Preliminary Korea Customs Service data show South Korea’s exports rose 6.8% year-on-year during Dec 1–20, with semiconductor shipments up 41.8% and contributing over a quarter of total outbound goods. A late-October tariff deal with the United States capped duties at 15%, including autos retroactive to Nov 1, yet exporters still face currency and inflation pressures.

The market is attempting to steady after sharp swings, with total capitalization around $3.01 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin is near $89,100 and up about 1.1% over the past 24 hours, while Ethereum trades close to $3,030. Sentiment remains guarded, with the Fear & Greed Index at 29 and altcoin participation muted.

On 22 December 2025, a new trading week begins with a broad set of token unlocks increasing altcoin supply across the market. Several projects, including GateToken, Humanity, Plasma, Jupiter, and Grass, will release tokens worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total, with some unlocks exceeding 5% of circulating supply. These events are spread from early week to the weekend and may heighten short-term volatility in an already fragile market.

Ripple's XRP rebounded from a multi-week low near $1.77 on Friday to trade around $1.92, briefly reclaiming the $1.90 level seen as key support by traders. The TD Sequential indicator, cited by Ali Martinez, now signals a potential local top after this roughly 10% bounce, raising concerns for bulls. Analysts note XRP's price is tracking bitcoin's broader sentiment, while a clear break below $1.90 could open the way toward the $1.55–$1.70 area and possibly down to $1.00.

On December 22, 2025, a poll shared by Peter Schiff on X saw 59% of more than 21,000 participants choose Bitcoin over gold and silver for a hypothetical $100,000 investment held until 2028. Schiff continues to argue that Bitcoin diverts capital from precious metals, even as he highlights that gold has climbed from about $1,800/oz in November 2021 to around $4,400/oz while Bitcoin rose from $69,000 to roughly $88,000 over the same period.

Russia's central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina told business media that the country's expanding Bitcoin mining industry has become one of several factors backing the ruble's exchange rate. Russian officials now frame large-scale mining as a kind of export that converts domestic energy into globally tradable digital assets, while regulators discuss channeling most crypto activity through licensed banks. Major state-linked lenders such as VTB and Sberbank are already testing crypto-linked derivatives and pilot programs for wealthy clients, signaling a gradual turn toward regulated market access.

A bipartisan bloc of 18 members of the US House of Representatives has asked the Internal Revenue Service to revise how crypto staking rewards are taxed before 2026. Their letter argues that current rules amount to double taxation, discouraging staking participation and potentially undermining both blockchain security and US leadership in digital assets.

Crypto markets briefly pushed total capitalization back above $3 trillion as the week opened with low volatility amid the Christmas holiday period. October’s US PCE inflation figures on Monday and the third-quarter GDP report on Tuesday are among the main macro updates traders are watching, alongside housing and durable goods data. Bitcoin is trading around $88,500 after briefly touching $89,000, while Ether is struggling to build momentum above the $3,000 level.