Major U.S. equity indexes opened higher on Dec. 22, with the Dow Jones up 0.1%, the S&P 500 advancing 0.4% and the Nasdaq rising 0.6%, BlockBeats reports. Crypto-linked stocks mostly traded higher, with American Bitcoin (ABTC) jumping 7.87%, Circle (CRCL) gaining 4.86%, Bit Digital (BTBT) climbing 3.59%, Strategy (MSTR) adding 2.5%, Bitmine (BMNR) up 2.74%, Gemini (GEMI) rising 2.63%, Coinbase (COIN) up 2.24%, Bullish (BLSH) up 2.24%, SharpLink Gaming (SBET) up 1.02%, and ALT5 Sigma (ALTS) higher by 0.76%. ETHZilla (ETHZ) slipped 2.03%.

Fed Governor Milan said on Dec. 22 he remains undecided between 25 and 50 basis point rate cuts and expects to object less to 50 basis point reductions over time, BlockBeats reports. He added that if his Fed seat remains unconfirmed by Jan. 31, he will assume he stays, and noted Powell secured three rate cuts from the FOMC.

JPMorgan is considering offering crypto trading services to institutional clients, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 22. People familiar with the matter said the bank's markets division is evaluating products to expand its crypto presence, including spot and derivatives. Plans depend on client demand and regulatory feasibility.

Circle minted 500 million USDC on the Solana network on Dec. 22, Onchain Lens data show. Since Oct. 11, Circle has cumulatively minted $18 billion in USDC on Solana.

Federal Reserve Governor Milan said on Dec. 22 that last week's inflation data were skewed by a government shutdown, which distorted the housing inflation index and gave CPI a significant upward bias this year, BlockBeats reports. Milan said recent readings should steer views toward a dovish stance, adding that without policy adjustments, recession risk would rise. Milan said the Fed expects to eventually lower the policy rate.

BitMine reported on Dec. 22 that its combined holdings of cryptocurrencies, cash and potential investments reached $13.2 billion, according to an official statement. As of 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 21, the portfolio consisted of 4,066,062 ETH, 193 BTC, a $32 million investment in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) and $1 billion in cash, with the ETH position representing 3.37% of the total ETH supply of 120.7 million. Company chairman and Fundstrat's Thomas Tom Lee said BitMine increased its ETH holdings by 98,852 ETH over the past week, noted that surpassing the 4 million ETH mark took only 5.5 months, and described BitMine as a key entity linking Wall Street with the blockchain tokenization shift.

Bitcoin rose above $90,000 on Dec. 22 as perpetuals open interest increased from 304,000 BTC to 310,000 BTC (roughly 2%), Glassnode data show. The funding rate climbed from 0.04% to 0.09%. Higher open interest and funding rates may indicate leveraged long positions rebuilding and traders positioning for year-end volatility, Glassnode said.

GMX integrated with the Ethereum mainnet on Dec. 22, allowing users to trade directly or provide liquidity from the mainnet, BlockBeats reports. Ethereum users can now earn auto-compounding returns from three fee-based revenue streams: perpetual trading fees, including opening, closing, borrowing and liquidation charges; swap fees; and the minting and burning fees associated with liquidity tokens.

Bitcoin funding rates returned to neutral levels on major centralized and decentralized exchanges on Dec. 22 after the token moved above $90,000, Coinglass data show. BTC pairs on Binance, OKX, Bybit and Bitget all showed neutral funding, while Ethereum and other altcoins continued to display large negative funding rates.