Odaily Planet Daily reports that Cicely LaMothe, Deputy Director of the Corporate Finance Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has announced her retirement. She played a crucial role in crypto regulation over the past year, including issuing clarifications stating that Memecoin is not a security and outlining the SEC's regulatory stance on staking. LaMothe joined the SEC in 2002 and was involved in key work such as drafting registration and filing policies. Her departure comes in the second year of the SEC's more favorable approach to the crypto industry. During this period, the SEC approved some listing standards for crypto-asset-related ETFs, dropped several enforcement cases against well-known crypto companies, and advanced "Project Crypto" to update the regulatory framework for digital assets. In addition, the SEC confirmed that Nekia Hackworth Jones, Deputy Director of the Southeastern District of Enforcement, completed her term at the end of December.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that US President Trump has stated he is considering suing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for "incompetence." Trump said his preferred candidate for Fed chairman "has not changed" and he expects to announce the new Fed chairman in January.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, Securitize stated on the X platform that BlackRock's BUIDL has become the first tokenized government bond project to have paid out a total of $100 million in dividends.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, Hyperliquid Labs is about to conduct its first round of HYPE token distribution. Approximately 1.2 million HYPE tokens (worth about $31.2 million) have been unstaking and will be distributed to team members on January 6th. HYPE was officially launched via community airdrop in November 2024. At the same time, it is planned to reserve approximately 23.8% of the total supply for core contributors, and these tokens will be gradually unlocked. The total supply of HYPE is capped at 1 billion tokens. Currently, there are approximately 238.4 million HYPE tokens in circulation. HYPE is currently trading at approximately $26, with a market capitalization of $6.2 billion and a fully diluted market capitalization of $25.1 billion. More than 61% of HYPE tokens remain locked.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, as 2025 draws to a close, the cryptocurrency market has almost entirely erased its gains for the year. Although Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $126,000 on October 6th, the market subsequently plummeted, with the total market capitalization of digital assets evaporating by approximately $1 trillion over the past few months. The market turning point occurred in mid-October when Trump announced an escalation of the tariff war, resulting in a record $19 billion in liquidations within 24 hours in the crypto market. Ethereum subsequently fell by about 40% in the following month, and Eric Trump's crypto company also saw a significant drop in market capitalization in December. Analysts point out that although the Trump administration's overall stance is 'pro-crypto,' the tariff conflict, the tightening macroeconomic environment, and the high-leverage cleansing had a greater impact on the market. In November, Bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000, marking its largest monthly drop since 2021, and is currently fluctuating around $90,000. Industry insiders warn that the market may be entering a new "crypto winter," but some institutions believe this is more like a typical four-year Bitcoin cycle correction. Both BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that institutional funds continue to flow in over the long term, and crypto assets are moving from the 'grey area' into the mainstream financial system.