Fin, a next-generation payments and stablecoin app built from the ground up for 2025 realities, has closed a $17 million seed round co-led by Pantera Capital and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, SV Angel, and angels including Plaid co-founder William Hockey and former Citadel executives.

The project is supported by CZ’s investment vehicle YZi Labs and is positioned as a next-generation DeFi venue for betting on sports, politics, crypto prices, and real-world events.

In a significant boost to blockchain infrastructure, BNY Mellon and Nasdaq have joined a \$50 million funding round for Digital Asset Holdings LLC, a pioneering finance-focused blockchain firm. This fresh capital injection underscores Wall Street's accelerating embrace of distributed ledger technology for traditional asset management, extending beyond cryptocurrencies into tokenized securities and efficient market operations.

The U.S. crypto ETF market just hit another milestone: on Thursday, December 4, 2025, the 21Shares 2x SUI ETF (ticker: TXXS) became the first-ever exchange-traded fund tracking the Sui blockchain’s native token, officially listing on Nasdaq and bringing the total number of crypto ETFs launched in 2025 to 74(128 overall, according to Bloomberg data).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a stark warning on December 5, 2025, declaring that inconsistent and fragmented stablecoin regulations across major economies are now forming structural “roadblocks” that threaten financial stability, hinder effective oversight, and slow the development of seamless cross-border payments.

In a landmark decision on December 4, 2025, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved the trading of listed spot cryptocurrency products on federally regulated futures exchanges for the first time, marking a pivotal moment in the integration of digital assets into mainstream finance.

In a candid admission at the New York Times DealBook Summit on December 3, 2025, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink declared that his views on cryptocurrencies have significantly evolved, marking a stark departure from his earlier skepticism.

In a whirlwind of speculative frenzy on the BNB Chain, the meme token Bibi (\$BIBI) rocketed 522% in the last 24 hours as of December 5, 2025, briefly pushing its market capitalization above \$13 million before settling at around \$11 million, according to real-time data from GMGN.

MrBeast, the YouTube sensation with over 450 million subscribers, is set to disrupt fintech and telecom in 2026 through Beast Industries, his burgeoning media empire.

Charles Schwab, the largest U.S. brokerage with $12.1 trillion in client assets and 38 million active accounts, confirmed on December 3, 2025, that it will roll out direct spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) trading directly inside its existing platform in the first half of 2026.

Charles Schwab is preparing to launch direct cryptocurrency trading on its flagship brokerage platform in the first half of 2026, giving its 35+ million accounts and $12.1 trillion in client assets seamless access to spot Bitcoin, Ethereum, and potentially a curated basket of additional digital assets.

Between November 24 and December 2, 2025, three of the largest gatekeepers of traditional wealth, controlling a combined $11 trillion in client assets, simultaneously opened the doors to Bitcoin exposure in a perfectly coordinated nine-day blitz that permanently shifted BTC from “alternative asset” to core portfolio holding.

Ethereum surged 7.38% in the past 24 hours to reclaim $3,210, decisively breaking a multi-week consolidation range just hours after the successful activation of the Fusaka hard fork on December 5, 2025. The long-awaited upgrade, powered by PeerDAS and complementary EIPs, instantly unlocked up to 8× higher data throughput for Layer 2 rollups while laying the groundwork for future L1 gas limit increases — giving traders the exact fundamental catalyst the market had been waiting for.

CZ took center stage at a Dubai blockchain event to unveil a new YZiLabs-backed prediction market protocol live on BNB Chain, while simultaneously announcing that Trust Wallet (now with 220+ million users) has rolled out native prediction market trading through direct integrations with Polymarket, Kalshi, and Myriad.

As decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to evolve in 2025, Pendle has emerged as a frontrunner in yield trading and tokenization, now integrating with the newly launched Open Gas Initiative by ETHGas to subsidize transaction costs for users. Announced on December 3, 2025, this code-free program enables protocols like Pendle to cover a portion of gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet, enhancing accessibility and reducing barriers for everyday interactions in blockchain ecosystems.

In a landmark move for journalism and financial technology, CNN announced on December 4, 2025, an exclusive multi-year partnership with Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market platform, to embed real-time event contract odds directly into its global newsroom and broadcast coverage.

Power Protocol stands as the foundational infrastructure layer for a seamless, unified ecosystem in blockchain entertainment, integrating hit games like Fableborne, emerging studios, global IP, and AI-native products all fueled by the $POWER token.

A group of ex-Citadel Securities engineers and quants has quietly closed a $17 million seed round for Fin, a mobile-first stablecoin wallet and payments app designed to let anyone send, spend, and earn yield on USDC (and soon other regulated stablecoins) with zero crypto jargon, no seed phrases, and no gas fees.

In a candid admission during the New York Times DealBook Summit on December 3, 2025, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink publicly acknowledged that his previous skepticism toward Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies was misguided, marking a pivotal evolution in one of traditional finance's most influential voices.

The Ethereum mainnet officially activated the Fusaka hard fork at epoch 411392, marking the network’s second major upgrade of the year after Pectra.