicious version underneath.

Attack Finally Strikes, Losing $1 Million

After months of lying dormant and undetected, the attacker finally struck. They upgraded the proxy contract, minted around 98 million USPD tokens out of thin air, and withdrew approximately 232 stETH tokens before draining nearly $1 million in liquidity

The attacker operated through two addresses, now labeled “Infector” address (0x7C9…19d83 and the other was “Drainer” address (0x0883…3215A).

10% Bounty For The Attacker

The USPD team is working with law enforcement and white-hat researchers to track the stolen funds. They have asked all users to revoke approvals to stay safe.

They also said they are open to treating the hack as a “white-hat rescue” if the attacker comes forward. 

To encourage this, USPD is offering a 10% bounty if the attacker returns 90% of the stolen assets.

Small-cap publicly traded firm AlphaTON Capital has signaled ambitions to access a substantially larger fundraising capacity as it delves deeper into the artificial intelligence and Telegram ecosystem. 

The company has exited the SEC’s “baby-shelf” limitations and filed a $420.69 million shelf registration, a precise figure often referenced in crypto’s meme culture. The rules limit the amount of capital that very small public companies can raise through a shelf registration. This aims to prevent tiny issuers from flooding the market with stock and heavily diluting investors.

According to Google Finance data, AlphaTON capital stock, ATON, suffered significant losses in the last month. The stock dropped from $4.75 on Nov. 5 to $1.71 at the time of writing. This marked a 64% drop in a single month. 

At the time of writing, the company has a market capitalization of $13 million and an average volume of $1.55 million. However, the company holds over 12.8 million Toncoin (TON) tokens, worth about $20.5 million, according to CoinGecko. 

Ripple has completed its $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury, expanding its reach into corporate finance and digital asset services. Meanwhile, XRP price has slipped to $2.2245, down from this week’s high and about 42% below its yearly peak of $3.6680.

Ripple Expands Into Global Liquidity Management

With GTreasury now fully integrated, Ripple is positioning itself as more than a blockchain company. GTreasury’s corporate clients will be able to use Ripple’s digital asset infrastructure directly through the systems they already rely on. This setup allows real-time settlements and on-demand liquidity without requiring companies to manage crypto wallets or understand complex blockchain processes.

GTreasury brings over 40 years of treasury-management experience, serving 800+ corporations across 160 countries and connecting with 13,000 banks. It processes $12.5 trillion in payments annually, accounting for roughly 10–15% of global cross-border payments. 

By bringing GTreasury into its ecosystem, Ripple gains access to a massive traditional finance market that has historically moved slowly toward blockchain adoption.

Strengthening Ripple’s Institutional Finance Stack

The GTreasury deal completes Ripple’s major 2025 expansion plan. Alongside Rail, Palisade, and Ripple Prime, this acquisition helps Ripple offer a full suite of tools for institutions looking to adopt digital assets. 

Senior Executive Officer Reece Merrick noted that these acquisitions are focused on solving real operational challenges for treasurers and CFOs, reducing friction, lowering risk, and providing secure, scalable infrastructure for global companies.

XRP Outlook Shifts as Ripple Moves Deeper Into Institutional Finance

The crypto community has reacted with a mix of optimism and caution. Analyst Bill Morgan praised the positive implications for both RLUSD and XRP, hinting at potential growth. 

Meanwhile, market watcher EGRAG CRYPTO suggested that investors who do not fully understand the changes may want to reconsider their positions, reflecting the uncertainty that often accompanies major developments.

Ripple’s acquisition of GTreasury marks an important step in connecting traditional finance with digital assets. By simplifying access for large corporations and offering more efficient payment solutions, Ripple is reshaping how XRP fits into the broader institutional landscape.

FAQs

Ripple bought GTreasury to expand into corporate finance, offering real-time liquidity and modernizing how treasurers manage global payments.

By adding major corporate payment flows, Ripple strengthens real utility for XRP, which may boost confidence in its long-term adoption.

Yes. Companies can access digital asset benefits through systems they already use, removing the need for wallets or deep blockchain knowledge.

Dogecoin is hovering near $0.15, but a cluster of technical and on-chain indicators shared on X suggests the market structure is far healthier than during the last bear phase, prompting fresh upside calls from analysts.

Dogecoin Could Target $1.30

Trader Cryptollica posted a long-term monthly DOGE chart with the Mayer Multiple and a clear message: “DOGE Target > $1.30.” The Mayer Multiple, using 200- and 50-period moving averages with a 2.4 threshold, sits at 0.66005. Visually, that is far below the spikes above 5 that accompanied the 2017 and 2021 blow-off tops, indicating that Dogecoin is not yet in the overheated conditions historically associated with major market peaks.

Cryptollica also highlighted an Alphractal chart titled “Dogecoin: Number of Days Spent at a Loss.” The series overlays DOGE’s price with a multicolour histogram of how long coins have been held in unrealised loss.

Earlier cycle lows around 2014–2015 and the post-2021 unwind show extended peaks above roughly 1,200–1,500 days at a loss. In the latest segment, that metric has compressed back toward the lower end of the scale, resembling the early reset phases that preceded previous advances, and signalling that the proportion of long-suffering holders has markedly declined.

DOGE On-Chain Data Looks Strong

On the shorter-term on-chain side, Ali Martinez (@ali_charts) pointed to a sharp rebound in network activity. “Dogecoin just saw 71,589 active addresses. The biggest spike since September,” he wrote, sharing Glassnode data.

The chart “DOGE: Number of Active Addresses” plots daily active addresses as yellow bars against the DOGE price in black. From early November, activity ranged around 45,000–47,500 addresses while price drifted lower from about $0.17 to $0.14. On December 3, active addresses jumped to 71,589 as price recovered to $0.15181709, signalling a broadening of participation rather than a purely price-driven move.

Ali also drew attention to whale behaviour. Posting a Santiment chart of balances held by addresses with between 1,000,000 and 100,000,000 DOGE, he noted: “480 million Dogecoin bought by whales in 48 hours!”

The grey area representing holdings in this band trends down from around 35.6 billion DOGE in mid-October to below 28 billion by late November while price falls from above $0.18 to about $0.135, indicating sustained distribution. In the final days of the chart, holdings rose again to roughly 28.45 billion as price rebounded from $0.14 to $0.15, confirming a renewed net accumulation phase among large holders.

A third chart from Ali, “DOGE: Cost Basis Distribution Heatmap,” defines the next major technical hurdle. “$0.20 is the key resistance for Dogecoin. That’s where 11.72 billion $DOGE were accumulated,” he wrote.

The Glassnode heatmap highlights a dense band between $0.20284609 and $0.20442947, with an annotated supply of 11,723,527,138.97 DOGE whose on-chain cost basis lies in that range. This cluster marks a heavy realised-price node where a large volume of coins moves from loss to breakeven as spot revisits $0.20, creating a clearly defined resistance zone.

In combination, subdued valuation on the Mayer Multiple, a reset in “days at a loss,” the largest active-address spike since September, recent whale accumulation of 480 million DOGE and a well-defined $0.20 cost-basis wall form a favourable on-chain basis. Whether those higher levels are reached will depend on the market’s ability to absorb the 11.72 billion DOGE supply stacked around $0.20 and sustain the recent improvement in on-chain activity and large-holder demand.

At press time, DOGE traded at $0.14451.