Coin Bytes

In the past month, Lighter has outstripped Hyperliquid in 30-day on-chain perpetuals trading volume, which is an indication of the competition among the decentralized derivatives getting shifted. DeFiLlama pointed out that Lighter’s volume was almost $198 billion in perpetuals trading, which was more than Hyperliquid’s $166 billion, while Aster was also very close behind with $174 billion. The three platforms combined made an on-chain perpetuals volume of $972 billion, which is an indication of the rapid growth of the sector moving towards 2026. Lighter’s rise has been made possible by the introduction of its LIT token and a 25% community airdrop, which has brought in speculation, increased trading volumes, and increased TVL to $1.43 billion. Nevertheless, the competition is still on as Hyperliquid still occupies the first place in open interest along with spot trading volume and revenue, giving up the short-term volume lead but still having some key structural advantages.

Crypto’s potential next bull market is being driven by demand for alternative value repositories and more transparent rules, according to Grayscale. Grayscale’s chief of research, Zach Pandl, stated on Monday on CNBC’s “Crypto World” that macroeconomic pressure is still the biggest motivator. Growing public debt, ongoing budget deficits, and worries about the depreciation of fiat currencies are making investors search for alternatives to conventional assets. “There’s a lot going on in the cryptocurrency space, but the demand for alternative stores of value due to debt, deficits, and the risk of fiat currency debasement is what drives the largest asset in the market, Bitcoin,” he stated.

Concerns over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rejection of cryptocurrency cases, among nine other issues, have prompted U.S. Representative Maxine Waters to request a meeting with the commission’s chairman, Paul Atkins. Waters claimed that a hearing on what she considers to be “questionable policy changes” at the SEC was long needed in a letter sent on Sunday to French Hill, chair of the House Financial Services Committee. During his first year on the Committee, Chair Gensler gave two testimony. She stated, “The Committee has not held a single hearing with Chairman Atkins despite having a clear obligation to oversee the SEC, despite the agency’s rapid, significant, and questionable policy shifts during the Trump Administration.”

South Korea is sealing a cryptocurrency loophole by extending its “travel rule” to accommodate transfers below 1 million won. This is aimed at targeting the so-called “smurfing” methods or practices in which users break down their huge transactions to circumvent the identity checks. The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit will make it mandatory for exchanges to obtain sender and recipient information for all virtual asset transfers, thus associating the practice with tax evasion and drug trafficking. In addition to this, the reforms will also allow for the temporary freezing of accounts for suspected activities and will further the rules of anti-money laundering to cover lawyers and accountants.

The next Bitcoin halving will take place at block height 1,050,000 when there are less than 120,000 blocks left, which means the network is approximately 820-833 days away from a major supply shock that is anticipated to occur between late March and early April 2028. This planned reduction will decrease miners’ compensation from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC per block, thereby limiting the new supply gradually toward the 21 million cap set by Satoshi Nakamoto. The 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024 halvings have revealed a price rally of 12-18 months after the event as one of the causes, which, with Bitcoin trading around $88,000, is speculating about the next bull cycle.

Bitcoin’s slide toward $88,000 did not deter Strategy Inc., which snapped up 1,229 BTC for about $108.8 million at an average price of $88,568 per coin, funded through sales of its Class A shares under an at-the-market program. The purchase lifts the company’s holdings to 672,497 BTC, acquired for roughly $50.44 billion at an average cost of about $74,997 per bitcoin and helping deliver a 23.2% BTC yield year to date in 2025. At current prices, that stash is worth close to $59 billion, leaving Strategy with sizable unrealized gains even as Bitcoin trades below its recent all-time high.

Sberbank has issued Russia’s first bitcoin-backed loan to one of the country’s largest bitcoin miners, the pilot transaction could pave the way for wider acceptance of crypto-collateralized loans. The loan was collateralized with bitcoin that was held through Sberbank’s own crypto custody solution, Rutoken, which also guaranteed the security of the collateral for the entire loan period, although the bank did not reveal the amount of the loan. Sberbank said that the product might be useful not only for miners but for companies that are holding cryptocurrencies, indicating that the bank has more digital asset ambitions. In addition, the bank is testing decentralized finance instruments and has again and supports the gradual legalization of cryptocurrencies in Russia, making the move through which the scaling of regulated crypto-backed financial products would be possible.

According to blockchain analytics site Lookonchain, BitMine Immersion Technologies, the biggest corporate Ether holder, staked 342,560 ETH valued at more than $1 billion in the two days preceding Sunday. Staking is the process of securing the blockchain by locking Ethereum’s ETH into its proof-of-stake network in return for a passive annual percentage yield (APY) of roughly 3% to 5%. The Ethereum validator backlog was also greatly impacted by BitMine’s $1 billion in staked Ether; the admission queue has grown to nearly double the size of the exit queue for the first time in more than six months.

For the first time in six months, Ethereum’s staking queue has flipped the departure line, with nearly twice as much ETH waiting to be staked as ETH seeking to leave the network. According to the Ethereum Validator Queue on blockchain explorer, the admission queue for validators has approximately 745,619 Ether and a nearly 13-day wait time. In comparison, the exit line has approximately 360,518 Ether and an eight-day wait. The flipping occurred on Saturday, when both queues were at 460,000, but the entering queue has since gone vertical, with some arguing that the departure queue is moving towards zero. Abdul, the head of DeFi at layer 1 blockchain Monad, stated in an X post on Sunday that the previous time the entry and exit queues swapped in June, Ether “doubled in price shortly after,” and predicted that “2026 is going to be a movie.”

The French video game behemoth Ubisoft was compelled to stop Rainbow Six Siege’s live services after hackers gained access to the game and gave each player two billion in-game credits. The developers first verified the exploit via X on December 27. A number of upgrades followed, and the game’s servers and marketplace were suspended the next day. According to player reports on social media, hackers were able to take over the majority of the game’s online systems. Players claimed that upon signing in, everyone received 2 billion in-game R6 credits in addition to rare goodies like guns and skins.